Fanatical Pupil

SF Signal: ‘Judgement’ – The eBook That’s Both Free and Cheap.

The story here obviously isn’t really about the book. You can click through if you want a description of thigns like plot and characters.

What really matters is that John at SFSignal says:

You can either buy the novel in various eBook formats at Smashwords for the more-than-reasonable price of $2…or, you can read it online for free.

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says people will not pay for what they can get for free. Will it work? The thinking is that people will pay for what they like, especially if it’s cheap enough. I’d be interested in hearing a few months from now how well this works…

I have to point out, though, that the “read it online for free” part means you have to read it on the author’s website on a really, really, really… really, really, really long web page. So, really, it’s not an experiment to see if people will pay for something they can get for free because what they get for free is not the equivalent of what they pay for. It’s more of a test of how much people are willing to punish themselves before they spend a small amount of money.

Of course, I did a quick test, and was able to get a high quality version of the book simply by copying the really (really, really, really) long web page into an Open Office Writer document. I’m pretty sure there’s a script the author could embed on the site that would prevent people from selecting and/or copying text – if he really wanted to see if people would pay for something they could read online for free.

Of course (number 2), it would also be interesting to have 2 versions and do split testing to see if you get better conversions to the pay version from the site that doesn’t allow copying, or if people would just give up and not even read the book. As Tim O’Reilly says, “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” (h/t: Cory Doctorow)

Yes, by now, we should all realize that Science Fiction is being viciously and excessively co-opted by the Mainstream. But, when things like Wolverine and Transformers are Action, what does that leave for Science Fiction?*

In her article on the Internet Review of Science Fiction, Kristine Kathryn Rusch says:

“I think science fiction as a genre will be dead in just a few years.”

I think a few years is a little too “shock and awe” to be realistic. But the rest of the arguments she makes in the article are valid.

Then there’s Paul over at Barnes & Noble’s Unabashedly Bookish who quotes Orson Scott Card saying that science fiction is “no longer a cutting-edge genre – the edge is now in fantasy.”

And while that’s certainly plausible, it could also be that the genre-melding of SF and Fantasy that Paul claims is happening, is, well, actually happening. Or, if not a genre-melding, then at least a large blurring of the line between the two:

I believe some of the very best – and most innovative – science fiction will actually be categorized as epic fantasy. Take Ken Scholes’ Psalms of Isaak saga, for example. It’s actually post-apocalyptic science fiction cloaked in grand-scale fantasy. Last year, reading the first installment in the series, Lamentation, was an almost surreal experience. I knew almost immediately that I had stumbled across a novel that was not only surely destined to be a classic but also the beginning of a series that could very well redefine both science fiction and fantasy.

I mean, was there not a time when quote-unquote Paranormal Fantasy was actually Horror because it had vampires in it?

And then there’s the never-ending question of where Star Wars fits in. Since it takes place “a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, then isn’t its setting better compared to a fantasy world (like Game of Thrones as an easy example)? I actually believe it should be, because they’re basically battling it out with laser-broadswords, and flying around on X-wings instead of dragons using robots instead of faeries. But since “literary SF” (as opposed to “TV/Movie SF”) had been growing for so long when Star Wars broke out, it’s literary scholars headed further and further into the Hard SF category, where everything has to be explained (or else derided). Did George Lucas have to explain how “Light Speed”, or “Light Sabers”, or “Light Side” worked within the limits of traditional physics? Certainly not.

And here again I use Kristine Kathryn Rusch so as to not have to rebuild arguments already made:

I read fiction for entertainment, relaxation, and enjoyment. If I want to work, I read the history, literary essays, biography, science, and legal books that grace my shelves.

Last week, for the first time in more than a decade, I saw an sf novel on the bookstore shelves that made my barbarian self reach for the book with joy. The cover had a picture of a derelict space ship. The back cover blurb talked about far futures and finding artifacts in outer space. The cover quote said, “In the old tradition of Astounding.” … the novel promises the very things that Star Wars gives: An escape, a journey into a new yet familiar world, entertainment. A good read.

The things you still find in fantasy fiction. The things that sf jettisoned in the erroneous cold equations practiced by the New Wave.

Thank you.

And again:

“Good” sf can retire to the specialty press where the Science Fiction Village can read and discuss it. It’s time to return to the gosh-wow, sense-of-wonder stories that sf abandoned when it added literary values to its mix, the kind of stories that Star Wars, and by extension, Star Trek, Stargate, and all those other media properties have had all along.

I’m happy that some people are acknowledging the need for some sort of alteration to the Science Fiction genre as it stands. I’m busy (at least, I try to be) writing a space opera, an advanced-tech-future action serial, a post-apocalyptic quest, a surreal futuristic adventure, and story which is essentially characters representing science fiction and fantasy battling it out on a global scale. I plan to give no explanation about the technology in any of those other that what is necessary in a Star Wars sense.

