Plus, rich people, like kings with big egos, would appoint artists to hang around and create art – there would be the King’s Juggler and the King’s Toilet Painter and the King’s Underground Dance Troupe.

Nowadays kings are mostly gone and ye times are a’changin’ instead of olde. But could the idea of sponsored artists still work? To an extent, it’s kinda still around, morphed into advertising sponsorships, like athletes that make more from Nike than playing basketball. But while that’s common with ball-slingers, it’s not really common with artists, especially in traditional mediums.

I mean, if corporations are the modern equivalents of independent states (if anything, governments are more like the old Catholic church, trying to rule from afar but always being a few steps behind) then where is the Starbucks Juggler? Where is the Best Buy Dance Troupe? Where is the Pepsi Writer?

I dunno.

Rather than harp on the “corporations are evil and should give back by sponsoring art” noise, instead, I wanna focus on the bottom line, because that’s what the Kings care about. So here’s this:

Would you buy more Pepsi if Neil Gaiman was the Pepsi Writer?

Would you buy more Tide if Kevin Smith was the Tide Filmmaker?

Would you buy more Cisco routers if Cory Doctorow was the Cisco Internet Ethicist?

Be honest.

Coz I wanna know.

I really enjoy the ideas in Little Brother (even if it’s for young adults) and Makers – the tech and lifestyles that seem only a few short years off, along with the ethics that go with them. Of course some people might say a story is just a story, but the “morals” in a story matter, especially in the case of a popular writer, because these stories help shape our morality.

Now, I’m not the pissed Harry-Potter-Hating Christian Mom who gets all up in arms about books, and for the most part I feel like Doctorow’s writing is a force for good, but there is one thing, just one thing, that I’m not sure I feel comfortable with. I’m not denouncing the guy – I really, really enjoy his writing, but I’m a little unsure of how I feel about this one thing, so I’m writing this post for two reasons: to sort out my thoughts in writing. But I also hope to get a little feedback from others who have read his books. I wanna know what YOU think.

Anyway, when I first read Little Brother, I noticed a section on page 62 (of the PDF version on craphound.com) where the main character and his friends go to a store to buy a bunch of merchandise printed with the new meme they’re supporting.

I thought it was weird – so much of the book was about information freed from corporations and government – that the main characters would embrace commercialism so openly. And in its most abhorrent form no less: capitalizing on a youth fad. Maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth ever since I was a teenager and happened to be working at Toys R Us during the Christmas season Pokémon was all the rage (oh, god, I still wake up screaming some nights, sweaty from nightmaring about all those fat, sticky little American kids groping with their jam hands for the latest Pikachu WhatHaveYou), but I can’t shake the feeling that this type of blatant commercialism is, if not flat-out evil, at least in poor taste.

I let it go at first – I really enjoy Little Brother and didn’t want a silly few sentences about the main character buying a T-shirt ruin a book for me, especially a book that preaches so many other “morals” I see as quality. Plus, I chalk it up to Doctorow just understanding that teenagers don’t care about commercialism and will buy t-shirts with their favorite memes on them (I did, when I was a teenager). In fact, teenagers are still young enough to think that t-shirts are social statements, so they might actually believe that by buying t-shirts with subversive slogans they are sticking it to whatever man they hate (when it’s more than likely they are supporting that man by buying the shirt).

But now, whilst reading The Makers (which is pretty awesome so far, by the way) – I’ve started to consider the question again, if only because the book is all about selling stuff. It’s about an indie inventor company that invents stuff and moves units. Sure, it’s about other stuff too, like an indie blogger, and the homeless, and corporations, and so on, but fueled by my earlier interest in Doctorow’s economic viewpoint (or, at the very least, his characters’ viewpoints), I see it as mostly an indie business manifesto. Keep in mind, I’m only 18.58% through the book, so take that with a grain of salt, especially if the book turns into an action/adventure spy thriller ala James Bond (of the Hollywood Bonds) at 21.45% or something. But I doubt that’ll happen.

