Aleksandr Voinov's Blog: Letters from the Front, page 20
August 18, 2012
Skybound: Happy release day to me
Last night, Skybound was release. Well pre-released, really, so it'll show up on Amazon, but right now it can be bought at Riptide.
Whew, what a little book. Stylistically, it's different. There are so many ways this is different. It's first person. It's present tense. It's very short (though not as short as Burn or Deliverance). It's a pure-play historical, it has barely any sex. It's the first time I'm touching Nazi Germany as a setting. For every page of the final story, I must have put in at least one hour of research.
Anyway, it's out now, and I'm off to Cambridge to attend a wedding reception, and back on Sunday, when my blog tour starts. I hope you'll enjoy the story, and stay tuned for more news, soon. :)
Whew, what a little book. Stylistically, it's different. There are so many ways this is different. It's first person. It's present tense. It's very short (though not as short as Burn or Deliverance). It's a pure-play historical, it has barely any sex. It's the first time I'm touching Nazi Germany as a setting. For every page of the final story, I must have put in at least one hour of research.
Anyway, it's out now, and I'm off to Cambridge to attend a wedding reception, and back on Sunday, when my blog tour starts. I hope you'll enjoy the story, and stay tuned for more news, soon. :)
August 16, 2012
Mastering Rage, part #56856423
One of the things that people tend to notice about me (if they know me for more than a few hours), is that I have "anger issues". Not anger issues like one of my best friends back in Germany, who, in fourth grade or so, upon being teased, put another kid in hospital (and he went to therapy for it). Still, he had a flaring temper, and whenever he'd encounter frustration or even evil, it visibly boiled under the surface. He was a guy you'd want on your side in a battle in any case. Maybe that was why we got along so well.
I'm now 37 years old, and I'm calling my anger the "crusader moment/response", when I'm so deeply affronted by something that my response--after a shock moment, is rage. There are two kinds of people, I've heard a fighting teacher say, when they get hit, one freezes, the other freaks out and goes medieval.
I'm the medieval type. For much of my childhood and teenage years, I was the bullied outsider. I was the gentle giant who would, after enough drops of anger had accumulated, spill it all in one glorious berserk rage, sometimes resulting in (mental or physical or both) damage to people and property. When I'm in real danger, I go cold. When I encounter violence, I stand and fight. It's even worse when my friends are threatened.
I've done some looking into this anger thing, reading some books and listening to people and attempting to come to terms. I like my rage. It's hyper-real, chest-pounding, high-energy. I get really snappy and sometimes even funny when I'm angry. It's good to never really feel physically threatened, because if something or somebody attacks me, I know that I have fight in me. It's the whole "I might go down, but I'm taking you with me" approach to conflict. Losses, pain, blood--don't matter. My mind is on destruction then. And it's fun, which is the worst part.
I believe the formative causes of my rage are two-fold. I was bullied. That gives you a lot of rage you can draw on. I also learned that, first hand, being the "gentle giant" doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that if I had fought back against the bullies (yes, actually punching them in the face), my school years would have been less traumatic, and I'd spent less time thinking about killing myself.
Another factor is genetic. My biological father had rage issues. He was also a drunk, a mean alcoholic, a wife-beater and a marital rapist. Part might be me, absorbing his rage as a toddler, part might be his genetic input. I often say that I have inherited that rage from my father along with the blue eyes and the shape of my nose. I mean, we're talking about a guy who threatened a cancer patient with a rifle.
Reading about anger and emotions, I encountered the concept that anger happens when our values are threatened.I'm finding that concept actually really quite useful; it explains why I can go berserk for a friend who's threatened or has been harmed, and why I still want to punch some bigots and transphobes in the face. It's not my anger, it's my sense of loyalty, friendship and equality--just fighting back. Anger, then, is less of a dark, destructive force that provides a hit like cocaine, it's my value system's self-defense. An immune system reaction to somebody stepping on my innermost beliefs. It explains why I struggle forgiving former friends who wronged me--friendship is one of my absolute core values, along with loyalty. But it's also internal--anger is my response, and I can choose it.
As an example. You guys might know that I've recently attempted to get some garden/landscaper people in to sort out my garden. After discarding a pretty dodgy first provider, the second looked all right, so we started talking about doing fencing work and laying a patio. Then, however, those people say they need to cut the overgrowth before they even start laying the patio. The "overgrowth" in question was 2-3 months' worth of brambles, ivy and bushes. To do the job, those people attempted to charge nearly three thousand dollars (which includes tax). At which point I took a pair of clippers, gloves, and did it myself in a lazy afternoon.
