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SCIFI.COM
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=33282

Ethshar Finds Internet Success

Hugo Award-winning fantasy author Lawrence Watt-Evans told SCI FI Wire that he put the ninth entry in his Legends of Ethshar series, The Spriggan Mirror, on the Internet, available for free download or for a nominal donation, after his publisher declined to pick it up. The results were surprisingly successful.

Watt-Evans said in an interview that he drew his inspiration from the "Storyteller's Bowl" concept and the Street Performer Protocol.

"Every week from mid-April through October of 2005 I posted [a] chapter," Watt-Evans said. "Anyone who wanted to could donate money or just read it for free. I told readers that each chapter cost $100; if I had that much by the end of the week, the next chapter would go up. If I hadn't received enough contributions, the next chapter would be held back until I did. I also promised that if the novel was finished, everyone who had donated more than $15 would receive a copy of the finished book. To my pleased surprise, I never had to delay a chapter; money came in steadily, in donations ranging from 50 cents to $500, and the novel was completed on schedule. The finished book is still a few months away, but it's coming, and more than 150 readers will be getting their copies sometime in 2006."

Watt-Evans said that he enjoyed the project, but also at times found it difficult to keep up with. "It was exciting, and for the most part a great deal of fun, but it was also sometimes wearing," he said. "I had to make sure I always had a chapter ready to go at the end of the week, no matter what else I was doing."

Why didn't his publisher, Tor, pick up the book? "Tor dropped the series for entirely sound reasons, but I loved Ethshar too much to give it up," he said. "Mainstream publishers aren't generally interested in picking up a dropped series, [so] I looked for some [other] way to make it happen. I knew I had fans who wanted to see more."

Watts-Evans added: "When I created Ethshar more than 20 years ago, I intended it to be something I'd do for the rest of my life. Every time I go back to it after a hiatus, I remember all over again how much fun it is to write. I never intended to stop." Watt-Evans' next traditionally published novel is The Wizard Lord, due out in March 2006 from Tor.

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