Comments | orv: Neil Gaiman on fans' entitlement issues.

orv

Neil Gaiman on fans' entitlement issues.

Mar 07, 2011 09:24

This blog post by Neil Gaiman was cited by barberio in a friend's LJ comment thread. It's so well written, and addresses a situation I've seen so many times, that I wanted to pass it on. (The first bit of the post is unrelated; scroll down to the boldface text to get to the good stuff.)

EDIT: Fixed the link, which I originally pasted from the wrong tab.

Comments 6

ashkitty March 7 2011, 22:18:08 UTC

Yes, but have you seen the YouTube version?

c_eagle March 8 2011, 07:26:12 UTC

terrycloth March 7 2011, 22:28:01 UTC

Eh, I tend to disagree. 'No legal requirement' is one thing. 'Have the right to have a life/be slow/etc.' is perfectly true. 'Have absolutely no (moral) obligation to continue/finish a series' is a load of crap -- people buy the first book in a series because they trust that the rest of them are going to come out eventually.

Well, okay, if the books are self-contained then that's not true. But if you end the book with all the plots up in the air, you haven't finished telling your story, and you're promising to resolve it later. Or else you're cheating all your readers, and they have a right to be pissed.

orv March 7 2011, 23:54:27 UTC

Sorry, but no. I don't accept that an author ever owes their readers anything. (They may owe their employer things, but that's different.)

No matter how much you like someone's work they don't belong to you, you're not entitled to anything, and you have no right to dictate to them how they'll spend their time and creative energy.

terrycloth March 8 2011, 00:07:41 UTC

You either made an explicit promise ('book 1 of a new trilogy!') or an implicit promise (by selling what looked like a stand-alone book but not actually finishing the story).

Keeping promises is generally considered to be a moral obligation.

Not taking peoples' money under false pretenses, likewise.

If you expect people not to mind when you leave them hanging, you're being unreasonable. It's not about them 'owning' you or 'dictating' to you, it's about finishing what you started.

orv March 8 2011, 00:16:33 UTC

In many cases that isn't even in the author's control. (If book 1 doesn't sell well, what are the odds the publisher will pay for book 2?)

I also don't buy that this is somehow taking money under false pretenses. You pay the price on the cover, you get a book. That's the extent of the transaction. Paying your $12 does not entitle you to the author's future attention.