How To Pay Writer Harlan Ellison

I can’t give a link to this directly. Explanation at end.

HARLAN ELLISON
– Saturday, January 23 2010 14:3:4

IMPORTANT !!!!!!!!! please read & REPOST HERE DAILY!!
I’ve been reading your posts since Thursday, and I know you mean well, but if you TRULY wish to do me any financial good, stop going to buy my books for hefty prices, in crap condition, on Amazon and elsewhere…

IF YOU CANNOT FIND THE TITLE YOU WANT IN A SIGNED MINT EDITION HERE AT THE ELLISON WEBDERLAND BOOKSTORE…WHICH MONEY COMES DIRECTLY TO ME AND SUSAN…

Then just go to E.READS!!! They have 33 of my books in handsome downloadable editions with a nifty Dillon cover! They are, in most cases, Preferred Texts. And I get a decent part of the minuscule price.

PLEASE!

Keep passing this on, or perhaps Rick can pull down the AOL banner, now long out of currency, and plug in the above.

Spreading ANY kind of word will be useful.

But this ongoing ignorance of how to PAY THE WRITER and not Google or Amazon or any other server doddering under the weight and onus of stealing from the primary creator…requires some shucking-off of the perpetual naivete and ignorance!

E.READS is my agent for books, after this board’s well-run (by Susan)booksearch as your first stop!

Whatever is convenient for you to do….but do stop wasting your money on my work as appropriated by smoothyguts entrepreneurs!

Quietly, I thank you.

Harlan Ellison

I sympathize with his desire, but his Internet presence is rather primitive. It’s all volunteer labor, as I understand it, so I can’t criticize. But others have pointed out on his message board (where the above is from, and which doesn’t link to individual posts at all), the lack of a direct transactional link at his site is an ongoing frustration to all the people — especially internationally — who want to Throw Money At Him.

Previously here:

Pay The Artist!

The Threshold

Every. Thing. Changes. Tomorrow.

The I.O.U. Button

I’d really like to know what frikkin world print publishing lives in.

Because I live in one in which most people cannot afford to buy everything they’d like to have.

Including books.

I don’t think there is a single real writer out there who cannot sympathize with a reader who wants to read a book but cannot afford it.

That’s what public libraries are for.

But my fellow writers who will never enter the Gates of Hell known as traditional publishing and those who free themselves from its parasitic grip, will most likely offer digital books that won’t be available to borrow in a public library.

Do you want to turn that reader temporarily short of disposable income into a thief?

There are some books, for whatever reason, a person feels he or she must have. It could be to distract them from their current woes by reading a work from a writer whose books they’ve bought in the past but can’t right now not afford. It could be a book with practical instructions to help escape a dire situation. It could be advice, motivation, whatever.

The point is, don’t create a pirate.

Remember the times you were behind in your bills, the time you wanted something, the time when life had its fingers around your neck and was squeezing hard and you could have used a break.

Forget a “Donate” button. That’s a pussy move. That says, “I’m a beggar.” Don’t do that.

Offer a “Buy” button.

But for god’s sake, also offer an “I.O.U.” button. One that allows a fan of yours — a potential lifelong reader — a chance at some dignity. Something that says, “Look, I understand how it can be. You need this now, but remember to pay me later when it’s better for you.”

Do that.

The bastards currently running things never will.

This is your way to not be like Them.

February 7, 2010 Update: Buy Now, Pay Later (Maybe With Your Allowance) This Is Big. I’d like to see them extend it to self-hosted WordPress blogs and others (if they can get it offered by WordPress.COM — my free host — that’d be magnificent!), so writers can immediately incorporate it. It’s brilliant. I’m not sure how the Scoring works, but if it could be worked out for purchasers to set the time limit, that’d be excellent. I noticed on their Publishers contact page they ask for the size of the audience. This is backwards. PayPal didn’t ask people for their number of friends when it began. And it spread like a contagion. I’d like to see Kwedit spread that way too. It’d take everything to the next level for writers — and, in fact, for everybody.

Apple Wednesday January 27, 2010 Preview

Not a timeline; an aggregation:

1) New version of iWork
– demonstrated on a conventional Mac
– later demonstrated on the iSlate/iPad
– then demonstrated on the iPhone
– digital book creation demonstrated — writers pay attention to this!

2) iSlate/iPad
– new UI demonstrated
– gaming demonstrations
– video demonstration
– eBook demonstration
– digital book demonstration — with a sample from Disney

3) iSlate/iPad dock
– with surprises

4) Apple Digital Book Store
– Children
– Young Adult
– Adult

5) New iWork.com
– collaboration features via iSlate/iPad

And one hell of a surprise.

Sales for the first year of iSlate/iPod will exceed sales of all models of Macintosh combined for that year, at least in the U.S..

Philip R. Cable: Make Movies That Make Money!

