This is the website of Simon Morden, author of the Metrozone series, published by Orbit Books in the UK and USA.
Here you can read Simon’s latest News and Blog Posts, find information on his books, read published essays and get in touch with the author.
Right then. Piracy. SOPA/PIPA. Stuff like that.
I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, people who download music, films, books and audio that they would have ordinarily had to buy in order to listen to/see/read are stealing copyrighted material from their copyright holders. Downloaders make it increasingly difficult for artists to firstly, earn anything from their work, and secondly, make a living from their work so they can give up the day job and concentrate solely on their art.
In the case of the Metrozone books, they were pirated within a couple of days of being released as ebooks. Orbit (and their parent companies LittleBrown and Hachette) try and get those copies removed from file-sharing sites as soon as they can: they do so because the person uploading those files has no right to make them publicly available without the copyright holder’s consent.
And that copyright holder is not Orbit, or some faceless megacorp. It’s me. I’m the creator of the work, and it’s my copyright. By torrenting my work, you’re denying me income which I could put to good use – like repairing my roof and walls, which badly need doing, or saving for my children’s education.
Furthermore, because I’m losing digital sales, the next time I sell a book to Orbit, my advance goes down. Lost sales for the publisher results directly in lower advances for authors. Which means that fewer authors will be able to support themselves, and perhaps their families, with their work – and the vast majority of writers make peanuts as it is. With long, long hours and little pay, they’ll have to do something else instead of dedicating the time and effort into producing good prose.
And unlike musicians, authors don’t have an alternative income stream. Why have the cost of live concerts gone up in the last few years? Blame the downloaders. The live experience is the one thing you can’t stream. It always used to be that a band would tour to promote the album. Now the albums promote the tour, because there are decreasing returns from the physical and digital recordings. Sure, you can go and hear an author speak, but aside from Neil Gaiman (who I understand charges an outrageous fee simply to dissuade folk from booking him: he’d rather be writing), I can’t think of many writers who the general public would pay to go and look at. I’m no oil painting, and Toby Leonard Moore (who reads the audio versions of the Metrozone) is simply better at speaking my lines than I am.
I don’t get much from each sale. But I do get something. Other people get somethings too. The cover artist. The editor. The copy editor (and they’re worth their weight in gold). The publicists. The lawyers who draw up the contracts. The distributors and the booksellers. My agent (who is also worth his weight in gold). I don’t have a problem with that, and neither should you.
There is, of course, very little I can do about any of this, except two things. And you can do them too. Firstly, don’t pirate copyrighted art. If you like an artist’s work, you’ll want to support the artist so they can produce more of it. So do your best to pay for it. I’ve no problem with you buying second-hand books, and I’ve no problem with you going to the library (all my books are registered with the UK’s PLR scheme). The more you support artists, the more art there’ll be.
Secondly, don’t approve of piracy. It might seem just a bit, well, dad-like (guilty as charged) to withhold your approval. But if your friends torrent and download like bandwidth was going out of fashion, that doesn’t mean you have to. It’s not a victimless crime, and it does hurt people – the very people who produce the fantastic music, brilliant film or riveting book you’ve just enjoyed. Hurting people, ripping them off, that’s just not cool, especially when they’re in no position to stop you. It would be lovely if pirating art became socially unacceptable, and those that did it, frowned on and ostracised.
On the other side of the coin, do I want kids to go to prison for five years because they’ve downloaded a copy of Equations of Life? No, I don’t. As someone pointed out, someone torrenting a Michael Jackson song could end up with a longer gaol sentence than the doctor who killed him. Neither do I want websites that promote legitimate content taken down for a single rogue link.
SOPA is sledgehammer to crack a nut. It’s virtually unworkable, and the effort to make it workable is so great and the disruption it would cause so widespread that it’s completely counterproductive. The internet would become unusable within days.
There does need to be something though, that protects artists in the digital age. Real, physical art is difficult and time-consuming to reproduce. Digital art can be copied millions of times, perfectly, and distributed at the click of a mouse: the old copyright laws can’t cope with this new reality. So the solution may mean that sites like megaupload.com get taken down and their owners sued: claiming ignorance when the majority of traffic consists of copyrighted work seems more than a little silly. Whatever the final answer is (and there probably won’t be one), copyright holders need a quick and easy way to not only remove illegal content when it goes up, but prevent it from going up in the first place.
The bottom line is that copyright is how artists make money. Without any way of asserting it, we’re in trouble. You can, however, be part of the solution. Which is a positive note to end on.
