Blog Funding Days, day 6 of 15

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*TODAY’S POST — SUNDAY PROMO AND VIGNETTES — IS BELOW THIS ONE -S.A.H.*

Yes, blog funding is going fairly slow on all fronts, partly I think because of the times we’re in. It’s not that fewer people are giving, but that people in general are giving less.

This is not a complaint against the givers. I’m also giving slightly less. Because of the times we’re in. And no one should feel obligated or even hinted at to give more than they can afford. This is not an emergency fundraiser.

Mind you, this is not to say it’s not needed. For various reasons, but mostly a lot of death and illness, this year has been brutal on my fiction writing even if I’m feeling more capable of writing. It’s made the ol’ publishing pretty slow, which means yeah, less money. And you know what costs are. BUT this is known, it’s not an emergency, this is not a rescue (I promised I’d never ask for another of those, after all) and we’ll be fine.

Still, I might do the thing where I put a post up top, pinned, with the details of the fundraising, and then mention it at the end for a week every three months or so. For various reasons, I don’t like doing that. OTOH a lot of other bloggers have gone to more than one fundraiser a year because this year has been brutal for everyone, so it’s not like this is peculiar to me.

And here’s the important thing: Heinlein said that writing for free was immoral. And he was actually right.

How?

Well, the context he was saying it in was Ginny writing a free article for a skating magazine. Apparently the magazine just didn’t pay. But he said writing for free was immoral.

It is. If people are willing to write for free, it drives the value of all writing down. It wasn’t just that skating magazine. The more people were willing to write not-for-money the less magazines paid, till when I came in the field they were paying less than they’d paid in the fifties, for short stories, professional rates.

I’ll also note that in Portugal publishers just plain don’t pay — and do a lousy job of promoting, as a consequence — because the job of writing is so prestigious that all sorts of people will do it for free. So it has become a hobby for everyone, and only foreigners make money from Portuguese readers.

Now, of course, Ginny was doing it for fun, and perhaps for exposure.

I’m not a hundred percent sure how Heinlein would view the current market place for writing. Writing for fun and exposure is how everyone (including book authors) starts, in the hope of creating an audience who’ll want to pay them.

It is what I did in this blog, even when the exposure — in terms of selling the fiction — only sort of worked.

And I worked assiduously for years at building an audience who’d be willing to pay. I believe I have built that, at least if last year’s fundraiser is any indication.

Have I?

You can choose from Give Send Go, in which case you are donating to make it possible for me to keep this blog up and not lose my mind or get incredibly ill as …. as has been the case these last ten years. Give Send Go forbids incentive donations. So, that’s that.

If you want to donate to keep Sarah marginally healthier and saner while writing blog and books, please go here: Link Here.

If you wish to more directly support my fiction writing, other than by buying books (again, this helps me do things like pay my assistant, and maybe finally pay someone to revamp my blog) and this other means is part of the funding: Subscribe to my substack, where I’m serializing the novels Witch’s Daughter and Winter Prince. (Update on Witch’s Daughter up, and Winter Prince are up. Another chapter of Winter Prince being finished after this. We … uh…. had a middle of the night wake up. Yes, reasons. No, not health.)

Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.

And finally, a few of you informed me you are Patreon Donors. I have no idea what to do with Patreon, since it has some issues copyright and other ways. BUT I will try to do a post once a week. My warning that it will be mostly about cats is, well… a warning. It can be tons of other things, such as art or an outtake on a past or future novel. And probably will be. Unless I’m mourning a very beloved kitten and share that. (Sorry.)

Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.

Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, or gold. Remember to pack the gold inside a hollowed out book.

Sarah A. Hoyt
304 S. Jones Blvd, Suite 6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107

39 thoughts on “Blog Funding Days, day 6 of 15”

  1. Or those weeds growing in the critter’s hair or did he? have a hard time in a forest? [Crazy Grin]

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    2. Good news! I found my grey Tractor Supply hat. I almost asked y’all if you had seen it. In other news, I finally got a haircut. Wanna guess where I found my hat? Yep; on the rack at the barber shop.

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  2. My problem is there are many worthy causes but I don’t have near enough worthy money to distribute amongst them. Nevertheless, I do what I can. I hope it helps.

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    1. I feel the exact same day. As I said, it’s that sort of times, isn’t it.
      AGAIN I am in no way guilting or even hinting. Just explaining why I’m doing this now.

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      1. It has been one of those years with unforseen expenses to go along with the usual seen but must spend expenses. Combined with Bidenflation it has made supporting fundraisers of any kind difficult at the moment. Intend to send something at some point, but it may not be for a bit.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Yeah. It’s hurt EVERYONE.
          Again, I’d be panicking at not close to funding, except I’ve seen all my blogger friends going through this.
          And we too have had unforeseen expenses, sometimes sad ones. (Sigh. Helena at 2.5k which I wouldn’t resent, if we got to bring her home, instead of spending more on cremation and urn. (Those go in the coffin with me, eventually.))
          And cars. Don’t get me started on cars this year.

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  3. My understanding of how Larry Correia got started was noodling around, posting for fun, chapters of what became Monster Hunters International to a group of on-line friends.

    I’m not sure how copyright works with stuff posted like that. I know some websites and social media sites try to claim rights to anything posted on their sites; but I don’t think that passes the sniff test.

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    1. The way copyright law currently operates (in theory more than in fact) is that the moment you create something, you have a copyright on it, and that copyright lasts till 70 years after your death. No registration or publication required, the act of setting it down on paper does it.