The thing was, that $3k quote really burned me. It came up suddenly, without warning, and put the whole garden revamp into a price category where it might be financially more reasonable to make a down payment for a rental property. The quote was getting that expensive. There were so many reasons why this made me angry, but I think it really affronted several of my values: how I believe a business should be run (fairly), how I believe customers should be treated (with transparency), what I think a provider/customer relationship should be like (you do a good job at a fair price, and you're getting my repeat business and I'll recommend you).
My Inner Bull raged, I was so angry. Did the guy think I was made of money? How can two untrained gardeners, even if they have to work for two days cutting back some brambles and three bushes, ask for more money than I'm taking home in pay in a month, after having graduated and having accumulated nearly a decade of experience? Did this guy think I'm dumb? Did he actually believe I'll hand over a wad of cash for three hours' work? Why would he jeopardize the much larger, much more expensive job over cutting back three bushes?
The anger was building up. I had some choice words for him. It got to the point where I wouldn't have hired them to do anything, even if they had been the owners of the only pair of secateurs left on the planet.
But then I thought about it, analysed it. Dissected my anger and my responses. (I know, this shit is really obvious to better-adjusted people who learnt sooner to understand and harness their anger; hey, I'm a late bloomer.) He called again and lowered the quote by 50%, then told me he'd match any quote I got from a competitor. Too little, too late, but I still didn't shout at him, merely listened to that proposal. I may have sardonically smirked to myself.
Same day, I got a different landscping firm in, they promised me a quote by Friday.
Next day, I called the first guy and told him the deal was off. By then, I'd realised that, while I could make him miserable and angry if I let loose at him, there was really no point. Losing several thousand pounds in profits will do that job quite nicely. So I thanked him for his time, cancelled the whole deal, apologized profusely for the cancellation (I did tell him that I'm not questioning his prices--they were merely "out of budget" for us at that stage), and let him move on with life.
Knowing which of my values were hit, much like musical bones, I'm also aware that I can't change the way he does business. If his values are elastic enough to rip people off, and if he finds fools willing to pay ten times what a job is worth, then more power to him. My choice is to find somebody whose values are closer aligned to my own. There's no need for rage. I'll keep in in the box, along with other survival mechanisms, for far more dire events than a dishonest landscaper.
I can't guarantee he won't make it into a story, though.
I'm now 37 years old, and I'm calling my anger the "crusader moment/response", when I'm so deeply affronted by something that my response--after a shock moment, is rage. There are two kinds of people, I've heard a fighting teacher say, when they get hit, one freezes, the other freaks out and goes medieval.
I'm the medieval type. For much of my childhood and teenage years, I was the bullied outsider. I was the gentle giant who would, after enough drops of anger had accumulated, spill it all in one glorious berserk rage, sometimes resulting in (mental or physical or both) damage to people and property. When I'm in real danger, I go cold. When I encounter violence, I stand and fight. It's even worse when my friends are threatened.
I've done some looking into this anger thing, reading some books and listening to people and attempting to come to terms. I like my rage. It's hyper-real, chest-pounding, high-energy. I get really snappy and sometimes even funny when I'm angry. It's good to never really feel physically threatened, because if something or somebody attacks me, I know that I have fight in me. It's the whole "I might go down, but I'm taking you with me" approach to conflict. Losses, pain, blood--don't matter. My mind is on destruction then. And it's fun, which is the worst part.
I believe the formative causes of my rage are two-fold. I was bullied. That gives you a lot of rage you can draw on. I also learned that, first hand, being the "gentle giant" doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that if I had fought back against the bullies (yes, actually punching them in the face), my school years would have been less traumatic, and I'd spent less time thinking about killing myself.
Another factor is genetic. My biological father had rage issues. He was also a drunk, a mean alcoholic, a wife-beater and a marital rapist. Part might be me, absorbing his rage as a toddler, part might be his genetic input. I often say that I have inherited that rage from my father along with the blue eyes and the shape of my nose. I mean, we're talking about a guy who threatened a cancer patient with a rifle.
Reading about anger and emotions, I encountered the concept that anger happens when our values are threatened.I'm finding that concept actually really quite useful; it explains why I can go berserk for a friend who's threatened or has been harmed, and why I still want to punch some bigots and transphobes in the face. It's not my anger, it's my sense of loyalty, friendship and equality--just fighting back. Anger, then, is less of a dark, destructive force that provides a hit like cocaine, it's my value system's self-defense. An immune system reaction to somebody stepping on my innermost beliefs. It explains why I struggle forgiving former friends who wronged me--friendship is one of my absolute core values, along with loyalty. But it's also internal--anger is my response, and I can choose it.
