Dear Readers:
Some of you on this list may have noticed that I was quoted in
the New York Post regarding Stephen King's cessation of "The
Plant". The quote, as it appeared in the NYP on 11/29/00,
was as follows:
-----
"But many of his fans - who now
have paid $7 for a book that has no ending - were furious.
"I am saddened and angered at the crass commercialization of
that incredible magic that occurs between writer and reader - a
wonderful and special magic that King seems to have forgotten is
the true spirit, the true heart of being a writer," said
e-author Jim Farris.""
-----
Well, this is a mistake. First, that quote was taken out of
context (not suprisingly, as the original quote was taken from a
very long post to the E-Authors list,
e-authors@egroups.com
). The prefacing sentence makes it appear as though I am a
subscriber to his e-serial - and I am not. I read the first
installment, thought it stank compared to his previous work, and
didn't read any farther. Second, the quote appears to be a
complaint about the money involved - and it is not. It is a
complaint about King's attitude towards his readers. So, I intend
to repeat (and rephrase for clarity) my original comments here,
so that everyone on this list can understand how I feel about
this situation.
Right now, I'm doing my own e-serial. Nobody has
to pay to read it (though I encourage my readers to buy the
"published" version of the books as they are released,
and let them know that there's a couple extra musical
compositions in the "soundtracks" for the
"published" versions). I've been through hell with this
series (I'm on my second publisher, in fact), poured a lot of
sweat and effort into it, and had a much higher
production schedule than "The Plant" ever had. Not only
are my chapters the same size as his, they're coming out three
times a week and with three musical compositions a week.
I've promoted it like crazy, I've struggled to get the works
reviewed, and basically put more effort into this than anything
in my life except my marriage. But so far, after eight months of
ceaseless labor, I have made exactly zero off all this
work. Not one thin dime.
So why do I continue? If I'm making no money off this, why am I
bothering?
Because of that unspoken promise Leta Nolan Childers (an
internationally known romance author) has referred to so often -
that promise between Writer and Reader, that promise to
entertain, or to inform. I'm not going to stop now. You, my
readers, love these stories (if you didn't, you wouldn't still be
subscribed), and you all want to read the series to it's
conclusion - and by God, come hell or high water, you will.
That, to me, is what being an author is all about. It's not all
about the bottom line. It's not all about making a fast buck and
then dumping a project so you can do other things. It's about
that magical connection between the Writer and the Reader, that
spell that falls over someone when they really get into a book,
and lose themselves in the storyteller's words.
You can see it, when you watch someone else read an excellent
novel. Try it yourself - hand a good book to your little nipper,
or your spouse. Pick one of the greats, like Tolkien, or
Heinlein. Then watch them read. It's an amazing thing. As the
story envelops them, they are no longer even in your world - you
can see it in their eyes. They no longer see you, hear you, or
even are consciously aware you exist. Their mind has been
transported to the fantasy world contained within the pages of
that book, or on the screen before them. A spouse you've known
twenty years, a person who thinks of you every moment of the day,
is gone. Your child, someone you've known all their life, has
vanished, transported to another world. It's true magic, I think
- the magic of imagination.
And to reduce that magic to a simple equation of "Pay Me Or
I Stop Telling The Story", then later say "Well, okay,
you paid me, thanks much, but I'm busy so I'm going to stop for
now"... I'm sorry, but I find I'm simply disgusted with the
man.
I don't begrudge him the money - far from it. I hope to make as
much money myself, someday, and I cheer him for showing that
e-books can, indeed, be a lucrative field (well, lucrative if
you're nationally-known, at any rate). No, I don't begrudge him
the money - he's earned it, and he deserves every single
penny. No, I am, instead, annoyed by the disdainful attitude
he has for his fans, the sneering assuption that no matter what
anyone else may say, his hard-core fans will take this kind of
treatment without question, and come right back once he resumes
the story, and start shelling out the dough again.
But that, my friends, was the context of my original comment.
Most of all, beyond even the callous attitude King's decision
shows, I find I am saddened, and even a bit angered. Yes, I am
saddened and angered at the crass commercialization of that
incredible magic that occurrs between Writer and Reader - a
wonderful and special magic that King seems to have forgotten is
the true spirit, the true heart of being a writer.
That was the context of my original comment. And more, you, the
subscribers to this e-serial, can rest assured that I will never
forget that special magic, nor will I ever reneg on that promise
between Writer and Reader.
In an additional comment King put up on his website, he noted
that since his original announcement, the "pay-through"
amounts have dropped from 75-80% down to 40%. King wrote:
"Neither Marsha nor I can
assign any particular reason for this precipitous drop off, it
may be that people are stealing this particular installment
simply because they know the story is going to stop anyway."
- Stephen King, as posted at http://www.stephenking.com/sk_100900.html
Well, I think he's right. Now that he's announced he's going to
stop, a lot of people are mad at him. He may, in the
end, have shot himself in the foot because if this decision, and
cost himself not merely a lot of sales, but a lot of readers. I
think King just assumed his readers would accept his decision
with a smile - and they aren't.
As I said before, however, this all boils down to attitude.