Posted in: From the Author, Non-fiction by Simon Morden on January 20th, 2012
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Someone on a forum I’m part of posted the following question: “Is there a link between being spiritual and being creative?” This was my response:
Creativity is part of us, and part of us all whether we are specifically Christian, generally spiritual, or completely materialistic. Story-telling (the bit I’m most concerned with), like music or representative art, transcends both time and geography – people tell each other stories, make music together and daub pigments on things throughout history and across wildly different cultures.
The question arises, does spirituality feed creativity? The answer is sublimely simple – yes, of course it does, but then so does pretty much everything else. Certainly, a great deal of creativity can be expressed within a formal religious context (providing that isn’t taboo), and a society’s religion provides a context for creativity.
A further question, though, is whether spirituality can inspire sublime works of art in an individual who otherwise would be mediocre? This is a much trickier claim to pin down: if you pick some of history’s greatest artists, it’s often individual genius and a large sack of cash that’s the potent combination, rather than anything else more numinous. Despite the popular image, there’s nothing more likely to depress creativity than starving in a garret or being so dog-tired from the day job that all feelings of creativity are sapped. Patrons are critically important to the production of great art – and it’s often the patron who decides on the subject matter. You could even argue that it’s the spirituality of the patron that’s important here.
I’m lucky in this respect. My wife earned enough that when we were divvying up child-care duties, it made much more sense for her to keep going to work and for me to stay at home. When the kids got older and were at school during the day, it meant I had time to write – in the warm, with a full belly. And even luckier, no one tells me what I have to write except the publishers, and even they realise they don’t have me over the same barrel that a lot of authors find themselves bent over: I don’t rely on them for a roof over my head.
So I’m sorry to be so prosaic, but those are often the realities.
Which was pretty much an off-the-cuff response, but does include Morden’s 3rd Law of Writing “Marry someone rich”, so clearly I’ve been thinking along those lines before. I’m just wondering if part of the new publishing model that’s always just around the corner might include, how shall we term them, stipends for writers, rather than an advance?
Posted in: From the Author, Non-fiction by Simon Morden on January 15th, 2012
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No, not that sort of vibrating…
The Metrozone series – all three books, no less – have been nominated for this year’s Philip K Dick award. I am properly stunned. Dick is one of the authors I not only enjoy, but admire: big concept stuff, played out at the personal level.
Congratulations to all the nominees – I’ll be dining out on this for a while!
Posted in: From the Author, Metrozone, News and Updates by Simon Morden on January 10th, 2012
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When someone emails you (hi, Frank!) a highly complimentary note regarding the Metrozone books, and ends it with “I have some giant rabbits to make”, you just know you’re reaching the right people.
Frank's rabbit
2011 has been an extraordinary year – I’ve sold some books, I’ve got some more lined up, people have (mostly) liked what I’ve done so far. 2012 looks as if it’s going be be really hard work – Ignite is rich seam to mine but oy, that seam runs deep – but I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s probably going to be hard work for you, too. There’s an awful lot of things in the world that could really do with fixing, so if you don’t already, can I suggest you volunteer some of your time, doing something you feel passionate about, in your local community? The world starts just outside our front doors.
Here’s to you, and the difference you make. Happy New Year.
Posted in: From the Author, Ignite, Metrozone, News and Updates by Simon Morden on December 31st, 2011
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Hello.
Just a quick note to those lucky, lucky people who found one or more Metrozone books all carefully wrapped up in shiny paper and bows this Christmas. Once you’ve got over the eye-searing covers and read the expertly-written blurb on the back covers, you’ll be ready to start heading down the mean streets of post-Apocalypse London.
Two things to say at this stage:
Firstly, enjoy. Whilst the Metrozone is serious business (or srs bsns, as the kids say), the books are meant to be fun. If you find yourself snorting inappropriately as something terrible happens, don’t worry. You’re in good company.
Secondly, the Russian. None of it is translated. Just go with it – get the sense of it by reading it (it’s mostly phonetic), and if you’re desperate to find out what Petrovitch says, feel free to look it up on the internet. It is mostly absolute filth, though, as the guttersnipe was dragged up on the streets and paint-peeling insults are simply stock-in-trade for the man.
Other than that, welcome. Have a look around here for extra content, and if you’ve got any questions, don’t be afraid to ask!
Posted in: From the Author, Metrozone, News and Updates by Simon Morden on December 26th, 2011
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