Letter to Howard

Howard V. Hendrix, the Vice President of the Science Fiction Writer's Association (SFWA) was recently quoted thus:

"I'm also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. 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."

As a successful "webscab" I thought I should respond to this little bit of nonsense. I object to Hendrix's characterizations for a number of reasons, but most because I'm so surprised at the bizarre notion he has of how publishing works, and how it should work.

Writers of speculative fiction don't comprise a union. They are in direct competition with one another, both for the attention of editors and publishers and also for sales to book-buyers. I published on-line, for free, to develop a readership. The existence of that readership made me attractive to my publisher. The size of my deal was not determined by the fact that I had published online--like all book contracts, it was determined through mathematical determination of how many books the publisher expected to sell in correlation with how much money I'd be willing to accept. There is no "minimum wage" in publishing, nor is there really a wage at all. Writers work for royalties, not salaries or hourly rates. There's a reason for that. Competition makes the best work rise to the top, and is the main way that writers can judge their own talent and effect.

Since 2004 I've been giving away my work for free online--and then charging for the print version. I've worked very hard for years to build a following and the web has been the chief tool I've used toward that purpose. It has paid off for me, and as far as I can tell it hasn't hurt anyone--in fact it has inspired several people to write their own books, and to pursue their own publishing deals.

Somewhere along the line I joined the HWA, the Horror Writer's Association. I never received a newsletter or a membership card or a secret decoder ring for my sixty dollars; certainly the HWA did nothing to help me get a better deal from my publishers. What they did do was first recommend me for a Stoker award for Best Novel, then disqualify me because I had previously serialized "Monster Island" online. The extremely hard work I'd done to get my book recognized was now seen as a mark against me. It's truly sad to me to hear that the SFWA has taken the same tack. I can't see how Hendrix's rant, or his organization, can be said to be encouraging or helping writers in any way. As before--as always--writers are on their own to get their own careers going, and to make their own rent. If giving away work for free online works toward that end I can't recommend it enough.

And yeah, I'll be taking part in this. Proudly.

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