As an example. You guys might know that I've recently attempted to get some garden/landscaper people in to sort out my garden. After discarding a pretty dodgy first provider, the second looked all right, so we started talking about doing fencing work and laying a patio. Then, however, those people say they need to cut the overgrowth before they even start laying the patio. The "overgrowth" in question was 2-3 months' worth of brambles, ivy and bushes. To do the job, those people attempted to charge nearly three thousand dollars (which includes tax). At which point I took a pair of clippers, gloves, and did it myself in a lazy afternoon.
The thing was, that $3k quote really burned me. It came up suddenly, without warning, and put the whole garden revamp into a price category where it might be financially more reasonable to make a down payment for a rental property. The quote was getting that expensive. There were so many reasons why this made me angry, but I think it really affronted several of my values: how I believe a business should be run (fairly), how I believe customers should be treated (with transparency), what I think a provider/customer relationship should be like (you do a good job at a fair price, and you're getting my repeat business and I'll recommend you).
My Inner Bull raged, I was so angry. Did the guy think I was made of money? How can two untrained gardeners, even if they have to work for two days cutting back some brambles and three bushes, ask for more money than I'm taking home in pay in a month, after having graduated and having accumulated nearly a decade of experience? Did this guy think I'm dumb? Did he actually believe I'll hand over a wad of cash for three hours' work? Why would he jeopardize the much larger, much more expensive job over cutting back three bushes?
The anger was building up. I had some choice words for him. It got to the point where I wouldn't have hired them to do anything, even if they had been the owners of the only pair of secateurs left on the planet.
But then I thought about it, analysed it. Dissected my anger and my responses. (I know, this shit is really obvious to better-adjusted people who learnt sooner to understand and harness their anger; hey, I'm a late bloomer.) He called again and lowered the quote by 50%, then told me he'd match any quote I got from a competitor. Too little, too late, but I still didn't shout at him, merely listened to that proposal. I may have sardonically smirked to myself.
Same day, I got a different landscping firm in, they promised me a quote by Friday.
Next day, I called the first guy and told him the deal was off. By then, I'd realised that, while I could make him miserable and angry if I let loose at him, there was really no point. Losing several thousand pounds in profits will do that job quite nicely. So I thanked him for his time, cancelled the whole deal, apologized profusely for the cancellation (I did tell him that I'm not questioning his prices--they were merely "out of budget" for us at that stage), and let him move on with life.
Knowing which of my values were hit, much like musical bones, I'm also aware that I can't change the way he does business. If his values are elastic enough to rip people off, and if he finds fools willing to pay ten times what a job is worth, then more power to him. My choice is to find somebody whose values are closer aligned to my own. There's no need for rage. I'll keep in in the box, along with other survival mechanisms, for far more dire events than a dishonest landscaper.
I can't guarantee he won't make it into a story, though.
August 15, 2012
Skybound Tour Dates
I now have my official Skybound tour dates: 19-24 August, finishing up with a last stop on my own blog (that's
here
). Compared to Incursion, it's going to be a little shorter, mostly because it's a short story and there's really only so much I can talk about with 13k. Doing ten stops on three blog posts isn't really feasible.
(That, BTW, is another great reason to write novels - much, MUCH more to talk about.)
(That, BTW, is another great reason to write novels - much, MUCH more to talk about.)
August 14, 2012
Donations for trans* charity wanted
Today's a plug for a friend and a cause that's really close to my heart. Indie author Brenda Cothern is asking for donations for a fundraiser benefiting a charity looking after trans*/gender-variant people.
Here's her message:
Here's her message:
Hello everyone,
I am a volunteer with the Tampa Bay House of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Order, they are an international non-profit organization who does outreach (provides condoms, lube, dental damns,), educates the community, and raises funds for other non-profits to support the gay community.
As a Novice Sister, I will be hosting a fundraiser to become a Fully Professed Member of the Order and have picked Trans*Action Florida to be my beneficiary. Trans*Action is a non-profit group who strives "To create positive change in how transgender and gender variant persons are treated." Their purpose is "to advocate for social change, to educate and create awareness, [and] to provide referrals to community resources." They are also a 501c3 non-profit organization.
I am currently seeking donations to give as gift prizes for several raffles that will happen during my fundraiser. Aleks has already generously sent me a paperback signed copy of Dark Soul (Thank You!!) and I was wondering if anyone else would like to help out this great cause. Paper Books, e-Books, T-Shirts, gift certificates or anything else you think would make a great prize and would be willing to donate would be much appreciated.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly at bcothernbooks@gmail.com.
August 13, 2012
Incursion's technology: It's real
I like to take credit when I deserve it, but I diod not make up some of the technology in Incursion. Kyle's prosthetics, "cheap" in his world and time (and pretty low tech by his standards) already exist, though they are buy no means cheap or common or even something for the mass market. also, obviously, his are slightly more advanced, as they don't need crutches.
