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Top tips for publishing with Lulu.com
09 July 2008
Based on my experience publishing my novel University of Death through Lulu.com, I've written twelve tips for self publishers on using Lulu.com. I hope they will be useful to people who are considering working with the site, or to those who are in the early stages of planning their publications. If anyone's got any questions about using Lulu, let me know and I'll update that page with responses to those questions.
Labels: books, marketing, publishing, university of death, writing
Great copywriting example
13 June 2008
This is a poster that was in the gents' toilet at a plush hotel where I was a wedding guest recently. I thought it was a great piece of copy, so I took a photo of it.
I think what impressed me was the way it addressed its audience directly (men), its economy with words (less than 80), and its subtle call to action (be spontaneous and book now!). The cheeky tone worked well where it was, and the fact it was just printed on hotel stationery made it seem more personal as well. It wouldn't have been nearly as effective if it had been printed on glossy paper by a central marketing division. I should add that this was positioned by the exit, rather than around the urinals where adverts always seem tacky.
University of Death: virtual signing tour
11 June 2008
I've created a virtual book signing program and posted it on this website. Because copies of 'University of Death' go straight from the factory to readers, the only way that readers could get their copy signed was if they met me and happened to be carrying their copy of the book at the time.Now, thanks to the magic of the internet, you can get your book signed and dedicated online, using an authentic handwriting font.
Because this requires font embedding, this feature is only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer.
University of Death:
Download the first two chapters | Author interview | Buy now
Labels: site news, university of death, writing
The website's been fixed. What next?
09 June 2008
If you're a regular here, you might have noticed I've redesigned the website. With today's wider screens, the content was becoming difficult to read on larger screens and the layout was getting messy. Having fixed column widths should make it more readable. I've also taken the opportunity to create a handheld stylesheet, tailored for the Nintendo DS, so that the whole site should work on the DS browser now, as well as on other devices that use the handheld stylesheet. I've created a web clip icon for the iPhone and iPod Touch too, and I've weeded out some dud links and images and generally had a spring clean. I found some strange differences between IE and Firefox when updating my Javascript games, but it all seems to be working fine now. Let me know if you spot anything that still needs attention. It's been time consuming, but now that's done, I can start thinking about content again.
There's a couple of articles I've already promised, and a couple more I've been wanting to write for a while. When I get some time, I've got plenty of ideas for things to write in my notebook.
I hesitate to say this, but I'm also batting around an idea for another novel. I'm not sure I have the energy to devote to writing a book at the moment, although it's tempting to try blitzing it Nanowrimo-style, to see how much I can write in a month. The idea concerns another facet of popular culture (not the music industry this time), and would have a different tone to University of Death.
It's not the first idea I've had since finishing UoD. I had one idea that I can now see was rubbish, although it was briefly exciting. But this new idea is gnawing at me. It's got to the stage where I'm dreaming about bits of it, so I might just try a little writing experiment soon to see if it goes anywhere.
Labels: nintendo, site news, writing
Free writing wisdom widget
21 May 2008
While I was writing my novel 'University of Death', I read quite a few books about writing and kept an eye out for inspiring quotes from famous authors and writers. They include Stephen King, Shakespeare, Truman Capote, Peter Cook and Christopher Isherwood among others.
I've packaged up a selection of my favourites in this free writing quotes widget, which you can customise and incorporate in your own website or blog. It's free to use. The only condition is that you keep the link back to this site and don't modify the code.
When I get time, I'll write a short piece about the simple text compression routine I wrote for this. There's a lot of stuff out there about compressing Javascript, but I couldn't find anything useful about compressing text and decompressing it using Javascript. I managed to cut the total size of my script by about 12% without too much trouble, and might have been able to compress further if I'd worked on it longer.
University of Death: two new downloads
20 May 2008
You can now print your own bookmark for University of Death and download Dove's soundcheck MP3 from MySpace or embed it in your MySpace profile.
