Off to Charity
Posted on June 25, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 17 Comments
You may recall that in April I put up my short story “How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story” as shareware, for people to read, and if they liked, to send me money for. When I put the story up, I noted that half of the proceeds would go to the Lupus Foundation of America, that being a favorite charity of Bill Schafer, publisher of Subterranean Press, which originally published the story. Well, today I sent off the donation. The amount of money brought in by the story was in the neighborhood of $570, but I rounded up and sent in $300. Thank you to everyone who sent in money for the story; I appreciate it.
After this point, the story is still available to download and read (it’s a zipped .pdf file), but I’m not actively taking any more money for it. If you send me money, I’ll take it, but you shouldn’t feel obliged. That said, if you read that story and like it, and want to be a good human, consider making your own donation to the Lupus Foundation of America; it’s a good cause, and at this point I would appreciate you making a contribution there more than I would taking any more of your money for this story. Thanks.
nice art work!!!
rounded up from $570 to $300?
If you paid your taxes by “rounding up” this way expect a call from the IRS! God, how I love a good tyop!
Jon Lundy, Another Dave:
Half of the proceeds of $570 would be $285, and as I noted in the entry, half of the proceeds would be going to the donation. I noted the amount brought in, and the amount sent, and assumed people would remember what I had said about how much of the total amount would be going to charity, from two sentences earlier.
What? You expect people to read EVERYTHING you type? Like the whole post even?
D’oh!
How much are you sending to charity?
As noted in the entry, I sent $300.
And you don’t want me to insult?
No.
ok.
John:
Had meant to write this sooner, but — okay, it’s complicated. Received your e-mail with story two days after my father died (suddenly, thanks be to *) and was at low ebb, waiting for the funeral. So, thank you muchly… you managed to give me a laugh when there was damn’ little else capable of/inclined to do that thing.
If one were to send along a donation for nothing atall. could one hope that you would divide it betwixt yourself and the LFoA — or (perhaps more fairly), couldst e-mail a direct link to donate to LFoA and let me do the Salomonian division bit?
Thank you in advance,
Chris
(And I am really sorry about the Height-Hsu mail. Because it won’t win, and it’s still hateful.)
Christopher Hawley:
There’s a direct link to the Lups Foundation’s “Donate” page in the entry above.
Would you call the effort a success? I mean, beyond the fact that earning any cash, for yourself or charity, is a success on its own terms, would you say it was economically viable?
On the philanthropic front, that’s $300 to the Lupus Foundation that might not otherwise have gone there, so sure, that’s a success. In terms of “shareware stories” being economically viable, eh. Not enough data. I suspect that I could do it from time to time and make money off it; I don’t know if I could do it regularly and do the same. I’ll have to ponder it some more.
Madeley – The word count to money is in the range of most pro-SF short fiction markets.
Which further justifies his opposition to printers.
Obviously reading comprehension wasn’t my strong suite last night.