Good stuff.

And welcome, Jagash! Thanks for commenting. Certainly more to think about. I’d add more of my own thoughts, but right now the brain is mush, the throat is sore, the Sunday energies are sapping my will to do much at all.

– c.

Ideal distribution of a product depends on two different elements in my mind.

1) Acquiring: Use marketing, free products or your reputation to convince customers to acquire the product.
2) Encouraging: Getting the customer to read and use the product. A price paid for the product, demos or reviews can do this.

Step 1 is easy, anyone can make things free. Problem is that free products that don’t have support in step 2 wind up simply satisfying magpie urges. A freemium model seems to allow for satisfying both options. Another idea that someone might try (possibly myself) is to have a instant pdf that costs money (5$ perhaps) with an option to get it for free but you need to wait for it (perhaps a month.) That might satisfy without having the price as a barrier.

Intellectually, I know why it’s almost impossible to communicate with an editor by any method that doesn’t require a stamp. I know they’re busy and that they have to sift through thousands and thousands of submissions every year, so I can completely understand why they might be difficult to impress.

But I can’t express how much I wish getting acceptance/rejection for a book were more like, well, applying for a loan online. Type in your information, and BAM – approval in 60 seconds! Yes, even if I submit the application at 3 in the morning.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works. I’ve been really bad about marketing my writing because by the time I get the rejection letters I’ve already waded deep into another project and don’t feel like doing boring research again. Writing is fun. Selling it, less so.

I really hope that an agent could come along and take away all the yucky shucking and jiving and “no-date-on-Saturday-night” desperation that comes with trying to sell fiction for money. I really hope that getting an agent in the current publishing climate would NOT AT ALL be like hiring an interior decorator when your house is on fire.

Hope dies last.

-G.

That having been said, I doubt those are the agents for you.

That being said, I also don’t see evidence yet that any of the doom-and-gloom-free-is-death fear holds water. It may. It probably does. It makes sense that it could be an issue. But I’m hoping to see quotes or commentary rather than pure speculation.

Will: as for a first novel being a loss leader if released online, that’s perhaps true, yeah. But most first novels seem to be loss leaders, these days.

– c.

Far as agents and publishers not being interested in free, is there evidence? I don’t mean to suggest I don’t believe you peeps. I do. I really do. But I’m looking for quotes, links, sites, that say this.

– c.