Constance Williams's Blog: Absolutely Me, page 6
June 23, 2013
Wifi
This is a mini rant. At the time of writing this, I’m not sure whether it will even get posted - I just need to get this off my chest.
I’m away on business this weekend, and staying in a hotel that is part of a chain of rather nice, world famous hotels. The chain and the hotel will remain nameless. The rooms here do not come cheap. Nor, may I add, do they come with wifi. Which is the subject of this rant.
In this day and age, it beggars belief that wifi isn’t standard in hotels. Especially hotels which cater for business travelers, who will, almost without exception, require the use of wifi. Why is it that, if you check into a bed and breakfast, or a cheap motel, you will usually find wifi available with the room. Yet, if you go for a multiple-star hotel, you’re asked to pay extra for it?
What really annoyed me about this weekend’s trip was that we had a choice of two hotels. The first was advertised as ‘wifi as a paid extra’, the second was advertised as ‘free wifi available’. So, naturally, we plumped for the second. When we found out a little later that the ‘free wifi’ was only in the public areas, that was slightly irritating, but not so bad. I have no problem with working in the bar or lobby, if necessary. Which is what I settled down to do yesterday afternoon. I headed down to the hotel bar, I ordered a diet coke, I got the wifi password from reception, I logged in...
...And was promptly told that I was allowed one hour of free wifi and then I would have to pay.
That is what has really annoyed me here. Because they used ‘free wifi’ as a selling point when booking. And it was actually what sold the place to us in the first place.
I am, as a result, feeling rather cheated.
Has anyone else found this kind of thing? Am I the only other person that gets annoyed with this? I know that I can go and buy access to their wifi, but given their advertising, I’m currently being stubborn.
Love to hear your take on this!
I’m away on business this weekend, and staying in a hotel that is part of a chain of rather nice, world famous hotels. The chain and the hotel will remain nameless. The rooms here do not come cheap. Nor, may I add, do they come with wifi. Which is the subject of this rant.
In this day and age, it beggars belief that wifi isn’t standard in hotels. Especially hotels which cater for business travelers, who will, almost without exception, require the use of wifi. Why is it that, if you check into a bed and breakfast, or a cheap motel, you will usually find wifi available with the room. Yet, if you go for a multiple-star hotel, you’re asked to pay extra for it?
What really annoyed me about this weekend’s trip was that we had a choice of two hotels. The first was advertised as ‘wifi as a paid extra’, the second was advertised as ‘free wifi available’. So, naturally, we plumped for the second. When we found out a little later that the ‘free wifi’ was only in the public areas, that was slightly irritating, but not so bad. I have no problem with working in the bar or lobby, if necessary. Which is what I settled down to do yesterday afternoon. I headed down to the hotel bar, I ordered a diet coke, I got the wifi password from reception, I logged in...
...And was promptly told that I was allowed one hour of free wifi and then I would have to pay.
That is what has really annoyed me here. Because they used ‘free wifi’ as a selling point when booking. And it was actually what sold the place to us in the first place.
I am, as a result, feeling rather cheated.
Has anyone else found this kind of thing? Am I the only other person that gets annoyed with this? I know that I can go and buy access to their wifi, but given their advertising, I’m currently being stubborn.
Love to hear your take on this!
June 14, 2013
Kindle Worlds - my take
Earlier on this week, Lillian Bishop asked me in conversation what I thought about Amazon’s Kindle Worlds. I decided to write this because apparently my response to her innocent question of ‘have you heard of this?’ was apparently, well, pretty vocal.
For those of you who don’t already know, Amazon have put forward a way for you to publish fanfiction, for profit.
Currently, it’s fairly limited. Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries to date.
How will it work? According to Amazon, “Your standard royalty rate for works of at least 10,000 words will be 35% of net revenue.” For works under 10,000, authors will get a rate of 20% of net revenue. Not bad, right? I mean, people have been writing ff for years with no hope of any reward and only hoping that the disclaimers they put on their work will stop some guy in a suit coming after them, right? Surely putting ff on a reward based, official footing can only be a good thing, right?
I want to say at this point that I think that fan fiction has a real place in the world. I think there are some great writers of fan fiction out there. I will also hold my hand up and freely admit that I have written fan fiction in the past (a very, very long time ago, in the baby days of the interwebs – god, but I feel old right now!). I have a lot of respect for people who craft new tales from someone else’s universe, filling in those gaps and blanks in the shows we know and love, or maybe taking things off in a totally different direction. It’s a form of creative imagination all in itself.
Which is why I feel the way I feel about Kindle Worlds. My first thought was ‘wow, this is a great idea!’ ...And then I began to look into it more.
And, in the small print (or, actually, the same font size as everything else, but in another link and lower down the page), I began to get uncomfortable. Most of it seems fair. I was reading along, gently nodding at everything until I got to this one line:
“We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.”
Stop. Hold on. Wait a minute.
Let’s read that again. Translate.
If you publish with Kindle Worlds, you sign on to giving the ‘World Licensor’ (ie, Warner Bros, or whoever) the right to take your ideas – the original ideas that you put into the story that were never part of their own canon in the first place – and you will let them use them, without question or comment, or further payment to you.
Now, okay – arguably, this is fair. I mean, you’re playing in someone else’s sandpit, right? They (being Warner Bros, or whoever else signs on for this) have gone out and spent a stupid amount of money either creating a whole new concept, or buying the rights and developing someone else’s concept (generally an author of original work). So, if you’re making money off a concept that they created/developed then them’s the risks. Right?
