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It's been only two years since the writer Jo Walton proposed a day to give away work for free online. This was in response to the resignation speech of Howard Hendrix, former V.P. of the SFWA, turning into a rant on giving away writing for free. The specific words that caused this holiday proposal were from his resignation speech:
Obvious reaction to technophobia from a science fiction editor aside, the first year met with huge success, resulting in a list of free online works from some fairly big names in the SF community. This year, the International Pixel-Stained Technopeasents community is proud to keep the traditon alive. In addition we have a some other writers giving their contributions
Ryk E. Spoor AKA Sea Wasp
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Jonathan Schattke
Please give them a read, and if you know of any other writers celebrating IPSTP day, please let me know and I'll put them on the list. Come and celebrate one of the best aspects of the internet!
Webscabs claim they're just posting their books for free in an attempt to market and publicize them, but to my mind they're undercutting those of us who aren't giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay a better wage for our hard work.
Since more and more of SFWA is built around such electronically mediated networking and connection based venues, and more and more of our membership at least tacitly blesses the webscabs (despite the fact that they are rotting our organization from within) -- given my happily retrograde opinions, I felt I was not the president who would provide SFWAns the "net time" they seemed to want at this point in the organization's development, or who would bless the contraction of our industry toward monopoly, or who would give imprimatur to the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.
Since more and more of SFWA is built around such electronically mediated networking and connection based venues, and more and more of our membership at least tacitly blesses the webscabs (despite the fact that they are rotting our organization from within) -- given my happily retrograde opinions, I felt I was not the president who would provide SFWAns the "net time" they seemed to want at this point in the organization's development, or who would bless the contraction of our industry toward monopoly, or who would give imprimatur to the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.
Obvious reaction to technophobia from a science fiction editor aside, the first year met with huge success, resulting in a list of free online works from some fairly big names in the SF community. This year, the International Pixel-Stained Technopeasents community is proud to keep the traditon alive. In addition we have a some other writers giving their contributions
Ryk E. Spoor AKA Sea Wasp
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Jonathan Schattke
Please give them a read, and if you know of any other writers celebrating IPSTP day, please let me know and I'll put them on the list. Come and celebrate one of the best aspects of the internet!