Shadowmarch
Posted on November 20, 2001 @ 12:28 in General
I forgot how I ended up there in the first place (I think I clicked a banner on some gamesite; as a rule I force myself to click on one banner every month), but Tad William's Shadowmarch site's been on my radar for a while now. I haven't read any of William's books, frankly, I hadn't heard of him before. That's probably because I'm not much into epic fantasy.
The site however is not just about the author and his book(s), but it actually tries to serialize the novel online, for a fee. You get the first 5 installments for free, plus a lot of background information, author info and a forum, but you're supposed to pay for reading new installments that appear online every 2 weeks. I'd be interested to know whether this site is actually paying off for the author and if unauthorized copies of the episodes make the rounds (probably, since it appears to be plain HTML, but I didn't search for it). I guess it all depends on the fans of the author and whether they feel they should be doing the decent thing and get a subscription. I know that if a site (like this one) gives me the impression of being a sincere effort of the author and not just some publishing house's scheme and especially if there's some interaction with the author or some regularly updated info by the author, I'm much more inclined to pay for the service. It's like shareware: if I really like the program and if the author does a decent job on their website, manuals and background info and if the price is decent as well, I don't mind paying.
I'm not certain I'm going to subscribe to Shadowmarch though... I'm still not much into epic fantasy. I think I even liked the "look behind the scenes" of the author and the processes of writing and thinking about characters more than the first couple of episodes of Shadowmarch. Maybe if Tad were to serialize his everyday life as a writer, a literary textual soap about a writer's life, maybe then I'd sign up. Just a thought ;-)
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