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blatherskiteWhen I first decided I would put my fiction online, free for the reading, I had many concerns. Getting past them took a bit of thinking, but I'm glad that I made the effort.
Copyright and the fear of theft were issues, of course. But I figured out two things about that: First, that as soon as I registered my book with the National Library of Canada to obtain ISBN and CIP data, that would timestamp the novel as being copyrighted in my name. Ditto for the posting date of all my articles on my Web host's servers. Plus, I have backups going back many years with timestamped versions of the files, and a few treasured [sic] rejection letters from publishers for additional proof. None of this is the same as formally registering copyright, which will happen soon (where it hasn't already happened), but it's good enough for my purposes.
Derivative works was another issue. Given the number of people I know who participate actively in the fan fiction community or the the slash community, I know something about the strength of the desire to fill in the really interesting blanks in another author's work, or to fix things you think the author screwed up or didn't pursue in ways you'd like. For that matter, recognizing that authors are physically unable to write as many stories per year as fans would like and sometimes move on to new projects, it's only natural that others would want to provide more stories in that fictional universe. I also recognize the desire to parody another author's work; my next novel, Chords, will be eminently slashable, and I already know exactly how I'd parody the work if I run out of new ideas and choose to return to old works. (In fact, I know two ways I'd do it—one intended as humor and poking fun, and the other as a serious critical satire of the basic assumptions behind the story.)
If people are going to do this anyway, who am I to say no? Shouldn't it be more flattering than annoying if someone is willing to devote the time to initiate a (literary or other) dialogue with me over what I've written? I understand why authors get proprietary about their characters; we often show them the same affection we'd show to distant friends, and (despite putting them through a meat grinder sometimes in the stories) we want to protect them. My hope is that if I've done a good enough job creating them, you'll want to show them the same respect.
So I got over my objections, and came up with a variant of the Creative Commons (CC) license. I don't think my version has any advantages over the more carefully thought out models that CC developed. Its primary virtue is that I wrote it myself, and thus expresses the idea in my own words. Some day I may replace it with one of the CC models, but for now, I'm satisfied with it.
It's also important to note here that none of what I've done by publishing my fiction online is particularly new or innovative: I'm simply borrowing and modifying the models others have used before me for years (in some cases, decades). Some science fiction and fantasy authors (most notably John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow) have done this before me, and ended up with lucrative publishing contracts as a result. I can't imagine that happening to me, but if it does, it won't change the way I write or publish. I earn a good living with my primary career as an editor, technical writer, and translator, so any income from fiction would just be gravy.
Copyright and the fear of theft were issues, of course. But I figured out two things about that: First, that as soon as I registered my book with the National Library of Canada to obtain ISBN and CIP data, that would timestamp the novel as being copyrighted in my name. Ditto for the posting date of all my articles on my Web host's servers. Plus, I have backups going back many years with timestamped versions of the files, and a few treasured [sic] rejection letters from publishers for additional proof. None of this is the same as formally registering copyright, which will happen soon (where it hasn't already happened), but it's good enough for my purposes.
Derivative works was another issue. Given the number of people I know who participate actively in the fan fiction community or the the slash community, I know something about the strength of the desire to fill in the really interesting blanks in another author's work, or to fix things you think the author screwed up or didn't pursue in ways you'd like. For that matter, recognizing that authors are physically unable to write as many stories per year as fans would like and sometimes move on to new projects, it's only natural that others would want to provide more stories in that fictional universe. I also recognize the desire to parody another author's work; my next novel, Chords, will be eminently slashable, and I already know exactly how I'd parody the work if I run out of new ideas and choose to return to old works. (In fact, I know two ways I'd do it—one intended as humor and poking fun, and the other as a serious critical satire of the basic assumptions behind the story.)
If people are going to do this anyway, who am I to say no? Shouldn't it be more flattering than annoying if someone is willing to devote the time to initiate a (literary or other) dialogue with me over what I've written? I understand why authors get proprietary about their characters; we often show them the same affection we'd show to distant friends, and (despite putting them through a meat grinder sometimes in the stories) we want to protect them. My hope is that if I've done a good enough job creating them, you'll want to show them the same respect.
So I got over my objections, and came up with a variant of the Creative Commons (CC) license. I don't think my version has any advantages over the more carefully thought out models that CC developed. Its primary virtue is that I wrote it myself, and thus expresses the idea in my own words. Some day I may replace it with one of the CC models, but for now, I'm satisfied with it.
It's also important to note here that none of what I've done by publishing my fiction online is particularly new or innovative: I'm simply borrowing and modifying the models others have used before me for years (in some cases, decades). Some science fiction and fantasy authors (most notably John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow) have done this before me, and ended up with lucrative publishing contracts as a result. I can't imagine that happening to me, but if it does, it won't change the way I write or publish. I earn a good living with my primary career as an editor, technical writer, and translator, so any income from fiction would just be gravy.