When Science Fiction becomes Mainstream, you have to give people what they want. It’s not selling out if you are still writing what you want to write. It’s just a happy coincidence (and happens to be a good business practice).

* Honestly, I’d rather have things I write classified as Action as opposed to Science Fiction because then you can get all those Mainstream people who don’t realize that they like Science Fiction to check it out, where they might not be apt to have a look if they see that it’s marketed as Science Fiction. Yes, Science Fiction may be Mainstream, but call it Science Fiction, and a lot of people will still think it’s for dorks who live in their mom’s basements and play D&D. (Kind of like bloggers, that way)

So, I was researching new music (it’s actually for a writing project, so don’t think I was vacuuming the dog or anything) on Lala, and through a fairly Six Degrees-like path, I came across this artist: Midnight Sun (Twilight Inspired Artist)

The Album on Lala

My immediate thought was: So, if I put “Twilight Inspired Author” after my name, will I automatically get me some extra readers? I mean, sure they’ll realize after not too long that my writing has nothing really to do with vampires, but maybe they’ll get to the almost-angsty character-driven parts and maybe think it’s okay. Or else the Meyerites (or whatever they’re called – Twilites?) will start a smear campaign against me. Or else they’ll just forget about me and move on.

Anyway, just a thought.

Also, I found it interesting that on the “unofficial” score for New Moon, Midnight Sun put “Sam Cushion” instead of Midnight Sun. Is he trying to get hired to do the score for the next one?

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Joe Konrath not only has a really cool marketing experiment going on, but he also puts forth some good ideas about marketing books.

The one that most caught my attention was this:

For years, I’ve been wondering why publishers waste money on full page ads in the New York Times, featuring a picture of the book cover and a bunch of blurbs, when a much more effective ad would be a full page excerpt from the novel.

It seems that even the back cover of a book would be more effective. Sure, it’s great that people give blurbs, but honestly, I often feel like these are reciprocal back-scratching sorts of moves rather than real opinions. And they don’t really tell you what the book is about. The first thing I read when looking at a book on Amazon is the description. Then, if it sounds good, I’ll check a review that rated it highly as well as a review that rated it low. Most of the books on Amazon don’t have an excerpt available yet, or I would consider going to that as a second option (or definitely as a third option if my quick review of the reviews kept me interested).

In terms of Konrath’s experiment of putting other people’s excerpts into his books, it sounds like something I’d be interested in. I usually don’t read the excerpts if their from the same author because either I liked the book enough that I plan to read the book from which the excerpt comes anyway, or I didn’t like it enough to feel like reading an excerpt would make me want to read the next book (or another book by the author).

If it was framed, however, as books “recommended” by the author I’d just read, and there were 3-5 excerpts available to read through, I would find it fascinating. It would probably be enough for me to check out a book, even without an excerpt, if it were simply in a list of books recommended by an author I liked. Getting to read excerpts of these new books for free would fit exactly in the movie preview metaphor that Konrath came up with.

And maybe the best part of this marketing effort is that it maintains it’s utility (and perhaps increases it) as the market continues to shift more towards eBooks and away from traditional paper books.

I’ve already seen a couple thousand posts in response to this Wall Street Journal article by Lev Grossman. There’s a video here that kind of further expounds on his theory behind modern literature, which evidently can actually include novels that have plots. Who knew?

Since there’s so much else to read, I’ll try to sum up my comments in a single sentence: Grossman’s article appears to be written by someone who has been trapped by TIME magazine’s definition of “literature” for so long he didn’t realize that there books (I mean, any books) were actually written after 1930, until he read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel.

If you’re interested in more:
Conversation Reading
The Mumpsisms

If you want more:
From me: I read another interview with Grossman where he says how he grew up obsessed with fantasy novels/series like Narnia, Lord of the Rings, etc. It’s odd, then, to think that he could be so close-minded when it comes to the idea of “good books” having good plots. I’ve always been more interested in Science Fiction myself, and while I’ll admit that I haven’t read many of the science fiction works from around the time of Narnia and Lord of the Rings, I have read quite a bit of modern scifi. While certainly not all of it can even approach what might be called “literary” I can’t help but think of Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book), The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book), Cryptonomicon. Yes, I realize they’re all by Neal Stephenson, but all of them are clearly plot-driven, but also written in a style that I would consider worthy of literary criticism.

Of course, the whole article could really just be a Michael Arrington-like Controversy On Purpose designed to get people to say Lev Grossman as many times as possible across the internet. If that’s the case, Bravo! Great Success!