I cannot sleep…
So I am going to go answer some questions at the blog where I answer readers questions about TFIOS, WHICH YOU CAN ONLY READ IF YOU HAVE FINISHED THE FAULT IN OUR STARS BECAUSE THERE ARE SPOILERS.
The Fault in Science Fiction.
Well, it is kind of science fiction, in the sense that it is fiction that occasionally mentions science. (But seriously, Target. Thanks for reading my book!)
Why Libraries Are Different From Piracy
Yesterday on twitter, I expressed annoyance with the hundreds of people who send me emails or tumblr messages or whatever to let me know that they illegally downloaded one of my books, as if they expect me to reply with my hearty congratulations that they are technologically sophisticated enough to use google or whatever. (I dislike it when people pirate my books. I know that not all authors feel this way, but I do. As I’ve discussed before, I think copyright law is disastrously stupid in the US, but I don’t think piracy is an appropriate response to that stupidity.*)
I then pointed out that my books are already available for free at thousands of public libraries not just in the US, but also in Europe, South America, Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, the UK, etc., to which many people replied, What’s the difference between pirating a book and checking it out from the library?
1. Libraries are broadly collecting institutions curated by experts. The curation facet of a library is hugely important: We train these librarians to organize information based not solely on what is popular (which is what piracy does), but also on what is good. The truth is you can’t get “anything” via piracy; there are hundreds of thousands of books you can’t get, because they aren’t yet popular. American public and school libraries play a huge role in preserving the breadth of American literature by collecting and sharing books that are excellent but may not be written by YouTubers with large bulit-in audiences.
Libraries improve the quality of discourse in their communities in ways that piracy simply does not. And if it weren’t for the broad but carefully curated collection practices of libraries, the world of American literature would look a lot like the world of American film: Instead of hundreds of books being published every week, there would be four or five.
2. Libraries buy books. Lots of them. And there are tens of thousands of libraries around the country. That is good for me and good for my book. (Like, the average library copy of The Fault in Our Stars might get checked out 100 times, or even a thousand, butsingle files of Looking for Alaska have been illegally downloaded more than 50,000 times.)
3. For the more than 100 million Americans without Internet access at home, libraries are the only free places to use the web to search for jobs or connect with family or buy t-shirts at dftba.com. I am very happy if my books can help add value to institutions that facilitate such important services. I do not feel the same way about BitTorrent.
4. And this is the most important: I believe that creators of books should have control over how their work is distributed. If, for instance, a musician doesn’t want her songs played during Rick Santorum rallies, then Rick Santorum should not be allowed to use them. I don’t want my books to be available for free download (unless you borrow an e-copy from a library, that is). I just don’t. It’s not because I’m a greedy bastard or want to keep my books from people who might otherwise read them. It’s because I believe books are valuable. Right now, on Amazon, my brand new hardcover book costs about $10, which represents 1.2 hours of work at the federal minimum wage. I believe books are worth 1.2 hours of work.
One last thing: A lot of people compare the world of books with the world of music. I think this comparison is unfair. For one thing, CDs were overpriced before Napster. I really don’t believe that books—at least my books—are currently overpriced**. More importantly, most musicians have a secondary source of income: They can charge for live performances. Writers—or at least the vast majority of writers—can’t do this. The book is The Thing. The book is all we have to offer.
And in my opinion, libraries preserve the integrity and the value of the book in ways that piracy simply does not.
Based on how many of you have already seen Season 2 of Sherlock, I realize that most of you disagree with me. And I’m happy to acknowledge that I might be wrong. I welcome your thoughts and responses on these complicated questions.
* The whole argument that piracy is some kind of civil disobedience in response to unfair copyright laws is ridiculous and indicates to me that not enough people are reading Civil Disobedience, or even the wikipedia article about it.
** As pointed out by no less an authority than John Darnielle, CDs weren’t overpriced by many independent record labels. Also, I should add that many books—particularly literary fiction hardcovers published for adults—are overpriced, sometimes dramatically. I think this is a bad and discouraging trend, which is one of the (many) reasons why I like publishing my books the way I do: It’s still possible for a hardcover to cost less than $20, and if you adjust for inflation, it always should be.
