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Post by impulse on Jan 16, 2021 14:41:28 GMT -5
You are not patronizing his work, you are buying a product, the book you paid for. Any expectation of future rewards for buying the book is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the consumer. Making a commercial transaction to acquire a product does not make you patron of the arts, nor entitle you to anything further from the artist. You already got what you paid for. Did the product bring you enough enjoyment to make the money you paid worthwhile? If yes, you got your money's worth, end of transaction. If no, then don't buy further products of that type, but still end of transaction. I find the idea that buying a product entitles you to future compensation from creators or say in their future creative decisions to be one of the more irrational and annoying aspects of fandom. If I pay a mason to construct a chimney, I don't expect that my payment entitles him to build a wall for me as well. If I pay a mechanic to fix my car, it doesn't entitle me to future consultations with him. In neither case am I a patron of theirs, a customer sure, but I am buying a good or service, which once rendered ends the transaction. Why are commercial artists considered to be different? Now if you are funding his workspace, materials and providing him room and board while he works, without expectation of a concrete product that is to be put on the market for purchase by anyone, then you are a patron of the arts. But buying a book (or a comic, or a movie or an art print or whatever) doesn't qualify you as a patron. You're not investing in futures, you are buying a commodity you have in hand. That's it. -M That is splitting hairs rather finely, especially when folks are talking about independently published books and even a Patreon model earlier in thread. That said, I never said anyone is entitled to more works from the author, but surely it is understandable that someone might be frustrated to buy into a story they enjoy that never gets finished. Many creative works are implicitly (or even explicitly) part of a set of an overall work. Of course buying chapter 1 of 3 doesn't entitle you to chapter 2, but you expect it to come out eventually and that you will be able to buy it at some point. If that doesn't happen, you are entitled to be disappointed if not to have the work. Your second paragraph is comparing apples and oranges. An engine repair or a new chimney doesn't come with an implied follow-up the way a book trilogy does, or a comic book that ends on a cliffhanger. You wouldn't buy half a chimney and do the other half in two years. It's not like you hire a painter to do two walls with the understanding to hire them again when you want to do the other two, but even if you did for some reason, if you could never get ahold of them to come back and do the other two, you're not likely to hire them again for a future job, and you might be less likely to hire a partial service from anyone else rather than waiting until you can do it all at once. If you buy a book and get a book, yes, you got what you paid for in a transactional sense. But if a new comic series comes out and the team abandons the book on issue 4 out of 6, I would be a lot less likely to try another book by the same creators until it was finished. I have personally been burned enough times by works being cancelled or delayed for whatever reason to not want to start them until they are done. I am not entitled to their books just like they are not entitled to my money. And I get it, I really do. I am friends with a lot of artists and folks who work in creative fields, but there's more than enough entertainment media out there for me to keep spending money to be disappointed. |
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Post by Randle-El on Jan 16, 2021 14:42:31 GMT -5
On the other hand, I feel like patronizing an artist and support their work is kind of an unspoken mutual deal. [/font][/quote] You are not patronizing his work, you are buying a product, the book you paid for. Any expectation of future rewards for buying the book is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the consumer. Making a commercial transaction to acquire a product does not make you patron of the arts, nor entitle you to anything further from the artist. You already got what you paid for. Did the product bring you enough enjoyment to make the money you paid worthwhile? If yes, you got your money's worth, end of transaction. If no, then don't buy further products of that type, but still end of transaction. I find the idea that buying a product entitles you to future compensation from creators or say in their future creative decisions to be one of the more irrational and annoying aspects of fandom. If I pay a mason to construct a chimney, I don't expect that my payment entitles him to build a wall for me as well. If I pay a mechanic to fix my car, it doesn't entitle me to future consultations with him. In neither case am I a patron of theirs, a customer sure, but I am buying a good or service, which once rendered ends the transaction. Why are commercial artists considered to be different? Now if you are funding his workspace, materials and providing him room and board while he works, without expectation of a concrete product that is to be put on the market for purchase by anyone, then you are a patron of the arts. But buying a book (or a comic, or a movie or an art print or whatever) doesn't qualify you as a patron. You're not investing in futures, you are buying a commodity you have in hand. That's it. -M [/quote][/div][/div]
If you're talking about serialized fiction, that's a bit of an oversimplification. It may be true de jure, but I'd argue that there's an unspoken agreement de facto. True, the creative team is not obligated to produce any additional installments of their work in any legally binding sense. But if they are producing a work of serialized fiction, there's an understanding that the story will have an endpoint that they are working towards. After all, nobody starts a movie, TV series, or book with the expectation that the creators are only going to tell part of a story. So barring any unusual circumstances, I think it's entirely reasonable that consumers should expect the creators to finish their work -- particularly if it's a creator-owned work whose production is entirely dictated by their prerogative (as opposed to, say, a TV series which can get cancelled).
