Last week, I finished recording the audio version of The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I’m not sure what our release date is, but it’s in the near future. Like the audio version of Just A Geek, it’s a superannuated super-annotated version, with lots of asides and commentary. I think you’re going to like it.
It was a lot of work to do both of my audiobooks, but I think I’ve been able to create two experiences that are unique and special. They’re vastly different from just listening to me read the text; David Lawrence (my friend and producer) and I ended up having extended discussions during the recording of both books, and I broke away from the text frequently to add what we called “audio footnotes” to the experience.
This is a very time-consuming process – recording Just A Geek took seven weeks, for example – but I think it’s worth the effort. If I’ve done it right, the listener should end up feeling like we’re sitting in a room together, where I’m reading the book, and occasionally putting it down to relate some story or tangent that isn’t in the text. Also, I’m smoking a pipe, wearing an ascot, and petting a cat.
People frequently ask me if I’ll put my audiobooks on Audible, or sell them through the iTunes Music Store (I think that’s the same thing, but these are the questions I get. Don’t shoot the messenger!) I haven’t made them available there partially because Audible wants to take an enormous cut of the sales price, but mostly because Audible infects and cripples all of their files with DRM, even if the publisher and rights holder doesn’t want them to.
Let’s talk about DRM for a moment. It’s no secret that I hate it, and I believe that treating your customers like they’re thieves is no way to run a business. “But what about piracy?” You ask, “and where can I get a stylish ascot like yours?”
I’m not that worried about piracy, to be completely honest with you. I agree with Cory Doctorow that obscurity is a greater threat to an artist than piracy, but I also trust my customers more than the average publisher, because I believe I have a different relationship with them (you) than the average publisher has with, say, me. Maybe this is a little naive, but hear me out.
I’m in a unique position among creators. I feel like we (meaning me and you who are reading this) share a relationship that most creators don’t get to share with their audience. I mean, I can read a Stephen King book and enjoy it, but I have no real expectation (reasonable, anyway) of ever meeting him or exchanging ideas with him. I can watch How I Met Your Mother every week, but it’s incredibly unlikely I’ll ever get to talk with Neil Patrick Harris about how awesome Barney is. Because I feel a more personal relationship with all of you who’ve supported me by buying my books and watching my work on television, I don’t worry that much about piracy. I don’t believe that anyone who reads my blog and is interested in hearing me perform my work would deliberately steal from me any more than they’d walk into a friend’s house and take money out of their wallet. (Awkward note: this doesn’t mean we’re friends, but you get that, right?)
David and I check the usual places from time to time, and we’re willing to aggressively have stuff taken down if we need to, but here’s the remarkable thing: we’ve never found anything. That means that we’re very bad detectives, it’s just not worth pirating, or the people who have bought my audiobooks have honored my request to share them with friends, but don’t share them with the whole Internet.
Anyway, this is on my mind today because of today’s xkcd:
I’m not getting rich off of my books and my audiobooks, but it’s a very big and significant part of how I support my family. I’m incredibly lucky to make a living being an artist and a creator, and I couldn’t do it if you all chose to steal my stuff instead of buying it. It’s getting harder and harder to make a living these days, and I know that money is tight for everyone, so thank you for not being dicks.
If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never have to pirate from me to have a collection of my work that you can count on. I’m never going to infect anything I create and publish myself with DRM. I don’t believe in it, I hate it as a consumer, and so far, my fundamental belief in the goodness and honesty of people has been affirmed (cue someone finding it all over some tracker in 3 . . . 2 . . .)
Oh, and my stylish ascot? It doesn’t really exist. It’s a glamour. Don’t tell anyone, though, okay?
I was going to DirectTweet you on this one, Wil, as I know your stance on DRM, but it looks like you pulled a little “trickeration” and posted it. Very well written.
Nice ascot.
Wow. This is awkward. Umm… I guess I’ll sneak back into your house tonight and put the money back. Sorry about that. Big misunderstanding on my part. My bad.
