

The Author as Agent of Change - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576319101005595020.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

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hugh3
The trouble, of course, with Cory Doctorow's experiments in alternative
publishing methods is that his fanbase is largely a bunch of copyright geeks
who _want_ this kind of thing to work, so the fact that it works for him (and
I have no doubt that it will) doesn't really tell you anything about the
broader world, and whether Jane Q. Romancenovellist can get by with a similar
system.

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JoachimSchipper
It's not that hard to find more conventional success stories, typically
selling exclusively through Amazon.com (not completely independent, but good
enough for most purposes).

I have no doubt that this model can fail, but it doesn't take Doctorow to pull
it off.

~~~
Create
Free Culture comes to mind, along with the author.

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_Culture_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_Culture_%28book%29)

~~~
schrototo
But that's _exactly_ the same issue: not only are people who read Lessig
predisposed to these kinds of publishing ventures, that very book is _about_
issues related with that. Doctorow or Lessig succeeding at this is somewhat of
a self-fulfilling prophecy.

~~~
Create
sure.

When Lessig "accuses" societies of x-financing themselves with high journal
prices, he actually does the same, using his secured tenure. I'm almost
certain, that he couldn't care less about the Free Culture's contributions to
his pension plan's bottom line. Or of other's, for that matter -- I guess.

Then again, cross-financing i.e. investigative journalism didn't serve power
well, and in the end of the day, it was obvious to almost completely replace
it with PR for the publishers. Cory also knows this: there is far less
overhead to write fiction than to track down and uncover i.e. the broadcast
flag. He can achieve the former, but could not kindle and leverage social
pressure to prevent HDMI from happening. Kudos to him, that he tried.

OTOH, nothing really stops publishers to degenerate into parasites, either.
They can be useful, and some are, but on the whole, the economics can be
completely changed -- not unlike when movable type came in. Moreover, one can
cite examples, when publishers/media are downright harmful, only to maximise
private profit. Lessig and Doctorow raise this issue: publishers seem to be
doing their part of fulfilling the prophecy too.

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bitsm
The reason self-publishing works for Doctorow is not because his audience
wants it to. It works because he works extremely hard, is prolific, and
smartly leverages technology as well as his massive audience at BoingBoing. He
is not an overnight sensation. There's no trick here.

Yes, he's taken some risks with technology, but he's also worked hard
promoting himself to mitigate that risk.

I am not a fan of his writing, but I admire his dogged determination to get up
every day and be a writer, in an age when anyone else you asked would tell you
to give up and get a job with a future.

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gyardley
Since I'm planning to read this short story collection, I was a little
irritated to read about the _ending_ of one of the stories in this article. Be
warned, there's mild spoilers here.

