Back in 2003, I was the first writer to use a Creative Commons license in connection with a commercially published novel—my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (Tor) was released as a freely shareable e-book the same day it came out in stores. It's now gone through several printings, has made me a fair bit of money, been widely translated—commercially and noncommercially—and it's been followed by three more novels, including the New York Times bestseller Little Brother (Tor Teens, 2008), all of which are also available as free, remixable downloads. Two more novels are on their way on the same terms.I've also published two collections of short fiction reprinted from magazines, A Place So Foreign and Eight More (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2004) and Overclocked (Thunder's Mouth, 2007), both critically well received, award winning and excellent sellers. Finally, I've also done a collection of essays, Content (Tachyon, 2008), and IDW published a graphic novel collecting six of my stories adapted for comics, Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now (2008), under these very same terms.
Free e-books work for me. I've been a full-time writer since I quit my day job as European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a charity that works for online civil liberties) in January 2006. Since then, I've made my living through a combination of royalties and licenses (foreign translations, film options, etc.); earnings from Boing Boing, the popular blog I co-edit and co-own; speaking fees; column writing; and the occasional grant, teaching gig or residency. Mine is the semirandom hodgepodge of income sources that characterizes most of the freelancers I know, as skills, circumstances and capacity dictates.
Still, this business of my giving away e-books is a controversial subject. I encounter plenty of healthy skepticism in my travels, and not a little bile. There's a lot of people who say I'm pulling a fast one, that I'd be making more money if I didn't do this crazy liberal copyright stuff, or that I'm the only one it'll ever work for, or that I secretly make all my money from doing stuff that isn't writing, or that it only works because I'm so successful. Of course, when I started, they said it only worked because I was so unknown.
People want proof that this works—that I'm not deluded or a con artist. But it's hard to prove. I don't have a time machine I can use to republish all my books without the free downloads and compare royalty statements. And the skeptics aren't the only people who claim I've got it wrong. There are also the True Believers. The True Believers are the people who say that I'm a fool to give 90% of the cover price of my books to the publisher and bookseller. After all, I have three or four million people a day who read my blog. I could just self-publish all my material and get it directly into the hands of my readers, and pocket the lion's share of the income.
I'm a contrarian on both of these propositions: that I'm losing money by giving away e-books, and that I'm losing money by using a publisher. I have a nice little Goldilocks gig going—not too hot, not too cold, just the right amount of DIY, independent publishing and just the right amount of professional support and administration from my publisher to sell. But I'm as curious about both propositions as anyone. While it's fun to argue about whose intuition is more correct, I think facts on the ground beat a priori assumptions every time. So I've come up with an idea to get some facts in evidence, while making some money and raising a little hell.
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