Again, that is the exception rather than the rule. Being online doesn’t necessarily drive more sales; depends on a number of complex factors including who your readers are.

The bit about conversions (free stuff/advice you generated taking away time from paid work) makes perfect sense and actually falls right in line with comments I’ve personally heard Scalzi make; that is: he blogs because he wants to blog, not as a marketing tool. He also does NOT recommend putting the stuff you want to sell online for all the reasons you mention above, and readily points himself out as an exception. (from comments at Millenicon 2009)

Doctorow, if I remember correctly, was not a well-known author when he started putting entire works online under CC licenses. Part of his fame (and people’s exposure to his work) was directly due to putting stuff online. Also, I’m more likely to buy something of yours because I’ve met you, but I’m even MORE likely to do so once I’ve already read something you’ve written and enjoyed it. That’s what got me started reading (and buying) Doctorow’s work. I read _Down & Out In the Magic Kingdom_ for free, and have since bought three more copies of it as gifts and bought several of his later books for myself.

Boingboing has repeatedly highlighted studies showing that, at least for the moment, online content boosts sales in books and music for midlist and below artists. (That’s an oversimplification, of course, but generally has held true for several years now.)

Don’t forget that personal relationship thing as well; for example, I pay (donate) for Escape Artist’s podcasts largely because of the feeling of relationship with the hosts.

There’s two problems you hit on with putting free things online: search & value.

Search: There is a lot of content on the web. And as you rightly point out, a lot of it is crap. That’s where the magazines (web and print) and books with editorial control come in to help narrow that “quality” thing down. I know I’m much more likely to read something of quality from Apex, Analog, or Asimov’s than the website some person I’ve never heard. Additionally, trusted networks will help with this as well. A recommendation from someone who has pointed me to various other good content (even someone I’ve barely or never met like Doctorow and Scalzi) will do a lot to sway my opinion and purchasing dollars.

Devaluation: This is somewhat related to the search problem. If we treat all works as perfect substitutes, you’re exactly right. But that’s simply not the case with creative works. One book/magazine/movie/song is not perfectly equivalent to any other. You may still see devaluation, but it won’t all go to zero. If someone wants to read your work (or a particular author’s), the availability of my older stuff isn’t going to make a difference in their purchase. And if it *would*, you’d still have problems in any marketplace without a price floor.

It also occurred to me as I finished writing this that it might seem like I’m saying that all works SHOULD be free, and I disagree with that. That sense of entitlement is rather annoying.

I hope that makes more sense!

The thing with Doctorow and authors like Scalzi, is that they are known authors who are giving away a free sample (e.g. a story in a particular format) of their work. When you have an established brand, that makes an impact on what decisions you make about your online marketing and your ability to monetize those free samples. Doctorow, Scalzi and other authors like David Wellington have been known to “make it” online, but that is the exception rather than the rule. The more authors that jump online and provide works for free; the harder it will be to stand out from the crowd and the more time-consuming (e.g. loss of money and time spent on writing) it will be. There are very specific reasons why authors can “make it ” online, and that has to do with timing and how the technology works. Of course, it helps to have a good product, too.

Creative Commons allows you to provide some rights to others through its interface. Without a CC stamp, works are still protected under copyright law because they are considered “published.” For example, some publishers will not accept an internet published story on your own blog because that is considered by some to be first printing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion over CC and copyright; the law is pretty complicated and it continues to evolve because it hasn’t caught up to the technology. And yes, I am aware that the plagiarism resulted in a “crime.” With the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), however, only the content owner can make that claim for a takedown notice. Even more confusing is whether or not it’s acceptable to link “to” that illegal content.

In my case, networking was the goal for those conversations, not fiction sales. I enjoy helping others and paying it forward; but it’s not just fiction sales I lost. It’s time away from my writing and my work. I’m not the only professional to mention this; it’s a bit like asking an established author how to get published but never reading their books. That happens more often than you might think. There were other things that affected my ability to post stories and other things online that I won’t get into here. That doesn’t mean I “won’t ever” do it, it just means I have to be more selective about when I do.

The point I’m trying to make here, is that intent doesn’t matter when it comes to posting things online. Plagiarism, the devaluation of paid content, piracy…all these things are trends that happen as a result of multiple authors, creators, businesses giving away too much for free in the hopes of getting conversion. (e.g. a visitor to spend money). Free samples are an entirely different story, however, because the sample is a viable business option for many professionals.

Personally, I’m trying to walk inbetween your point here and what Doctorow (among others) espouses. Because of the free (cc) content that Doctorow, Stross, and Watts have put online, I’ve bought (several) of their regular works. It’s similar to how I’ve bought works from the authors at GenCon after hearing them read bits of it. In all of those cases, I have a sense of a “connection” to the author because of those things.

What seems to be different in your case was that you used your nonfiction expertise (even if it was *about* fiction), and that did not convert into fiction sales. Right? It’s possible that (to lapse into economic-ese) that they are not substitutes. In other words, writing here *about* writing might convert into writing for pay for “The Writer”, “Poets & Writers”, and the like – but not into fiction.

There is some content on my website *is* free, intentionally, because I don’t think there’s much of a market for it. It’s older works that have been up forever, or drabbles. (The few places that take drabbles – e.g. the Drabblecast – doesn’t care if it’s a reprint or not.) [1]

My longer work, however, goes to the marketplace – and then I announce that in the same venues that I put my “free” work. I *know* there have been a few self-reported conversions there.

Depending on the Creative Commons license, the publisher you mention above could have committed a crime. CC licensed does not equal public domain.

[1] It’s worth noting that I’m following one of the many Laws of Scalzi here. I write the drabbles and blog because I WANT to, and share them because I would be anyway – not explicitly as a marketing tool.