Do I think that consumers have legal options if they don't finish? Do I think they should riot in the streets? Does buying a comic book mean I have right to say where the story goes or what kind of art the book will have? Of course not. That's silly. But I think it's reasonable for a consumer to at least be disappointed if they bought into a work of serialized fiction that the creators end up abandoning. Particularly when the creators lobby for you to buy their work in a monthly issue format as the "best" way to support them, I'm not as motivated to do so if I don't think they are going to produce the product on a regular basis.
Again, I'm not arguing that it needs to be 12 monthly books a year without a break. Nor am I saying that creators should not take work-for-hire assignment to make ends meet. I'm just saying that if there are going to be egregiously long periods of time when the creative team doesn't produce any work, I don't think it's reasonable for them to lobby consumers to purchase their work in such a haphazard, piecemeal fashion.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2021 14:48:51 GMT -5
If uncertainty of an ending were a bar to people buying into serialized fiction, super-hero comics would never have gained an audience. There is no ending for Superman, Spider-Man, the X-Men or what have you, yet people bought in and still buy in to them. Or is the standard different for assembly line comics than it is for those done by a single creator? It just seems again entitlement and double standards by fans where they apply a standard to something they don't like but dismiss that standard when its applied to something they like. There is no unspoken agreement de facto or otherwise. It is a unilateral unrealistic expectation on the part of the fan, not something that is part of actual act of buying the first book or first episode in a series.
-M
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Post by impulse on Jan 16, 2021 14:52:33 GMT -5
If you're talking about serialized fiction, that's a bit of an oversimplification. It may be true de jure, but I'd argue that there's an unspoken agreement de facto. True, the creative team is not obligated to produce any additional installments of their work in any legally binding sense. But if they are producing a work of serialized fiction, there's an understanding that the story will have an endpoint that they are working towards. After all, nobody starts a movie, TV series, or book with the expectation that the creators are only going to tell part of a story. So barring any unusual circumstances, I think it's entirely reasonable that consumers should expect the creators to finish their work -- particularly if it's a creator-owned work whose production is entirely dictated by their prerogative (as opposed to, say, a TV series which can get cancelled). Do I think that consumers have legal options if they don't finish? Do I think they should riot in the streets? Does buying a comic book mean I have right to say where the story goes or what kind of art the book will have? Of course not. That's silly. But I think it's reasonable for a consumer to at least be disappointed if they bought into a work of serialized fiction that the creators end up abandoning. Particularly when the creators lobby for you to buy their work in a monthly issue format as the "best" way to support them, I'm not as motivated to do so if I don't think they are going to produce the product on a regular basis. Again, I'm not arguing that it needs to be 12 monthly books a year without a break. Nor am I saying that creators should not take work-for-hire assignment to make ends meet. I'm just saying that if there are going to be egregiously long periods of time when the creative team doesn't produce any work, I don't think it's reasonable for them to lobby consumers to purchase their work in such a haphazard, piecemeal fashion.