On a serious note, I think ‘infect’ might be the wrong metaphor to use with DRM. Buying a file with DRM does not put you at risk of having DRM spread to other files (unless you are using a client that attaches DRM to anything you play, but I’ve never heard of that.) I might suggest ‘shackle’ or ‘encumber’.
Did you know that ghosts who rattling their chains are people being punished with a sort of afterlife DRM for promoting bad DRM schemes in the mortal world?
Note to self… don’t steal stuff out of “friend” Wil’s wallet when he invites you over…
Maybe it’s an age thing. I have this lesson I do with high schoolers on moral dilemmas, and what would you do if… The interesting one for me is always that they have no problem with pirating music, films, software, etc. They tend to feel that it needs to be shared. Through discussion I find that they have never taken the time to consider who all makes profit from the actual purchase of the materials (art design, publishers, writers, etc.). However, I figure your support base is probably around your age.. mid 30s no? I purchase my books and such from you because I wish to offer support as my thanks for producing things, writing things, etc. that give me enjoyment. Therefore, I figure most of us wish to see you profit from the things you do.
I’m not feeling very eloquent today (bad cold) but I think you get the point.
I’m SO telling about the ascot.
I am with you 100% on the whole DRM thing. That said, I would give a kidney to get “Just a Geek” on my Kindle.
This is completely off topic, but this seems as good a place as any to mention it.
On the last episode of EpicFu (all about Twitter) I noticed that you were featured as one of the good people on there to follow (in that they scrolled through a bunch of names while they talked about how cool people and “experts” were on twitter and @wilw was one of them). I gave a little squee as I exclaimed to my husband, “Look! Wil Wheaton! I follow him!!” Always exciting to see representatives of geekdom represented in varying cool media.
End of totally off-topic comment.
Before I read this post, I was considering purchasing your book The Happiest Days of Our Lives from Amazon, since I couldn’t find it at my local WalDaltonBorders & Noble-A-Million.
Now, I’ve decided to wait and get the audio version, because 1) it sounds cool and 2) I hate DRM with the white-hot hatred of 1000 supernovae. (Really spiteful supernovae, to be sure.)
Also, I tried following the link you posted to the audio version of Just a Geek and I get a 404 when I try to follow the link on that page. Just FYI. Maybe it’s just me….
I’m conflicted about the Kindle. A *lot* of people want my books on their Kindles. I’m looking for a reliable way to release them for Kindles, but as far as I can tell, it’s not possible to do it without encumbering it with DRM.
I don’t have the rights to JAG or Barefoot. You could ask O’Reilly, though.
Disregard the 404 comment. I had scripts disallowed. Color me paranoid and forgetful. Which is kind of a pale shade of ultra-maroon.
The guys over at the GDGT Podcast recently asked whether or not we, the listeners, would be interested in a roundtable discussion on the subject of DRM, featuring prominent bloggers from the relevant community. In my response, I said that a discussion of DRM would hardly be insightful– there are effectively no bloggers that like DRM. Their reasons are sound, too: As you said, most DRM schemes inconvenience the consumer while failing to truly prevent piracy.
So, I wrote, why not have a discussion on better ways to fight piracy, to prevent it, to mitigate the problem without introducing an entirely new kind of problem? I’d be interested in hearing such a discussion. But in the days after sending that email, I continued to think about it, and I realized that most bloggers don’t actually seem to think of piracy as a problem that needs to be addressed. In this post, for example, you argue against DRM, then you post a webcomic actively encouraging consumers to steal music and audiobooks.
The implication there is that you agree with that point of view, and I have to say… I don’t like DRM, either– who does? But claiming that the proper way to fight DRM is to pirate music isn’t a very responsible position to take. You’ve got the right to determine what you do with your own content– you can give it away, or you can charge for it; they’re your books and you should have that right. But why encourage your readers to steal other people’s work? What will that accomplish, really?
I’d love to see eBook versions of your stuff without DRM on them so I could read it on my Sony Reader.