So, have a read of this Guardian article and click the links. It's interesting stuff.
So, have a read of this Guardian article and click the links. It's interesting stuff.
August 10, 2012
August 7, 2012
The unexpected novella
I've recently had the urge to write about Nikolai Krasnorada, Vadim's son. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you're not a Special Forces reader, but I hope the story will make sense to you anyway.
For those who do know what I'm talking about, rejoice, there's more Vadim coming your way. Despite the Noble Romance drama (no word yet from the new CEO of the company), I've been patiently tapping away, adding more words to words, and generally been chiselling away (though productivity was low and some weeks, absolutely nothing happened). I sometimes feel like a penguin who scoures the icy wasteland for stones to build a nest.
Well, this one's nearly done. The working title is kind of silly, but I'm calling the story Gold Digger (which is really a joke wrapped in a pun that may not work for anybody but me). Nikolai's probably the sanest of the Krasnoradas, and he gets to hang out with his father, sort out his family/father/commitment issues, and I'm hoping to leave him with a solid, hopeful Happy For Now/Happily Ever After ending. It's a gentle contemporary romance around the theme of family (and how our blood relations mess us up and how they can heal us), and some is unabashed fan service.
I was expecting this to hit around 15-20k when I started it, but obviously I was wrong again. It won't be a novel, but a chunky novella, and if Riptide is interested in it, they can have it. The big challenge is to get it into a shape where even non-SF readers understand the characters. And, obviously, please my hyper-critical editor/s.
I'm also working on the Country Mouse sequel with Amy, which might be done by end of the month, and after that, I'm digging right back into WWII. I have two really good novels set in the period and I can't wait to get backwards in history after doing two contemporaries. I expect to spend the autumn/winter doing those two and a historical urban fantasy book I'm wrestling with (doing some outlining and brainstorming there).
For those who do know what I'm talking about, rejoice, there's more Vadim coming your way. Despite the Noble Romance drama (no word yet from the new CEO of the company), I've been patiently tapping away, adding more words to words, and generally been chiselling away (though productivity was low and some weeks, absolutely nothing happened). I sometimes feel like a penguin who scoures the icy wasteland for stones to build a nest.
Well, this one's nearly done. The working title is kind of silly, but I'm calling the story Gold Digger (which is really a joke wrapped in a pun that may not work for anybody but me). Nikolai's probably the sanest of the Krasnoradas, and he gets to hang out with his father, sort out his family/father/commitment issues, and I'm hoping to leave him with a solid, hopeful Happy For Now/Happily Ever After ending. It's a gentle contemporary romance around the theme of family (and how our blood relations mess us up and how they can heal us), and some is unabashed fan service.
I was expecting this to hit around 15-20k when I started it, but obviously I was wrong again. It won't be a novel, but a chunky novella, and if Riptide is interested in it, they can have it. The big challenge is to get it into a shape where even non-SF readers understand the characters. And, obviously, please my hyper-critical editor/s.
I'm also working on the Country Mouse sequel with Amy, which might be done by end of the month, and after that, I'm digging right back into WWII. I have two really good novels set in the period and I can't wait to get backwards in history after doing two contemporaries. I expect to spend the autumn/winter doing those two and a historical urban fantasy book I'm wrestling with (doing some outlining and brainstorming there).
July 27, 2012
Publication & backlist news roundup
I have a pile of news. My next story, Skybound, has a blurb and an excerpt up on its Riptide page. And it's up on its Goodreads page here. After going through something like 7 betas/author-peers, 2 edits, 3 proofers, and working through 15 versions of that text, I'm exhausted and happy as if I'd built a house with my own hands. And people thought writing short stories was easy!
Also, there seems a sudden increased interest in Scorpion, which I always thought was a bit of a commercial failure. Sales numbers of that are pretty sad, so I was quite pleasantly surprised when there was a noticeable uptick in sales and reviews in the last quarter. And people seem to like it. Since it's the little book that I wrote despite a great load of shit going down, I'm pleased as pie.
As of last month, Risky Maneuvers, written with Barbara Sheridan and published by Loose Id has reverted to us. That's why the page on my website is down. Barbara and I feel that we want to re-imagine the story, possibly as a series, and re-do the whole thing.
That's the thing about growing as an author--I'm continuously dissatisfied with my backlist. To quote one of my own stories, the weakest shall be slain. So I've cast a long, flinty-eyed look at some old releases and revoked publication on Blood Run Cold and Test of Faith, both of which would need serious reworking, and I'm not sure I can recast my part of the vision. Things are even more complex when you've lost touch with the co-writer.