I previously made bookmarks available for Small Business Websites That Work, and it turned out to be a fairly popular feature. I haven't seen anyone else doing printable bookmarks, which surprises me. For authors where the readers have bought into the merchandising as much as the stories, it could prove to be a popular website feature. And for all authors, it's nice to give readers the opportunity to download a souvenir when they visit their websites.
Labels: books, publishing, university of death, writing
Record Collector Magazine reviews 'University of Death'
11 May 2008
I've always been a keen magazine reader, the kind of person who checks the news-stands every day to see what's new and writes the on-sale dates of some magazines in his diary. Back in the 80s, I read Crash and Amstrad Action avidly; in the 90s, I bought either Melody Maker or NME each week (and often both); and today I read the glossy monthly music mags. One of my favourites is Record Collector, so I'm thrilled that they've published a four-star review of my novel 'University of Death' in the latest issue.
"Raising a number of surprisingly sophisticated issues, this book is enjoyably cynical about the seemingly cold-hearted and impenetrable nature of the record industry and peppered with a number of highly comical cameos from the cream of rock'n'roll, which ensures that it never feels like heavy going."- Lewis Heritage, books reviewer, Record Collector magazine issue 350 (June 2008)
Record Collector is one of the magazines I trust to tell me about music and books I'll want to read, and it's one I look forward to consulting each month, so I really am delighted that their writer enjoyed my book and has recommended it to other readers.
Labels: music, university of death, writing
Writers beware: read the small print
24 April 2008
There was an advert in Metro last week that read:
We are looking for brilliant new writers to submit entries for our first series of short novels and novellas. Deadline: June 1Adverts seeking 'new writers' are not uncommon - they are typically placed by organisations that sell a publishing service and charge authors to put their books into print. There's not usually any marketing of the title because the company makes its money off printing books and selling them to authors in bulk, and not off selling them to the general public.
The website behind this ad is Roastbooks. From the limited details online, the company's model is to market books through unconventional outlets (eg cafes, airport lounges). White Ladder Press is among the companies pioneering this approach (see The White Ladder Diaries, an entertaining and informative book about setting up a self-publishing operation, which rather unfortunately stops before the operation generates any profit).
I know many people are desperate to get into print, but Roastbooks' terms and conditions are hopelessly optimistic. There's no mention of any advance or royalty rates, but by entering the competition, authors are expected to grant the publisher 'the sole, exclusive option, until two months after the publication of the results of this competition, to enter into a publishing agreement in respect of the submitted manuscript'. I'm not a lawyer, but the language appears to suggest the option belongs to Roastbooks and authors submitting work are basically stuck with the contract the publisher chooses to foist upon them. There's no clause for the rights to revert to the author if the competition results are never announced, or are announced late, either. Roastbooks makes no commitment to a print run, or to any other media, but does require all rights worldwide.
We've seen publishers engaging in rights grabs over the last ten years, but usually from a position of strength. For a new publisher to expect authors to hand over exclusive rights for no return (not even the promise to publish the novel) is highly irregular. The publisher is candid enough to admit that it won't be able to get books into high street book shops, and it's a lot easier for authors to self-publish than it used to be. It's not clear what Roastbooks is doing for the author that the author could not more profitably do for him- or herself.
Few good writers will want to work with an untested publisher that doesn't appear to respect their rights. For that reason, I can't see a future for the company. New publishers would do well to see authors as potential business partners rather than raw materials.
Labels: marketing, publishing, writing
Amazon Kindle: an opportunity for self-publishers?
15 April 2008
I blogged about Amazon's Kindle, a new ebook reader, when it launched. But I didn't look at the opportunity for self-publishers then.
I've published a few ebooks in the past. My ebook 'Journalism Careers - Your questions answered' is sold as a PDF file designed for comfortable on-screen reading. I previously published a guide to putting sound in webpages and a Javascript tutorial through Fatbrain, which was an online ebook store. That folded years ago, and it looks like Barnes & Noble has bought the domain name.
