fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3979 ]

[ SECRET POST #3979 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3979 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 51 secrets from Secret Submission Post #570.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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Sympathies, anon. I've got a friend who's closing down her micropress because the relentless pirating makes it not worth while. And it's a good press, with books on many shortlists, a good few winners, and donating proceeds of a couple of books to charity too. That's all going to stop now.

Writing pays so little at the best of times unless you're JKR; with so many books legally available for free it's a pity that people will not pay the writer a dollar or two. Entitled or what?

OP, try and think of the people who did all the work? I've said elsewhere that I'm glad you're feeling better; now please recompense the people who helped you.

OP absolutely does not have to repay anybody. I'm sorry about your friend, but stop trying to guilt trip a stranger. If money is the only reason you write, then you're not doing it for the right reasons. It should be about giving people something to love - regardless of how they got their hands on it.

da

If you're in a creative field, you should just give away your work for free? That's complete bullshit, anon.

Sometimes, yes. YMMV, but I believe that it's more important to do good by sharing stories with the world irregardless of if they'll pay you for it. If people will, then great! Thank you! But that's a bonus, not a necessity, and certainly not something I would expect from everybody, in every situation. If I need money, there are always other lines of work.

Did it occur to you that if your main income comes from writing, piracy can send you into poverty? Your comment reeks of privilege. "Writing for money is writing for the wrong reasons!" Not if those reasons are surviving, asshole.

Um, ever heard of working retail like the rest of us who are just trying to survive?

What the fuck is this comment even. You think writing should not be a paid profession so all writers should work in retail? Ever tried writing a novel in your spare time, dumbass? I assure you the VAST majority of the lit you pirate would not have been written if the author was slogging at another minimum wage job and then trying to write in their scant few free hours. Should authors also sacrifice sleep and meals so you can get your fix, too? You sound completely ridiculous.

The problem with what you're saying is that plenty of published writers wrote their first book while working retail. And places like AO3 are full of people who write 40 chapter fics, many of them pretty good quality (I've known published authors who write fanfiction on the side) and publish them for free. And it's a but entitled to say that you're entitled to paid for something, that millions of people provide for free, while working their asses off doing low-paid jobs.

I'm kind of baffled by your stance on this. Are you actually honest to god saying that no-one making art should be able to sell it? If so, I guess I can understand how you'd get there from a utopian idealist standpoint in a society where no-one is in a permission where their creative talents are the best or indeed only viable way to make a living. But just to be clear, are you saying that in the society we live in, NOW, pirating the work that someone is attempting to live by is entirely morally permissable?

I make art that I don't sell. Places like Deviantart, Artstation, Pixiv and plenty of others are full of art that is provided entirely for free. In my town, there's a wall where artists hang their paintings. They are available for viewing entirely for free.

What people pay for is not simply viewing art, but owning a physical object, or commissioning art tailored exactly to their taste.

I feel like this reeks of privilege. How do you get by financially, then? Is it this magical retail work people keep mentioning? And if someone is working all hours to get by at a non-creative job, how are they going to have the drive and energy to create in their down-hours? Perhaps some people can do that; I have no doubt you'll say that's what you do, although I suspect your situation is far more comfortable than those you say should provide their work for free. But I guarantee, if this were the norm, the amount and quality of literature available for you to enjoy would probably halve. At least.

It is comfortable now, yes, after I lost my job doing tech support, because the company offshored the work to India. I found another, better job, instead of sitting at home complaining that the Indians stole my work, because I am entitled to the money, and how dare they offer the same thing for less money.

I don't see how anything you just said bears any relation to the discussion we were having. All is see is some kind of chip on your shoulder about being "self-made" that has nothing to do with writers charging for books or people expecting they should be able to access someone's life work without consent.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-11-27 07:12 (UTC) - Expand

You're really not making sense. I'm struggling to understand how someone like me, who has NO realistic expectations of ever "making the big bucks" writing LGBT sci-fi/fantasy novels and would rather give some away for free and continue to work minimum wage retail (or some other "normal job") than be a compassionless jerk to someone too poor to pay for them is the "privileged" one, here?

Not someone like you, who thinks they're so important that they ought to be able to spend hours sitting comfortably as they pen their masterpiece?

I'm not saying writers should NEVER be paid, by anybody, ever. But for fuck's sake, have a bit of kindness.

Sitting comfortably? Really? You think most writers are comfortably off?

Let me tell you a little story about my sister in law. She's a writer. Started off in fandom and moved to writing ebooks. She doesn't make very much but has a steady income that supports her for the necessaries.

Also? She is disabled. She has spinal injuries that confine her to a wheelchair and she has also been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, due in part to the fact that she is now wheelchair-bound. Writing is one of the few ways she can make a living under her physical and mental conditions. And she does. However, she is not "spending hours sitting comfortably" as she pens her "masterpiece" and she cannot get a shitty retail job in order to make her work accessible for free.

So who's privileged now? Who deserves kindness and non-judgmental reactions more? Whose mental illness trumps the other? Whose ableist assumptions that she can just "work in retail and offer her work for free" are hurting whom?

Write a fucking novel on your downtime while paying your rent and food with your second job, get it published, and then we'll talk. Or just do your existing job for free for a couple of years because why would you feel entitled to a livable salary while there are people in the world in desperate enough situations that they'd do it much cheaper?

(Also: if professional writers wouldn't be able to make a living out of their writing, all those 40 chapter fics on AO3 wouldn't exist, either.)

I am doing this right now, just like millions of other people.

Lol, you actually believe that everyone who writes 40 chapter fics are publishing novels for the living?

... A LOT of very famous novels were written in that author's "downtime." If you want it bad enough, you'll make time for it. I could be working on one of mine right now, rather than having this stupid argument.

Yes, you go and work on that. Then hopefully one day, if you succeed, everyone will pirate your work for free. Karma is so salty :(

GOOD. I *want* people to feel free to pirate my work, if they can't afford it. I do this for the love of it - to make even one person happy. To improve even one moment of one day. That's my reward, not knowing I received every single dollar owed to me.

That's nice. It's also called privilege.

Wow, thank you for helping make the impression that "writing isn't real work" more prevalent. /sarcasm

Look, some of us want to write full time and not half time because we love telling stories. Thus, we sell our books online in hopes of making a living and don't want our works pirated!

Writing and writing well and writing a lot in one day is work, hard, mental, work that takes practice. Please, stop belittling it.

Ever heard of people with disabilities who can't just "work in retail like the rest of us"? I suppose disabled authors don't exist?

What complete horseshit. (da)

Doctors and nurses are supposed to be in it to help people as a primary motive, but no one thinks it's OK to steal their work. Teachers are supposed to love their jobs and love educating kids (and no one goes into it for the money) but that doesn't mean it's ok to cheat them out of the wages they earn.

Why are writers different? If their work is getting pirated, obviously it's in demand and people want it. Writing isn't easy. They deserve to be paid. The OP absolutely SHOULD find a way to pay it back or at least to pay it forward once they get to a better place - they've benefitted from a LOT of other people's hard work, and they aren't entitled to it for free. No one is.

People just don't want to hear this. They want their candy and they don't give a fuck about who they take it from.

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