[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Here's my answer and I can't say it any less bluntly than this.

If you're a writer working with profit in mind then you are royally, unstoppably, irrevocably f**ked.

On the other hand if you're writing because you have something to say or want to tell stories to as many people as possible, then it's all dandelion fields and cloudless skies ahead.

Society has shifted, it's highly unlikely to shift back now.

Agreed. An income from writing is nice, I won't deny that. But it should never, ever be the primary reason for doing something. Too many people have lost that vision, always shooting for what makes them richest, not what makes them happiest. I've seen people who collect garbage who love doing it and are happy with what little they make. Well said, Moejoe.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Let me ask you this, Mr. Laws-and-more-laws....

Good points worldwalker. I've seen this attitude quite predominantly in the open source software world. Not from those people, mind you, but rather from the corporate entities fighting against it. Believe it or not, one of the things we learned early on, and we (ie, the FOSS community) have been trying to preach to the software and media corporate worlds for years is that DRM and other anti-consumer technologies DO NOT WORK, and are very counter productive. But once someone falls to the sickness of greed, they lose all ability to think rationally about things like this. I think the OP may have fallen to this sickness as well. I almost did a couple of times, and it's a horrible place to be.

And how do I know? Well, for one, his entire post screams of his fear that his works will be "stolen". Yes, they will. That's a fact of life. People will take your stuff every single time no matter what. Not everyone, but rather a small number will. Back in the print only days, how often did you see one book bought, and then passed around to 20 other people? I'd say that for every 1 million copies sold, at least 20% get passed around to 3 or more people. If the average is five, then you just lost out on an additional 1 million copies sold. And what do I say to that? Oh well. That's one million more people who've read your book, know who you are, and may buy your book next time around without anyone sharing it.

It's the same reason I'm sharing book 1 of my Earthfleet series. 1. I'd rather people read my book and gave me feedback on it, because it helps me get better at what I do, and the better I get, the more I enjoy what I do. 2. It puts my book out into the hands of more people, and the more eyeballs on words, the more people know about my writing, and the greater the likelihood that I'll find more people who love my works and want to read more of them.

And I'll say this again, I like earning a living from my books. It's sort of a monetary thank you for all my hard work and dedication. But if I never, ever earned a dime off my books, so long as people were entertained and loved the books, I'd be happy. That's the kind of attitude you need to succeed in writing. Success is not about how many copies you sold, or how much you earned, but rather how well you did your job, and how happy your readers are when they're done with your book. That's true success.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Only if you equate "writing" with "writing fiction". There are lots of jobs available for writing outside the fiction field where it's entirely possible to earn a decent wage, whether it be working as a journalist, an advertising copywriter, or a soap-opera script-writer. "Writing" is an enormously wider field than fiction writing.

Agreed. I've done tech writing, non-fiction, fiction, and a variety of others, and while I like fiction, especially science fiction, there are quite a lot of great opportunities for writers out there in the world, and they're increasing by the day. Just go to any job site and look at the number of writers jobs available. It's quite staggering. Now, if someone wants to write for a living and enjoy what they do, tech writing is an awesome field to get into. It's not easy, and you need a strong understanding of technology (you almost need to be an uber geek in some respects), but the payoffs are well worth it.

If you don't know how to do it, two areas I can suggest looking into in order to get free and valuable experience is 1) the Linux and Open Source Software sites. Raiden.net, the old tech site I used to own, takes in >90% of its articles from volunteers, and they were how I learned to do tech writing through a lot of trial and error, and the same is true of several other big names who have passed through the site. There's also a lot of well written articles you can look at that will give you some great ideas on how to improve your own technical writing.

Another is floss manuals. They're always looking for volunteers and they specialize in technical writing and documentation for Linux and FOSS projects galore. They're always looking for people to help them. It makes a great way to get experience, and a few feathers you can put in your hat and on your resume. Now as for Journalism, that's a tough field to break into, and the dynamic with that is shifting. If you're after a job with a traditional journalistic organization, you'll find yourself in an ever growing pool of writers fighting over an ever shrinking pool of jobs. The areas that are opening up and growing are via non-traditional sources such as news blogs, tech sites, social media, etc.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Then allow me to ask, Mr. Anarchy-at-all-costs:

Is Baen a writer?

Does David Weber already have an established print publishing resume, where he makes the bulk of his book profits? Will he still have that when print has been largely replaced by digital publishing?

Why don't you support laws that protect the rights of others?

Steve, I do support laws that protect the rights of others. But if there's one huge thing I've learned in the Linux and FOSS worlds is: 1. You can't control your customers. Especially in a digital world. Doing so is anti-consumer, and it just pi**es people off, and angry people tend to turn against you. As I stated in the other replies above, companies in the tech world who have become hugely anti-consumer are seeing a growing backlash by the consumers. Just look at how hard the music industry is getting crushed and how prevalent illegal file sharing is. (And no, it's not piracy, it's file sharing. Piracy is stealing an item and selling it for profit. File sharing is exactly that, sharing a file.)

Take a look at music industry sales. The harder a company pushes DRM and anti-consumer technologies, the harder people fight back. Look at the Sony rootkit fiasco. Or how huge the kickback against DRM has been. Same goes with the gaming world. I can think of numerous examples of this where a company releases a DRM'ed game in order to "protect their rights and profits". In one case, I believe it was with the game Crisis, for every DRM encumbered game that appeared on their network, three more appeared that were pirated. However, six months later when they removed the DRM, the piracy rate dropped by like 75% immediately and sales exploded.

And that's not the only time I've seen that happen. Or take the flipside of that. I know of at least two dozen indie bands who released their music (without drm) onto the file sharing networks and saw an explosion in their popularity virtually overnight because others heard their music, got to do a "try before you buy", and started telling their friends who in turn grabbed the music, liked it, and the vast majority who grabbed the "illegal" file shared copies bought CD's or digital copies of the band's music.

Steve, my advice to you is, lighten up. Writing isn't a living. Writing is a paid hobby. If you're doing this for profit, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Give away some of your stuff. Share it with others. Offer it DRM free. And don't stress about others "taking your stuff". So what? The more people who grab your stuff, the more potential fans you'll gain, and the better off you'll be in the end. Also, given the way you've been acting towards your books, I think you need to take a second look at what you're doing. If you're doing this for profit, you're in this for all the wrong reasons. But if you're in it because you love to do it, and would do it even if you never got paid, then you're in the right field. The money is a nice bonus for doing what you do, but it should *never, ever* be the chief focus. Period.