So what's the opportunity at Kindle? Not much for me, it seems. You need to have a US postal address and US bank account details before they will let you publish any content. You can't even publish content for free and use Kindle as a promotional outlet (ebooks must be priced between $0.99 and $200, and you still need to be in the US). Given how slow Amazon's been in internationalising other features like Amazon Honor System, none of that is likely to change any time soon.
My friend John went through the motions of setting up a publication anyway, and has blogged about that experience.
There are a couple of terms that might worry some self-publishers. Firstly:
3. Digital Books; Marketing and Promotion. You agree that we may market and promote your Digital Books by making chapters or portions of your Titles available to prospective customers without charge, and permitting prospective customers to see excerpts of the Digital Book in response to search queries. Amazon will not owe you any fees for the marketing and promotional efforts described above. The Program may include features that allow users to print one or more pages of your Titles.The short version of that is: Amazon can distribute content from the book and allow users to print it, without charging for it and without paying you for it.
The 'permission to print' seems to go beyond the deal Amazon's already struck for 'Search inside this book' for promoting printed books on its website. It's essential for authors to give away some preview content to demonstrate the value of their books. Indeed, similar terms are usually a part of a conventional publishing contract. But Amazon's a shop, not a publisher. Authors and publishers should decide what material is promotional, and what material is only available for sale. Amazon wants the right to give away whatever content it wants, albeit with the implied motive that it will try to pick content that will help the book sell.
For reference works, the value could be significantly eroded if Amazon allows excerpts to be printed without any payment. We can only hope that Amazon is working on a way of administering micropayments so that people can buy book excerpts and authors can be rewarded appropriately.
Also, Amazon will keep 65% of the retail price. By comparison, Lulu charges a fee of 25% of what you get (which is then added to the sale price, so it's actually less than 25% of the ebook price). If you're a self-publisher, 35% is probably not too bad a return given that there's no work to do with moving printed books and there's no cost to incur in creating them, but it's far from competitive. It also seems to overstate the costs incurred in operating the infrastructure and underestimate the costs involved in creating content.
10. Technology. You acknowledge that we will be entitled to utilize DRM technology in connection with the distribution of Digital Books but are not obligated to do so. Accordingly, there may be no technology or other limitation imposed by us on copying or transfer of any Digital Book we distribute.Personally, I don't approve of digital rights management technology. But when publishers are selling ebooks, they'll want to know what rights they're licensing and what controls will be used to enforce them and this term seems somewhat vague. There 'might or might not be DRM' isn't really a good basis for making a decision about whether you want to sell through Amazon, particularly if piracy or consumer rights is something you feel strongly about.
The use of the words 'irrevocable licence' set off alarm bells, but it seems this is about protecting consumers and ensuring that they will be able to download content they've bought easily in future. The irrevocable licence does not extend to making the ebook available for sale (so you can withdraw it later).
If anyone's actually self-publishing through Amazon Kindle, I'd be interested in hearing about your results in the comments.
Labels: journalism, marketing, publishing, technology, writing
Test your vocabulary and feed the world
08 April 2008
This vocabulary quiz will test the most avid readers or writers to their limits. It starts easy, but it soon gets tough.
It looks like you have to answer three vocabulary questions correctly in a row to go up a level, and if you get one wrong, you drop down again. The answers are too short to properly teach you new words, but you can always look up any intriguing words you don't know. An integrated dictionary link would be a nice addition.
The twist with this is that for every round you play, you generate a donation of 20 grains of rice. The site is operated as a non-profit and the money that advertisers pay to show their ads with each quiz round is used to donate free rice to the United Nations World Food Programme.
It's an interesting extension of the Hunger Site's principle, where instead of just clicking each day, you can play a game and spend more time there to increase your donation. And from a business point of view, it's probably more robust because the intelligence required to consistently answer questions should help screen out fraudulent clicks. I wonder whether the adverts are targeted according to how smart you appear to be..?
Book promotion: Do Private Eye adverts work?
