Actually, the price of zero is an illusion. When you price it zero, you are not really asking zero return. You are merely shifting the necessary price to elsewhere.

And if you can price it above zero and above the costs, that’s the most efficient way as you don’t need to create another product or service. It also means that there can be more content creators, as there are more creators who have only one skill rather than two or more (to create an extra product or service.

I have posts about this free issue.
http://www.slowblogger.com/search/label/free

For a non-individual author example think of the payment issue surrounding the Battlestar Galactica webisodes that were posted on Scifi.com. Part of the content provider’s position was that the webisodes were only promo and free content for the consumer so the content provider didn’t need to provide a revenue stream to the writers.

Still mulling, but now my mind is heading down another tangent.

AQ

I think if I were published with Tor or Avon or some other huge publisher, I’d be less likely to give them promotional material for free; it’d feel like giving a Toys-for-Tots sort of donation to Bill Gates’s kids. [wry smile] With the small presses, though, it’s understood going in that the writer needs to participate more fully in promotion for their fiction than they would with a NY press. Sure, I could’ve posted those stories on my own web site right off, but my publisher’s site gets more hits than I do, by a few orders of magnitude, so there’s a direct benefit to me in having them there rather than only posting them myself. Of course, doing both is best. :)

I do plan to post some free stories on my own eventually, as many writers with web sites do. (And Scalzi’s tip jar idea is definitely worth thinking about.) But if I can post them somewhere else too, so even more people can read them and become familiar with my work, then that’s a bonus.

Which isn’t to say every writer is going to feel the same, nor should they. And I agree with you that if it became a tacit requirement, or any kind of requirement, that’d be unacceptable. I can’t imagine every publisher being that dumb, though, and any publisher who did would, I think (I hope!) quickly find their writers abandoning them for more reasonable companies.

Angie

the _strong_ bond that forms between readers and our favorite authors. if your fans would let you starve, you’re no good.

Bowerbird, I can’t agree with this. There are too many variables in such a scenario which have nothing to do with whether or not an author or their work is ‘good.’ I’d be willing to argue the point but I fear that it would drift too far from Jane’s post.

Angie, appreciate the comments. My mind is still mulling the issue and the long-term implications of content creators giving content providers content for free even in the scenario you outlined. I have no problem whatsoever with content creators or content providers giving consumers free content. It’s the creator to provider exchange that I’m unsure of. I really need more data so I hope more authors will step forward with info because I’m worried that voluntary becomes a tacit requirement and then a de facto expected exchange. Again I’m still mulling.

Jane, my bad. I was using a browser that I’d forgotten doesn’t play nice with your widgets. My bad. And user error on the linking.

Commenting on Scalzi’s POV, I have some vague plans for an anthology of my SF/Fantasy/Paranormal m/m fiction some day, and if this ever comes about I’ll certainly include these promotional stories in it. I’d love to make money on them eventually. I wrote them for publicity, though, and I consider that to be valuable too. As Cory Doctorow says, a writer’s number one problem isn’t piracy — it’s obscurity. At this point in my career I’m pretty darned obscure, and if giving away a few free shorts can help fix that, I’m all for it.

I think there’d be a problem if a publisher were trying to force or pressure writers into participating in a fiction give-away for which they’re not being compensated. If there were a contract clause about participating in the next free stuff promotion, or if there were veiled hints that one’s future publication might depend upon one’s being a team player, or anything similar — I’d have a major problem with that and wouldn’t touch such a publisher with a stick. So long as everyone knows what they’re getting into, though, and there are no stated or implied penalties for declining to participate (both of which are true for my publisher) then I don’t see it as a problem.

Angie

Does free for the reader in this case mean unpaid for the author? (I’m interested in actual payment here rather than soft/indirect benefits for data purposes rather than argument’s sake. Not real numbers. Just an indication of the exchange between content creator and content provider.)

For an insightful article on that aspect of the argument, read John Scalzi’s post.

Whatever post

http://tinyurl.com/dy3245

or

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/08/25/on-writing-for-free/

Any authors who have created free stories that have been made available via a publisher site want to comment on their experience.

Sorry the link kept getting stripped so I manually added it. Jane, not sure I like these newest widgets but it might just be me so I’ll see if I need to upgrade my browser.