Yes, exactly this. It's one thing if a book is written as a stand-alone entity and the author happens to release a sequel later, etc. It's another thing when something is setup as part 1 of 6, or a trilogy, etc. If it's a serialized work, there is an implied understanding it will be completed at some point. The author is certainly not required to do so, but not finishing is good way to alienate fans. |
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Post by impulse on Jan 16, 2021 15:03:39 GMT -5
If uncertainty of an ending were a bar to people buying into serialized fiction, super-hero comics would never have gained an audience. There is no ending for Superman, Spider-Man, the X-Men or what have you, yet people bought in and still buy in to them. Or is the standard different for assembly line comics than it is for those done by a single creator? It just seems again entitlement and double standards by fans where they apply a standard to something they don't like but dismiss that standard when its applied to something they like. There is no unspoken agreement de facto or otherwise. Not all fiction is the same, and the way entertainment media is produced today is different than it was 50+ years ago. Just using some of the examples in the thread, the ongoing monthly big two superhero books are not expected to end. They are expected to keep going, etc, by their current nature. Even those have story arcs, and if Marvel kept rebooting Spider Man in the middle of an arc and never finishing stories, I expect they'd alienate a lot of fans, too. Monthly ongoing Big Two books are different than, say, a novel series which is expected to end, case in point, A Song of Ice and Fire since the Neil Gaiman quote was referenced. Martin is not required to finish those books, and fans are not entitled to anything further, but certainly it is understandable for fans to be frustrated and disappointed to not have a story they've been following for decades be completed. Martin does not have to finish it, but there are natural consequences for not doing so, such as fans not buying his other works, or sadly, those of other authors until they finish, etc. This part in particular I don't think is accurate today. For good or ill, media consumption habits have changed. I am far less likely to start a TV show today until the full season is available on Disney+ or Netflix or whatever. I'm tired of shows being cancelled mid-season, etc, so I am less likely to risk it, especially when it is so easy to stream on demand and binge watch. If Disney yanked the Mandalorian halfway through the first season, I wouldn't bother starting it. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 16, 2021 17:05:22 GMT -5
I still think Gaiman's answer applies. Sure, I'd like more and I'd love it in a timely fashion but there is no obligation to me whether real or unspoken to provide me more or on a set schedule even if the creators say, "This is part 1 of x". At the end of the day the only obligations lay between them and the actual publishers and if the publishers are okay with the way things are going and the creators are as well then who am I to say otherwise?
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Post by impulse on Mar 2, 2021 11:58:51 GMT -5
I think folks have gotten hung up on the word "obligation." Authors are not obligated to finish multi-part series they started, just like fans are not obligated to buy into incomplete series from creators with track records for not finishing works. Put another way, as a reader and fan, I am not entitled to get all six advertised parts of a story just like the creators are not entitled to get my money.
I think the "social contract" is more of an understood handshake arrangement than a binding expectation in a legal or other sense. I doubt creators start a project expecting not to finish. I certainly don't buy a new comic expecting it to be cancelled before the first arc is completed.
GRRM is definitely not my bitch, but I am also not going to start any new books of his until they are done. No obligation or entitlement on either end.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2021 14:33:47 GMT -5
If you get the understanding that there is no obligation, I don't understand the complaint. And if you get that there exists no obligation than you have to see there is no social contract either, as the one precludes the other.
You're free not to buy a book from a writer who has a history of not finishing projects, that's you're own prerogative but when it comes to being more than your own personal choice it's where the idea of entitlement and all the negativity that comes with that comes from.
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Post by impulse on Mar 2, 2021 14:51:11 GMT -5
I disagree. If you start creating a work that is advertised in advance, either by marketing or just known convention, to be a part of a whole, there is absolutely an expectation that there will be more some day. Not an obligation, not an entitlement, but definitely an expectation. If you keep violating convention and expectation and not delivering, people are going to get fed up and may stop buying your stuff.
If you start a trilogy, tell everyone it's a trilogy, advertise it as such, build anticipation over awaiting the next installment, know that people are familiar with a trilogy and the format of three installments, and you just never finish the third one for whatever reason, people will be rightfully frustrated.
The author is not R E Q U I R E D to do more, but it's kinda crappy for the fans to have been sold one thing and not get it. Just because someone isn't absolutely obligated to do something doesn't mean they are absolved of any and all criticism for not doing it.