29 March 2008
I'm a keen reader of and subscriber to Private Eye. Given that my novel 'University of Death' has a subplot involving politics and uses a lot of humour in telling its story about the music business, the Eye's 798,000 readers could be an ideal advertising target. Adverts start at £26 for 10 words, which is within the reach of self-publishers.
And indeed, many self-publishers do promote their works there. But I had my suspicions the ads don't work. There's relatively high turnover of advertisers in the Eye Read section compared to some other sections (eg speechwriting), which suggests advertisers aren't seeing results. Additionally, the margin on book sales is such that I'd need to sell more than 13 copies directly attributable to Private Eye to break even. You only need to sell one speech per advert to make your money back, maybe even less if you're booking a series of ads.
I did a spot of market research and emailed five authors who have recently promoted their books in Private Eye and who had a website address. Four were kind enough to reply in some detail, and there was a clear consensus.
Lazz Hewings is a cartoonist researching a book about British Pub culture. He advertised to ask for responses to his questionnaire. He told me:
I was very disappointed with the response, considering the publication has a circulation of close to a million - I had 4 replies! Yes that's right - four! This, I thought, was interesting in its own right.Chris Snowden has written a book documenting the war against smoking and liberty. He said:
I actually got very little response from that advert although I have used Private Eye for business ads before and found them to be quite good. What the response would be for your novel I really couldn't say.Kevin Duffy, author of the novel 'Anthills and Stars' and small press manager, placed a couple of adverts for different books in the same issue. He said:
To be honest, for £120 the response wasn't that great, but that could be my ad, they went to the website and thought what was on offer was a pile of shite...however, glad I did it, I have had some great responses, e mail converstaions etc, but if you're thinking was it cost effective the answer is no it wasn't.Ian Poole used Private Eye to promote his 'radical interpretation of the events in Jesus's life'. He told me:
In answer to your query about the efficacy of Private Eye adverts, I can report that, sadly, it was a waste of £52. As far as I can make out not a single copy sold because of it. Obviously they tend to circulate for a while so it may produce a few, but it certainly has not been a success. Worth a try I suppose. The book has rather narrow appeal, so I think that it may have been the wrong place.I was particularly interested to see that Chris Snowden had found the business ads effective and Kevin Duffy's statement that it had generated some interesting correspondence. That suggests people do read the adverts, so for the right kind of book and right ad copy, there might be an opportunity there to pick up sales. But the experience of recent advertisers should be taken as a warning to authors and publishers that 798,000 circulated adverts does not necessarily translate into even a handful of sales.
Labels: marketing, publishing, university of death, writing
You're not the only one
19 February 2008
Remember Shaggy Blog Stories, the compendium of humorous blog posts created in aid of Comic Relief? The book went on to raise over £2200 for charity, and continues to sell.
Now it's inspired a new collection entitled 'You are not the only one', and dedicated to raising money for War Child. There's a call for submissions online now, and you've got two weeks to dig out your best stuff from your blog archive. Keep it short, and you'll stand more chance of getting in, they say.
Here's the run-down:
We would like you to submit (to us at bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk) a written piece about something you've been through from any aspect of your life that you want to share. It can literally be about anything: your relationships, your past, a road not taken, being a parent, an illness or your regrets etc. We've called it "You're Not The Only One" to reflect the camaraderie of blogging.See the more detailed guidelines here. If you don't have a blog, keep an eye on the site for news of when it goes on sale. It's bound to be special.
I have submitted my Tribute to Syd Barrett for consideration. I'm not the kind of blogger that shares their private life extensively, but I do know it meant something to me to be able to write that story while listening to Piper on the day I heard Syd had died.
Labels: writing
How to write a novel
06 December 2007
I've written 17 tips on novel writing. There are many more experienced people offering advice on how to paint a scene or structure a plot, so I've just focused on the logistics. In all the guides to novel writing I've seen, there's relatively little attention paid to organising ideas and time, which are key challenges for most writers.