Generally, I'm committed to work at the top of my game every single time, and there comes a time when my backlist does not reflect that. I know that that might seem a little bit weird, but I'm from print. I'm actually glad that at my first four print books are now out of print (and will not see a life e-publishing). I'm a much better writer now, and I don't want to have flawed work out there. So, being able to pull work that no longer reflects me has replaced the "went out of print" as a saving grace. I most definitely do not want to charge for that work. I don't want money for a flawed job. So, those books will vanish from my website.
In terms of my backlist, there are more news.
As you guys know, I've published my first stories in 2009 at Noble Romance Publishing. Since then, my vision for my work diverted so significantly from Noble Romance's and the CEO/owner Jill Noble, that I have not published with them again. Essentially, Noble Romance is a heterosexual romance publisher with no love for m/m or gay writing.
After the owner stated in public on that "m/m isn't her thing either", but that it "sells more copies than heterosexual romance", I didn't feel valued as a writer of my niche, either. Which is fine--any publisher has the right to publish what they fancy, so this is not a slamming of Noble Romance or Jill Noble for implied homophobia. My work was simply not a good fit for the company. I wouldn't try to sell a children's book to a porn publisher or vice versa, either.
I'm quite curious what the editorial policy will be at Noble Romance now, as Jill Noble announced she'd left the company with immediate effect. Like many other authors, I was pretty shocked and quite possibly a bit angry--her departure means that royalties will be paid a month late, and some of my friends who publish at Noble actually depend on the money being paid when it's promised.
There were more news, showing that Jill left the actual owner of the company in a bit of a lurch, but at least we heard from a representative of the company, who may or may not have been speaking on behalf of the owner, fairly promptly. Not on the same day, but at least late on the next day. Calls and emails are, so far, unanswered. Teddy Pig has a perspective on the whole thing, with interesting comments from Noble authors.
In any case, I've opened up negotiations with the company owner to re-acquire the rights to my stories (the contracts run out in 2016) so I can move forward on those in a more positive way and an environment that is more supportive of gay and m/m writing and LGTBQ writers. Simply looking for a better fit. In the meantime, I'm taking the covers and links to those stories down.
Also, there seems a sudden increased interest in Scorpion, which I always thought was a bit of a commercial failure. Sales numbers of that are pretty sad, so I was quite pleasantly surprised when there was a noticeable uptick in sales and reviews in the last quarter. And people seem to like it. Since it's the little book that I wrote despite a great load of shit going down, I'm pleased as pie.
As of last month, Risky Maneuvers, written with Barbara Sheridan and published by Loose Id has reverted to us. That's why the page on my website is down. Barbara and I feel that we want to re-imagine the story, possibly as a series, and re-do the whole thing.
That's the thing about growing as an author--I'm continuously dissatisfied with my backlist. To quote one of my own stories, the weakest shall be slain. So I've cast a long, flinty-eyed look at some old releases and revoked publication on Blood Run Cold and Test of Faith, both of which would need serious reworking, and I'm not sure I can recast my part of the vision. Things are even more complex when you've lost touch with the co-writer.
Generally, I'm committed to work at the top of my game every single time, and there comes a time when my backlist does not reflect that. I know that that might seem a little bit weird, but I'm from print. I'm actually glad that at my first four print books are now out of print (and will not see a life e-publishing). I'm a much better writer now, and I don't want to have flawed work out there. So, being able to pull work that no longer reflects me has replaced the "went out of print" as a saving grace. I most definitely do not want to charge for that work. I don't want money for a flawed job. So, those books will vanish from my website.
In terms of my backlist, there are more news.
As you guys know, I've published my first stories in 2009 at Noble Romance Publishing. Since then, my vision for my work diverted so significantly from Noble Romance's and the CEO/owner Jill Noble, that I have not published with them again. Essentially, Noble Romance is a heterosexual romance publisher with no love for m/m or gay writing.
After the owner stated in public on that "m/m isn't her thing either", but that it "sells more copies than heterosexual romance", I didn't feel valued as a writer of my niche, either. Which is fine--any publisher has the right to publish what they fancy, so this is not a slamming of Noble Romance or Jill Noble for implied homophobia. My work was simply not a good fit for the company. I wouldn't try to sell a children's book to a porn publisher or vice versa, either.
I'm quite curious what the editorial policy will be at Noble Romance now, as Jill Noble announced she'd left the company with immediate effect. Like many other authors, I was pretty shocked and quite possibly a bit angry--her departure means that royalties will be paid a month late, and some of my friends who publish at Noble actually depend on the money being paid when it's promised.
