Book Pigs/lucythereader

my moodboards: Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables; L.M. Montgomery

Women Writers (8/?) - x

Sigh. 

Not in our lifetime, because my publishers bought the rights so they could sell the book. If they start giving it away for free, they are not recouping their investment (and a lot of people aren’t getting paid for their work). The only way publishers can afford to keep printing books is if people keep buying them. 

Here’s why this question is not okay: whether this is what you intended or not (intent and impact don’t always align), what you’re essentially saying when you ask an author how you can get their book for free is, “I want to enjoy this piece of art you made but I don’t think it’s worth ten dollars.” That is hugely insulting and hugely demoralizing, not only to the person who wrote the damn book, but to the agents, editors, copyeditors, designers, publicists, and everyone else who worked on it for (literally) years. The age of streaming and $1.99 eBook deals has fostered the idea that we should have all the art and media we want at our fingertips without spending any more for it than we would for a cup of drip coffee at a high school bake sale. It’s really important to keep in mind–especially on Tumblr where a lot of art circulates without the artist’s knowledge or permission–that art is not charity. An exceptionally fortunate artist who doesn’t need the money may choose to give their art away, but you should never assume that art is charity or treat it as such. Art is work, you’re not entitled to it, and not paying artists (or not paying them enough) for their work not only jeopardizes their livelihoods, but it perpetuates the idea that art is (or should be) cheap. 

The art-is-cheap mentality is actually (ironically) why things like movie and concert tickets have become so prohibitively expensive; because people can stream everything with Netflix or Spotify and no longer pay to own movies or albums, the entertainment industry has had to compensate for that lost revenue by jacking up ticket prices, so a concert ticket that would have cost about $30 forty years ago often costs ten times that now (yes, I adjusted for inflation). What you have to remember about books in particular is that authors don’t do stadium tours. They don’t get paid for book tours; they just hope it helps them sell the book. Most authors are not Stephanie Meyer, runaway bestsellers, or billionaires. Most have to have two jobs at least just to make ends meet. Most authors do not make enough to give their work away for free. Moreover, book sales are often what enable an author to publish another book and (1) continue to make art and (2) continue to provide for themselves.