Except... What they’re taking aren’t ideas that were in their world. They already own those. For no real risk, they’re taking your ideas. And that’s the part that gets me uncomfortable. Because the only people I see winning here are big business.
You write a great fanfic. You publish it. Wonderful. Except, all indie authors out there know that publishing a book or story is no guarantee that anyone will buy it. So, you – wonderful, magnificent, fan fic author - may have published through KW, for your maximum 35% reward. You may receive 35% of not as much as you’d hoped. And then you may find that your concept forms part of the next season of the show you love. With no further monies coming to you.
Maybe I’m being cynical. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it also feels that, maybe, this would also be an easy way for big business to crowdsource new ideas for shows. Why pay writers to come up with your next plotline when you can see what fans are doing?
What makes me uneasy is that it feels like the fans could be taken for a ride in this, and it feels like the script writers could suffer for it.
Do I think it’ll take off? Maybe. I know there’ll be some people who will feel attracted by it. There are some very, very popular works of ff out there. Sure, there’ll be some dross posted – but that’s always the way. I feel that people will say about KW what they said about self-publishing when it first became an option.
I have one other thought on this whole thing (before I finally shut up). I worry that it will make some good authors lazy. Writing fan fiction is often an easy option. Especially for people who don’t start out with a goal of being an author. Who haven’t gone through school and college specifically to study for that. It’s less stressful, it’s less, well – scary. Fan fiction can be your comfort zone.
Yet – there are a lot of ff authors that would make damn good original authors in their own right. Who can and should create worlds of their own and add to the literary canvas of places we can escape to. Who should be inspiring ff sandpits of their very own for others to play in instead of remaining in others.
I worry that KW will stop those people from stretching their limbs and learning to fly.
For those of you who don’t already know, Amazon have put forward a way for you to publish fanfiction, for profit.
Currently, it’s fairly limited. Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries to date.
How will it work? According to Amazon, “Your standard royalty rate for works of at least 10,000 words will be 35% of net revenue.” For works under 10,000, authors will get a rate of 20% of net revenue. Not bad, right? I mean, people have been writing ff for years with no hope of any reward and only hoping that the disclaimers they put on their work will stop some guy in a suit coming after them, right? Surely putting ff on a reward based, official footing can only be a good thing, right?
I want to say at this point that I think that fan fiction has a real place in the world. I think there are some great writers of fan fiction out there. I will also hold my hand up and freely admit that I have written fan fiction in the past (a very, very long time ago, in the baby days of the interwebs – god, but I feel old right now!). I have a lot of respect for people who craft new tales from someone else’s universe, filling in those gaps and blanks in the shows we know and love, or maybe taking things off in a totally different direction. It’s a form of creative imagination all in itself.
Which is why I feel the way I feel about Kindle Worlds. My first thought was ‘wow, this is a great idea!’ ...And then I began to look into it more.
And, in the small print (or, actually, the same font size as everything else, but in another link and lower down the page), I began to get uncomfortable. Most of it seems fair. I was reading along, gently nodding at everything until I got to this one line:
“We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.”
Stop. Hold on. Wait a minute.
Let’s read that again. Translate.
If you publish with Kindle Worlds, you sign on to giving the ‘World Licensor’ (ie, Warner Bros, or whoever) the right to take your ideas – the original ideas that you put into the story that were never part of their own canon in the first place – and you will let them use them, without question or comment, or further payment to you.
Now, okay – arguably, this is fair. I mean, you’re playing in someone else’s sandpit, right? They (being Warner Bros, or whoever else signs on for this) have gone out and spent a stupid amount of money either creating a whole new concept, or buying the rights and developing someone else’s concept (generally an author of original work). So, if you’re making money off a concept that they created/developed then them’s the risks. Right?
Except... What they’re taking aren’t ideas that were in their world. They already own those. For no real risk, they’re taking your ideas. And that’s the part that gets me uncomfortable. Because the only people I see winning here are big business.
You write a great fanfic. You publish it. Wonderful. Except, all indie authors out there know that publishing a book or story is no guarantee that anyone will buy it. So, you – wonderful, magnificent, fan fic author - may have published through KW, for your maximum 35% reward. You may receive 35% of not as much as you’d hoped. And then you may find that your concept forms part of the next season of the show you love. With no further monies coming to you.
Maybe I’m being cynical. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it also feels that, maybe, this would also be an easy way for big business to crowdsource new ideas for shows. Why pay writers to come up with your next plotline when you can see what fans are doing?
What makes me uneasy is that it feels like the fans could be taken for a ride in this, and it feels like the script writers could suffer for it.
Do I think it’ll take off? Maybe. I know there’ll be some people who will feel attracted by it. There are some very, very popular works of ff out there. Sure, there’ll be some dross posted – but that’s always the way. I feel that people will say about KW what they said about self-publishing when it first became an option.
I have one other thought on this whole thing (before I finally shut up). I worry that it will make some good authors lazy. Writing fan fiction is often an easy option. Especially for people who don’t start out with a goal of being an author. Who haven’t gone through school and college specifically to study for that. It’s less stressful, it’s less, well – scary. Fan fiction can be your comfort zone.
Yet – there are a lot of ff authors that would make damn good original authors in their own right. Who can and should create worlds of their own and add to the literary canvas of places we can escape to. Who should be inspiring ff sandpits of their very own for others to play in instead of remaining in others.
I worry that KW will stop those people from stretching their limbs and learning to fly.
Absolutely Me
This blog is a mixture of updates about my books and random ramblings which occur to me. There is probably little rhyme or reason to what goes in here, and at times I can get a little verbose. Feel fr
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