Conrad Zero

Which are more important to you, songs or stories? Which would you rather have, a world without books, or a world without music? A recent Wired article about the Google books legal fiasco made me realize that society has already answered this question.

In a previous blog post I compared the current complaints of the publishing industry to the music industry’s cries from ten years earlier. In a nutshell, the publishing industry is experiencing the pains of virtualizing their product and coming up with a business model that integrates with internet technology. Lawyers, lawsuits, pirates, copyright, DRM… it’s the exact same paradigm shift the music industry had to make ten years ago. But the publishing industry is determined to retrace the steps of the music industry instead of learning from their mistakes.

I guess Sting said it best, “History will teach us nothing.”

Text vs Tunes

Consider this – computers and the internet have excelled at working with text right out of the box for almost 50 years. The ASCII format for text storage and transmission was created in 1963. E-mails were being sent in the early 70’s.

But music had to twist itself in a knot to adapt to computers and the internet. It had to struggle with the insane conversion from an analog to a digital format. Then add in compression and compatibility issues. The MP3 Format was created in 1991, and didn’t really catch on until internet speeds rose in the late 90’s and early 00’s.

So don’t you think it’s odd that Music ran into the problems involved with product virtualization and online business models ten years ago, but the publishing industry is having these problems now? Why didn’t the publishing industry hit this crossroads first?

The publishing industry should have been dealing with piracy, copyright and DRM issues WAY before the music industry, but it took text thirty years to make the jump from the physical page to the virtual mainstream, yet music took only ten.

Looks like the choice was made. Music is a hotter commodity than books.

Sorry books, but music wins.

There’s several reasons why I think tunes trumped tales on the internet.

E-book readers – The I-pod evolved naturally from the portable cassette and CD players, and clearly the I-pod is an improvement in music portabilty. There’s no similar device to serve as a precedent for books, which are already portable and wireless.

You could argue that every computer with a display  is an “e-book reader.” But I can’t think of anyone who really wants to read Moby Dick on their computer monitor. Even the best e-book readers on the market today can’t hold a candle to a real book made of paper. So it’s no surprise that music made the digital jump before books.

Short No attention span – We can listen to music while doing other things, and more importantly, music can make those other things more pleasurable. Think of all the people who are driving, snowboarding, or even working while music is playing. Life is better with a soundtrack.

Meanwhile, books take more of our attention away from the world. We need to turn pages, and keep our eyes locked on the page. You can’t drive, snowboard or work while reading. (or shouldn’t, anyway.)

Gen X/Y vs the Baby Boomers – Lets not overlook the core group of people whose lives are caught in the ‘net. It probably goes without saying that Gen X’ers who latched onto the internet quickly and Gen Y’ers who probably can’t imagine the world without it, spend more time on the internet than their parents. It’s also not hard to believe that this large subsection of the population using the internet listens to music more often than they read.

This would be a case of the industry following the market (albeit kicking and screaming, but eventually following.)

Drag race on the Information SuperHighway

Does this mean that music is more important to us than books? Or that the publishing industry has more resistance to change than the music industry? Regardless, neither industry was in a hurry to embrace the new tech. On the internet superhighway if the music industry drives a 1986 Ford Fiesta, then the publishing industry must be walking. And I haven’t even touched on the software or video industries. I leave that to you as a homework exercise.

As both a writer and a musician, it pains me to even think about picking one over the other. But if I had to pick between .mp3 files and .docs I’d choose music. If nothing else, we could convert all the books in the world to audio format, but there really isn’t a way to translate music into text.

What do you think? Drop your thoughts/comments below.

Yours Darkly,
Conrad Zero

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

There’s been a lot of buzz on the web about piracy, this time not affiliated with the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Johnny Depp, but… e-books.

Every news article about the potential e-book market is another can of gas on the fire:

• The petition against Google’s e-book scanning
• Apple’s impending i-book store
• The Kindle-killing (and horrifically named) i-Pad

Seems that e-books are the talk of internetville. But doesn’t all this talk sound familiar? Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

Sales are down! Piracy is destroying the industry! Lawsuits! Copyright!! DRM!!!

Oh yes, that’s right. We DID hear all this before. From the music industry. We heard it when the cassette tape format was invented. We heard it again when CD burners became a household item. And we got to hear it again when Napster + broadband internet connections made it possible to download an entire library of audio in minutes. And now that books are on the block, we get to hear it again from the publishing industry.

Yawn.

I’ll direct the publishing industry to read my Open Letter to Gene Simmons (of the band KISS) and the RIAA. Simply replace the word “music” with “e-book” and replace “Recording Industry” with “Publishing Industry”.

Oh, and replace “Pirates” with “Pirates”.

The Problem is Virtual

Until recently, artistic works such as music, video, pictures and stories required a medium to contain the art and transfer it from one person to another. That medium (Tape, DVD, CD, Book, etc…) had a production cost, a fixed physical expense that someone had to pay because that THING had to be manufactured, packaged, shipped, received, warehoused, and stocked.

For decades, we’ve been told how much it costs to make THINGS and to ship THINGS and to stock THINGS. And the cost of the THINGS keeps going up because of [fill in the blank].

But consumers were never buying the THING. People don’t really want a cassette tape. Or a book. Or a computer file for that matter. Consumers want the art that the medium carries. They want the story about Frodo and Sam. They want the song by Jagged Spiral. They want the picture of the pirate flag.

With the internet, the medium is all but removed from the product, leaving an intangible stream of ones and zeros. At long last, the products of art have been un-THING-ified. Virtualized.