There were more news, showing that Jill left the actual owner of the company in a bit of a lurch, but at least we heard from a representative of the company, who may or may not have been speaking on behalf of the owner, fairly promptly. Not on the same day, but at least late on the next day. Calls and emails are, so far, unanswered. Teddy Pig has a perspective on the whole thing, with interesting comments from Noble authors.
In any case, I've opened up negotiations with the company owner to re-acquire the rights to my stories (the contracts run out in 2016) so I can move forward on those in a more positive way and an environment that is more supportive of gay and m/m writing and LGTBQ writers. Simply looking for a better fit. In the meantime, I'm taking the covers and links to those stories down.
July 22, 2012
The killing blow for "hottie of the week" blogs
Copyright is serious business. It is. Authors want to get paid for their work. We waste many perfectly good writing hours sending DMCA takedowns to sites that pirate our work. Every author in our genre is passionate about piracy (leading to some meltdowns and some diatribes and some indignant rants, some of which I've written).
And I believe firmly we're in the right if we reserve the right to decide *which* story we charge for. I've given away years of work for free in Special Forces, so people who only want "free" can have those one million words. I believe it's an attitude that's largely consensus in our industry. We want to get paid. Some of us rely on royalty cheques for groceries, utilities or making car/house payments. So, many of us *need* to get paid.
A while ago (= years), I came across the freshly-relaunched website of an erotic romance writer. The first thing I saw was that the blog was peppered with, among others, images by Luis Royo - who, you can see on his official page (do go!), is pretty sexy and pretty awesome. She must have had like 30-40 images on there. And her newest blog post was a vicious rant on piracy - surrounded by all the stolen Luis Royo images that I can guarantee she did not acquire licenses for, because at Royo's level, that's really expensive. I mean "display those images or buy a house"-kind of expensive. It shot her credibility to pieces. How can she expect to have her copyright respected when she doesn't respect the rights of one of the most easily recognizable visual artists alive?
Now, for a long time, I was told that those "pictures are public domain" - they aren't. High-end erotic nudes are not public domain, at least not in 99% of all cases. To look that good, models want to be paid, photographers are spending thousands of dollars on equipment, fees, and it takes hundred of hours to get that good. Years. If you like looking at it, it's most likely the work of a pro, and pros like to get paid.
Another argument was "well, everybody does it" (yeah, and everybody can get fined for it).
Another was "but the man candy pics are the most-viewed entries, I *need* them, and it's just harmless fun" - well, look at all the e-book piracy sites who live off traffic selling advertising - people come for pirated content they can't get elsewhere, and they, too, believe it's "harmless fun".
I don't want to get all sanctimonious. I, too, like looking at "man candy" images. Who doesn't. But recently, I hear more and more stories of photographers suing and fining blogs (that includes the owners of Tumblrs and Pinterests) - and the fines are not small. If you think you get slapped with a $50 fine for one Royo, well, add a few zeroes. Keep adding. I'll tell you when to stop.
Back in the days when I was covering start-ups as a biz journalist (4-5 years ago), I covered some tech start-ups that were developing programmes that crawl the internet and do pattern recognition. Basically, they can compare images and find unauthorized content and then point the copyright owner at it. The "reblogging" tail in Tumblr? Very easy way to track everybody who reblogged a photographer's image. Every single display can be fined. We're talking hundreds and thousands of dollars for every single image. Those IT programmes are out there, and I hear more and more stories of fines and taken-own sites and blogs and I think this is really just the start. Music piracy was first, now it's e-book piracy, and piracy of images is coming right after.
As authors, the very laws that protect our copyrights also protect the rights of photographers. Please respect them. I'd strongly advise every single blogger to go through their entries and very carefully consider whether you actually own the image or have the right to display it (hint: your book covers should be OK). If you keep images of unclear source, be prepared to pay top whack for every single one. Personally, I think the risk is not worth it. This is money most of us can't afford - or at least spend on much nicer things.
And here's the link that prompted it all. Do take the time to read the comments from the photographers. Please respect their work in the same way you want others to respect yours. Thank you!
And I believe firmly we're in the right if we reserve the right to decide *which* story we charge for. I've given away years of work for free in Special Forces, so people who only want "free" can have those one million words. I believe it's an attitude that's largely consensus in our industry. We want to get paid. Some of us rely on royalty cheques for groceries, utilities or making car/house payments. So, many of us *need* to get paid.
A while ago (= years), I came across the freshly-relaunched website of an erotic romance writer. The first thing I saw was that the blog was peppered with, among others, images by Luis Royo - who, you can see on his official page (do go!), is pretty sexy and pretty awesome. She must have had like 30-40 images on there. And her newest blog post was a vicious rant on piracy - surrounded by all the stolen Luis Royo images that I can guarantee she did not acquire licenses for, because at Royo's level, that's really expensive. I mean "display those images or buy a house"-kind of expensive. It shot her credibility to pieces. How can she expect to have her copyright respected when she doesn't respect the rights of one of the most easily recognizable visual artists alive?