Labels: publishing, university of death, writing
My novel University of Death: Available now!
01 December 2007
I'm delighted to say that my satire of the music industry 'University of Death' is available now, exclusively from Lulu. You can preview the first two chapters now.When you order it, your copy is printed and bound and sent to you in a sturdy cardboard box. The book is 380 pages, and 6x9 inches (which is a bit like a hardback without the hard cover). The book costs £9.99 plus shipping, which varies depending on where in the world you are.
In my last quality check, I still found things I would have liked to have done slightly differently, but the book is definitely ready for the world now and any more editing would be tinkering and procrastination (which as we know is fear in slow motion).
After working on this for about two years, it does feel odd to be sharing it with the world now. Karen was the first person to read it when I'd finished it, and when we discussed it, it felt strange to hear her talking about people like Dove and Bigg, who for such a long time had lived in my imagination alone. I'd never heard their names spoken out loud before. I am excited that new readers will be meeting them for the first time soon and discovering their story.
This is kind of a soft launch to blog readers. I am planning to put together a corner of this website about the book, which will include an author interview. If you've got any questions you'd like to pose about the book or how it came together, feel free to email them over or put them in the comments here. In exchange, I'll try not to be too much of a luvvie in the answers. I'll also be putting together a few special features and a book preview in PDF that's easier to print.
Phew. Now I'm off to relax with a Chinese take-away and a silly film with lots of explosions in. Perhaps later I'll have a celebratory game of Beach Head.
PS: The book makes an ideal Christmas gift (hint, hint - but not for me, I've got plenty). Lulu took nine days to deliver my latest copies this week, which is slower than its usual target of printing in 4 days, but you should still be able to get copies in time for Chrimbo. According to Lulu's Xmas shipping dates you have a week to order in the UK (longer if you pay for express shipping or are in the US). Consult the list for shipping dates for other countries.
Labels: books, site news, writing
Slow news day?
22 June 2007
So in my BBC RSS feed this morning, sat between 'Stagecoach wins railway franchise' and 'Bomb strikes UK patrol in Basra', is the headline 'Shot kitten's leg was amputated'. The subheading reads: 'A kitten is recovering after its leg was amputated after being shot with a pellet gun in County Antrim.'
This heart-rending story is so important, it is also in the third place on the Northern Ireland news homepage at the time of writing, with a photo.
It is a distressing story, but what's going to keep me awake at night is that the reporter didn't find out the name of the cat.
Labels: journalism, writing
Trust me on the semicolon
10 April 2007
When I have time, I'll write a list of my favourite writing books and Roy Peter Clarke's Writing Tools will crown it. There are plenty of books for new writers, but this one helps writers with experience to develop their style. Some of the ideas are simple, but take on new life in this book thanks to the inspiring examples from journalism and fiction. Not all the writing is to my taste, but it's nearly all impressive.Today, I discovered 'Writing Tools: The musical', based loosely on Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen single of 1999 (download details on right of linked page, warning: lyrics spoilers in the main content).
It goes a bit wacky at the end and some clever ideas are skipped over in the interests of brevity. But as an aide-memoire for a much-loved book, and an example of how you can make a writing tutorial fun, I love it. It made me laugh a couple of times too, although that might be because I know both the book and the single it parodies. If you have any interest in writing, you owe it to yourself to gamble six minutes on it today.
Labels: book review, music, writing
Six word stories
21 March 2007
Good writers are masters of brevity. They spot the dead wood and eliminate it. They make sure every word in every sentence is adding meaning.
But how short can a story be before it stops being a story? Hemingway wrote a six word tale that is poignant and has a beginning, middle and an end: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Wired has challenged today's writers to tell a story in six words. Some turned out to be little more than punchlines. Others seem like the start or end of a story, but not the whole thing. It's a difficult brief, and all the attempts are worth reading.
My favourites are 'Machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented a time' by Alan Moore and 'From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings.' by Gregory Maguire. I also enjoyed 'The baby's blood type? Human, mostly.' by Orson Scott Card.