One of the reasons consumers never wanted the medium in the first place was that it adds unnecessary cost to the art. Well, now the medium is almost completely gone, but where are the savings? We should be seeing prices dive for the virtual products, but the industries still try to justify the old prices.

This is a problem.

Price Check

Why is an e-book selling for $9 when the hardcover book is $13? Why in the Hells do they both list at $29?

Seriously. Twenty Nine American Dollars is the Publisher’s Suggested Retail Price for an E-Book? Is that supposed to make you think that $9 is a good deal?

I’m not the only one calling the publishing industry out on it’s bullshit. New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Stackpole lists plenty of other reasons publishers can’t justify their e-book pricing.

The industry holds the price up, because they won’t let go of the THING-ness of their product. They see every sale of a virtual product as a direct equivalent of the sale of a physical product. They think that every e-book sold is a physical book not sold.

Reality Check: Virtual products are not Physical products.

Truth is, the publishing industry should be thrilled to death about internet distribution. E-books may have a lower cost, but they have a far higher margin than their physical counterparts. If you don’t know what that means, ask an accountant. If you can’t make your business work with this new math, then hire a fucking accountant, and change your business to become profitable. The last thing you’d want to do is waste money on lawyers to fight the system. Ask the recording industry.

Why is the industry is down? Why aren’t people buying? Its simple. The product is virtualized, but the price is not.

Hey, it’s a free market, and it’s not against the law for businesses or even the entire industry to use business practices leading to their own obsolescence. It also isn’t against the law for them to starve to death because they refuse to adapt to the new technology.

But it looks like instead of taking advantage of the new technology they have available, the publishing industry has decided to try to force a square peg into a round hole. When that doesn’t work, they sulk and stare at the dwindling sales and blame…

Pirates!

Before you break out the flamethrowers, understand that I’m not endorsing piracy.  Piracy is unlawful and unethical. Google is evil for doing it, and so is everyone else who does it.

But I am telling you that it is entirely true that (music/movie/ebook) piracy is NOT “killing” the (recording/motion-picture/publishing)  industry. It wasn’t back when cassette tapes came out. It wasn’t back when the VCR was released to consumers. Author’s careers are not being destroyed because their books are available for free at the library, or borrowed from friends, or sold in used bookstores. Musicians aren’t going broke because their songs are played on terrestrial radio, myspace, and pandora at no cost to consumers.

The publishing industry is down because of many factors, but piracy is the last one to worry about. Wasting time on it is like rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.  Keelhauling every pirate in the universe won’t fix what’s wrong with the publishing industry, the music industry, or any other industry, because Pirates are not a problem; they are a symptom.

Let’s look at the problem that causes piracy to become popular:

Free as in “E-Books”

Price a product high enough and two things will happen.

• Sales of that product will decrease.
• Customers will find other ways to get the product for less.

The music industry already learned this, but let’s look at how it pertains to the publishing industry, by examining these ‘other ways’ to get the product for less than the listed price:

• You can get every Dean Koontz book ever written for free… at the public library.
• You can get every Stephanie Meyer book for free… by borrowing them from your niece.
• You can buy the latest Stephen King novel for One Dollar…  on Craigslist. (In hardcover.)
• You can buy Scott Sigler’s latest for just a couple bucks… at the used bookstore.
• Ebay.com
• Swaptree.com
• Bookcrossing.com
• And you can get the latest of pretty much any e-book for free… by pirating it via bittorrent.

Care to wager that library usage is way up? Borrowing/lending? But you won’t hear about the publishing industry claiming that libraries are “Destroying the industry” or trying pass laws banning the sharing of books. That would be just as laughable as saying that pirates are destroying the industry.  It’s just one more way customers can get the product if they don’t think it’s worth the list price.

Am I suggesting that publishers are causing an increase in piracy by setting their prices too high? Yes. Just like they are “causing” people to check books out at the library, or borrowing them instead of purchasing them at the bookstore. Just like they are causing consumers to obtain the product through other methods, or pass on the product altogether.

Of course publishers have to fight piracy, or people will think they’re OK with it. But to declare that piracy is destroying the publishing industry is simply not true. Illegal? Yes. On the rise? No doubt. But look at the cause:

Your business plan sucks.

Here’s where you should be focusing. Not on pirates. Solve this problem, and piracy will diminish, along with borrowing/lending and library usage.

But, we doesn’t understand business or teh Interwebs!

I can already hear the publishing industry screaming at me that it can’t make a profit off what people are willing to pay for e-books. Sorry, but that argument does not fly.

You can price your product whereever you like, but products are never worth more than people are willing to pay for them. It doesn’t matter how much they cost to make.  Like I said, price it too high and people won’t buy it or they will find cheaper alternatives. Yes, including piracy.

This is the spot where I’d make a “buggy whip manufacturer” reference, but q.e.d. right?

The Solution

The solution starts by acknowledging the real problem.

The solution starts with letting go of the paradigm of treating ones and zeros on the web as a physical product. Virtual products are not Physical products.

The solution starts when people stop crying that change is bad, fighting against the new tech, and trying to cover up bad business models by blaming pirates.

I suspect the solution requires a generation of post-internet people growing up with virtualized products; people who weren’t born into a system of 100% THINGS and then had to suffer the paradigm shift to the virtual. These people will have a more intimate understanding of this “problem”, and perhaps when they grow up to take over for the current regime, they will arrive at a more elegant solution – one that works to Everyone’s advantage.