Now, for a long time, I was told that those "pictures are public domain" - they aren't. High-end erotic nudes are not public domain, at least not in 99% of all cases. To look that good, models want to be paid, photographers are spending thousands of dollars on equipment, fees, and it takes hundred of hours to get that good. Years. If you like looking at it, it's most likely the work of a pro, and pros like to get paid.
Another argument was "well, everybody does it" (yeah, and everybody can get fined for it).
Another was "but the man candy pics are the most-viewed entries, I *need* them, and it's just harmless fun" - well, look at all the e-book piracy sites who live off traffic selling advertising - people come for pirated content they can't get elsewhere, and they, too, believe it's "harmless fun".
I don't want to get all sanctimonious. I, too, like looking at "man candy" images. Who doesn't. But recently, I hear more and more stories of photographers suing and fining blogs (that includes the owners of Tumblrs and Pinterests) - and the fines are not small. If you think you get slapped with a $50 fine for one Royo, well, add a few zeroes. Keep adding. I'll tell you when to stop.
Back in the days when I was covering start-ups as a biz journalist (4-5 years ago), I covered some tech start-ups that were developing programmes that crawl the internet and do pattern recognition. Basically, they can compare images and find unauthorized content and then point the copyright owner at it. The "reblogging" tail in Tumblr? Very easy way to track everybody who reblogged a photographer's image. Every single display can be fined. We're talking hundreds and thousands of dollars for every single image. Those IT programmes are out there, and I hear more and more stories of fines and taken-own sites and blogs and I think this is really just the start. Music piracy was first, now it's e-book piracy, and piracy of images is coming right after.
As authors, the very laws that protect our copyrights also protect the rights of photographers. Please respect them. I'd strongly advise every single blogger to go through their entries and very carefully consider whether you actually own the image or have the right to display it (hint: your book covers should be OK). If you keep images of unclear source, be prepared to pay top whack for every single one. Personally, I think the risk is not worth it. This is money most of us can't afford - or at least spend on much nicer things.
And here's the link that prompted it all. Do take the time to read the comments from the photographers. Please respect their work in the same way you want others to respect yours. Thank you!
July 19, 2012
Ch-ch-ch-changes
(Apologies to David Bowie for the title).
It just occurred to me how dramatic the changes are that people go through in their mid-thirties. My guy's best friend (female) just had a child. And from here on, I self-censor. But I'm going to use some of that in a book at some point. It's definitely interested to see the culture clash of the childless with the culture clash of the first-time parents.
Then, we're off to Coventry/Birmingham tomorrow to go to a wedding - my guy's cousin marries, which leaves him in something like shell-shock ("I remember her a knobbly-kneed kid!"). Yes, we're getting old (we're both 37) - DINKS (Double-Income-No-Kids) and unmarried/partnered. The main thing that ties us together is he 28-year term of our mortgage, and we both have the spending habits of young adults with paycheques. The good thing about being a "functional adult" - you can actually afford to buy all those books/computer games and nobody tries to stop you, in fact, the Western Economic Model depends on you consuming, consuming, and working hard so you can afford what you consume. (Though I hold it buying books is actually the best way to be a ravenous consumer - at least some other authors might make a living...)
Then, over the last 2 weeks, I've been contacted again by very old friends. One was a childhood friend (I'm speaking of forms 1-6, after which I moved and we lost contact). I still remember her mother very well. I remember the house they lived in and that they had a CD player in the mid-eighties, when CDs cost like a hundred bucks each. The shelves were full of them. I realized that these people were financially rather more comfortable than I was with my mother, who lived in subsidised housing. I remember wire trees made with precious stones, and a life-sized bunch of grapes made from amethyst. I would pick it up very carefully and marvel at the weight and heavyness of it, how cold and perfect, and how weird and wonderful that people made those things and bought them. I remember the light carpet that I could only step on after my shoes were off. Maybe I felt a bit like the grungy, semi-neglected kid that I was, though I didn't feel like it. They were also the only (first) people I know who had a bidet. And the bathroom was stocked with really expensive toiletries (I believe her mother was a cosmetics tester). It's there that I had my first sniff of "Poison", the perfume, which I found unpleasant.
Well, I learnt the mother died last year. The generation of our parents is on the way out - especially if they were heavy smokers - and her mother was. Though I wish her mother had seen what cancer did to her friend, my mother, and stopped smoking - to be there for longer for her daughter and maybe get to meet her grandkids, which didn't happen. (It's minor tragedies like these that really resonate.)
