The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 17:05:01 JST

[Wow! I had forgotten that I wrote this up and publicized it back in 1993. And now we have the Storyteller's Bowl, various people put whole books up on the web, the Baen Free Library, hah!]

(Please feel free to distribute this.)

I have a dream about writing that I'd like to share with you, in the hope that you will share it with others. Who knows - maybe we can make my dream a reality. Here's the dream - anyone have any ideas about how to promote it? Comments?

A BOOK WITHOUT AN AUDIENCE

You've written your book. Publishers and agents look at it, and comment "well-written, but the audience is too small." What's next?

In the past, writers have given up their dream or turned to the vanity press. Either way, they have paid for a book which the publishers thought just didn't have a wide enough appeal.

However, there is an alternative. Very simply, if you have written your book on a computer (as most writers do now), you can try sharewrite.

THE SHAREWRITE ANSWER

What is sharewrite? This is my name for an approach to self-publication, using the personal computer. It is similar to the "shareware" approach used to distribute much software. Let me explain.

To publish using sharewrite, as with normal publishing, the first step is to write your book. Write it, and polish it, as well as you can.

Next, you take a part of your book (the first chapter, or some other piece that you think will show off your writing to its best advantage) and put it on the many bulletin board systems (BBS) and networks. If you let them copy it, they will happily make copies of part of your book available to readers around the world. All you have to do is provide them with a piece, carefully marked to allow distribution, and they take care of spreading your writing everywhere.

(If you're not sure how to do this, most computer groups have people who will be glad to help.)

What should your distribution notice say? Although I'm not a lawyer, I think it needs to include the following parts.

First, it should say you retain all rights (thus protecting your copyright), but you are giving unlimited permission to copy and distribute this section. Then it should include directions for how to contact you (both electronically and by regular mail), payment methods, and what you will provide in return (disk or printed copy). If you want to, include a "cutoff date" after which the offer is no longer valid - otherwise people may be trying to get a copy for the same price even after you've become a famous writer. You should also think about prices for mailing outside America - we may want your book.

Pick the best part of your book, and end with a cliff-hanger if you can. Think of the "teasers" on television, or the book extracts in magazines, and make sure your "advertisement" makes people want to read the rest of the book. Add the notice. Then post it on your local BBS and networks. Now wait.

What happens then? Readers everywhere look at this sample of your book, and read the notice telling them how to order the rest of the book if they like it. If you did your job well, some of them will contact you.

When a reader contacts you and pays for it, you provide a copy of the book. I think you will want to provide disk copies, although you should also investigate how much providing paper copies will cost. In the near future, you may also want to consider providing email copies.

SELLING DISK COPIES

For a disk copy, a book fits easily on one current high-density disk. Using the widely available compression programs (pkzip and pkunzip are shareware that most computer groups can easily provide), you can fit a longer book on the same media, or possibly use lower-density disks. You can adjust the price if you need to use more than one disk, of course.

Can it work? Suppose disks cost one dollar each. Shipping and a mailer may cost two dollars. That means a five dollar price gives the author at least two dollars profit per disk. Not much? If you think there are one thousand readers waiting for your book, that's two thousand dollars.

Do you have that much faith in your writing? After all, all you have to do is write the book, extract one part and distribute it to your local BBS and network systems, then make copies and mail them whenever your readers ask for another copy.

When you sell a disk, you should include a similar notice to the one on the display piece, indicating that this is one copy for use by one person, but that you retain all rights. With that kind of notice, I think you'll still be able to sell your work again and again, and have legal protection against further copying or use.

Incidentally, I don't think sharewrite requires a novel or other book-length piece to make sense. For example, you might want to publish a disk of your poems, short stories, or essays. Just make sure that the "display piece" you put on the BBS and networks isn't all that you have for the disk, and tell your readers what else they'll get on the disk. In other words, make it a fair deal, with the reader getting enough added material to be satisfied that they received good value when they bought the disk. Remember, you want the reader to come back for your next disk, too.

SELLING PAPER COPIES

As for paper copies, if you print your book on a laser printer, check how much each page costs (paper plus toner). You should also check the prices in the copy centers that most cities now have. You might also check with a local printer, saying you will provide camera-ready copy.

With most laser printers, you can easily print two pages per sheet. Admittedly, it isn't the nicely bound book that a printer might provide, but even a loose manuscript is better than no book at all.

(Some copy centers or other services can provide inexpensive binding similar to that in a paperback - again, check local prices)

The cost of a paper copy, along with the more expensive mailing costs, may mean you need to charge more per copy to make a profit. However, with the price of paperbacks rising quickly, you may still be competitive - and you can easily compete with hardcover prices.

With short pieces (poems or short stories), of course, you might want to provide relatively inexpensive paper copies or provide several pieces as a package. If you've submitted pieces to magazines, you have a pretty good idea of what postage, envelopes, and copying costs are. Add what you want to get for profit from each of your readers, and use that price in your "display piece." You may be surprised at how many people will want to pay to read your writing when you ask them directly, using the sharewrite approach.

WHY YOU SHOULD SUPPORT SHAREWRITE

Why do I think the sharewrite system is important? Very simply, like the software, shareware, freeware system that has developed for programs, I think writing needs to escape the economic constraints of the printing press. That means we need normal printed copies (for books selling large amounts), but we also need sharewrite for books that don't seem to have the necessary large audience to justify normal printing. Whether you have one reader or mere thousands, sharewrite lets you reach them.

If we can establish the sharewrite approach, in time there might be many books available at the low prices that this approach makes possible. There might be sharewrite associations and "publishers" who never owned a printing press - they simply used the sharewrite approach and provided bookkeeping, editing, and copying support for authors who are willing to split the ongoing profits. There might even come a time when authors would routinely build their writing audience first through sharewrite, then take a proven audience list to their first visit with a publisher (if they're willing to split their profit!). I think most publishers might think twice now if you came in saying you had issued your book as sharewrite and sold 1,000 copies the first month and were considering selling the publication rights...

I'd especially like to see the usenet netnews add an alt.sharewrite newsgroup, with chapters from many writers being distributed around the world every day. That way I'd have easier access to the books I want to read, and have to spend less time in bookstores deciding if a new author is worth trying. Read a chapter first, then pop a check in the mail if I really liked what I saw. After a while, the mail would bring a copy of the book for me to read.

A dream? Maybe, but I don't see anything stopping it, once writers begin to realize that they can easily self-publish, at minimal cost and competitive prices, using the sharewrite approach.

THE DREAM

The real question is whether you believe there are enough readers out there willing to buy your book. Depending on you, selling one copy may be enough profit - and there is no reason not to sell that one copy using sharewrite, if that's your dream.

mike