Yours Darkly,
Conrad Zero

The Works: a Writer’s Salon is held on the first Tue of each month at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis. I’ve never been to the Works before, partially because it sounded more heavily steeped in poetry than prose, but mostly because Tuesday night is usually Jagged Spiral band practice. Turns out practice was cancelled while our guitar player is on vacation this week, so I decided to swing over to the BLB to check out this month’s topic: The New Reading: Alternatives to the Traditional Literary Reading.

The entry fee was $6-$10 on a “Sliding scale,” meaning 6 to 10 dollars is the suggested donation, and you pay what you can. For those who haven’t been to the theater at BLB, it’s cozy, with good sound, lights and stage, and waitstaff. You can order food, apps and drinks right there in the theater.

First up was Todd Boss, who gave a list of thoughtful suggestions for how to make readings more alternative:

• include video during your reading
• memorize your work
• record your work for internet distribution
• collaborate with other artists on stage

Todd also suggested a new book by the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute filled with ideas that you can download for free called Poetry and New Media: A User’s Guide.

Jamie Buehner & Nick LeMere gave an example of on-stage collaboration. Jamie read her poetry while Nick did some motion/interpretive dance inspired by her words. Someone pointed out how it felt more like watching TV because the poet was reading to the dancer more than she was to the audience.

Alison Morse & Sandy Beach were there to represent the Talking Image Connection, an organization that “connects emerging poets and writers with adventurous visual artists and new audiences.” Alison talked about the TIC group and what they do. Sandy Beach read a poem inspired by a visual work from another artist. Read more about TIC on their website: http://www.talkimage.org/

Punk poet Paul Dickinson gave a highly entertaining presentation of his poetry. Watch the video below of Paul giving a reading of his poems at the Art Shanty Project:

Notice that he has his poems memorized. Paul also hosts a poetry reading at the Turf Club in St. Paul on the first Wednesday of each month.

E.G. Bailey & Shá Cage gave three examples of alternative readings. The first was a beat poetry reading with cool jazz sax accompaniment, broadcast over the house PA while E.G. and Shá sat in the audience, leaving the stage empty.

Second, they went on the stage and performed separate pieces of poetry that they had written about their homelands. What made this alternative was that they both read their poems at the same time, overlapping each other and creating interesting rhythms and textures as they changed the tempo and volumes of their delivery. It was really amazing, and even more amazing that they had never practiced the parts nor heard each others work until they performed it live.

Their third experiment was an audience participation project, which… I won’t talk about. Suffice to say it was alternative.

All in all, I was right that the writer’s salon is dominated by poets. The host, Lightsey Darst made a point to mention that prose readers are also encouraged to participate, and she would love to balance out the poetry with some prose. Go to http://lightseydarst.com/theworks.html to find out more about the Works salon and to sign up for the newsletter.

Yours Darkly,
Conrad Zero

A look at “Midwest Self-Importance”

At the monthly MNSpec writer’s group meeting, I submitted several chapters of my Urban Fantasy manuscript “Evil Looks Good” for the group critique. The bulk of the story occurs in Minneapolis and the surrounding area. My choice of story location struck one critiquer as concerning. She said she didn’t have a problem with me writing a story based in Minneapolis. (“Write what you know,” she said.) But she made it clear that others would.

I quote the following directly from her written critique (All emphasis, caps and quotes are hers)

…be prepared for this to be a tougher sell to NY agents/publishers. Have a damn good reason why it HAS to be in Minneapolis, and can’t be in NY or LA or somewhere more “exotic”.

She also informed me that people from the East Coast and the West Coast believe people in the Midwest to be narcissistic about their homeland. I think she called it the trait of “Midwest Self-Importance”.

Pot. Kettle. Black. Anyway, to sum up her general points:

• People living in the Midwest think that the Midwest is important
• NY editors do not agree. To them, the Midwest is not important, interesting, or exotic, and stories need a reason to occur there.
• NY editors prefer stories set in NY/LA or other “exotic” locations, unless there is a real reason to have them happen elsewhere.

A Study In Narcissism

While driving back from the critique, I decided to give her advice a charitable interpretation.

“New York editors! What a bunch of narrow-minded fill-in-the-blanks!” (Yes, I actually said “fill-in-the-blanks”) “Who do they think they are, putting down the Midwest?  Flyover Land my ass. Who cares what a bunch of pretentious New Yorkers and Californians think…”

That’s about as far as my ‘charitable interpretation’ got when the world hit me with one of those grandly ironic and disconcerting moments that the Zen Buddhists try so hard to cultivate.  I was treating those editors EXACTLY the same way she told me they would treat me.

That, my friends, is the sound of one hand clapping.

So after that refreshing micro-enlightenment, I was able to a attempt an even more charitable interpretation.

Midwestern pride aside, few will disagree that New York and Los Angeles have a sense of local self-importance that pretty much trumps all others.  Write about yourself much? Make movies about yourself much? So perhaps we can chalk up all this talk of local pride to the more global reality that everyone thinks that where they choose to live is important.

But the existence of the term “Flyover Land” makes it clear the coastal cities look down on the In-Between as someplace you fly over to get somewhere important. In retaliation, the Midwest adopted the term “Third Coast” shows that Midwesterners think they are just as important as the bookends protecting them from the oceans.

On reflection, I’d say it isn’t so much that the Midwest has a case of Self-Importance. It’s more true to say that the Midwesterners don’t buy into NY and LA treating the Midwest as unimportant. It’s easy to see how this can be mis-perceived as arrogance.

Seriously. Why would you set your fiction story in Minneapolis?

I could have set my story anywhere. New York, Los Angeles, Pluto… location cost me nothing. So why Minneapolis?

Because NY and LA aren’t as exotic as you think

By definition, “exotic” is something we don’t see or hear much of. That pretty much un-exotics NY and LA. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of stories that happen in LA/NY.

