Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Fight SOPA, Read a book


SOPA, PIPA, and any future attempts by corporations to limit free speech (grr) are being presented as a brave and heroic effort to protect creative people and their intellectual property from the greedy, unwashed masses.

Setting aside my knee-jerk cynicism  (briefly), they’re talking about me.

I’ve written a novel. (It needs some work.) But someday, I want to be a Real Author who can pay her rent with royalty checks.

But you know what? While that’s my dream, a country that limits free speech, the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances-- that right there is my nightmare.

I admire reddit and Wikipedia and all the 7,000 plus websites that are blacking out on January 18th to protest SOPA. However, I don’t have a large enough following to make a significant point by doing that.

I don’t have a following; I do have intellectual property.

(Boring explanation of the Big Sacrifice I am making commences: The way traditional publishing works, an author gets paid by selling the rights to their book. For a first time genre author with no following like me, the advance paid on this first right might be as much as $2,000.)

To protest SOPA and PIPA and the future attempts on free speech and cultural exchange I cynically expect, I’m going to use up my super precious shiny first publishing rights: I’m going to make my novel, Suncatcher, available for free on this website right here for 24 hours starting right now (I’d wait until midnight, but I’ve got little kids and they don’t let me stay up late anymore. /whine)

And, to lessen the pain of that sacrifice a little bit, it would be kind of you to pass this link on to others who might enjoy reading a book about a solar-powered airship community that runs on consensus and saves the world. (I swear I wrote it before Occupy Wall Street was a glimmer in AdBusters’ eye.)

It also has Quakers, ninjas, global plague, climate change and a happy ending. And the heroine is Muslim. Because I was really thinking about how to market it to the big six publishers when I wrote it. /dry sarcasm

Anyway, please forward this link even if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea.

I figure, if I’m losing $2,000, I’d at least like to gain 200 readers. :*)

Tl;dr: Fight SOPA! Free speech. (Have added the link back, after removing it.)
Love and catching the sun,
Alia

3 comments:

  1. 274 hits! Thank you so much to those who have read this far, and I hope that many of you read the story and most of you enjoy it.

    And, er, if you do... Could you leave a comment so I know about it? Thank you!

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  2. Should make a note that last night, after almost 48 hours of free book, I did remove the link to the free version. But as I say in the Thank You post above, there may be future opportunities to read Suncatcher... either in protest of other right-to-share infringements or as attempts by me to make some money from it. Will see what the future holds.

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  3. Yeah, the link is back. Decided audience was more important than control. :)

    ReplyDelete