~~ Join Us! The starving elite!

[reenka]

I'm having an interesting moral dilemma recently that I can't seem to crack by myself.

I found a site, Juxtaposefantasy.net, which is basically decent original slash fiction in several different fantasy-type universes-- as a paid, subscription service. $9.99 a month, no less. The writer updates one of the story universes once a week, etc etc.

My first reaction to this was horror-- paying for slash?? Please! Who does she think she is?! ...That was also my second and third reaction.

And then I read some of the teaser chapters, and was hooked. I'm a sucker for suspense things-- which is why I try to avoid suspense fiction and don't mind spoilers. I don't -seek out- spoilers, but I'm one of those people who hates that awful itch of having to know that seems to please most people. It just... bothers me. I know most people get off on it... and I do like the small adrenaline rush, I guess. But I'm too prone to compulsive, addictive behaviors already, I think, and suspense fics just make it too much for me to take and I overload. I realize most well-written fic is in the suspense category if it's a WIP, come to think of it, so I've been reading almost exclusively that for awhile now. Hmm. Maybe it's worse if the actual content is a thriller also. Er... but that's a complete tangent.

Anyway, I paid the money, but now I feel horribly dirty and uncomfortable with myself. It raises all sorts of awkward questions, this discomfort.


So why is my instinctive response that this self-publishing is somehow "bad"? How is self-publishing on the net "bad"? Why am I so instinctively drawn to mainstream publishing, considering that it rips off artists and doesn't exactly reward quality? Isn't what this writer is doing what most of us would want to do, that is, writing what she loves and getting both an interactive, vocal readership and a means to support herself meanwhile?

Well, first of all, I think the price is a complete rip-off. Second of all, she's just... not -that- good. And I realize that sounds kind of elitist or whatever, but I do have this old-fashioned feeling (completely out of touch with reality as it is) that you should be brilliant to get to be published. You should be -better- than the rest of us somehow. And this person doesn't even seem to have a beta who'd catch some basic grammar errors. So there's that.

This elitist thing is why people say "I'm a published author" while puffing out their chest and looking down their noses, right? Even though... well... most "published authors" suck in a bad way, and "best-sellers" are usually so far from "literature" as to be from another literary planet altogether. A part of me also thinks that as difficult as it would be to write oodles of fic while having a full-time non-writing job, that's just one of the trials of being a writer.

You're -supposed- to starve, stay up all night writing while you slave away at the McFast-Food-Joint all day and/or try to finish grad school or whatever, have no social life, and shut yourself into a small room with only coffee and/or Mountain Dew for company. That's how it works, isn't it? That's the glory of it, isn't it? Then, at the end, the truly great (and high-stamina) among us will cross the finish-line as True Writers, and all the famous publishing houses will take one look at the final manuscript and swoon. Just-- swoon away; either that, or thus begins the equally arduous process of sending in the damn thing to everyone and their brother until -someone-, someday, takes pity on you. That being another Test Of Your Glory And Dedication To The Cause. And/or you get your big break having your most throw-away, casually written fic published in Amazing Stories (okay, now I'm stuck in the 40s, but whatever).

That's how I want it to be, even if it's clearly just a pipe-dream.

So. Do you guys think it's a rip-off? Would you do this if you could? Would you then charge by the year instead of by the month? Would you just not charge as much? I'm really stumped, and also curious.

...I suppose all this goes a ways to explain why I still haven't even attempted to be published, huh :> Besides the whole "my original fic is (generally unfinished) crap" thing -.-

Comments

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Whether it's a ripoff or not hardly makes it a moral question! She's offering a commodity. Her target market can decide whether or not they want to buy it. The beautiful laws of economics will determine whether she can keep it up at that or any price.

Internet publishing isn't any weirder than vanity presses, anyway.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not the rip-off aspect that's the moral question, it's the me-having-paid-for-it and then feeling dirty, like I've broken one of my own moral codes, that makes it feel like a moral question. To me, anyway, even if it isn't to anyone else, y'know?

Hmm, and yeah, I know that in practice it doesn't matter whether it's a ripoff, but in theory I was just wondering what would be a "fair" price, heh, just so I myself could feel better about it, mostly. I don't want to be the "target market", that's basically all :>

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Well, you like slash and bemoan the lack of it in published literature, don't you? Me too, unashamedly, so yeah, we're the target market.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yeah. Maybe it's just that I always place quality above everything, and I feel somewhat... used, I think, 'cause I think I read it in large degree -because- it is slash and not because it's -good-. Like, I don't think I'd read it if it wasn't m/m. I went through a phase where I bought every published fantasy/sci-fi m/m book I knew of or could find, but the truth is... most of these, I didn't find readable, so I didn't read them. They're still languishing along with the rest of the books I'll get to... someday. When I'm really bored.

So I dunno. I want more slash and/or m/m fic, yeah, but what I -really- want is more good-quality m/m fic I don't feel is appealing to my lowest-common-denominator impulses, I guess. *sigh*