San Francisco and Washington, DC too. Yawn.

Because diversity rules, Baby

It makes me sad that American media is dominated by so few cities. There’s more to France than just Paris. There’s more to Germany than just Berlin. And there’s more to the United States than just New York and Los Angeles. It’s like someone judging your entire high-school graduating class based on meeting the prom king and queen.

Ick. Embrace diversity.

Because Minneapolis isn’t as un-exotic as you think.

Think all the creatives live on the coast? Think again. In March 2008, Americans for the Arts compiled a “Creative Industries 2008″ report. From pages 10 and 11:

Arts Businesses per 1000 residents

Minneapolis – 4.84

Los Angeles – 4.72

New York – 3.25

Arts Employees per 1000 residents

Minneapolis – 33.51

Los Angeles – 31.38

New York – 27.95

For a city with more art per-capita than NY or LA, Minneapolis is severely under-represented in media, and I’m doing my part to help correct that.

I chose Minneapolis as the setting for my story because it’s the Cinderella of the U.S.A. – a gem of a city, under-valued and under-appreciated by its wicked, coastal stepsisters.

-Conrad Zero

Oh yes, and we have the Mall of America too. Just sayin’.

Because Location is a Spice

Can you imagine the Spider-Man movies taking place in Chicago? St. Paul? Milwaukee? Yep. Would that ruin them? Nope. In many stories like these, the location is just a backdrop that adds flavor, but isn’t directly tied to the story.

Am I saying that a city is a city is a city? Sometimes. I am saying you’d be hard pressed to tell one downtown from another during a ninja sword fight against giant, carnivorous, poisonous, exploding spider-leeches.

There are examples where the story location is tied to the story and can’t be changed. If your story is about the President of the United States at work, then your story has to include the location of Washington, DC. But more often than not, the location can be just a spice in the stew. An essential ingredient, but there are many to choose from.

Because of the Miracle of Find/Replace

Let’s suppose that there are editors out there who love Love LOVE New York and hate Hate HATE Murderapolis Minneapolis. Fair enough. In fact, it’s probably true.

But any editor with two IQ points to rub together will be familiar with the terminology “Find/Replace”. This refers to the ability of word-processing software to take any particular word, term, or phrase and replace it with anything you like.

With this in mind, would an editor really reject your story because the main character has red hair and not blonde/black? Drinks RC cola instead of Coke/Pepsi?  Lives in Minneapolis instead of NY/LA? Doubtful.

Editors must have X-ray vision. They need to see right into the guts of the story, and if the heart and liver are good, but they don’t like the spleen, then the editor knows it can be replaced. If an editor loves your plot, pacing and dialog, but doesn’t like your protagonist’s eye-color, occupation or hometown… Find/Replace. If they can’t see the story inside the story, then I don’t really want them as my editor. Would you?

Because authors should “Write What You Know”

We’ve all heard the writer’s advice to “write what you know.”  To be fair, the critiquer I mentioned earlier did admit to this herself, and suggested a ’solution’ for polluting my story with the Midwest. She said there has to be a reason that the story takes place in Minneapolis and couldn’t take place anywhere else.

This is really good advice. Something all writers should think about. Reminds me of the advice to treat the location like a character in your story.

But my story could take place in any city, so why would I research the geography and climate of Los Angeles when I can write pages of geography and climate about the city I know?

合計 (In Summation)

Stories have to happen someplace, and one of every author’s goals is to make the reader ’see’ that place. But is the success or failure of a story tied to where it takes place? Will it really make your story a hard sell because some N.Y. editors don’t know how to spell Minneapolis? I don’t think so.

As a reader, I care more about the feel of the location than the location itself. A location is important. THE location… not as much.  Hells,  if Stephen King can write stories based in Bangor, Maine, then I can write stories based in Minneapolis.

I chose Minneapolis as the setting for my story because it’s the Cinderella of the U.S.A. – a gem of a city, under-valued and under-appreciated by its wicked, coastal stepsisters .

Do I have a case of “my hometown is important too?” Clearly. But doesn’t everyone? What do you think? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

Yours Darkly,
Conrad Zero

The Accidental (and Ironic) Pirate

While researching different authors perspectives on e-book piracy, I tripped over a blog post by a New York Times Bestselling Author. Let’s call her Jenn. (Not her real name) Jenn’s blog post explains how piracy affects people she knows in the music industry, and her own career as an author. She experiences the direct impact of piracy firsthand, and she is clearly against the theft of intellectual property.

And yet the irony is that Jenn, herself, is a pirate.

That’s right. A New York Times Bestselling Author, a person who is directly affected by pirates stealing electronic versions of her work, a person who knows and understands piracy and even fears that it may be destroying the publishing industry…

…is a pirate herself.

At the top of her article, she used a graphic of a pirate flag which looks similar to the one at the upper-right of this post.

Unfortunately, the watermark on the image Jenn used shows it to be a copyrighted image, unlicensed and unapproved for public use.

Its ironic (in lots of ways) that an author opposed to piracy would use a pirated version of a pirate flag in her anti-piracy post.

You probably noticed that I’m not linking to Jenn or providing her real name. I’ve informed the author of her indiscretion, and she took the image down immediately. I know Jenn didn’t mean to use an image without permission. But there’s something we can all learn from this, and this simple oversight by someone who should know better hits the nail on the head with an aircraft carrier.

Jenn is a particular kind of pirate, one most people don’t think of when they talk about pirates. I’m calling this type of pirate a Zombie Pirate.