Does anyone else think that the free information ideal must go hand in hand with physical minimalism? Because it seems like they do go together. You know – it’s like we’re digitally rich so it’s okay to be physically minimalist. But Doctorow, a guy who seems to support free information, doesn’t seem to support physical minimalism, so I’m at a loss as to how to jive these ideas together.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about physical minimalism because I have STUFF. I’ve made some recent purchases, such as a few graphic novels, video games, and a Playstation 3, and now I am feeling STUFF GUILT, even though life is pretty damn good and having STUFF is part of that.

But, now I have all this STUFF. And it seems like I shouldn’t want STUFF, since I believe information should be digital, or at the very least, cheap and easily digitized. But I have some STUFF, I like my STUFF, and I feel guilty for both of those things.

When I’m considering issues, I look for them in things I’m reading, watching, playing, etc, looking for the opinions about the issue I’m trying to figure out from people I respect. I respect Cory Doctorow, but although his characters and I believe many of the same things, we differ somehow, and it’s about STUFF.

So what the deal, people? Am I misinterpreting Doctorow’s viewpoints? Am I just too stuck up about STUFF and consumption? Am I wrong that the drive to make things digital (if they can be made digital – like movies, games, and books) conflicts with the desire to own physical property, especially media?

I live in Des Moines, Iowa, and the musical Rent was just here at the Civic Center. I’d seen it before, but it was some of the original cast this time, so I went again. The show was great.

But after the show, in the lobby, there was a table with a bunch of Rent STUFF, like t-shirts and lunch boxes. And all that seems like blatant commercialism, a bunch of crap people don’t need, but buy anyway. Because unless you’re in the market for a new lunch box, you’re only buying that lunch box because it says Rent on it. And then you’re going to get home and put it on your shelf, where it isn’t useful at all – it just collects dust until you finally throw it out to make space for the lunchbox you buy from the next fad.
Collections, especially physical media collections, piss me off, especially when the STUFF is available digitally, like DVDs and CDs. Even my books are starting to bother me, though the move from physical to digital isn’t quite there yet.

Now, t-shirts aren’t something you can get digitally – clothes have to be physical (at least, until we’re digital, anyway), so we have to wear them. They might as well be Rent T-shirts as they are plain white ones. But why does it feel to me that Rent is cheapened because there are t-shirts of it? If merchandising supports things I like, why do I hate it so much? And why does Cory Doctorow, who seems to support many of the ideas I do, create characters that I disagree with about STUFF?

What do you think? Please leave a comment here, or @mispeled on Twitter, or send me an email and let me know. My email address is in the button on the right sidebar. I’m serious about talking about this, so if you have a lengthy response, email it to me and I’ll put it up as a post.

Thanks,

-m.

In order to make this article itself a little more legitimate, I also emailed several people in various part of the publishing industry. A few emailed me back, and I’ll be interspersing their comments throughout the various parts. This part includes quotes from Cory Doctorow the author and blogger who’s had great success publishing his traditionally printed works with free e-books. The quotes are taken from his emails to me, and used with his permission.

Publishing Websites

Similar to the current publishing model, a website could be created with editors that read submissions and only “published” books on the website that met certain standards. On the surface this looks very similar to traditional publishing, however, there is one key difference: resources are only limited by labor hours, not limited printing budget.

Currently a small publishing house only has enough resources to publish a limited number of books per year, even if they would like to publish more. This is limited by editor hours and printing costs. If the cost of “publishing” an e-book on a website costs nothing, there are less limits to how many books can be published a year. No longer will good books be denied because the publishing house has already published their maximum quota for the year.

This method filters out craptent and allows the legitimacy of real publishing. However, there is still a significant overhead (the website must be hosted and editors must be paid), so content would still have to be monetized somehow, via a subscription or some other method. In order to charge for content a website like this would have to offer a great variety of content, as well as great accessibility: each book would have to support multiple types of e-reader formats, at least until the e-publishing format is standardized, which will probably be awhile.