Make Movies That Make Money! — The Low-Budget Filmmaker’s Guide to Commercial Success by Philip R. Cable

The term “low-budget” can refer to anything from a $10 million indie flick to a student film produced on borrowed equipment with little or no money. Low budget filmmakers can range from seasoned auteurs attempting to shed the shackles of major studio control to novice talents trying to break into the industry.

Designed for would-be filmmakers of all experience levels, this book explains how to make a good, commercially successful, low-budget movie in the current multi-million dollar Hollywood climate. The purpose is not only to show how to get movies made and distributed, but also how to maximize a film’s potential for significant profit.

Written in practical, understandable terms, the book covers everything from commercially viable genres to the most efficient film and video formats, along with tips on hiring stars, pursuing investors, distributing and marketing a film, and keeping track of expenses.

Philip and I have spoken to one another now and again since the late 1970s.

The Internet Lets Us Learn From A Master

The Cute Way To Offend Delicate Sensibilities

Look how Goddamned weird this is.

What a post!

Genius master animator John Kricfalusi posts stills from a Bob Clampett Looney Tunes cartoon, pointing out nuances we civilians never would — and on top of it all, he’s also seeing things he never noticed before!

I don’t know if John K uses a Mac. I hope so. I sooooo want him to do a digital book as only he can. He’d blast publishing into somewhere else in one damned shot!

Previously here:

Respect The Artist!

Writer 3.0 For Book 3.0

Imagine’s “Transmedia Storytelling” Deal

“Studios gobbled up pre-branded properties like Asteroids and Battleship, but as an exec I would hear pitches from writers and see nobody coming with visuals, and there was nobody at the studio managing intellectual properties over all divisions,” Kadison said.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

I really hate the term “transmedia.” I hope we’re not stuck with that. I also hated “multimedia” too, by the way (and strange it was never applied to comic books first — or at all!). People think a new buzzterm is like a magic wand that can automagically create something.

Anyway.

In a prior blog I did a few posts about what I was calling “Writer 2.0.”

Well, the Axis of eCrap (formerly Axis of E) — eInk, ePub, eBook — is coming to its deserved end. And so is Writer 2.0.

In its place will be digital books. And Writer 3.0.

What Apple’s iSlate Means To Bloggers

For quite some time I’ve wanted offline and portable reference copies of my past two blogs: Mike Cane’s Blog and Mike Cane 2008.

There were two problems with this desire for either a printed or electronic copy:

1) WordPress exports a hinky XML file that chokes services that offer printing of blogs

2) How do I deal with a post such as this, with several embedded videos?

An electronic version in ePub? My god, what a lot of work for something that’d only wind up looking fugly, lack the videos, lack color in photos, and be verrrry slow for accessing on an eInk screen.

It was only tonight that it hit me that I’ll finally be able to have digital books of my blogs. Apple will make that possible with iWork. And iWork can embed video (cough, cough).

I’ll be able to easily access past posts offline as well as do all the real indexing I’ve always wanted to do for cross-referencing years of related posts. And I’d be able to read all of them comfortably, leisurely sprawled on a sofa or on my bed with an iSlate.

I couldn’t sell these due to rights issues. That was never the point. I’ve wanted these portable reference editions for myself.

But all of you who have blogs with material that only you own? You could sell digital book copies. An annual compilation of your posts.

Anyone who has a blog should begin to get very excited about what’s coming from Apple!

I Help OK Go Give Some Back

The OK Go Fracas

The truth is OK Go’s fighting for its career with its hands tied behind its back.

Piss off EMI.

And from the band itself:

Open Letter From OK Go, regarding non-embeddable YouTube videos

When push comes to shove, however, we like our fans more, which is why you can take the code at the bottom of this email and embed the “This Too Shall Pass” video all over the Internet.

This is 2010. We must all give some back.

Apple: Kill My Blog, Please!

I never intended this blog to be a just about every day thing.

But I got fed up with the crap I saw circulating about books, publishing, eBooks, etc.

And I had to go open my big mouth.

Because there was no one else countering any of it.

Especially after I woke up from the eInk nightmare that had been pimped by others.

Next week, Apple unveils its seekrit creation. Which, despite recent trademark filings, I still expect to be called the iSlate. Because, as I posted, iPad has ownership conflicts.

Anyway, I expect four things from Apple:

1) The iSlate — I still expect one with a seven-inch, not ten-inch, screen. But any damned size would do at this point.

2) Apple announcing digital books for it. (Hello, Disney?)

3) Digital books given a real marketplace — not just lumped together with free games and eejitastic fart apps as they have been in the App Store.

4) A new version of iWork — with digital book creation ability for all.

Do that, Apple, and this blog is dead.

You will be settling the crap I’ve had to argue about for months now. I’ll have nothing more I will have to say.

I’ll be able to shut this blog and I get back to reading books (Derek Raymond is waiting!) and my own damned writing.

If Apple does what I expect, this blog is d-e-d on January 31st.

Some people out there will rejoice. But they were morons to begin with and will remain so after I’m gone.