Zombie Pirates

Jenn never meant to break the law, she simply didn’t know better. She didn’t know the image was copyrighted. There’s tons of free graphics on the internet and she grabbed that one just like it was any other.

Full stop. Let’s reword that thought quickly and play it back again:

Jenn never meant to break the law, she simply didn’t know better. She didn’t know the music was copyrighted. There’s tons of free songs on the internet and she grabbed that one just like it was any other.

And again:

Jenn never meant to break the law, she simply didn’t know better. She didn’t know the e-book was copyrighted. There’s tons of free e-books on the internet and she grabbed that one just like it was any other.

I call this Zombie Piracy because the people doing it have their brains turned off. They know piracy is wrong, (Hells, Jenn just blogged a whole post about how piracy was damaging her personally!)  but they don’t realize they are doing it. They aren’t paying attention.

Here is another example of Zombie Piracy performed by a national commercial newspaper!

How about people who install torrent clients, unaware that they’ve just turned their computers into webhosts for copyright media files.

Brain. Turned. Off.

Causes of Zombie Piracy

Granted, there are some people who opt-in to Zombie Piracy by embracing their own ignorance. Copyright law is confusing, (even to newspapers and bestselling authors, apparently) and it takes a bit of work to dig up the owner and copyright status of any electronic file. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? So they throw their hands up and say, “Aw Hells, I dunno!”  Then Right-Click, Save-As, and live the life of the blissfully ignorant zombie pirate.

There are websites out there that make it easy for the casual user to become a Zombie Pirate… they’re called search engines.

Jenn found her pirate flag graphic using the ubiquitous Google Image Search. But Google can’t be blamed for Zombie Piracy.  Knowing the copyright status of the media is the users responsibility. To their credit, Google does provide the lukewarm warning, “Image may be subject to copyright” beside every graphic it presents.

Threat Level of Zombie Pirates

I suspect the Zombie Pirate is the most common of the pirate types. I also suspect they are the easiest to cure.

Unlike other types of pirates, Zombie Pirates don’t intend any harm. They would be likely to buy a song, graphic or e-book if they knew they were supposed to pay for it. In that respect, these pirates do cost the industries in potential lost sales.

They’re also the most likely to get caught, because they aren’t aware they are doing anything wrong, so they also aren’t aware that they should cover their tracks. But Piracy is Piracy right? The music and publishing industry think so, and history has  proven that they don’t accept ignorance as an excuse.

The Cure for Zombie Piracy

In Left 4 Dead, the cure for Zombies is the combat shotgun. But the cure for Zombie Piracy is awareness.

Remember this: All artwork is copyright of the artist immediately upon creation by default.

Assume that any media you come across on the web is copyright, and it’s your responsibility to track down the usage rights before you use it.  You should have the copyright source and status of media you use, just like you should be able to provide proof-of-purchase for physical products that you own.

If you are looking for free media, your best bet is to look for items which are in the Public Domain. That stuff is FREE as in, EFF ARR double “E”.

You can also look at media released under Creative Commons licensing, but be careful. The umbrella term “Creative Commons” doesn’t mean “Free.” There are different license types within Creative Commons which have different requirements or restrictions. Explanations of Creative Commons licenses can be found here: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses

And please, if you are going to use Google Image Search, make sure to use the Advanced Search Settings and under “Usage Rights” select from the list of available filters.

Better yet, check out this post which lists a plethora of sources for free media.

Now you know. Turn. Brain. On.

Yours Darkly,
-Conrad Zero

Resources for Free Media

To help prevent the spread of Zombie Piracy, I’ve collected some resources to help you find media files (audio, video, e-books etc…) which are free to use. Make sure to read and adhere to the terms of use carefully. Some media might not be free (or even usable) for commercial purposes, author attribution might be required, or there may be other conditions:

Free Media (Images, Sounds, Video, etc…)

• http://search.creativecommons.org/ – A search engine for media released under Creative Commons licensing. This does a sub-search of several other sites, including Flickr and Google Image Search.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources This site lists many websites with content available in the Public Domain.
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page A database/wiki of media which are free to use. It also has a handy list of license types.

Free Pictures and Graphics:

• Morguefile.com/ Free images for use even in commercial applications, but you cannot claim ownership of, or resell the images.
• Flickr.com A popular picture-sharing site. The copyright and usage info for each picture can be found under “Additional Information”
• Google Image Search is useful for finding free pictures and graphics, if you know how to use it. Use the  Advanced Search Settings and under “Usage Rights” select from the list of available filters.
• Deviantart.com has tons of amazing art, but not all of it is free. You have to look at the details for each picture to see the copyright restrictions.

Free Sounds and Music:

• The Freesound Project at Freesound.org is filled with free sound effects licensed through Creative Commons. See here for more info about usage rights.
• Jagged Spiral’s debut album, “Days From Evil” is free to download, and licensed through Creative Commons Music Sharing License. (Full Disclosure – We Rock!)

Free E-books:

• Project Gutenberg has plenty of free e-books which are in the public domain.

If you know of other good sources for free-to-use material, please post them in the comments section.

Here are some bonus features for you to think about as you download all that “free” media…

Fair Use?

Those who want to know the truth about “Fair Use” can get it straight from the horse’s mouth here: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

But here is all you really need to know, from the website:

The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined.

and this:

The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material.

Besides, you don’t really want to argue over the definition of “Fair Use” in court, right? It isn’t worth it.

One thing you can do to help avoid issues from the start is…

Attribution of Your Sources

Some “free” media require you to attribute the author/source/owner of the media. Attribution is simply mentioning the copyright holder. This could be as simple as putting their name near a quote like this:

Twitter is about as useful as a wet-nap is to a scuba diver.