King's basic attitude towards his readers was expressed very
clearly in his first posting regarding The Plant on his website:
"If you pay, the story
rolls. If you don't, the story folds... If response is weak, I
(will) pull the plug after Installment Two... If You Have Other
Questions... Don't ask em. You won't get answers. Marsha's
swamped. So am I. Forgive me for being so blunt, but that's how
it is. If You're Not Satisfied... You're out a buck. Or two. I
mean, break my heart." - Stephen King, as posted at http://www.stephenking.com in July of 2000
As I wrote on the e-authors list
back in July, this type of "pay up or shut up" attitude
doesn't inspire warmth and confidence, really. No, quite the
contrary - it leads many to believe King simply doesn't care,
and is taking his fans for granted. Now, with his decision to
close down "The Plant" to handle other projects he
considers more important, leaving his fans with a half-finished
story they've paid good money for, it seems I was right.
As I said on the e-authors
list when the announcement of The Plant's closing first came down
the pike, just by rough math, using his own figures for how many
copies have "sold", he's grossed at least half a
million dollars from this enterprise - and even if we assume that
his two-person company with nearly zero overhead (Philitrum
Press) cost him half of that, he's still pocketed over a quarter
of a million bucks at one and two bucks a pop for each chapter.
I'm sorry, folks, but like I said before, for a
quarter of a million bucks, I would finish a story I
started, regardless of how busy my life got. He says he's too
busy? I wouldn't be. For a quarter of a million bucks, I'd make
time. Now he says people aren't paying? I'd still finish the
story. Consider - it's been announced (elsewhere, not on King's
site) that initial sales figures for part IV have over 40,000
downloads that were paid for. That's eighty thousand bucks,
folks. For eighty thousand bucks, I'd keep writing. Even if we
assume that Philitrum press eats half of that, that's still
fourty thousand bucks. With that kind of money in my pocket, I'd
keep on going.
But what's more disturbing about this, as I mentioned before, is
King's total abandonment of the relationship that an author has
with his readers. That promise between Writer and Reader, that
promise to entertain, or to inform. As I said before, I'm doing
an e-serial, myself - and I've yet to see a dime from it. Even
so, I'm not going to stop now. You, my readers, love these
stories (if you didn't, you wouldn't be subscribed). You want to
read the series to it's conclusion, and by God, come hell or high
water, you will. Money has
nothing to do with it.
As I said before, that, to me, is what being an author is all
about. It's not all about the bottom line. It's not all about
making a fast buck and then dumping a project so you can do other
things. It's about that magical connection between the Writer and
the Reader, that spell that falls over someone when they really
get into a book, and lose themselves in the storyteller's words.
As Richard Wright
(internationally-known author of the incredible horror novel Cuckoo)
mentioned in one of his posts on this
subject, King used to be a "Reader's Writer" - but
those days, apparently, are long past.
This is not to say "Stephen King is a Bad Man". Far
from it - I think, at heart, King's a very nice person, and he's
still one of my all-time favorite authors (The Running Man
is, I think, perhaps one of the best sci-fi stories ever written,
and Christine I still pull down from the shelf to read
several times a year, as I consider it a classic of horror). What
has happened, I think, is that he's simply forgotten the basic
relationship between Writer and Reader, lost that special magic
that storytelling is really all about, and now simply takes his
readers for granted. And if the pay-throughs have suddenly
dropped, well... All I can say is that this may simply be a sign
that his readers have come to realize King is taking them for
granted. As such, this may, in the end, cost King far more than
he ever anticipated.
So, having said all this, what, as subscribers and Readers, can
you expect from this Writer?
Well, first, as I've said from the outset, "The Oerth
Cycle" is planned to be four books in length. That means
(barring me dying or something uncontrollable like that), you will
get four books, and four symphony-length soundtracks. I will not
stop for any reason short of illness, death, or computer failure.
Even if I only had one reader, I would continue this work until
all four books are released.
Are further books planned? Yes - but they're only in the planning
stages.
So if I begin a second Oerth Cycle, when would it start? Probably
about a year after the first one ends, depending upon reader
response, because I need time to actually write them.
Having discovered how difficult it is to produce the works the
way I'm doing it now, I think I'd like to have any further Cycles
completed and the soundtracks composed before I begin
posting the chapters. Currently, I am writing one book while
posting the previous one, and composing the soundtrack for each
book as I post the pages - and that's an enormous amount of
pressure. Typos creep in, and sometimes I end up with musical
compositions I am less than pleased with, and end up going back
and re-doing, then posting the updated music to the website. I
want each chapter to be perfect, each book to be perfect,
and I want it all to be perfect before it's posted. You,
my Readers, deserve nothing less than the best. Thus, if you,
my Readers, say you want to read another Cycle, then that's
probably how I'll end up doing it.
What would be the plot of further books? Well, at this point, I
don't know. The only thing I'm sure of at this point is who would
be the "star" of a second Oerth Cycle. Remember the
character "Little Tinker", Farrah's brother that Bootie
gave birth to in the second book? Well, a second Oerth Cycle
would be another series of four books, and begin about 15 to 18
years after the end of the first, and encompass events in his
life, just as the first has encompassed envents in Merle's life.
A third Oerth Cycle would encompass events probably 50 to 100
years after that, and a fourth Oerth Cycle would encompass events
about 100 to 200 years after that. But, that's all I have on
them, at the moment - exactly what I've just said. I have no plot
outlines yet, no character descriptions, nothing.
So what would determine these decisions?
Why, you will, of course.
You, the Readers, will determine what
happens. If you, the Readers, want to read more, you will.
If you don't, then I'll work on other books, instead. That, to
me, is what being a Storyteller is all about - telling the
stories that your listeners want to hear. Everything else is
secondary.
Jim Farris,
Published Professional Author and Composer
xaa@3lefties.com
http://come.to/xaa