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Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Cecilia here, with a bunch of things to chat with you all about today, including:
-Paypal
-T-shirts/band logo
-glow-in-the-dark-vinyl records! (not for us, just cool)
and some polls…
T-SHIRTS
So as you know the band is about to hit the road for a tour. I need a show of hands… who wants a tour T-shirt?
See, I’ve already mapped out the dates and cities and venues… a surprising number of which don’t exist anymore. So it’d be a kind of almost alternate history artifact, you know? The thing is, the band needs a logo, and I need to figure out how I’m going to do the shirts.
For example, I’m trying to decide if I should actually do a Kickstarter to do a printed omnibus book, in which case the T-shirt could be a donation gift. Or I could also just sell them if people really want. (Or both?) OK, here are two polls, one on which logo you like best and one on whether I should do a Kickstarter for a printed book or just sell the shirts separately or what.
Sample logos are below.
THE BIG BIZ
Came across a blog recently about how money works in the music biz these days. This isn’t that different from how it was in the days before MP3s, which just goes to show you how little has changed in these big companies.
http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-really-make?page=0,1>1=38002
A truism from the 80s was that 80% of bands who signed a major label deal ended up in hock to the record company. What this often meant was a kind of indentured servitude, since you were still under contract, which meant you couldn’t work for anyone else as a musician. Back to washing cars and mowing lawns. People always treated getting a big contract like it was the goal, but for four out of five bands who “made it” that far, it was the end of their careers. I have the guys in the band talk about this a bit. The “income calculator” at the link above shows that probably hasn’t changed…
COOL STUFF ON THE INTERNET
In the other cool stuff I saw on the Internet category, Retro Virus Records advertised recently on DGC through Project Wonderful. I clicked through to see what they were all about and how cool is this? Punk, goth, industrial… and they came out recently with a Glow in the Dark vinyl album that is “The Worst Music Dracula Ever Heard.” (You get a CD in the package, too.) A mere $25 including shipping for the vinyl album and CD. That is just plain cool, so I had to link to it:
http://www.retrovirusrecords.com/dracula.php
PAYPAL
So, Paypal is going around telling ebook retailers that if they don’t get rid of all erotic fiction that features some perfectly legal (if potentially tasteless) erotic topics like “pseudo-incest” (fiction featuring people who aren’t actually father/daughter but are either pretending to be or are stepfather/father figure, etc…and have a relationship), then those retailers won’t be allowed to use Paypal anymore. Some very big sites, including Smashwords and All Romance eBooks, have changed their TOS to exclude some perfectly legal material under pressure from Paypal. The hysteria has gotten to the point that books that have no incest or pseudo-incest at all, but just have the word “Daddy” in the title are getting yanked in fear that sites will lose their Paypal.
So we’re just one step away from Paypal saying “we’ve don’t like legal gay content, either.” There are plenty of folks out there who find any mention of homosexuality just as abhorrent as bestiality, incest, et cetera and who will do whatever they can to try to stuff people back into the closet or shame them into going out of the mainstream.
It seems to me that Paypal is doing this NOT because of legality–it’s not that they are afraid the feds are coming after them for taking money for porn–but because of a censorious agenda. Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords, sent a letter to all SW authors recently saying he doesn’t agree with this, obviously, but Paypal tells HIM that it isn’t just Paypal. Pressure comes on PP from the big credit card processors pushing this agenda, he has been told. So we need to be writing not only to Paypal to tell them to knock it off, but also to Bank of America, Citibank, etc… and saying “you don’t get to decide what we can spend our money on.” Writing to congress is also an excellent idea. Let your congressperson know that credit card companies, banks, and paypal shouldn’t be allowed to dictate what retailers or consumers legally do! (Update: just saw a headline go by in my Twitter feed: VISA says Paypal policies not their doing. Huh.)
The upshot of it all is that I’d like to quit using Paypal if possible, since I feel at any moment they could freeze my account and tell me they just don’t like “my kind.” But this site runs on donations, most of which come in $5 to $25 at a time, and there seems to be no other alternative for taking online payments. I’ve got a Square, which lets me run people’s credit cards when I meet them and sell them a book or CD in person using my iPhone, but I don’t have a way of hooking that up to an online Tip Jar. I don’t think people phoning me with their cc numbers is a good idea.
Any suggestions, folks? If I dump Paypal will you still donate and if so, how? I’ve already looked at Google Checkout. Google’s TOS is just as bad, saying basically “no adult content whatsoever of any kind ever, and we get to decide for ourselves whether what you do is adult.” As I mentioned, there are plenty of people who think the word “gay” alone should get books pulled from libraries or moved into the “adults only” section. And of course one of the things I take donations for is the specifically 18+ bonus content. So yah, I worry.
One possibility is that I just stop taking regular donations on the site and instead do a Kickstarter as mentioned before, or other “annual” campaign that would be people’s one chance to donate for the year, and do that through checks and credit card processing on Square, or via Kickstarter where they handle the payments.
Anyway, poll on that below, too, or just leave comments with your thoughts on the issues.
LOGOS:
Version 1: Black and gray on white shirt
Black and gray with guitar, shown on white
Version 2: Black and gray on blue shirt
Black and gray with guitar, shown on blue
Version 3: Black and red lettering on white
Black and red, no guitar
Version 4: reverse monochrome on black shirt
white and gray on black shirt
Version 5: reverse with red on black shirt
Another possible variation would be white lettering on a black or other dark-colored shirt.
Daron’s very fond of red and maroon, though moreso for the lettering than for a shirt color.
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From:
no subject
I think even if Paypal backs down on this, that you're asking them to kick you again if you continue using them as anything but one of a set of options, and make very sure that you're not in a position where they can do you much damage if they suddenly decide to freeze your account because it's Wednesday and the moon is full. Look around, and you'll find they have a history.
This kind of attempt at censorship is why you won't see them as a payment option here on Dreamwidth. They tried it several years ago, the fine folks at Dreamwidth said "No. The content you want us to remove doesn't violate our TOS, and we're not dumping it to please you." It probably cost them a bunch of money in the several months it took to find an alternative credit card payment service, but I think their business is safer for it in the long run.
The paypal leopard will not change its spots, and all of us involved in the business of writing, not just those writing erotica, need to be aware of it and make sure we never make our businesses hostage to a single point of failure on the financial side.
BTW, there's a nice aggregate of blogs, news items, and so forth on this topic being collected here: http://www.bannedwriters.com/ We're happy to have supportive writers whose work hasn't yet been impacted join us (I'm a member, because I think this is important, even though I haven't had to pull anything down yet.)
From:
no subject
And yes, this is not even a new thing for Paypal, just their latest form of it. 10 years ago it was freezing the accounts of breast cancer survivor organizations (because their we-crawling robots discovered the word "breast" on a website with a paypal link and therefore it MUST be porn) and of BDSM education organizations because those are "adult services." Honestly, the PP TOS basically says none of us should be allowed to sell ANY erotic books, so it was fairly amazing to see them now be like "well, we've decided that *most* erotic books are okay... except these ones over here..." Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
In related news, an OTW board member commented at the original blog post saying they were looking at alternatives.
The best I've found so far is Amazon's web pay service, which is reaching close to the same ubiquity. Amazon is not exactly a perfect track record either, what with "accidentally" de-listing thousands of gay titles for months such that if you typed "gay" into the serach bar on Amazon what you got was right wing "sure your homosexulity" books instead and other ham handed shenanigans. But at least all my eggs wouldn't be in one basket, then.
From:
no subject