I totally agree about the DRM thing though. I distribute my music on iTunes but encourage people to get it from sites that don’t DRM. I even encourage people to just get it for free from Jamendo and such and just buy the iTunes version if they feel like supporting me. That way they can see if they like it first and, if they do, they can give me money to support future work.
@Nijhazer: “In this post, for
example, you argue against DRM, then you post a webcomic actively
encouraging consumers to steal music and audiobooks.”
I didn’t view it as explicitly encouraging people to steal instead of buying. I viewed it as an editorial, a commentary on the reality of our DRM-encumbered world. The fact is, if you buy something that’s encumbered with DRM, you don’t really *own* it, in the event that the publisher decides to take a server offline or otherwise revoke the right they’ve lent you. I thought Randall was pointing out how absurd it is, and commenting on how, according to the RIAA, we’re all eventually pirates.
The bottom line: demand DRM-free files. That’s the important part.
The trouble is, Will, that for Just A Geek (MP3 Audio) you are charging $35.00 whereas an audible.co.uk account gives me 1 free download a month for approx $13 (or so).
I, personally, hate DRM but I am not willing to pay more for an item just because it is DRM free.
I would love to be able to get hold of your audio at the prices that I can get any other book at audible but $35 for an audio book is a bit steep for me.
I’m a software guy dating from the early 80’s. I certainly do understand the fear about obsolescence of technology or choices of plaform resulting in “you’re automatically a pirate.”
But I think you could be throwing the baby out with the bathwater when speaking about the general principle of DRM. If you don’t want DRM on your stuff, that’s cool. But DRM is important when you are NOT risking obsolescence, but rather risking having a revenue stream dry up before you’ve recovered your costs.
If you had personally paid a dozen people for two months to help produce your audio book, and were then disappointed to find that while many thousands of copies were being enjoyed and listened to, only a handful were paid for, with the net result that you (or the people you promised to pay) are out a lot of money, then maybe you’d think a lot of people deserve to be “infected with DRM” (to turn the phrase).
Maybe your audience is the honorable sort that wouldn’t do that (I’d be honored to think that includes me), but there is unquestionably a very large part of the population which has absolutely no problem with the decision to not pay for something if they don’t have to. And at a certain threshhold, mob rule tends to win over personal ethics.
That is, at a certain point, it will become impractical to produce even moderately expensive works if too few people ever offer to pay for them. (Unless you’re suggesting a return to the time where “patrons of the arts” was a club with a more exclusive membership?)
DRM just really needs a good, solid answer to the obsolescence/platform problem. Sure, I believe there are some slimeball publishers who don’t want it solved. But there are a lot of folks like you (and me) who find it distateful, disrespectful, and condescending. I truly believe that eventually, our views will be heard, and long-term strategies and techniques for managing rights will win the day.
Now bring on the accusations of my naivete. 🙂
One of these days I may break down and start buying audiobooks. I’ve always had this issue with them because whenever I hear someone reading (especially a guy, and especially if it happens to be in a dimly lit room) I start immediately falling asleep. It’s absolutely no fault of the reader, or the subject, or anything like that. It’s more because as a child, my dad would read to us right before bed, in a dimly lit room. The feeling of falling asleep to my father’s voice reading has always stayed with me, through college (OMG art history classes were the WORST!) but whenever I’ve seen or just last week Neil Gaiman reading, I’ve started to notice something new: I’m not falling asleep!
Also, I love how you describe your relationship with your fans, as I’ve thought along the exact same lines. A big attraction to you (for me) is just how awesome and personable and FRIENDLY you are to everyone. I mean, I’m a fan of all sorts of big, famous, people, and whenever they screw over their fans, no matter how little, it still pisses me off and makes me like them a little less. When you are so consistently on the ball about connecting with your fanbase, it just makes me feel so happy to…well…know you! I mean, yeah we aren’t exactly “friends” but it feels like you are, to some extent.
Ok I’m done writing my novel.
Does the audiobook of JAG still have the awesome hand written/drawn artwork/liner notes? If so, are the only available in hard copy with the CDs or do they come with the download version as well?
