Give a Little, Get a Lot

BoingBoing reminded me to read a nifty essay on the "threat" of book piracy on John Scalzi's blog, which in addition to introducing the word "treeware" to my vocabulary got me seriously thinking again about how much I like the idea behind Creative Commons and how deploying the CC principles can help authors secure a loyal fan base. "I don't know anyone who can pay for a book or a CD or a DVD or whatever who doesn't, far more often than not," Scalzi writes, and the people who can't "will pay, once they can."

"Treat readers like they can't be trusted and there's no reason for them not to live down to your expectations. Make it clear to them that they're integral to your continued success, and they will help you succeed. Treat them like human beings, for God's sake."

Even cooler was finding out that Scalzi and his publisher decided to give away electronic copies of his novel, Old Man's War, to any soldier deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq who asked for one...and, people being basically good, nobody took the opportunity to scam themselves a free book.