Free story

As anyone who knows me knows (I know, right?) I am one of those people that is always hunting for a bargain and a good deal. I don’t have much in the way of money and I’m desperate to see my stories out there for the world to enjoy. Just the thought that people are reading the things that I’ve written… it gives me this kind of deep sense of happiness and I hope that they’re enjoying it.

I like getting feedback as long as it’s constructive (or praising! Praise me, praise me!) and not too hyper critical. Someone telling me I’ve misspelled a word or my sentence came out wonky is one thing, but someone completely tearing my book apart… well, I’m very sorry you didn’t enjoy my story, but I won’t be responding to you and probably won’t do anything more than glance at your review on Goodreads. Have a great day! (Because I will. Fake it ’til you make it.)

I loved having Wendy beta read Echo because the minute she said something about there not being enough physical description, it was like a “D’oh!” moment for me. She made that story better with just a few words.

Which brings it around to what’s been going on at my blog recently. I’m still recording my audio posts, though I’ve got a lot of clip edits to do (I’m a stuttering, yawning, tea slurping, lazy, perfectionist. It’s my cross to bear.) There’s been a lot going on in my regular life (*sob*) but I’ve just got to take one day and listen to all my posts and record some other ones. (One day I will have my own recording studio and it will be so much easier for everyone involved.) So that all will happen as it happens, and I’m sorry to anyone that has been inconvenienced.

In other news,  if anyone has been to my blog recently, you ‘ll notice the fancy new iCopyright bar everywhere. That’s right, I’ve joined the clip & copy generation, everything must go, consume, consume, consume.

No, really, if you’ve been following my latest diatribes you may have caught my rising concern with copyright infringement. People buying my ebooks then brazenly listing them on torrent sites through a Google link. If you’re going to steal from me, at least be cool enough to do it from the shadows and not rub my face in it. But when your results pop up right next to my book in search… that’s where the line is completely drawn. Just like Terry Goodkind, my opinion is that you don’t come into my house and announce the fact that you’re screwing me over. I will not put up with it. And the Internet is my house (shout out to the peeps!)

I’m all for free speech and fair use and the first purchase doctrine and blah blah blah. At the same time, I owe people money and I’m tired of living in poverty. You might be thinking I’m being dramatic and I’m bitching about not being able to buy the next new thing and whatever, but no. I want to pay off my bills and have money to live off of, yet at the same time I don’t want to be a complete scrooge.

More than anything, I want people to be able to read the things I write. I’ve been poor for a long time, I know how bad it feels not to be able to have something that everyone else takes for granted. But I don’t really have anything big to offer the world — I’m not a farmer, I don’t make food, I don’t make quilts, whatever —  the only thing I’ve ever really been good at is writing. So that’s something I would like for people to be able to enjoy whether they have the money to pay for it or not. I just don’t like the idea of people stealing from me.

So that’s where the iCopyright comes in. If you’ve clicked it, you’ll notice that it offers all kinds of republishing options. The only options I’m not providing are ebook and print book, and that’s negotiable if someone is seriously interested, it’s just not available for automated licensing.

Most everything else is right there on the table. Printing, emailing, syndication, adding my posts to your own website, even making your own newspaper or newsletter. There’s plenty of free options as well as pay options of all levels. So you can just come in and read what you want, or if you want to have some of my stuff on your site you can and you don’t even have to have an awkward conversation with me first. With a system like that, no one has to pirate my stuff because they can just come in and enjoy it and no one has to feel like a criminal and I don’t have to feel like an angry cop.

You’re probably wondering what this all means. Well, it means that I can feel safer when I put stuff up on my site. If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll have noticed that I have several novels I’m serializing here and at Kimichee. They’re pretty rough at the moment, but you can enjoy the stories if you’d like and if you notice any big errors I’d be happy to hear about them and they will for sure be addressed in the final copies that will go in the ebooks and paperbacks.

So if you want to be involved in my writing process and immortalized in print when I add you to my books’ acknowledgement pages, the comments are always open. Or if you just want to enjoy reading a story before anyone else in the world… that’s open to you too. If you would like to serialize any of my content on your site, iCopyright handles all that — you just put the code they provide on your site and whatever you’re licensing appears in the frame. If I update a post, iCopyright will update it on your site, so you never have to worry that you’re showing a dated copy. When the content expires you can either renew your subscription or iCopyright takes it down automatically. At no time do you even have to talk to me at all if you don’t want to. Which relieves my social anxieties a lot.

At the same time, I will be self-publishing the ebooks and paperbacks, and I will not lie about a book having previously been serialized online. So if you just like buying books, you don’t have to worry that I’m going to try and cheat you. And anyway, the official ebooks and print books will have added content and all kinds of cool things just for them.

I’m hopeful that iCopyright will help me make enough of a living that I can offer more things for free. So if you can afford to pay, I would be really grateful, but if you can’t at this time, that’s okay too. You’re welcome to read what’s here. And feedback is always appreciated.