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
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  • 71 comments

sylphon

May 13 2014, 17:39:23 UTC 3 years ago

Bummer. I loved getting some of your stuff last year that way. It introduced me to some new authors that I now read as well. I hope other publishers don't decide to dry up that well.

I'm not ticked at you or even them, I understand business is business and unfortunately some people abuse the system and distribute what they ought not.

It does seem to handicap the authors though since then people can't make their voting decisions as easily.

seanan_mcguire

May 15 2014, 02:01:51 UTC 3 years ago

I am afraid that the responses, which have overall been incredibly entitled and "how dare you not give me everything I want for free, any time I want it" is going to cause other publishers to follow Orbit's lead. It's proving the "these people don't buy, they just take" theory.

sylphon

May 16 2014, 14:58:40 UTC 3 years ago

Ugh. I'm really sorry to hear that, but I understand their position. It's hard to want to provide for free when people see it as their due. It was a great way to be introduced to authors, give a more accurate voting of my preferences and find new worlds to immerse myself in, but it isn't cost effective for publishers, since for every person that is willing to buy further books, there are probably a dozen that just want the freebies.

I will say though that this is how I ended up getting into your Mira Grant stuff, I got one via the hugos last year, liked it and bought up the rest. I already owned all your Seanan McGuire books but wasn't so sure about the Mira stuff since a major thematic change could also result in literary changes. The copy included in the hugo packet last year encouraged me to snap them all up for my library though in a heartbeat :-)

Either way, we're all here till the end of the ride, so keep on trucking and here's hoping the paperwork and whiners don't bog you down!