I have just wrapped up a bunch of changes in my writing. The most visible parts are how I’m presenting my work and how I’m attempting to find a community within that process. Those changes hinge around two fundamental beliefs. The first is that art and culture should be freely available. The second, that an artist should be able make a living from their art.

Arts and culture are the dominant social education. Art has broad exposure, appeal, and capacity. As a consequence, it is the best means we have to build, comment on, and critique culture. It is the storytelling that builds society. It tells us who we are today, who we were in the past, and where we are heading in the future. Art constrained behind financial barriers may still contribute to culture and society, but does so in an inherently asymmetric manner. It transforms art into a luxury and not a public good.

Further, we still treat digital goods like exclusive goods that can be depleted or otherwise rendered inaccsible in the same way that physical books are treated. If they were equivalent we wouldn’t need DRM or the legislation to protect the flimsy digital locks DRM affixes to digital goods. When this performance takes place against highly stratified economic classes and obscene wealth hoarding, when the cost of renting a one bedroom apartment eats up 80% of the income of a person working full time for minimum wage, we make anyone living under economic constraints a de facto member of one of two group:

  1. The poor and unworthy that do not deserve culture.
  2. The criminal pirates who dare step out of their station in an attempt to experience and engage in culture.

The free rider problem in digital goods does not sit on the constrained consumer, but the distrubtion middlemen who gobble up the lion’s share of the income while expending a dismal fraction of revenue to run the infrastructure. I don’t know about you but I’m very tired of “visionary tech gurus” whose primary skills are extraction with a smile and funneling the friend-of-the-lawmaker fees into political campaigns.

Art and culture should be interwoven into daily life. Not special treats and big ticket events. When every avenue is locked by a price tag we lose that. We stop being society and culture in favour of placid consumers subject to the will of publishers and distributors.

There still needs to be an avenue for artists to be able to earn a living from their works. If all art and culture are free then the only people, under a capitalist system, capable of contributing to art and culture are those who have wealth or wealthy patrons. Under that system we only get what is broadly financially viable or whatever propoganda someone with the finances/distribution means wants to cram into your consciousness. This is where the distinction between free and freely available come into play.

Under Patreon I am incentivized to treat all of my work as part of an income funnel with little granularity or nuance in how that work is presented. Materials posted to Patreon are either free or they are locked behind a tier. Individual shop items are individually priced. It is a model that inherently contradicts my combined belief that art should be freely available and support the artist. What’s missing from there is the ability for the individual to pay what they are capable of and what they believe the work to be worth. Patreon does not satisfy my requirements.

The subscription model also feel inherently broken. It creates a trap where the audience continues to pay for something they’ve been specifically promised while the artist engages in riding within that narrowly defined lane. While the artist and the audience may choose to move together, it creates a bi-directional captive relationship. The artist is no longer free to explore unencumbered and the audience needs to continually justify the ongoing expense. Any artists an individual patronizes are ongoing obligations in the form of time and money.

While I’m not against the idea of patrons providing regular support to artists over time, winnowing down the options to just a regular subscription and fixed pricing does not align with my belief that art and culture should be freely available. The best option I can find currently is to move to a pay what you want model.

Through ko-fi and itch.io, I can release work under a pay what you want model unencumbered by DRM. Whatever I want in whatever format I wish. ko-fi continues to allow a subscription model similar to Patreon. If there is an appetite for it and I can provide additional value outside of the works I create, I would be happy to set up a subscription tier based on demand.

Switching from Patreon to ko-fi and itch.io as my primary distribution channels is the beginning of making my work available to anyone who is interested, regardless of financial capacity, while enabling a means to collecting income across multiple streams. For any writing unencumbered by agreements with other parties (publication rights and the like) I will be releasing my work under the pay what you want model with free always being an option for digital files and digital first being the model that I work under when not engaged in agreements with other parties.

Third party digital services, like KDP and Ingram Spark, will be a longer term avenue. They give me a platform to price and distribute my work alongside the pay what you want models on ko-fi and itch.io. This is a long term outlook and will coincide with works at or above novella word count (> 17,500 words) where I can justify traditional pricing within those distribution channels. As above, anything where a publishing agreement is not in place, will simultaneously exist on ko-fi and itch.io under the pay what you want model.

Finally, physical prints. Again, this is where I can justify it with works that at least reach a word count of a novella. I don’t have specific plans here, but I’ve been looking at printing and binding options while lamenting the death of the mass market paperback. There are options through Amazon, local print shops, and DIY. It will largely depend on what my goals are when I get to a position of printing a physical book. That won’t come until there’s an audience for it. I’m writing as an act of expression, not as a print publishing Field of Dreams cosplay.