HOWTO sell your publisher on releasing your work under a Creative Commons license

One of the most frequently asked questions I receive from writers is, "How do I convince my publisher to release my book under a Creative Commons license?" It's a hard question to answer well, and luckily from now on I don't have to, because this amazing post at Digital Foundations has done a totally kick-ass job at it:

4. Pitch it with facts

Use case studies to argue with facts. It also helps for them to see that other reputable publishers have licensed books Creative Commons. O’Reilly has some a study on an Asterisk book that we used very effectively.

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/06/free_downloads.html

The Asterisk book sold 19k copies over two years (about what comparable books from O’Reilly were selling), but was downloaded 180,000 times from *one* of the 5 sites that mirrored it.

Also consider google as arbiter:

Results from google search breakdown of references to the two books in the oreilly case study (at the time of negotiation, early 2008): asterisk: 139,000 references in 2 years (2005-2007), or 70,000 per year

understanding the linux kernel, 42,000 references in 7 years (2000-2007), 6,000 per year

So there was 10x the press/blog/reference/hits for the CC licensed book.

HOWTO Negotiate a Creative Commons License: Ten Steps (via O'Reilly Radar)

[#1 posted by MrJM, March 30, 2009 8:23 AM]

Cory,

Thanks for putting this up. I hope that it becomes Boing Boing's most heavily linked post.

-- MrJM

[#2 posted by Ceronomus, March 30, 2009 9:27 AM]

You know, it really breaks down to the mind set of making ENOUGH money, versus trying to take all of it. Sure, everyone wants to make huge money with a blockbuster like the Harry Potter books, and certainly you want to cover all the costs for ALL your books for the year, but if you can have a reasonable number, you should be able to take it.

Problem is that board members can be ousted by stock-holders if enough of them don't like the idea.

It is going to take time to change the collective mindset. It will probably take a decade at the minimum (probably more like 20 years)before Creative Commons has a major effect.

[#3 posted by Keith, March 30, 2009 10:04 AM]

For me it was very easy. Since I'm my own publisher I said, "self, why don't I release my book free online through CC. Why Yes, Self, that sounds like a good idea!"

And so I did.

[#4 posted by Jack, March 30, 2009 12:56 PM]

Isn't the first rule of this that one must have enough muscle/reputation in the market place to make demands like this?

On a most basic level if you have no muscle/reputation then just start a blog and create a following. Then use that following to assert demands if/when agents come knocking.

That's a basic rule that most people just don't get.