Read the Wired article for about 90 more.
Although I've technically reproduced three of Wired's stories in full above, I'm not expecting them to have a problem with this. I think those excerpts are fair use in the context of promoting the full article.
Also, it would be rather hypocritical for Wired to get upset given that earlier this month the site published three pages of Fox Interactive Media's trade secrets verbatim. In a story about Fox preparing a news portal for MySpace, Wired included two leaked screenshots and six slides from a presentation. Since these would be copyright of Fox and this story had no public interest defence, this seems an odd stance for a publishing business to take.
Labels: writing
10th birthday update: accessibility, affiliate marketing and more
11 February 2007
This site celebrates its tenth birthday round about now and to mark the occasion I've given it a spring clean. Some content has been removed, but nothing you're likely to miss (do tell me if I'm wrong - perhaps I'll bring it back again). I've improved the design, particularly the navigation. It should be easier to explore and find what you're looking for now.
I've also added lots of new/old stuff from my archives.
I wrote, I think, the first big story in a UK web design magazine about accessibility, published in Internet Magazine in 2000. Today any decent website designer is aware of accessibility, but back then few people were interested. The editor at another magazine turned down a pitch on the subject, saying it was a minority issue of no interest to businesses.
Over the years, awareness of accessibility has increased. But I know many people still struggle to understand why they should and how they can create a more inclusive website. And I know a lot of designers can't be arsed, and their clients, who are ultimately responsible for the accessibility of the sites they buy, let them get away with it.
I've now added some of my later articles explaining accessibility to my webmaster tutorials. I hope that they will inspire more people to consider users with disabilities in their website designs, and will provide some helpful guidance on eliminating the biggest barriers.
The accessibility stories (new and old) are:
- Jakob Nielsen on why accessibility matters
- 17 Steps to an accessible website
- Access? That'll do nicely
- Making Flash accessible
- Accessibility Excellence - case studies of three accessible websites
- Tesco launches visionary website
In the journalism resources section, there's a new article about writing for the web.
The quality of the scans of rock and pop photos has been dramatically improved, and this is now reflected where they are used in the music articles too. My list of places where you can promote your music has also been refreshed.
Finally, there's a new gallery of photos of Sydney, Australia. One of my pictures of the Opera House was part of an architecture exhibition in Paris last year. There's a much cleaner scan of that too.
If you want to see what the first version of this site looked like, there's a screenshot of this site from 1997 here. It would have looked right at home on geocities.
Here's to the next ten years. Cheers!
Labels: photography, site news, webdesign, writing
JournalismCareers.com: Author promotion article plus discount coupon
13 October 2006
Following my talk for the Society of Authors in February, I've written an article for the society's magazine 'The Author' (Autumn 2006 issue). It's a beginner's guide to setting up a website, aimed at authors. It includes links to helpful resources and some guidelines on the cost of operating a website. The emphasis is on simple, cheap and practical tools. You can read it at the JournalismCareers.com website now.
For a limited time, readers of this blog can benefit from an exclusive discount of 25% off my ebook 'Journalism Careers - Your questions answered'. The ebook answers 64 top questions I've been asked about working as a journalist by visitors to my websites. Spread over 108 pages, it includes plenty of practical advice for those starting out or looking to switch careers. It's designed for comfortable reading on screen but can also be printed. Bonus material includes time planning sheets, a commission checklist, and a 19-point article quality checklist. The ebook usually costs £8.95 or US$15.95 before the discount (sales tax may apply). To benefit from the discount, enter the code SEAN-2F1Q when prompted. The coupon expires on 12 November 2006. This is the only price discount that has ever been offered on this ebook and it is not available through other websites.
Crime writers beware
25 May 2006
A student who wrote a short story including scant details of a fictional murder is being pestered by US police to provide DNA so that they can eliminate him from their real-world murder enquiries, according to Boingboing.
