Catherynne Valente takes down her own award-winning ebook

[wallcraft]

Just the other day, Catherynne M. Valente won the Andre Norton Award for The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making (2010 Nebula Award Winners!). This is a serialized ebook that was paid for by donations. From Circumnavigating Fairyland:

Starting Monday, I will start posting chapters of a full-length novel version of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. I will be writing it in real time, posting every Monday. It will be free to read--but please know that the sheer calories to make my brain create it require funding, and I would very much appreciate your support. Pay whatever you like for it, whatever you think it's worth. It's kind of like an old-fashioned rent party. There's a button at the bottom of the post to start things out.

----

This is my first available YA novel, and everyone can read it for free.

Now we get Addendum:

Well, we knew this would come sooner or later, but it's coming now, so I'm letting everyone know.

As of the end of today, part of Fairyland will come off the website.

I wonder if this would have won the Andre Norton Award if it was generally known that the author was going to renege on her deal with donors. Perhaps she would, since the Nebula's Awards are a prize from her fellow authors.

I suppose Catherynne has received advise that agreements made on a blog have no legal standing, so when she says "free for everyone" this only means "free until someone else pays me more for the same work in the same medium". This is morally wrong and also a huge setback to the pay to write model of serialization (The Tip Jar: Science Fiction's New Revenue Resource?). I don't know if this approach could ever be viable for many works, but it now seems that any author who proposes this will have to include an explicit legal license to back up their fanciful assertions of how "free" the ebook will be.

[starrigger]

Did she say it was going to be free forever? Surely her donors had a more than fair chance to download the story for free. The woman has a right to try to earn a living from her work. (Okay, a bit more notice might have been nice, but really.)

[PKFFW]

As she is only asking readers to pay what they think reading it is worth it is reasonable to expect that readers will read it first before paying in order to properly ascertain its value to themselves. I don't know the full story but from the quote you provide she never states the book will be free forever. Further, she never claims to be allowing people to purchase a copy of the work(by donation or otherwise) for their own personal keepsake.

So....

Author posts work and allows people to read it for free.(not own it forevermore for free)
Readers read work
Readers pay what they think reading it was worth, including nothing at all if they so choose.
Author decides to discontinue posting work.

So where's the problem exactly?

Cheers,
PKFFW

[GeoffC]

Is this not analogous to how Dickens wrote some of his novels ... as installments in newspapers etc ?
Buy a newspaper for each installment and then buy the book when it's finished ....

[rogue_librarian]

Awesome comment from the LJ page:

Imagine, if you will, sitting in a library and curling up with a book. Imagine enjoying it, deeply. Imagine falling in love with the characters, the setting, the rich texture of the writing. We've all done that.

Imagine that you send text messages to your friends and family, suggesting that they too get this bookout, and speaking of its delights.

Imagine that just as you get to the "best bit", the librarian reaches over, and tears out all the subsequent pages.

Might you feel upset? Might you object?

"It's not your book, it's the library's book," the Librarian says. "You are in no position to object. You didn't even pay for it. If you want your friends to have a copy, they can go buy it themselves. You knew I was going to do this sooner or later... don't claim you didn't, I've had a notice pinned to the noticeboard in the basement for six hours now."

[GeoffC]

but this has been carried out in the reverse sense to your example ... . Each episode has been issued until completion .

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

So where's the problem exactly?

Perceptions. I have no doubt that Catherynne has every legal right to remove her work from the web page.

It is totally separate issue is it wise to do so in this age of darknets and widespread piracy, is it wise to risk a controversy, rightly or wrongly offended readers and risk the tear-down of the community that emerged around the place where she published her work. In this age of dwindling interest for books in general?

I wish her luck.

[rogue_librarian]

Oh, of course it's all perfectly legal as such, I'm sure. Yet it does leave a bit of an after-taste.

It's probably her publisher, not her, but it's still a stupid idea: now that she's won that award and interest in her work has increased manyfold she alienates the community, among them her earliest supportes, by taking offline large parts of that (allegedly) crowd-funded book because, you know, you can buy the hardcopy in a year's time... Indeed, good luck to her.

[oggelbe2007]

...And good luck to the next author who wants to implement a serialized novel with a Tip jar.

[Dusty Bottoms]

She was successful because of community and now she's turned her back on that community. Very, very sad.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Author posts work and allows people to read it for free.(not own it forevermore for free)

Definitely. People don't own the book, just as author of a book doesn't own it. After it's been released, it belongs to the public domain, though copying of it is usually legal only for the author, until some time passes - this temporary monopoly is called copyright.

Just clarifying things a bit, as newspeak of copyright owners can really mess with people's heads sometme.

[mr ploppy]

Was the story finished or did she pull it midway? With the blog serials that I follow I always keep a local copy of each episode for situations like this. If she has been seduced by some corporate leech, removing the blog could be a condition of any book deal.

[rogue_librarian]

Yes, the story was finished. And, yes, apparently the removal was a demand from the publisher she sold the book to. Who, in turn, will publish a print copy version in a year's time.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Definitely. People don't own the book, just as author of a book doesn't own it. After it's been released, it belongs to the public domain, though copying of it is usually legal only for the author, until some time passes - this temporary monopoly is called copyright.

Just clarifying things a bit, as newspeak of copyright owners can really mess with people's heads sometme.

The author does own the right to post whatever he/she wants on his/her blog and to subsequently remove said posts at his/her discretion.

The author has not removed the experience from the reader, has not taken back the joy/disgust/whatever the reader received from reading the blog. The readers who have read it will forever own the experience of reading it and that was all that was promised by the author.

As for the book being public domain, sure. However it is not the responsibility of the author to ensure the work forever remains available for anyone who wishes to read it. That responsibility remains with the public domain.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

The author does own the right to post whatever he/she wants on his/her blog and to subsequently remove said posts at his/her discretion.

The author has not removed the experience from the reader, has not taken back the joy/disgust/whatever the reader received from reading the blog. The readers who have read it will forever own the experience of reading it and that was all that was promised by the author.

As for the book being public domain, sure. However it is not the responsibility of the author to ensure the work forever remains available for anyone who wishes to read it. That responsibility remains with the public domain.

Agreed. I just spoke against the idea of creator "owning" the creation which I thought implied.