-Conrad Zero

Or it could be listing the copyright holder in the tag of an mp3 file or movie credits.

Seems like every copyright holder has a different definition of “attribution” which makes it a pain in the ass to seem compliant.  I imagine that’s probably why very few websites actually do it. And even proper attribution to the copyright holder is no protection from accusation of unfair use. But providing attribution (even if it isn’t a requirement of use) certainly makes you look better, both online and in a court of law.

For more on attribution, check out this news article on the Blog Herald discussing “How to Provide Attribution in the Blogging World” or, examples of Copyright Attibution for Creative Commons Media(pdf).

And while WordPress thoughtlessly strips links out of image captions, making it near impossible to attribute graphics, this kind soul has developed a working solution, which I now implement here at conradzero.com.

Commercial/Business use

Much of the “free” media is only free for non-commercial use. As you can imagine, the definition of “Commercial Use” has become a slippery topic. If you have Google Adwords running on your personal blog, is that “Commercial”? What if you use your blog as a focal point for adding readers to an e-mail list where you send out ‘exclusive offers’? What if you have a Paypal ‘Donate’ button at the bottom of your site?

Again, I recommend erring on the side of caution. If you are making money, then you should use media that allows for commercial use.

Editing, Remixing and Derivative Works

If you plan on editing a graphic, pic, sound file or video, make sure the usage license allows for derivative works, otherwise contact the media’s copyright holder for permission.

Other Resources

Yours Darkly,
-Conrad Zero

I’m not sure if I’ve cut back on linking out to other websites, or if I’ve just gotten more picky. Regardless, theoatmeal.com gets my endorsement for being one of the funniest websites I’ve ever seen. It ranks right up there with joecartoon.com Definitely worthy of the Ubercool rating here at conradzero.com.

A random sampling of awesome posts:

• 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth
• How Twilight Works
• Why I’d Rather Be Punched in the Testicles than call Customer Service

Theoatmeal.com is not only entertaining, but educational as well. Make sure to learn up on your apostrophes and semicolons.

Matthew Inman is the man behind the scenes at theoatmeal.com.  After you laugh your ass off there, make sure you buy him a cup of coffee.

Yours Darkly,
-Conrad Zero

Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-X

Remember when you wrote out checks to pay your bills? Those little slips of paper you stuffed into an envelope and mailed off? (Don’t forget the stamp!)

Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-X

Remember when the “Debit Card” was invented? Remember how most stores wouldn’t take it? They called it “funny money.”

Remember when ATMs were going to replace banks? There was going to be one on each street corner (next to each pay phone.)

Twenty Hundred and X

Remember Microsoft Money? Quicken? Programs that enabled you to pay your bills over the magic of the interwebs? I used Microsoft Money to monitor my banking transactions, categorize my spending, set budgets, pay bills, and administrate invoices and payments. It really simplified tax-time.

Eventually, utilities  offered the ability to pay over the cell phone and the web. The gas, electric and phone bills were easy (and most were free) to check and pay over the phone and web.  So I shifted away from Microsoft Money’s bill paying feature for the convenience of paying by phone.

Life was good, until…

Twenty Hundred and Ten

No sign of flying cars, but most utilities have strapped turbo-jet-packs to their service “Fees.” Compounding the problem, Microsoft has discontinued their Money program, and Quicken went to a monthly charge (currently $9.95) to make payments through their software.

Companies have been raising their fees, or charging a fee where there was none before. My phone company, which had free phone-pay system for a while now, recently added a FOUR DOLLAR FEE to pay your bill over the phone.

Four.

Dollars.

Let’s add this up:

• Before: An administrative assistant opens payment envelopes, makes sure checks are properly filled out, matches them to customer account invoices. An accounting assistant keys them in to the ERP system, signs all the checks, and makes a  ‘nightly deposit run’.
• Now: Administrative and accounting assistants are replaced with one computer. Data entry is done by the customer, and money transfers directly into the business account. The company IT guy has one more computer to keep running /backed up  (for the same paycheck)

For this new system they ADD a fee? For a service that costs them LESS to operate? Never mind the fact that YOU are paying them a fee so you can pay them for their product/service to begin with. The price of their service should have decreased to reflect the decrease in operating expense. The price could have stayed the same, and no one would have complained.  They could have added a token fee of a dime or a quarter, even a dollar, and most people wouldn’t think twice. But Four Dollars? This works out to as much as %20 of some of my bills.

Why don’t businesses simply raise the price of their services? I would understand that. But to charge people MORE for a service that costs the business LESS to operate? That’s downright American. Who do they think they are? The Recording Industry?

Going Forward – 3 Methods I Use to Fight the Fees

I’ve decided not to tolerate unnecessary fees any longer. Here’s a handful of ways I have changed my system and saved myself over $400 per year:

1. No longer using payment types that require a “fee” – I will not pay fees to my utilities so that I can pay them… by phone or any other method. I actually considered sending them physical checks out of spite (even though those do set me back the price of a stamp.) Fortunately for them, my bank has a free online bill payment system.
2. Categorizing and Budgeting with Mint.com – I’ve read a lot of good things about mint.com, and the fact that they were purchased by Intuit (makers of Quicken) makes them even more attractive. Mint.com is a “read only” service, meaning it can only pull information from your accounts, it can’t move money around, or send money from your accounts. In that respect it’s very safe, but at the same time, it’s very limiting. If I trust a service enough to give them my account login credentials, then I would also trust them to make transfers at my request. So mint.com is worthless for bill paying and it won’t do invoicing, but it has plenty of features to help categorize my expenses for tax time, and set budgets and analyze spending patterns.
3. Invoicing using Freshbooks.com – I only have a handful of clients, so I can invoice using Freshbooks.com for free. Freshbooks.com is extremely intuitive and dead simple to use.