The story entitled 'I am Ready to Serve My Country' by Philip Sandifer is written as an application to join the defence forces and is under 250 words. In the story, the letter's author boasts that he's killed before, hinting that he believes this makes him suitable for the armed forces. It's a subtle joke, obviously lost on the University of Florida police. A university spokesman said that murder's a touchy subject because five students were killed off-campus ten years ago.
All societies censor their culture to a greater or lesser extent, but this witty story is extremely mild compared to what you'll see if you switch on TV any evening, or watch a blockbuster at the cinema. It is encouraging to see that the student has the full support of his advisor, Professor Dobrin, but disturbing to see the police trying to intimidate people out of expressing their views and creativity. This is nothing more than an abuse of power to limit free speech.
Labels: writing
Copyright matters
25 March 2006
I'm going to stick my head over the parapet now and write something unpopular: Copyright matters.
I know it's trendy nowadays to be all loved-up and say 'hey, man, let the data flow free like a river'. I have great respect for the work of the open source movement, and for the work of the Creative Commons. But just because some people choose to relinquish some of their legal rights, it doesn't mean everybody else should be forced to.
As you might know, I'm pretty defensive of my copyrights. In this post I'll explain some of the reasons why.
Creators should choose how stuff is used
One of the issues that is often overlooked is one of choice. Even a Creative Commons licence gives you a choice over which rights you give away. You can, for example, say content is free to use provided it's not modified or that it can be used only in non-commercial projects.But a problem with the Creative Commons model is that it assumes you want to assign permission based on usage, and not on who is making that use. I'm pretty politically aware, and there are some organisations that I would never grant permission to use my creative work. I would never want my work to be used against the causes I believe in. There are even individuals with whose views I disagree to the extent that I wouldn't want to actively help them. The law gives me the right to choose on a case-by-case basis who can and can't use my work.
This has nothing to do with free speech, by the way: Just because I respect and defend your right to express your views, it doesn't mean I should help you express them.
Time matters
Anyone want to mow my lawn for free? Go on. I'll tell everyone you did a great job. I thought not.Time is the scarcest resource we have. Some of us will have more than others (we won't know how much until the end), but we've all got the same number of hours in the day, and days in the week. Working out how to spend it is what life's all about. Respecting how people spend their time is respecting their lives.
Over the last (nearly) ten years, I have spent a lot of time making content and building this website. Content is quick to consume, but slow to create. Writing games takes days. Writing an article can take half a day, once research is factored in. Even taking and scanning photographs is a fairly big job, even before we've factored in the time taken travelling to places to photograph. And let's not even start talking about how long it takes to write a book.
Don't get me wrong - I love it. That's why I do it. But if I've spent my limited life force making things instead of watching TV, it seems only fair that I choose who benefits from that. The law gives me the right to exercise control over how my work is used.
Derivative works are just that
A derivative work is when you take one thing, and then build upon it to make another thing. It's a more creative endeavour than just copying something, and the people who create the derivative work often add value. But they often cause problems too, and I have a right in law to decide who can and can't make derivative works from my material.There are corners of the internet where people are still cursing me in a foreign language following a dispute over an unauthorised translation of one of my articles. I know that the translator who broke copyright law was only trying to make some ideas more widely available, but the end result could be the exact opposite. Now that I've had the exclusive translation rights stolen from me for that language, I can't license a major publisher to use it (which would have potentially communicated the ideas much more widely). For the record, I tried to reach a compromise where I published the translated version on this website but the translator was unresponsive. The article has been pulled from circulation.
Derivative works also restrict my creative freedom. If I make something, I'm free to adapt and modify it how I like. If somebody else independently alters it and makes new works, I'm having some of my creative options taken from me. Either I can't then do what they've done, or there is another work out there with which I must compete despite creating the original source material.
I do respect the time that people spend in creating derivative works, but request that they also respect the time that I spend in creating source material. If you're interested in translating content or creating derivative works, please contact me. I'll work with you if I can, but reserve my legal right to say 'no'.