An indie company willing to live on peanuts could probably still do something like the paid content site, apply standards and all that, but still give content away for free. As long as the site has a reputation for only publishing quality work, eventually their word will add legitimacy to their selections.

Obviously, the biggest downsides to this method are cost, monetization, and the risk that the editors will become the same type of gatekeepers as traditional publishing, which is something that must be avoided. Because of these risks, this probably isn’t a feasible option.

Popularity Numbers

“The answer is another indeterminate, I’m afraid. Depends on the publisher, and on the online reception… Say you put it online and no one cared, and the publisher loved it but was freaked about CC. Show him that you’ve have all of 7 downloads, it’ll put his mind at ease.

OTOH, say it was a raging success — 50,000,000 downloads, talk of the town. You could probably parlay *that* into a publishing deal, on the strength of the demonstrated market for the work.

So: depends on the work, the publisher, and the reception.” -Cory Doctorow

When a record sells a million copies, it “goes platinum.” A million is pretty high, but along the same idea, perhaps a target number could be set for a self-published e-book that, when reached, established “legitimacy.” This isn’t a bad method, since it shows that the work is popular.

However, a system like this would be extremely difficult to track unless there was a standard site these downloads had to occur. For instance, my free books are offered on my blog, on scribd.com, and mentioned on a few other random free e-book websites around the web. Do I just add up the total of downloads and claim that number? What stops me from spoofing downloads myself? The difficulty of regulating (or “proving”) something like this makes it an unattractive option.

Financial Records

“A book that made a lot of money would absolutely get a lot of respect in the professional world.” – Cory Doctorow

Although authors probably don’t write for the money (most are barking up the wrong tree if they are), it’s nice to get paid for creative work. If a self-published e-book was popular enough to drum up some sales, financial records could be a way of legitimizing work. However, with a solid financial record, traditional print publishing is much easier to obtain, so I don’t know why an author with demonstrated e-book sales wouldn’t just jump into a traditional publishing contract. Still, for an author interesting in proving herself legitimate, actually selling books is a solid way to go.

The main difficulties, of course, stem from trying to sell an e-book that has no corresponding print version. You’d have to ask Scribd.com (or some other publishing site), but I’d imagine the majority of the monetized self-published stuff on that site doesn’t get touched.

Reviews

A self-published e-book could be legitimized through reviews in journals and on blogs. If a book gets enough voices talking about it and praising it, surely it becomes legitimate publishing. However, finding reviews for a self-published e-book has to be a very difficult task, almost as difficult as the traditional publishing model, which might make the whole thing moot. However, there are sympathetic bloggers out there who are willing to take chances and review self-published e-books, so although this method could be as awful as finding a traditional publisher, pounding the virtual pavement is still an option.

Critical Mass and Internet Notoriety

“Put another way: it’s hard to monetize fame, but it’s even harder to monetize obscurity.” – Cory Doctorow

This is probably the most attractive option, the most likely, and it combines aspects of most of the above options. Building a good standing on the internet is the same as building a good standing anywhere else. It takes work, a lasting presence, a reputation for quality content, and time. Sound familiar? It should. It’s almost the same damn thing as trying to get published through traditional publishing methods.

However, there is one (very critical) difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing on the internet, and that is the barrier to entry.

However, because the barrier to entry is lower, the barrier to “success” is higher. It might be easier to put something up on the internet, but once it’s up, getting people to pay attention is pretty tough. It means the same type of shopping around as traditional publishing. However, the feedback is faster, and that, if nothing else, is the best part about the net over those six-month snail-mail wait times.

On the negative side, a traditional “substantial publishing record” takes more time to get started, but is probably still worth more once it’s done.

Either way, I’d just like to see critical mass and internet notoriety as an acceptable option, as far as the ivory tower is concerned. Most of the time, it means enough for the rest of the world.

That’s all for this post. Join me tomorrow for the opinion of Levi Montgomery, an author who self-publishes his own work, both on the internet and through print-on-demand publishing. Same mispeled time, same mispeled channel.