Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger
I don't get it. What are you people complaining about? ... One can quibble over whether she might have given more notice, or whether the publisher was smart to demand the takedown. But that's no reason for the kind of condemnation I'm reading here.
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1) On the social level, it's a jerk move. "Thanks for your support, but I don't need it anymore, so I'm taking my toys away now." Doing so at the behest of a publisher doesn't soften that message a bit--"I got a real sponsor now, so you piddly sponsors are no longer important" is not a better PR message.
2) It has the potential to cut into the income of any future author who wants to try a similar post-chapters-for-donations methods; readers are likely to be skeptical that the content will remain available. Readers may demand to know how long the material will remain up, which sets up a hostile interaction instead of a friendly one. This is likely to discourage both the author and other readers.
3) It has the potential to encourage piracy--if it becomes widely believed that authors who post free works are likely to revoke them on a whim, those works are more likely to be copied, reformatted & shared around.
4) It's bad publicity for the book (which is not what people are complaining about; if she wants to shoot her own career in the foot by annoying her loyal fans, that's her business), which will be followed by a long gap before any potential *good* publicity--availability of a print copy--will occur. I suppose it's possible that the publisher just wants the nuisance factor to die down before releasing the book, but I doubt they think that way.
5) The assumption that people who read the free ebook (especially one published serially at a blog) aren't going to buy a print version shows bad judgment on the publisher's part, indicating that she picked a stupid publisher. It implies she didn't consider other ways of furthering her career, and isn't paying attention to the publishing industry in general. (Which, again, is her business. But people are allowed to mock bad choices.)