Let's talk business
Just because you're not prepared to pay for something, it doesn't mean it doesn't have a value. While many people can and do set up websites for free, I actually write cheques to keep this website online. I also incur real money costs creating content (software, hardware, training). I've put over 300 pages of original content online and nearly all of it is free for you to read.This is made possible by advertising, and the products I sell, including licences to use my copyright material. By charging people who want to make certain uses of my content, I'm able to publish lots more content for free. If I let people put my work on other websites for free, I end up competing with my own work for the traffic that helps pay the bills. That's the economics of it.
You might think I could avoid all that by just giving the content away, so that other people pay to host it. I can see how this might work for certain types of content. I've allowed unmodified copies of my websafe colour palette program to be circulated freely. But we come back to the control issue again (see above), so I don't allow my other work to be copied in this way.
In certain cases, I will grant a free licence to use my work. In other cases, I will make a charge. You might be surprised at how friendly I am, if you drop me a line.
Copyrights do have a commercial value and they are a part of my wealth. Anyone taking my copyright material is stealing some of my livelihood.
Credit where it's due
It's a buzz when someone says they like what you've made, or that they found it useful in accomplishing their own goals. Knowing the identity of the creator of a work also changes your perception of it. The law gives me a right to be identified as the creator of my creative works.There are a couple of common web practices which interfere with this right:
- Linking directly to images on another server. This is particularly bad because it means someone else is paying the hosting bill for images to appear on your website. At the same time, it looks like you own the content or at least like it appears there with the consent of the creator. It's not smart from the point of view of managing your own site, either. The image host can change the image that appears on your site to something unsavoury. Explain that to Mum.
- Framing content. There's a lot less of this goes on nowadays, but in the old days people used to frame other webpages, which could create the impression they were part of the same website.
I really appreciate people linking to this website to help spread the word, but please link to a HTML page and don't use frames. Don't make it look like you own my content. Ask if you don't understand or you're not sure.
Fair use
I'm not trying to restrict your rights here - just assert my own. So I don't have a problem with people reproducing short excerpts for the purpose of comment provided they're accompanied by a link to the original source. I don't have a problem with people using images from this site as their windows wallpaper on their own computer, although I do have a problem with them passing those images on to others. You're welcome to print out any material here for your own use, but not to circulate it without permission. If you're not sure what's allowed, please drop me a line.Discussion
If you've got any comments, please email me. I'll update this article with them later.For the avoidance of any doubt, none of the above and nothing in the comments grants you any rights in relation to my content. If you want to make use of my copyright material, you are required to contact me first.
There are lots of 'contact me' links in the above, because I get particularly annoyed when people don't ask. I'll negotiate if you ask. I won't, if you don't.
Labels: business, games, photography, site news, webdesign, writing
Society of Authors talk
26 February 2006
If you came to my talk to the Society of Authors, you can find my notes on the talk here. It includes links to the sites I spoke about and some notes from the slides. There's also some suggested further reading at this site. If you couldn't make it, you're welcome to read the notes too, although they're not likely to make much sense if you weren't there.
Labels: writing
JournalismCareers.com relaunched
22 December 2005
I've relaunched JournalismCareers.com, including a new edition of the ebook which answers 64 of the most commonly asked questions about journalism. The relaunch includes a fresher design and new content (including some fun stuff).The new edition of the ebook comes with bonus content to help you put some of the key ideas in the ebook to work. For a promotional period, the ebook price has been discounted by a pound.
I set up JournalismCareers.com as a response to the many questions I was receiving by email from people who were researching journalism as a career. The site first launched in August 2003.
Random Name Generator
16 July 2005
If you have as much trouble thinking up character names for your fiction writing as I do, this random name generator will come in handy. It creates random firstname/surname pairs using US census data. You can adjust how common the names are. They all sound a bit American, but put the obscurity rating up to full and you'll discover some great names to give to your story's villains and rock stars.
Labels: writing
