Happy International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!

Remember the little 'splosion I linked to a while back, where the vice president of SFWA called a bunch of people some highly insulting names for having posted their work for free on the Internet, claiming they were somehow stabbing the industry as a whole in the back by doing so? One of those names was "pixel-stained technopeasant wretch." Because SF/F writers are a snarky bunch, and because a lot of us think Dr. Hendrix is wrong wrong wrongitty wrong about such things, Jo Walton (papersky) has adopted that phrase for the first-ever International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, i.e. today.

So today, you may read good stories all over the Internet, because many writers are answering her call to post works of professional-quality fiction on their websites for free.

My contribution? "Calling into Silence", my Asimov Award story from a few years back. I chose to post that one for three reasons:

1) I can't post stories I'm trying to sell if I actually want to sell them, which I admittedly do;
2) I don't want to inflict on you guys stories I gave up trying to sell, or never tried to sell at all;
3) this story gives me a neat opportunity to mess around with font colors for effect. (I almost messed around with fonts, too, but the color adjustments ate enough of my time yesterday that we'll leave it as it stands.)

I may post something else later today, too, but for now, that will do.

And if you want to read more pro-quality fiction posted in honor of this day, check out papersky's roundup over here.

a few more thoughts on technopeasantry

If you are not a writer, but you wish to celebrate International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, then may I suggest this? Post about a writer whose work you originally found unline and then subsequently searched out more, or an online magazine you particularly enjoy, or similarly related topics. You see, one of the big arguments against Dr. Hendrix's conviction that we're all stabbing our industry colleagues in the back is that by posting work online, we may well reach readers who would never have picked up an issue of Asimov's or Realms of Fantasy, who may then go looking for more of our work, which may lead to them buying things that aren't posted for free -- in other words, that we're trying to increase the size of our readership by doing these things. So if you've ever experienced that effect, tell us about it!

Also, since I was in a hurry to post about "Calling into Silence" this morning before going to class, I didn't get a chance to expound on one of the things I said, namely my reluctance to post stories I haven't already sold.

I want to talk about that more because on the surface, it seems like I'm saying such postings aren't a good thing. Not what I mean, though. Partly it's a matter of my current status: putting a sale to the Intergalactic Medicine Show on my cover letters does me a lot more good than saying I posted a story on my website would, and it's true that sales breed more sales. So I'm trying to make as many sales as I can, not because I disapprove of offering work for free, but because I'm trying to build a base of credits for myself.

Having said that, I would post unsold stories . . . but all the ones I'd be interested in posting are currently under submission at a variety of markets. Had this been announced with more lead time, and they had come home in the interim, I might have kept them here, and today you would be reading an online version of my ludicrously-titled story "Letter Found in a Chest Belonging to the Marquis de Montseraille Following the Death of That Worthy Individual." But according to papersky, "Today is Sant Jodi, when people in Catalonia give each other books and roses. It's also Shakespeare's birthday." So today's the day, and "Letter Found" is not at home, and I don't want to irritate any editors by e-mailing them to ask they root through their slush and pull one of my stories out.

The other thing I might have posted was a Doppelganger novella that's too bloody long to sell anywhere, but the thing needs substantial editing, and I didn't have time to get it done by today. But I probably will at some point, and that will go up for free, and then we will see that every day is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.