Hi, Tumblr. This is a thank you.
I just found out that The Fault in Our Stars will be #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for the SEVENTH consecutive week.
This is ridiculously wonderful news, and I could never have imagined my book would have this kind of life (particularly given that none of my previous books has been anywhere on the bestseller list for even half this long).
I just want to say thank you.
Thank you for reading the book (and to the many of you who preordered it before you even knew what it was about). Thank you for responding to it with such generosity and thoughtfulness (TFiOS has more five star reviews on Amazon than all my other books combined). Thank you for sharing the book with your friends and family, extending its reach. Thank you for making fan art and fanfiction and all the amazing things that extend and deepen the thing I made. And thank you for believing in Hazel and Augustus.
Only if You’ve Read The Fault in Our Stars…
I’ve started a blog for people who’ve finished my new book The Fault in Our Stars. It’s a place where I can answer (some of) your questions and hopefully if I figure out comments you can participate in the discussion. I don’t even know if this will work, but I’m hopeful?
Please do not share the password or give access to people who have not read the book, because then it will just spoil it for them, and that would be sad. (If you haven’t read TFiOS, don’t feel left out. Hopefully the posts will be interesting to you if and when you’ve read the book, but they certainly won’t be interesting to you now.)
Please remember that 99.9% of Americans have not read The Fault in Our Stars. But because I’m getting so many questions, I want to provide a discussion space for those who have.
I am reading this book right now. It is outrageously, deliciously good so far. I will report back with a fuller response later.
(Source: gabriellemrcr)
I just received word that The Fault in Our Stars will be #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for the third consecutive week (i.e., the 2 in the above screenshot will become a 3). This is exciting for obvious reasons, but also for maybe less-obvious ones:
1. The first week, obviously, the book was on top because of the many kind souls among you who preordered the book with no certainty that it would be any good. I hoped that I would not disappoint you, but of course I worried I might. The critical response to the book—from Booklist to the New York Times to the Washington Post to NPR—has been phenomenal, but the real success of a book is whether the people who buy it and borrow it from their libraries like it enough to recommend it to their friends. That the book is still reaching so many new readers three weeks after its publication indicates that many of you are recommending TFiOS and sharing it with your friends, which honestly means more to me than any of the other really wonderful and surprising things that have happened in the last three weeks.
2. It is so weird and magical to be on the same bestseller list as my old friend Ransom Riggs, who I’ve known since we were teenagers and who shared an independent study with me and a couple other friends in which we read James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. Ransom is truly an eccentric genius, which is about the highest compliment I can pay someone.
#1 New York Times Bestseller
I just received the news that The Fault in Our Stars will debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for YA/chapter books. TFiOS is also #9 on this week’s UK bestseller list for ALL books, which is particularly amazing because it doesn’t even have a UK-specific publisher.
Thank you. Thank you for buying (and, more importantly, reading) The Fault in Our Stars. Thank you for sharing it with your friends and family, and for sticking with me during the many years it took to finish. And thank you for being awesome.
I am so lucky to have such thoughtful and engaged readers who bring my books to their best possible life.
If I knew how to put gifs in my text posts, there would be a really happy one here. Yay!
“It’s not life or death, the labyrinth.”
“Um, okay. So what is it?”
“Suffering,” she said. “Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That’s the problem. Bolívar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?”
” In other news, Happy Alaska Young Day. Looking for Alaska came out almost seven years ago, and today it is finding more readers than ever. I am so grateful I am to all of you who’ve read the book and shared it with the people you care about. By doing so, you’ve given Alaska a life I could never have imagined for it. Thanks.
It’s midnight here on the east coast of the US, meaning that The Fault in Our Stars is officially a thing that exists in the world.
I hope you guys enjoy the book and force your friends and family to buy it and whatnot, but mostly I just want to say thank you. On so many levels, I could never have finished this book without the support and goodwill of the nerdfighter community, and also without the hugely fulfilling and encouraging intellectual engagement we share, whether it’s conversations with Vi Hart about the structure of the universe or reading comments about the merits of cable TV. So thank you, and thanks for reading.
You can get The Fault in Our Stars at Amazon, on your electronic reading device, at your local independent bookstore, or wherever books are sold.
