Hitting the Paywall

Taking the big step in valuing myself and my work

I’ve been toying with the idea of paywalling the old Negatives posts ever since I put the eBook up for sale. I went back and forth: Will people want to pay? Will it turn them off from reading it at all? Shouldn’t I just be grateful for every pair of eyes since I’m not living off of this stuff? Do I want to limit my audience? But why would anyone buy the book if they can read it for free here? Which is more important to me?

So I let it ride for a while. I set my prices so I’d get about $5 in royalties. For the ebook that was around $8, for the paperback more than $20. The little self-doubting, maybe even self-hating voice inside me said for sure no one would pay that much for the work of a self-published unknown.

And, honestly, the numbers seem to agree.

But what changed my mind recently was something that happened to a friend of mine: they found out that their traditionally published work was being pirated from a particular website. They went off: how greedy are people? This was their livelihood. How they pay their bills. They’re only charging a few dollars for their work. People can go through their library for it if they really don’t want to or can’t pay.

And in response to their posts, various pirates retorted that they were owed this author’s art because you should put your art into the world for the sheer joy of sharing what you did, that once it becomes a Product you’re a filthy capitalist and it’s fair game, that poor people deserve art too, that it’s not a physical product so it’s bullshit to have to pay real money for it, endless justifications for something they don’t really need, that they want.

I found myself getting really angry, physically angry, on behalf of my friend. We’re all trapped in capitalism, my friends. We all have to sell something to live in this society: our labor, our talents, our bodies in some cases, and yes sometimes we create products that you can’t exactly hold in your hand but they are worth something. Just because we sometimes sell it through a big corporation doesn’t make us that big corporation, bloated and fat and greedy. We need to pay our bills. And apparently years of talent and hundreds of hours of work has no value to these people.

Which made me wonder if I’m undervaluing myself. I spent years on Negatives. Not eight hours a day every day, but I wrote it, and rewrote it, and edited, and fretted, and tweaked. I passed it back and forth with my friend who helped me with developmental edits. Just to get the eBook and paperback out I re-read every word, listened to a computer voice recite it out, combed through as thoroughly as I could. I designed a cover. I set it up through Draft 2 Digital. I ordered a proof and picked through that. And honestly, I love my own book. I’m my own biggest fan. I wrote it for myself so I probably like it more than anyone else would. I don’t think it’s a piece of shit.

So today I paywalled everything but the prologue and chapter one. I lowered the price of my eBook to $5.99. It’s $0.99 more expensive than one month of a paid subscription to this Substack, but you get to keep it and read it as many times as you want, forever. You don’t end up having to give Substack any money if you disagree with their decision to give a platform to certain extremists. You don’t even have to give money to Bezos, because it’s available from multiple retailers. It’s available on Hoopla, so if your library has that, you’re all set for free.

And if that turns you off, if you want to call me a greedy capitalist bitch, go ahead. Go read something else. There’s an ocean of fiction that my little book is lost in; dip your net in and scoop up more than you could possibly read in a lifetime. But something my late friend Kris told me stuck with me: when I talked about pricing an eBook at 99 cents or even free, he told me that when stuff is priced that low, it implies that it’s worthless. It’s (nowadays AI) garbage. People take it for granted.

And maybe it’s time I valued myself, my time, and my work a little more.

HUGE THANKS to all of you who read Negatives. If you truly can’t afford it, contact me and maybe we can figure something out. I can get a coupon code. I’m actually about to go dip the price for Draft2Digital’s end of year sale (you have to buy directly through them - it doesn’t discount anywhere else). On or after December 8th, go here to check it out. It’ll be 50% off the new, lower price.

Apertures will remain free and unlocked until such time as I put out the eBook and paperback for that (I’m trying to focus on Obscura first, since I haven’t even finished that for serialization yet). And I’ll warn you all ahead of time when that happens. I’m sorry I didn’t give advanced warning for Negatives. I knew I had to pull the trigger before I changed my mind.

I hope you can understand. Have a Happy Thanksgiving if you live in the States, a happy rest of the week if you live everywhere else, and happy reading.