A few quick points...

Actually it is an argument you can make to an up and coming writer. Free samples will increase your sales. What writer doesn't want increased sales?

It's a numbers game. Say they give out 1,000 free dead tree copies of Rosemary and Rue, the first book in the Toby series. Seanan makes nothing from those 1,000 copies. It's a cost to the publisher - I don't know exactly how much, but since Amazon sells it for $7.99, let's say the cost is $2.00 (I have no idea if these is a reasonable cost or not - I'm just tossing numbers). OK, so it costs the publisher $2,000.

Now assume that a lot of people like the book enough to buy the second two, and the third when it hits the shelves in April. Exactly how this works (maybe George hates the book, but passes it on to Carrie who loves it) doesn't matter. What matters is how many people will buy. Say sales of the second two books increase by 1000 copies each. It's nice, but there's not enough money there to make a difference.

So instead the publisher gives out an ebook, in PDF (the most easily read) format. Total cost is really low, because they didn't have to cut down trees, ship them, etc. 300,000 copies are downloaded, and who knows how many go around the file sharing networks.

But sales of the second two books increase - maybe they sell 10 or 20 thousand more copies than the first book did. Seanan is happy. The publisher is happy. Everyone makes some extra money, and when the fourth book is published in 2011, it fairly flies off the shelves.

As I said, it's a numbers game. But the free copies have to get to the right audience, and getting them there is the hard part. Offering free copies of Rosemary and Rue to a biker gang probably wouldn't increase sales, and may have negative health effects on the person involved. Offering them to teen girls at all of the local high schools would probably be effective. Offering them at SF cons would be effective.

Here's a question that only Seanan knows the answer to. How hard would it be to get back the Ebook rights to Rosemary and Rue? Are they actually doing anything with it? OK, they are. It does appear to be available for the Sony reader, but it's not available for the Kindle or the IPad, the two most popular platforms, which means that they probably are not selling a lot of copies. And at $6.99 I'm damned sure that they aren't, since you can buy the dead tree version for $7.99. In my opinion their pricing is idiotic. For that matter, so is their marketing. It took a fair bit of searching to find. The dead tree edition is easy to find using the same search techniques.

OK, we've been talking around Seanan.

Seanan, this is for you direct. The next time contract negotiations come up, hang onto the ebook rights. Seriously. I doubt that you are being paid a lot for them at present because you aren't Steven King (only you and your agent know). So it probably wouldn't make that big a difference to your bottom line. Then market the ebook yourself, with a bit of help from your friends and fans, and see what happens. Maybe make it a free download, with a donate button, and offer your compact discs on the same page, along with a couple of free MP3s. Offer special deals, personally signed copies, Seanan McGuire songbooks, give them other freebies, such as studio quality pictures of you and your furry co-conspirators. See what it does to your website traffic, and your sales. If sales of that book are higher, and the only difference is offering a free ebook copy, you have your proof.

Yes, all of this takes time, which you currently don't have a lot of. Problem is that you can't trust your publisher to do all of the work, in addition to your books, they released how many other books that month? Their attention is divided. Yours isn't.

And as I said, fans, like me and the others here, will try to help. We want you to write lots more books, and that means that you have to be making a decent living doing it, and preferably a lot more than that. We want you to be a huge success, so that you are encouraged to write more.

Lots more.

Damn, but you are good.

Pardon me for butting in here, but I really don't think you're listening to Seanan. She has already said that holding onto her e-book rights is not an option, and that she has no time for your suggested marketing schemes, between day job and actually writing.

Seanan is working forty hours a week, and writing fifty hours a week. The has already stretched her past her limits (why do you think she has been sick so often recently). Her lifestyle is not sustainable. If she continues it, she stands a damned good change of suffering from burnout.

If we were to follow your suggestion, nothing would change. To me, your argument is cruel.

If we follow my suggestion, it may be possible to reduce the stress on her. Reduce the stress, and she will be healthier and happier, and incidentally the already high quality of her writing will probably improve. Even if it doesn't, as long as she is happier and healthier, I'd call it a win.

While this model does seem to me like it could work for some up-and-comers, especially those with local friends very invested in the writer's career, I can imagine several reasons why someone wouldn't want to pursue this course of action, even it it made sound business sense on paper.

If many fans or friends wished to help an author, the author might need to make choices about who does what, placing the author in a potentially uncomfortable managerial position over friends and other people volunteering their time. Or, said author could leave it to others to organize actions, and risk that something of less quality or speed than hoped is produced. This places the author in an awkward position: how, as the author, do you chastise, or reject the product of, volunteers or fans whose assistance you actually requested, or at least accepted? Do you endorse something sub-par to spare their feelings? How much rework can you ask them to do? Even if they do good work, how *much* can you ask of them, and for how long? How many one-act dramas will be written, and friendships or author/fan relationships soured, along the way? And how much is all this distracting you from the actual business of writing?

I have an author friend I dearly love. If there is a crisis, we always come through for each other, no matter how bad it's gotten, how much it costs or how inconvenient it is. I hope I wouldn't think twice about taking a bullet for him (though I believe that sort of thing is hard to know about yourself unless you've actually done it). But when it comes to regularly scheduled programming, I am sometimes a well-meaning flake, and distribution deadlines upon which his professional income and reputation depend are things I should not be responsible for. It's taken me a couple decades to admit this about myself; some authors' fans and friends might not know just how flaky they really are yet, and a friendship might not be worth the risk of finding out.