Have you ever thought about trying to convince Apple to sell your work DRM-free, a la iTunes Plus? They may not do it up front, but if there are enough artists that feel the same way that you do, I’m sure it can happen. Apple has been trying to rid the world of DRM for almost two years now.
If you know of any other artists with the same feelings as you, I’d suggest having them contact Apple, as well. Given the opportunity to do with audiobooks what they started with music, I think they’ll be willing to try it.
@AlanM: I don’t disagree with anything you said.
@ChazB: Yes, Happiest Days will have some cool liner notes and stuff. I don’t know exactly what, but it’ll be there.
@Zephyr Starfields: I’m honored that you think I could lead anything where Apple is concerned, but the reality is I’m nowhere close to being on their radar. I will sell less in my lifetime than the people they care about will sell in a single day.
@Zephyr: I was thinking something similar. That way it would be easier for me to gift it to friends since they pretty much all have iDevices of some sort.
@Wil: I think you misread my question, but I’m happy to see that HDOML will have cool liner notes a la JAG, so I’ll assume that the JAG download has them currently.
(Awkward note: this doesn’t mean we’re friends, but you get that, right?)
Wait, we’re not friends, man-from-the-internet? So, we’re totally not going to play D&D 4e sometime, then? Because, in my head we’re totally going to hang out someday when you visit my area of the country and you’re going to come over to our house play zombie board games with us and you’re totally going to think my Enterprise-D bridge playset complete with action figures that is displayed prominently in the home office is cool and not at all lame. Well, I for one am so incredibly saddened by this news. (No, seriously, the bridge is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.)
Seriously, though…
1. I am so excited for the audio version of THDOOL. Mr. angie k and I have listened to JAG a lot and we’ve taken to quoting passages of it. I think we need a new audiobook. Besides, as great as the words are on the page they’re loads better when read by you.
2. I heartily support your no-DRM release stance. On the one hand where I love the ease of iTunes I hate feeling like a criminal simply because I make an audio cd version of music that I paid for. Audible is a good thing but I bought World War Z from them a while back and had a hell of a time getting it into a format that was free to use as I wanted (burned to disc so I can listen to them in the car or non-DRM .mp3 files so I can put it on whatever .mp3 playing device I’m using at the moment.) I’ve heard arguments for and against DRM. One that I remember is that pirates are going to steal music/books/movies/whatever from the internet even if it is DRM-locked. Serious pirates usually just like collecting and they will steal no matter what. But a larger portion of us are good people who are willing to pay for what we want. I just hate always feeling like the people I’m paying for music don’t trust me. I mean, yes, I loan my copies of your books to small circle of friends who don’t also follow you if they want to try before buying and, yes, my husband’s ripped my copy of the JAG audiobook from the cd collection I bought to his laptop so he can listen to it on his .mp3 player. I mean, I’m “permanently” sharing my copy of JAG with one person (who I live with and technically half owns the cd itself now anyway), not one million. So when did all that become criminal and not just fair use? Thank you for trusting us and for not treating us like we’re going to steal your product. I like your books, I want to read/listen your books, and I am willing to pay for your books. I wish more people would realize that if you trust people most of us won’t screw you over.
Will start saving up now for the THDOOL audiobook. Do you think you’re going to offer it in cd form or do you think it will be download only? I’m just a hard-copy junkie.
How about Emusic’s Audiobook Store? That is a subscription model that offers DRM free (read: MP3) audio books. I would be tickled pink if your books were available there.
I’m stoked that you’re recording HDooL as an audiobook, and appreciate that you’re not shackling it with DRM.
Of your work, I like the audiobook I have of JAG best, because of how much more you brought into that work. It’s almost like you’re performing your writing, not just reading it. Don’t get me wrong, your writing’s solid; you just add SO much more to it when it’s read. So HDooL is going to totally rock when you read it. 😉
Speaking of DRM, has anyone else had anything bought from the Apple Music Store abruptly forget that you bought it years ago and refuse to play?
There are a few publishing houses who aren’t DRM-happy — cards on the table; I work for one, rhe sf/fantasy house Baen Books.