I guess I don't understand what point or distinction you are trying to make here. I would be frustrated in this situation and might share my opinion on a relevant message board of said topic, where others are free to agree or disagree.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2021 15:27:56 GMT -5
I disagree. If you start creating a work that is advertised in advance, either by marketing or just known convention, to be a part of a whole, there is absolutely an expectation that there will be more some day. Not an obligation, not an entitlement, but definitely an expectation. If you keep violating convention and expectation and not delivering, people are going to get fed up and may stop buying your stuff. If you start a trilogy, tell everyone it's a trilogy, advertise it as such, build anticipation over awaiting the next installment, know that people are familiar with a trilogy and the format of three installments, and you just never finish the third one for whatever reason, people will be rightfully frustrated. The author is not R E Q U I R E D to do more, but it's kinda crappy for the fans to have been sold one thing and not get it. Just because someone isn't absolutely obligated to do something doesn't mean they are absolved of any and all criticism for not doing it. I guess I don't understand what point or distinction you are trying to make here. I would be frustrated in this situation and might share my opinion on a relevant message board of said topic, where others are free to agree or disagree. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts as well. If someone starts a trilogy and people don't buy the first installment because they want to wait until it is complete, publishers will decide the project is not profitable enough and cancel it before future volumes come out, cutting their losses with the advances paid rather than shelling out the expense to bring future volumes to market. Or, a creator trying to make ends meet that cannot because people are waiting to see future volumes before buying the first may have to move on to other paying projects to keep a roof over their head and food on their table, and many times it is in a field other than the creative one they were endeavoring in. Sure none of that is the consumer's problem, and they are free to wait, but dollars not spent speak very loudly to the people assuming the financial risk in bringing creative endeavors to market. Sure they could focus on standalone projects rather than series or trilogies or what have you, except the market has spoken that series/trilogies sell better than standalone books/projects because consumers ignore those standalone projects as not worth their time/attention and want to spend on beefier/longer projects, so it becomes a Catch-22 of sorts for the publishers/producers/facilitators of bringing these projects to market. Standalone projects don't do well, so you need to focus on longer projects, but now there's resistance to early volumes of such projects because consumers are hesitant to buy in until the project is complete, but long term sales trends also show that earlier volumes ar ethe best sellers and sales decline due to entropy of interest the longer a series runs, so if you don't make your money up front on the early releases, the project is not likely to turn a profit, which again leads to publishers cancelling contracts/projects if initial sales on early volumes of a series are not meeting profitability requirements. Again consumers are under no obligation to buy such projects, they are free to chose not to, but choices have consequences, intentional or not, and not buying early volumes of projects that might be of interest increases the probability of the consumers expectation of completion will not be met. I've said many times in many places, most of life's disappointments come from the unrealistic expectations people have, and often those expectations are formed without looking at the broader picture/context that the project has to be created/produced in and the incumbent financial realities of said creation/production. Again not saying it's the consumers obligation or requirement to buy in, but the consumer has to be aware of the realities and effects of that choice so they can make an informed decision not a knee-jerk one. People resist the idea that their purchase of a product in a series is complete once they have that product in hand regardless of the production of future installments, that they already got what they paid for-I wonder how many of them would be willing to pay more (maybe significantly more) for those initial books/installments if the additional monies were used to finance the creation of the rest of the series/make their completion part of the purchase contract? I doubt it would be many. They say they are investing in the entire series when they buy the first volume, but I doubt many would actually want to put their money where their mouth is and actually invest in a series with its first volume to facilitate the creation of future volumes. They only want to pay for the completed product but want it to be seen as an investment. It's not. It's a purchase that complete once the actual product you paid for is delivered in hand. Crowdfunding is changing that landscape for smaller scale projects, where purchasers actually invest/finance the creation of products/series, but the most common complaint I hear form people who avoid that is I want to buy an actual product not finance the creation of something down the road. But my purchase should be seen as an investment by the creators who owe me either owe me future volumes or are responsible for me having expectations of future volumes because I only purchased one product. A purchase is a purchase. An investment in an investment. A purchase is not an investment. Unless some kind of future expectation is explicit in the purchase price (buying these tires gets you free oil changes and tire rotations for a year, your paid subscription will get you 12 issues delivered to your residence, etc.) the purchase is complete when the product is in hand and any expectations the consumer has is assumed by them and not part of the actual transaction. -M |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2021 15:28:23 GMT -5