Now, I do think that this system you describe sounds like it could work very well for some. But I suspect that to really undertake fan-supported self-promotion, you have to risk hurting the feelings of some very well-meaning folks -- folks who really love your work and want to help, but suck at it -- for the sake of replacing them with more, and more "useful", fans and support people. I would think that some authors might just not want all the emotional turmoil that goes with that, and would rather that fans have no more expected of them than that they buy the work and share their love for it with others in their own ways. Meanwhile, people on whose active support the author is relying for his or her livelihood can be contractually obligated to perform their agreed-upon actions, while trusted friends provide emotional support and advice, help to whatever extent they wish or are able on a day-to-day basis, and serve as a highly reliable backup rescue service, just in case everything goes to hell and said author needs to sleep on someone's couch and not think about writing for a few months while he or she recovers and prepares to re-enter the fray.

So, to sum up: while I don't how Seanan specifically feels, I imagine that some authors may not want to increase the risk of personally hurting good friends, or even fans, for the sake of their writing careers, even if it means that their careers must end. And it does seem to me that adopting such a fan- and friend-supported promotion and distribution network increases that risk.

Let's face it - anything you do - including inaction - is going to hurt someone's feelings.

And you are right, some people are better at certain things than others. I didn't say this would necessarily be easy. I do think however it's necessary.

There's 168 hours in a week. Seanan is spending 40 hours at work, and 50 hours writing, leaving 78 hours. I don't know if she included travel to and from work here or not. Assuming she spends 8 hours per day asleep, that leaves her 22 hours (about 3 hours per day) in which she can do things like cook, eat, do laundry, pet the cats, relax, research her next book, join a chess club, go bowling, get her hair done, show for clothes, pet the cats, clean the house, read, watch TV, pet the cats, read the newspaper, surf the net, read LJ, pet the cats, add additional things Seanan needs to be able to do here.

3 hours per day is just not enough time.

Now I keep on hearing all of the reasons why nothing can be done. What I'm not hearing is what things could be done to improve the situation, in fact I think I'm the only person who's made a positive suggestion.

What the hell is wrong with you people? Put your brains to work. Think. What would help take the stress off Seanan?

The question I ask is: Has Seanan asked for help and/or advice?

In my experience, unsolicited advice over the internet is not often welcomed.

It seems that what she's asked is that we not perform, and actively discourage, illegal book downloads, which sounds like something it should be easy enough to do.

I certainly can abide by her wishes in that regard.

The question I ask is: Has Seanan asked for help and/or advice?

Not directly, know. Of course Gary (old friend of mine) didn't ask for advice either, before he tried to blow his brains out with his father's hunting rifle. Thank god he failed, and that his family was able to get him the help he needed (that was over 30 years ago - back when admitting you needed help was considered bad).

So what do you do? Wait for someone to ask? Or say something when you see a problem. And Seanan has admitted that her current life style is a problem, it leaves her tired, and with very little time to do anything except work and write.

I'd like to see here looking and feeling chipper, with all the energy of Supergirl.

Hyperbolic much? I'm done here, thanks.

Actually no.

I am however continually amazed at North American culture. You are supposed to suck it up, and handle it yourself. Many people consider it shameful to ask for help. So you end up with people's problems getting worse, and worse. Does this make sense to you?

I'd rather offer to help now. It makes more sense, then letting things go.

By the way, I'm a lay priest. This gives me a different viewpoint than most people. My vows are to try to help, and while I'm not perfect, I try. Actually my wife says I'm very trying :)

I do understand the desire to want to try to help, and it's an urge I wish more people had. But I think another result of the cultural construct you reference is that some of us feel the need to ride to the rescue when we think we see someone else in trouble, and recognizing when such actions aren't called for can be as hard for some of us as it is for others to let someone help, or for still others to resist the urge to wait for a rescuer before taking action.

For most problems, I firmly believe that building systemic solutions that involve people working together is usually the right answer. But based on what I've read here, Seanan already has an extensive support network of beloved friends who know her and whom she trusts, several successful professional mentors and allies whose advice she solicits regularly, a strong awareness of and ability to manage her own mental health, and a general handle on her situation. (Maybe, if things get to stressy, she'll decide "Hey, maybe I'll try writing only ONE series of novels at a time this year.") If she needs active, involved support, she has places to get it -- she's just chosen, and choosing, not to make her journal and general fan base one of those places right now.

Anyway, if she changes her mind, I'm sure she'll let us know, and get more than she asked for in the bargain. :)

You are most welcome!

It's one of my hot-buttons. I've had too many caretakers in my life, and I tend to walk away from them now, because they just don't listen when I say that I can take care of myself.

I do feel the need to point out that there is a Kindle edition already - http://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Rue-October-Novel-ebook/dp/B002N83HAW/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1289111417&sr=8-1

Hum, it didn't show up when I searched Amazon. Maybe it's because I live outside of the U.S.

Very possible - I don't actually buy books through Amazon very often, so I have no idea how they work their regions.

Charlie Stross wrote several articles about publishing, and I gather that how the regions work would make Rube Goldberg look sane.

If things change, they'll change, and I'm working my butt off to change them. But "please don't steal my books" wasn't intended as an invitation to tell me how to run my life, and it's just freaking me out at this point. :(

Most people, myself included, would love to be able to really work their butt off :) Damn, I'm getting so wide that I often take the chair with me when I stand!