Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Coming to a Cell Phone Near You

"DailyLit" is not, as it sounds, an advertisement for cigarette companies, but rather a website that supplies installments of fiction to cell phones, RSS feeds, and laptops. They are currently "compiling Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine content" to use as free downloads in this project. One story they are soliciting is my "Sex and Violence."

The authors do not get paid for their stories. Nonetheless, I am going to sign the contract (non-exclusive use for 24 months) as my first venture into Cory-Doctorow information-wants-to-be-free territory. The story is so short (700 words) that selling it to somewhere like Escape Pod would net me almost nothing, and I'm curious. Will I really pick up new readers this way? Will those who like "Sex and Violence" really then seek out more of my work? I have no way to measure that, of course, unless these hypothetical new readers also email me, which occasionally happens. Although only occasionally.

The story will also be featured in"DailyLit's Science Fiction Channel," I'm told. This is an upcoming section of the DailyLit site devoted to SF.

So I'll give it a try. Creative Commons, here I come. Gentlemen, start your cell phones.

5 comments:

Lou said...

...and she's off! Barreling towards CC'dom and open source authorship!

Seriously, Nancy, I do hope that this brings you a whole slew of new readers.

Lou

Steven Francis Murphy said...

Gagh, I hate reading fiction this way. It is akin to watching cold water skitter across a hot skillet.

If this is the future then count me as not pleased with it.

Respects,
S. F. Murphy

dolphintornsea said...

May the new readers be fruitful and multiply.

And happy birthday!

John Nicholas said...

I can't speak to the cell phone thing but I have sought out author's novels who I first heard on Escape Pod. I'm pretty sure that I first heard listened to Tobias Buckell, Tim Pratt, Elizabeth Bear on there. There's a few others that if I saw a book by them I'd be more likely to give it second look.

Unknown said...

I signed up for DailyLit last month and am loving it. Read The Metamorphosis first, and now I get a small chunk of James Patrick Kelly's Burn every day. I dunno if I would read short stories in small chunks through them (why split up short stuff?). Having read only Kelly's short stories, and liking Burn so far, there's a good chance I may be tempted to read more of his novels.

I like DailyLit because it feeds stuff to me in a size small enough that I can read in "found time". I don't have the self-discipline to do that on my own.