Andrew Eckhart

Perceived Value and Embryonic Writing

Posted on 16 November 2010

Are NaNo-novels any sort of ready for public consumption at the end of November? Absolutely not. But what makes this fact different than what it is I’m doing with LastMage? Why is it that I feel comfortable with “live-writing” such a large and intense tale as that which is unfolding each week in LastMage?

I’ll call it arrogance because, in all honesty, I can’t come up with another word for it. Confidence is not quite it, because it assumes a measure of surety in my work that derives from approval rather than arrogance which is surety in my work despite a lack of approval. That’s not to say that I don’t care about what my readers think about my work, I absolutely care. But it is to say that I am sure in my work. I love what I’m writing and I feel that, despite quirks and typos, the story is stellar.

So this requires me to ask myself if I feel that the work that I put up online is worth the time people take to read it when they could be doing other things. To that I answer yes — for the reason above. But am I willing to sell this story in a similar capacity to that of a published novel? Am I willing to try to monetize it and ask readers for donations or charge them for the privilege of reading this story? Absolutely not. Why, though, when I feel that the story is ready to be read even if incomplete?

That’s the thing, the product is not complete, so why would I ask anyone to pay for it? It’s like putting a videogame up for beta, really. What my readers see is the story unfolding, my thought processes progressing through the steps I take instinctively to pull a story together. It would be me asking for full price admission to a film and all the audience sees is the story-board.

From here, now, I must look towards the future. There are short stories set in the same world of LastMage that I’ve written and am currently writing. These are finished products that I intend to offer for a very reasonable price in various formats. But what must be done for the story of the Last Mage to become the sort of value that I know it to be? Well, I need to finish it first. Then edit, polish, edit again, re-write, re-plot, edit, polish and then layout.

That’s only the barest of exaggeration.

I write all of this to say that while I recognize that there are other writers on the internet who feel as though they need to hold everything to the vest to ensure that they get the maximum monetization from their work, I don’t feel that LastMage is quite there yet. I would be very disappointed if I got a rough, unpolished chair from a carpenter. I don’t want to inflict the same on my readers.

I love them too much for that.