By using these three methods, I’m saving myself the cost of a Microsoft Money upgrade each year (around $80) and $32 per month in unnecessary “fees”. That’s not enough to save up for a flying car, but since I don’t think we’ll get any flying cars before the end of the world in 2012, I can still use that $400 for something to make the most of the short time left to this planet.

Got any other Fee Killing Tips? Drop them in the comments. And check out MSN’s list of fees that are even more outrageous than the pay-so-you-can-pay fees.

Yours Darkly,
-Z

Automatic for the Tweeple

Welcome to 2010. Strangely, the things we’ve expected to be available like flying cars and holodecks… aren’t. Instead, we have the ability to communicate out to the entire internet-connected world and tell them what we had for dinner using Twitter.com. Yay.

For those who still don’t know the difference between Twitter and a tweet, read this post.

Believe it or not, Twitter does have uses beyond the obvious time-suck. For anyone wanting to cast their social network a little wider, Twitter is as simple as it gets. If nothing else, it offers more links back to your content. The act of sending tweets isn’t difficult, but who wants to deal with following/unfollowing people and cut-n-pasting blog post links into a tweet? Sounds like more upkeep than it’s worth for just another link back to your blog. If there was only a way to automate the process…

Well you’re in luck, because I have some tips that turn Twitter into your slave, and make it automatically administrate and update  itself with content for you!  Real content too, not the B.S. jokes and quotes the New Media Spambags are pumping out.

If you don’t do Twitter because you have no idea what to tweet about, take advantage of these simple tips to get some auto-tweeting working for you. If you are already a tweetmaster, these tips are an easy way to add some content and housekeeping to your existing regimen.

If you don’t have one already, set up an account at Twitter.com then follow these simple tips to make Twitter work for you:

1 – Automate Twitter Using SocialOomph

SocialOomph.com (formerly known at TweetLater) has a terrible name, but does some wonderful auto-administration of your Twitter account. It’s totally worth the [FREE] that they charge.

Set up an account at SocialOomph and add your Twitter account credentials. Yes, that means sharing your Twitter account username and password . Don’t worry, they’re good for it.

Once your Twitter account is added, click ‘edit’ and check the following options:

• Auto-follow people who follow you.
• Auto-unfollow people who unfollow you.
• Automatically e-mail you a list of Twitter replies. You’ll get a condensed e-mail of Twitter replies people sent to you, so you never have to check on Twitter to see if you’re missing anything.
• Automatically send a welcome message to new followers. Make sure to type in a short message which will be sent to everyone who follows you. Here’s mine:

Thanks for the follow! You can check out more of my dark-fiction-author-nonsense at conradzero.com

Tweet you later!
-Conrad Zero

Note: You can also use SocialOomph to upload a bunch of pre-written tweets and schedule them to post at certain dates/times, but that means you have to write tweets and upload them. I figured I would point this out because it’s a handy consolidation of work, but it isn’t exactly automatic.

2 – Automate your Blog Posts to Twitter using Twitterfeed

Twitterfeed is a service which takes the rss feed from your blog and automatically generates tweets with a link to your blog posts and posts them on Twitter for you!

To set up Twitterfeed, you will need the RSS feed address of your blog. Mine is http://www.conradzero.com/feed which is the default for self-hosted Wordpress blogs (just replace my website name with your own.) If you have a hosted site like Blogger or LiveJournal, look on your site for a Subscribe button or a graphic which looks like this:

Right click on the graphic on your site, and copy the address there. That should be your RSS feed. Paste it into Twitterfeed. Once you get your RSS feed entered and validated, then add your Twitter account information and… Bam! All UR blogposts are now belong to Twitter!

3 – Automate Youtube to Twitter

Login or create an account at Youtube.com. Under Account Settings look for Activity Sharing or AutoSharing. Here, you can configure Youtube to auto-post your video rankings, favorites and comments out to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

Bam! Free content automatically generated for Twitter based on nothing more than trolling around Youtube! Hells, you were doing that already!

4 – Auto-tweet Myspace updates

Despite media to the contrary, Myspace is not dead. Furthermore, Myspace.com can also be automated to bounce your status updates out to Twitter.

See this link for more details: http://www.myspace.com/sync

5 – Automate Facebook updates to Twitter

I heard that if Facebook was a country, it would be the 6th largest country in the world. It would also look like the Eastern Bloc, and smell like Seattle.  I also hear it’s the only way you can get grandma online to look at pix of the grandkids.

Like tips #3 and #4 above, you can also have Facebook auto-post your updates out to Twitter (and back the other way…) using this app:  http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ [Note: you will need to login with a Facebook account to access this page.]

6- Showcase your current Twitter posts on your website.

Adding a sidebar to your website that showcases your latest Twitter posts is an easy way to put fresh content on your website(s). Best of all it’s set-and-forget. Pick from the options below depending on how your website is hosted:

WordPress – There are many WordPress plug-ins which will show your latest tweets in a sidebar widget. I use the “Twitter for WordPress” plugin by Ricardo González, and you can see the results on my homepage at conradzero.com (Scroll down the right-hand side, under the header “Twittering”)

Blogger – Here’s a link to a Twitter widget you can insert into your Blogger blog: http://twitter.com/badges/blogger

Others (Javascript) – If you use LiveJournal or other pages which run old-school HTML, This site has a simple Javascript that can be added to your page: http://www.cthreepo.com/blogthis/index.html

Others (PHP) – If you aren’t afraid of a little PHP, then with some cut-and-pasting you can add this prebuilt code to your website: http://workbench.cadenhead.org/twitter-rss-to-html/

WTF? – If none of these options work for you, there are plenty of other coders and plugin-ers out there creating software to show your twitter posts as stocktickers, sidebars, banner ads, etc… My suggestion is to find someone who is doing what you want to do, and ask them how they did it. Leave a comment here if you find something useful!