      As for licensing issues online, I don’t actually know how much that’s been litigated, but yes, various social media try to claim a lot of ownership. In a sense, posting anything online necessarily implies a license, but, again, I’m not sure how much that’s been fought out in the courts. I doubt that anybody questions Larry’s ownership of his writing, though.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. There’s a distinction between copyright and license that’s important to understand here. (I deal with this stuff quite a lot for my day job, so I have a passing understanding of the concepts). Copyright is something you automatically have as the author: if you created the thing, you and only you have the right to make copies of it (presumable to sell), though you can also give permission to other people to make copies. That permission is usually through a license. In the world of open-source software, you would usually put a file called LICENSE.txt in your program source code with phrases like the following: “Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software …” (There’s more, but you get the idea).

      Now, granting someone permission does not give them ownership. You can also give ownership by assigning the copyright to someone else: this is part of most employee contracts, that anything they create while on the job will be owned by their employer. But that’s about the only circumstance in which it’s normal to hand over ownership of what you write. (Passing it on to your heirs in a will is the only other case I can think of). if any sites are trying to claim ownership, they’re definitely trying to pull a fast one and should be exposed as the cheaters they are. However, what most sites are claiming is a license. Depending on the terms of the license they want you to grant them, this might be onerous, or it might be perfectly reasonable. For example, if you’re posting a comment that you intend other people to see, well, the site doesn’t automatically have permission to display your comment (which involves making copies of it) unless you’ve granted it permission. So most sites will say “By writing something in the comment box, you grant us permission to store it in a database, and display it all over the world.” If that’s all they ask you to grant them, that’s perfectly reasonable. But some of them go a lot further, and you do want to read the fine print.

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      1. As an example of copyright skulduggery, Disney used to do a scam on young artists where artists would bring in portfolios to try to get hired, leave them with Disney to look over and decide, and Disney would copy and register for copyright everything in the portfolio, and prevent the artist from using any of that art ever again. This was a few decades ago, and worked partly because the copyright office only records registrations, it doesn’t do any investigation to determine validity or lack thereof.

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  4. Indeed – DO NOT WRITE FOR FREE! (exception made for free bloggy ice cream, of course.) That was one of the precepts of the first house that I published with – don’t let a for-profit publishing enterprise get away with offering a writer ‘exposure’ only. Because that drives down the ability of other professional writers to ask for a decent amount for their work.
    Such entities are a scam and delusion. I had a very bruising bout early on with a local publication which stalled me for so long over getting paid for the bespoke article I wrote for their print rag, that eventually I went and parked myself in their office until they cut the damned check.
    The friend who had put me on to that gig told me ””Umm… they’re never going to hire you again, after this.” My response, “I don’t bloody care! I’m not going to consider them as a customer again, so we’re even-Stephen.”
    I NEEDED that check to publicize my first book.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. they’re never going to hire you again, after this

      Right, why would you want to be “hired by them” if they didn’t want to pay you for the “first” job?

      Good For You!

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  5. The only time I “write for free” is in academia. And that’s a whole ‘nother plane of reality, where “free” means “keeping professional credits and visibility for jobs and paying articles.” (Since I’m not on tenure track where writing articles and books is part of your job.)

    Liked by 1 person

  6. It’s all the same pot of money right? I subscribed on Substack, because I didn’t want to track another account (Give Send Go). However, I’m really more interested in the blog content.

    Substack seems a lot cleaner that WP.

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      1. David, yes, I am, but I don’t have a link on the page, and am not putting a link on the page, lest we set off their “moral” clause.
        But yes, I still have the account (It’s the means of payment of a lot of the short stories I sold which are still paying years later. So I can’t close it.) And I’m still receiving money through it. I just won’t post it anywhere near the blog.

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  8. I assure you that I’m not going to endanger myself by donating to anyone. I am, in fact, rather particular about the causes to which I donate. However, I am quite grateful for the community that has grown up around you, so I’m renewing my gift for this year.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. “… yes, we accept checks, cash, or gold.”

    What, no silver?

    Oh well, I can understand. A mere $25 worth of silver would be over an ounce, and with postal rates spiraling the way they are, you’re trying to save us money on shipping. Thoughtful of you.

    Besides, Larry C. can use it more, to melt down for anti-werewolf ammo.

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        1. I’m starting to think that the last box of practice .22LR I got was made under license from Lesters. It leaves more gunk than anything short of burning creosote-soaked railroad ties!

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  10. Never say never about asking for another “rescue.” Obviously, I hope that you never NEED to ask for another one. But the future is never known.

    I probably will never need to bail my kids out of a financial bind again. But they know that, if it comes to that, and I am able, I will. You should know the same, dear lady.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. All of us absolutely wish that you will never again have the need for “rescue”.
      HOWEVER, your writing, thoughts and stories as well as this community mean enough to me that I am willing if the need does arise.

      Also, please don’t apologize for anything that helps to manage grief. You are part of this community that cares for each other. Share if it helps.

      Don_RN

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  11. Saying you mustn’t write for free seems like saying you mustn’t sing unless you’re getting paid for it. How are you going to learn to do it if you don’t practice? Even Heinlein had to write For Us, the Living before he could write anything good enough to get paid for.
    Of course, once you CAN get paid, writing something for free has an opportunity cost: the money you could have earned by writing something you’d get paid for instead. But that’s a different situation.

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  13. @ William “Saying you mustn’t write for free seems like saying you mustn’t sing unless you’re getting paid for it. ”

    Professional musicians are very choosy about performing without remuneration.
    Those of us who are just amateurs (or students) singing for fun (or experience) – that’s different.
    In fact, if someone offered to pay me, I would probably think there was something deficient in their musical acumen.

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