I feel very satisfied so far with yesterday’s little experiment of releasing my novel “ Managers from Hell ” free under a Creative Commons license . There were quite a few reasons why I did it. Of course, I want as many people as possible to read my book, but that was not the main reason. I wanted to try to show that the world that the pirates advocate is not a stingy and wicked world, but actually quite a nice world if you put in the effort and look past the war headlines of scary record company executives and writers with stone age mentality.
Since yesterday I have:
1. Got a lot of new, nice readers for the blog (and by extension for the book too)
2. Went from zero distributors to twelve distributors on Pirate Bay
3. I’ve hopefully gotten some other creators to check this out with Creative Commons licenses
I think that’s great, considering that everything has happened in just one day. If Ask and gang get their way and directly or indirectly throttle the Pirate Bay and other similar services, it would be difficult for me and other creators who choose this path to spread our work the way we want. I realize that this is exactly the same argument that the opposing side uses: “We want to spread our work on our terms!” The difference is that my way absolutely does not exclude their way and it does not threaten people’s privacy. I have no plans to give up the traditional book business that I love (although it would need some modernization like so many other industries), but I want to be free to spread my work as I please. It’s about the creator’s freedom, not the industry’s,
Which one is the best? The completely selfish alternative where you only look out for yourself or the one where you share and keep several paths open? A few months ago, I would have chosen the first. After pulling myself together and deciding to educate myself a bit more in the field and absorb the actual technical reality, my obvious answer is now option number two. And the money then? As the world looks today, I at least have better future prospects than Jan Guillou, because at least I have taken a step out into the fresh air and left the stone age cave behind me.