Baen’s premise is that if you treat your customers like good people instead of like thieves, you will, in fact, MAKE money by not encumbering your products with DRM.
I’ll shut up now and just point to author Eric Flint’s essay on the topic:
http://www.baen.com/library/
“…it’s incredibly unlikely I’ll ever get to talk with Neil Patrick Harris…”
I think you just opened up the door to a horrible realm of Doogie/Wesley slashfic. *shudder*
Well, this is really awkward for me, being my first post here, and I find out that we are not friends. Bummer. I look forward to hearing your audiobooks!
@Zephyr Starfields:
“Apple has been trying to rid the world of DRM for almost two years now.”
Sounds so sinister, I love it! The collaboration could read:
Lending aid in Apple’s fight to rid of the world of DRM is Wil Wheat-on, and his ray gun that fires apples.
At least the advertising would be cool.
Ok, now you just HAVE to do a pic of you wearing an ascot, smoking a pipe, and petting a cat …
I don’t like being a dick .. or in my case, a dickess … so I’m saving my pennies towards buying your books and such. I can’t stand people who steal in any form, and would never do that myself. Regardless of the fact that you are a celebrity, you still have a household to support. The electric bill still needs to be paid somehow.
So, kudos to you about your stance with DRM and kudos to the Wil Wheaton fans for not being dicks and dickesses. 😉
PS ~ Sorry Wil, we can’t be friends anyway. I’ve limited my facebook “friends” to 50 people, and all the spaces are currently filled.
I’ll let you know if anything opens up, but it’s not looking good.
Wait at the bar. 🙂
Wil, your post on DRM…thats why you rock. thanks for posing a clear and concise,…and considerate position
-Hm3 (FMF) Michaels
2nd Battalion, 8th Mariens; IA
Naval Hospital Great Lakes
Agreed. Good thing is a lot of places now do not add DRM to the media they sell.
2 words…AudioTaxi
OK, maybe thats one word. But it works very well for doing the sorts of things to DRM that everyone would like to do to the people that thought up DRM
In regard to JAG audiobook – let me just say that you totally nailed the sitting in a room with you reading and chatting feel to it. That’s exactly what I thought of when I started listening to it again. I find it even more enjoyable when I actually follow along with you in the book itself. Then I can see what you tweaked and changed and when you add little asides. Really great winding-down/relaxing activity… especially with a good beer in hand. 😀
Anyway, I cannot wait for the HDooL audiobook. Do you think you’ll ever do one for Dancing Barefoot? I can’t remember if you’ve ever said whether you planned to or not. Sorry if you’ve answered that a hundred times before.
PS: I’m so gifting you a pipe and ascot at PAX next year haha!
Ooooo, I’m friends with Wesley Crusher!!! <3 <3 <3
LOL
Wil,
As a loyal customer of your products, thank you!
Thank you for not participating in a system that essentially calls your consumers, thieves.
For my part, I will honor your decision by purchasing your fine work and telling others to do the same.
I am more than happy to pay for work when the artist demonstrates that he not only talks to the talk, but walks the walk.
Regards,
EG Arnold
“I can watch How I Met Your Mother every week, but it’s incredibly unlikely I’ll ever get to talk with Neil Patrick Harris about how awesome Barney is.”
You are infinitely AWESOME. I LOVE Barney and How I Met Your Mother AND Neil Patrick Harris.
Well obviously we’re not friends because then you’d know I’m allergic to cats … and ascots. Good use of a glamour though, seriously nice touch.
:o)
The thing that is usually missed out in the DRM debate is the fact that DRM doesn’t even work. I’ve never heard of an a DRM system successfully protecting a movie or song from being pirated. So DRM-using companies are penalising their paying customers to no good end. The pirates end up with a better experience than the people who paid money.
There are other, better models. Wil’s model of forming a relationship with your prospective customers. Offering online content that can only be accessed with a legitimate CD key (or equivalent), thus giving paying customers a better experience than the pirates. And so forth.
More and more I am beginning to understand the mantra that technical solutions to social problems rarely work.