Then I got an email yesterday from a friend I made in my late teens/early twenties. She's now a doctor, on the career path to become an uber-doctor (running stuff, like a clinic or something). She's actually younger than I am. Her father, a very heavy smoker, also died last year. I begin to think there's a pattern. I remember being small and powerless and the world of adults was a complete mystery. Well, that hasn't changed, though to my innocence I've added a ridiculous amount of education, more than anybody really needs, and a big bucket of cynicism (definitely more than anybody needs), but the inner working of everything are still mysterious to me - I can't imagine that people would do such things, and it's a sense I keep getting when I read the news. My soul must be from Alpha Centauri - all this stuff here sometimes feels so weird.
In any case, I get a weird sense of destiny, of passing time, maybe even of mortality. I hear a rush of wings, I see the big pattern, from our grandparents fading away to now our parents (well, mine are long gone, but my mother died too young and my father was much older). The next generation on the line is us. Rather like better-aimed artillery shells, they are moving, and they are moving in our direction. I'm not afraid of mortality, thought it's one of those things that don't seem to make sense. You spend so much time "becoming" who you are, and then you fade.
But first I have a few books to write.
It just occurred to me how dramatic the changes are that people go through in their mid-thirties. My guy's best friend (female) just had a child. And from here on, I self-censor. But I'm going to use some of that in a book at some point. It's definitely interested to see the culture clash of the childless with the culture clash of the first-time parents.
Then, we're off to Coventry/Birmingham tomorrow to go to a wedding - my guy's cousin marries, which leaves him in something like shell-shock ("I remember her a knobbly-kneed kid!"). Yes, we're getting old (we're both 37) - DINKS (Double-Income-No-Kids) and unmarried/partnered. The main thing that ties us together is he 28-year term of our mortgage, and we both have the spending habits of young adults with paycheques. The good thing about being a "functional adult" - you can actually afford to buy all those books/computer games and nobody tries to stop you, in fact, the Western Economic Model depends on you consuming, consuming, and working hard so you can afford what you consume. (Though I hold it buying books is actually the best way to be a ravenous consumer - at least some other authors might make a living...)
Then, over the last 2 weeks, I've been contacted again by very old friends. One was a childhood friend (I'm speaking of forms 1-6, after which I moved and we lost contact). I still remember her mother very well. I remember the house they lived in and that they had a CD player in the mid-eighties, when CDs cost like a hundred bucks each. The shelves were full of them. I realized that these people were financially rather more comfortable than I was with my mother, who lived in subsidised housing. I remember wire trees made with precious stones, and a life-sized bunch of grapes made from amethyst. I would pick it up very carefully and marvel at the weight and heavyness of it, how cold and perfect, and how weird and wonderful that people made those things and bought them. I remember the light carpet that I could only step on after my shoes were off. Maybe I felt a bit like the grungy, semi-neglected kid that I was, though I didn't feel like it. They were also the only (first) people I know who had a bidet. And the bathroom was stocked with really expensive toiletries (I believe her mother was a cosmetics tester). It's there that I had my first sniff of "Poison", the perfume, which I found unpleasant.
Well, I learnt the mother died last year. The generation of our parents is on the way out - especially if they were heavy smokers - and her mother was. Though I wish her mother had seen what cancer did to her friend, my mother, and stopped smoking - to be there for longer for her daughter and maybe get to meet her grandkids, which didn't happen. (It's minor tragedies like these that really resonate.)
Then I got an email yesterday from a friend I made in my late teens/early twenties. She's now a doctor, on the career path to become an uber-doctor (running stuff, like a clinic or something). She's actually younger than I am. Her father, a very heavy smoker, also died last year. I begin to think there's a pattern. I remember being small and powerless and the world of adults was a complete mystery. Well, that hasn't changed, though to my innocence I've added a ridiculous amount of education, more than anybody really needs, and a big bucket of cynicism (definitely more than anybody needs), but the inner working of everything are still mysterious to me - I can't imagine that people would do such things, and it's a sense I keep getting when I read the news. My soul must be from Alpha Centauri - all this stuff here sometimes feels so weird.
In any case, I get a weird sense of destiny, of passing time, maybe even of mortality. I hear a rush of wings, I see the big pattern, from our grandparents fading away to now our parents (well, mine are long gone, but my mother died too young and my father was much older). The next generation on the line is us. Rather like better-aimed artillery shells, they are moving, and they are moving in our direction. I'm not afraid of mortality, thought it's one of those things that don't seem to make sense. You spend so much time "becoming" who you are, and then you fade.
But first I have a few books to write.
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