I disagree. If you start creating a work that is advertised in advance, either by marketing or just known convention, to be a part of a whole, there is absolutely an expectation that there will be more some day. Not an obligation, not an entitlement, but definitely an expectation. If you keep violating convention and expectation and not delivering, people are going to get fed up and may stop buying your stuff. If you start a trilogy, tell everyone it's a trilogy, advertise it as such, build anticipation over awaiting the next installment, know that people are familiar with a trilogy and the format of three installments, and you just never finish the third one for whatever reason, people will be rightfully frustrated. The author is not R E Q U I R E D to do more, but it's kinda crappy for the fans to have been sold one thing and not get it. Just because someone isn't absolutely obligated to do something doesn't mean they are absolved of any and all criticism for not doing it. I guess I don't understand what point or distinction you are trying to make here. I would be frustrated in this situation and might share my opinion on a relevant message board of said topic, where others are free to agree or disagree. It's not really crappy for the fans though, stuff happened and a series wasn't finished that's how life works and when you go after a creator for that's when you go into entitlement territory. You didn't pay for a trilogy, you bought a book and if you enjoyed then it was money well spent and if not then maybe your next purchase will be a better read, but there is no agreement other than you paid x dollars and received a book. The distinction is that it's natural to want more of what you like, but to take it further than that is just poor behavior. To feel that you're owed, or that your purchase was some kind of agreement between you and the author isn't a mature reaction and is one that should be snuffed out of all fandoms. |
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Post by impulse on Mar 2, 2021 15:40:29 GMT -5
I think it is an over-simplification to the point of inaccuracy to reduce a multi-part creative series into being a commodity transaction like buying a hammer. There is no expectation or implication of future tools when you buy a hammer. There absolutely is with "Part 1 of a new trilogy!" The two are not comparable. To apply your transaction completed point to the trilogy example, yes, if you pay for the first book that is part 1 of the new trilogy, you only get one book, but you expect to eventually be able to buy books 2 and 3, each being their own transactions. This is because people know what trilogies are, and they know what to expect. Part of the implication is "hey if you liked this, there will be more! Come back for more later." Now stuff happens, sure, it might not come out, but I can't fault anyone for being disappointed when it does. If I buy a hammer, I am not going to be upset if the same manufacturer doesn't later sell a screwdriver set and a wrench. If a creator sells me "Part 1 of the new trilogy" and never offers me parts 2 and 3, I may be disappointed, and the creator will have played some part in creating that expectation and disappointment. If they do a standalone book, though, and it happens to do well and they later write a sequel, that expectation wasn't there, so the sequel is just bonus. As for how to avoid it, I agree there are no great options. As you say, if not enough people buy volume 1, it might not be popular enough for future volumes to be published. If you pay up front or do a premium/crowdfunding thing, you risk paying money and still not getting completed. If you wait for the trade, there might never be enough interest for it to get made. No optimal solution I can see, but this thread is called frustrations with creator owned books, not solving the publishing dilemmas of independent creatives in 2021.  Good thing bc I am tapped out. |
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Post by impulse on Mar 2, 2021 15:44:04 GMT -5
And to be clear, just because I think there is some sort of expectation of multi part works to be finished at some point, I am not in any way condoning the people who harass authors for not finishing on some imagined timetable or just being nasty in general. There is no excuse for that.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2021 15:49:02 GMT -5
I think it is an over-simplification to the point of inaccuracy to reduce a multi-part creative series into being a commodity transaction like buying a hammer. There is no expectation or implication of future tools when you buy a hammer. There absolutely is with "Part 1 of a new trilogy!" The two are not comparable. To apply your transaction completed point to the trilogy example, yes, if you pay for the first book that is part 1 of the new trilogy, you only get one book, but you expect to eventually be able to buy books 2 and 3, each being their own transactions. This is because people know what trilogies are, and they know what to expect. Part of the implication is "hey if you liked this, there will be more! Come back for more later." Now stuff happens, sure, it might not come out, but I can't fault anyone for being disappointed when it does. If I buy a hammer, I am not going to be upset if the same manufacturer doesn't later sell a screwdriver set and a wrench. If a creator sells me "Part 1 of the new trilogy" and never offers me parts 2 and 3, I may be disappointed, and the creator will have played some part in creating that expectation and disappointment. If they do a standalone book, though, and it happens to do well and they later write a sequel, that expectation wasn't there, so the sequel is just bonus. As for how to avoid it, I agree there are no great options. As you say, if not enough people buy volume 1, it might not be popular enough for future volumes to be published. If you pay up front or do a premium/crowdfunding thing, you risk paying money and still not getting completed. If you wait for the trade, there might never be enough interest for it to get made. No optimal solution I can see, but this thread is called frustrations with creator owned books, not solving the publishing dilemmas of independent creatives in 2021. Good thing bc I am tapped out. It is a commodity transaction though, there's no way around that. |
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Post by impulse on Mar 2, 2021 16:03:28 GMT -5
And that is totally irrelevant to the point. I don't know how else to explain this, and we are going in circles, so I think I am going to move on. I hope you have a good rest of your day!
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Good thing bc I am tapped out.