I don’t think it’s all that unlikely that you’ll run into Neil Patrick Harris at some point. You’ve been on the CBS lot a fair amount lately for NUM3ERS and CRIMINAL MINDS, so you might get hired to do more shows there. And hey, if you did run into him, I bet he’d be just as psyched to meet you. And maybe autograph his copy of STAND BY ME.
Just to second Zephyr’s comments, I thought the introduction of iTunes Plus was when DRM became optional on iTunes. Supposedly it’s up to the copyright holder whether to enable DRM or not. There’s a procedure to self-publish on iTunes. It’s Apple’s discretion if you’re accepted. http://www.apple.com/itunes/contentproviders/ This is the correct procedure for music and video submissions but I’m not sure if it also takes audiobooks.
I haven’t made them available there partially because Audible wants to take an enormous cut of the sales price, but mostly because Audible infects and cripples all of their files with DRM, even if the publisher and rights holder doesn’t want them to.
My other beef with Audible: anything that smacks of “audio book” has some of the worst compression/sound quality I’ve ever experienced.
I bought some Dr Seuss items for my son from Audible/iTunes because I was too impatient to wait for Amazon to ship me the CDs…big mistake. They sound terrible. For a 4 year old, it wasn’t such a bad thing, but I swore I would never buy anything for myself from them.
Then Ken Nordine started releasing Word Jazz through iTunes, and in my excitement I bought before I thought far enough ahead to check to see if it was Audible…and sure enough it was…and sure enough it sounds like ass.
never
again
“I know that money is tight for everyone, so thank you for not being dicks.”
You got a way with words, man. I’m a little teary eyed over here
Wil,
sent you an email but the page says it might be better to interact in the comments…
The “Stand by Me” bridge in Northern California near Burney is being dismantled.
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081005/LIFE/810050335
I took some photos last december:
http://www.pro-photography.net/gallery/stand_by_me_bridge
I walked across it myself and it was pretty scary!
Another piece of history gone…
Wil writes: “…(Awkward note: this doesn’t mean we’re friends, but you get that, right?)”
(sniff) You mean we aren’t friends?
(cries and starts writing Doogie/Wesley slashfic …. its a living!?!)
I like your stance on DRM, I have lost music I paid for due to computer crashes before, even though the files themselves were unscathed.
I am a videographer here in OH, my partner and I cover local racing, and sell DVD’s, we could do a copyguard type of thing, but in all honesty, if someone gets a pirated copy of our stuff, I would rather it look decent rather than look like shit.
I have a copy of Just a Geek, BTW, once I recover from the Bush economy, I hope to be able to purchase
a copy of Happiest Days!
I’m not smart enough to be able to understand what you are talking about here…
So I’m just gonna stick with a nice “Thank you, I think”.
Thank you, I think.
*smiles*
Hmm, I don’t know about other places, but I thought iTunes only did DRM if requested. Obviously I know nothing of the cost associated with posting on iTunes, but I have seen a lot of free, non-drm stuff on there.
Although I like reading stuff myself, having an easy way to get audio stuff for when I can’t read would make me think twice about paying a price for that.
But I agree, DRM sucks.
Wil, not only do you know how to sell the audio book (audio extras… wonderful idea) I personally am quite pleased that you would make the assumption your readers and fans are “not dicks”.
I’ll be buying mine for sure.
@czeano Well there is now, LOL. Don’t you know that the moment you say something like that, the porn or slashfic automatically appears. The internets are alive, children. They hear what you say. And they make it sexy.
@wilw ppl will always decide to take offence no matter what you say when you try to find something amusing about touchy subjects (ie abortion, gay marriage, pirating). i for one thought it was funny…
Just totally sold me. This goes on my Christmas list for sure. I have all your RadioFreeBurritoes as one large playlist that I put on for really long stressful days at work. I know I love listening to you on that so I’m definitely going for the Audiobooks. Right now I’m anxiously awaiting HDOOL in the mail. I plan on only reading it while wearing my epic clown t-shirt :).
–JacqueChadall