Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: tired
  • Music: Meg Davis, "Captain Jack and the Mermaid."

Some news about the Hugo voters packet.

A joint statement:

It has become customary in recent years for authors of Hugo-nominated works to provide the members of the World Science Fiction convention who get to vote for the awards with electronic copies of their stories. The ball started rolling a few years ago when John Scalzi kindly took the initiative in preparing the first Hugo voters packet; since then it has become almost mandatory to distribute shortlisted works this way.

Unfortunately, as professionally published authors, we can't do this without obtaining the consent of our publishers. We are bound by contracts that give our publishers the exclusive rights to distribute our books: so we sought their permission first.

This year, Orbit—the publisher of Mira Grant's Parasite, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, and Charles Stross's Neptune's Brood—have decided that for policy reasons they can't permit the shortlisted novels to be distributed for free in their entirety. Instead, substantial extracts from the books will be included in the Hugo voters packet.

We feel your disappointment keenly and regret any misunderstandings that may have arisen about the availability of our work to Hugo voters, but we are bound by the terms of our publishing contracts. The decision to give away free copies of our novels is simply not ours to take. However, we are discussing the matter with other interested parties, and working towards finding a solution that will satisfy the needs of the WSFS voters and our publishers in future years.

Finally, please do not pester our editors: the decision was taken above their level. Don't pester anyone else, either. The issue is closed.

Signed,

(Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire), Ann Leckie, Charles Stross)
Tags: a few facts, awards and stuff, parasite
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 71 comments

museclio

May 13 2014, 16:10:57 UTC 3 years ago

So not your fault. I already own two of them, yours and Ann's. That said, reading their statement it looks very strongly like Orbit is trying to kill the Packet moving forward which is perhaps short-sighted.

I feel bad for all of you, I think you were previously handicapped by only having a pdf copy, and now this.

Ann Leckie, being less established, but with a fantastic novel is also going to be hurt by this. I *already* buy all of your books, but I only ended up hearing about her's from I think Scalzi's big idea.

seanan_mcguire

May 15 2014, 01:14:45 UTC 3 years ago

I don't know whether Orbit is trying to kill the packet moving forward, I honestly don't. I do know that statements like "I think you were previously handicapped by only having a pdf copy" are why they might decide to do just that. Not that you, specifically, have done anything wrong: just that the overall attitude of "we are owed free stuff, we should have free stuff, and it should be convenient and perfect" is starting to put publishers' backs up, especially as regards full-length novels.

We forget how recently the packet was created, I think.

museclio

May 15 2014, 01:40:36 UTC 3 years ago

So, I think I was perhaps a bit unclear. So, I don't in fact think we are owed it. I think that some peoplle do forget that it's not an entitlement and treat it badly. I think that people who hadn't read somethign might have been less likely to do so in a pdf. That is however on them, and I think that they are voting poorly if they are voting based on that.

What made me think that Orbit would like to kill it is the line in their release. "Going forward, we very much hope that awards administrators give careful consideration to voter packets, particularly in those categories in which shortlisted works are already widely available, and that they continue to look for new ways to encourage participation in awards."

seanan_mcguire

May 15 2014, 02:19:30 UTC 3 years ago

No, I didn't read that as you thinking you were owed anything (unclarity for everybody!). But "it was a PDF and that was difficult and so I didn't vote for the inconvenient free thing" translates very quickly to "and buying it would have been even less convenient, so screw you." I feel like it's less that individual people are being overly entitled; everyone has their reasons. It's more "the complaints have been legion."