Once you’re finished, every new Twitter post will be displayed on your website pages.

Living with Auto-Twitter in 2010 and Beyond

Once you’ve strapped Twitter into this auto-magical configuration, what next?  Simple. Go back to your business as usual! Update your blog, Facebook, Myspace, etc. Rate and comment on videos at Youtube. If you followed my tips above, all these actions will generate content for you automatically on Twitter.com, and your website sidebar will be updated with your latest tweets!

Add a blog post… Bam! There’s two extra links to your blog post with no extra effort!

Someone adds you as a friend… Pow! Your account auto-adds them back, AND sends them a thank you!

Someone unfollows you…  Zap! Your account auto-unfollows the fool! So Naygh!

Who knows, maybe you’ll even start adding your own random thoughts to Twitter, (and I’ll have more helpful tips about that soon) or you can ignore Twitter completely and let it work for you in the background, offering up links to your content.

OK so it ain’t a flying car, but unless you’re going to build one, you’ll just have to settle for these tips. For those of you worried this is all a bit too Big Brother, keep in mind this is 2010, not 1984. Feel free to share these tips with others, and link back to this post.

Do you know of  other great twitter automations? Anything I missed? Anything better than what I’ve suggested? Leave a comment!

Yours darkly,
-Zero

A leisurely stroll through the fiction section of your local bookstore will reveal a surprising number of book covers that are… ass.

Literally.

Primarily female ass.

I’m going to be the very, very, very last person in the world to complain if people want to put any portion of the female anatomy on book covers.  So blame my Inner Philosopher for asking “Why?”

The simple answer is that ’sex sells.’ But for the sake of a blog post, I’m going to pretend there’s more to it than that.

It’s important to realize that the author doesn’t always have input on the cover of his/her own book. The cover is generally the domain of the publisher if the author is traditionally published (as opposed to self-published) . That includes the book title, cover copy, graphics, colors, layout, font, blurbs, etc. Covers of books are usually developed or contracted by the publisher.

But that doesn’t really explain this:

For the record, Kim Harrison did not start this trend, and she might not like it herself, but her publisher is clearly sold on it. Now, any one of these as a cover is fine. But as a repeated motif it’s questionable, and as a genre, I’d think someone somewhere would find it offensive. More than half of these covers don’t even show the woman’s head, and none of them show the face. What happened to women being pissed off at being objectified? If a male author had book covers like these, could we expect some outcry then?

No offense intended to Kim Harrison; quite the opposite. I think there is more substance to her books than than the covers give credit for. Check online reviews of her work and see for yourself. You will find that her writing is well-liked and her covers are not. In fact, I would say her work is selling well *in spite of* her publisher’s cover choices.

Attack of the Clones

For every person with an original marketing idea, there’s 1×10^3 people who simply copy that idea, rendering it un-original. My guess is that once upon a time, a good book with the female behind on the cover made the bestseller list, and now publisher’s marketing departments are making the decision to knock off a piece.

Why would I think this? Browse through the fiction section yourself and look for the books with the heroine derriere on the cover. They won’t be hard to find. This bunch came together quickly:

Again, I have nothing whatsoever against the authors or their writing. In fact, that’s my point. How do the publishers’ cover choices relate to the contents? Are the covers an accurate image of the product, or simply objectifying women? Should marketing people should be strangled to death with their own intestines?

If I were the author, I’d be pissed that my book cover looked like this. No originality whatsoever. Drowned in a sea of “Look at my ass too!”.

Branding

Of course we all recognize the classic pose of looking back over the shoulder originated by Bigfoot. (See picture, right.) My friend James has named this pose The “Three-Quarter Twist”  – not looking all the way behind you, but almost. Xtna pointed out that this pose allows the audience to see three aspects of the subject – the face, the curve of the chest, and the ass – all at once.

One could argue that showing the female backside on a book cover is a branding thing, like the Harlequin Romance ‘bodice rippers’ with the stereotypical picture of Fabio ravaging some harlot on the cover. Perhaps publishers think that consumers can put themselves in the place of the heroine on the cover. This would explain the disturbingly faceless/headless heroines. Maybe they think consumers see the cover pic of a heroine’s ass and think, “Oh, look! A modern day urban-fantasy featuring a female-dhampir protagonist, and told from first person point of view! I love these!”

What it tells me is that the author doesn’t have an original idea, and this book is just a knockoff of all the other books in the genre. Or worse, this book is trying to *look* like other books in a desperate attempt to sucker people into buying it. But keep in mind:

…the author doesn’t always have input on the cover of his/her own book… The cover is generally the domain of the publisher.

So the cover doesn’t have as much to do with the contents as you would think.

The Ass End

I should be thankful. Things could be worse. Much worse. They could be pictures of guys’ asses, or flabby bellies. Rob Zombie could probably think up far worse pictures of female anatomy to offend us.

The covers don’t lie. These books do in fact, contain female heroines, and the female heroines do in fact, have backsides. But what does this say about the publisher’s approach to the customer and the market as a whole? What does this say about the originality of the author/story?

What do you think?

-Z