[Belgarion]

I am furious with Tad Williams regarding his latest concept. Tad plans to write a E-Story called ShadowMarch which you can read the Prelude for free on Shadowmarch.com with the concept of the E-readers to pay per chapter.

This brings me back to the failed attempt of Stephen King's Chapbooks (infamous) on the Green Mile.

Why do authors make vain attempts to maximize profits over Internet stories or Chapbooks? They are usually millionaires already before becoming avaricious.

Tad Williams's ShadowMarch will be a failure. I hope it will FAIL cos I am not going to be a victim of paying E pounds or dollars to read his so called internet story which is rumored to match Memory, Thorn * Sorrow.

Why cant the man spend quality time writing proper novels that will be published on hard and paper backs?

Any comments - See Shadowmarch.com to understand what I am talking about!!

Perhaps the evil Flagg has rotted Tad's brain?

[Zsinj16]

Here's my opinion of e-books: THEY'RE LAME!!
Call me old-fashioned, but I think that nothing beats the feel of a hardback or paperback fantasy book held in your own hands. Computers may replace nearly everything else, but I believe they will truly never replace books. Anyone else here agree with my statement?

[This message has been edited by Zsinj16 (edited April 27, 2001).]

[Rob B]

Uh, The Green Mile was pretty damn succesful. I think at one point SK had all 6 chap books on the New York Times paperback bestseller list. The NY Times changed the way they run the paperback bestseller list limiting # of books by an author because of his domination on the list. The book won the Bram Stoker award for best novel of the year and the film was nominated for a couple Acadamy Awards. SK did the chap book thing after finding out that Dickens was succesful at it. I think the GM chap books were only like $1.99 each.

As for the ShadowMarch thing, it seems to be more interactive with illustrations than the normal book, or even e-book.

Why shouldn't authors receive compensation for their work, regardless of how/where it appears? Between the creative juices/effort in writing the story, domain fees, bandwidth fees for the graphics and content and paying people to maintain the site, I don't see a problem with paying a buck or two per chapter.

Really, that is one of the main problems with the internet, it is growing so exponentially fast that keeping up with it is tough.

As for the e-book vs. bound book thing, it will be YEARS, if ever before e-books completely replace standard books.

Just my 5 cents.

[This message has been edited by FitzFlagg (edited April 27, 2001).]

[DarthV]

I think he's just trying to do something different. I do believe he has worked in the multimedia field in the past and maybe this is just another artistic expression he wants to fiddle with. The one thing that I don't like about the experiment is in the wording on the webpage. If it doesn't seem to be working out, it will stop... I don't think I want to get hung up if it does stop. Can you imagine getting to the end of To Green Angel Tower and find that every copy in existence is missing the last 150 pages???

[Aleya]

Let me begin by stating that yeah, ebooks are lame, and I think the concept will fail utterly. I would never buy an entire novel and consider spending yet more hours of my already eyestrained day in front of my machine to read. But..

I like the idea of what Tad's doing. It's not the same as a traditional ebook, and I am looking forward to reading a little every month or so. Kinda relaxed, a little break in work, and no big deal. I'm sure it will equal his other work.

Williams is an author that is pretty close to his fan base, and very easy going. From hearing him talk about it I really don't get the impression he is doing it for the money. He even said if he wanted money he'd find it much easier to flog more books to a publisher that already knows him than go online and do a new venture himself.

He only writes when he's interested, and he's not interested in churning out more MST and Otherland stuff apparently, and was keen to try something different. He does also have good experience in the field and a skilled bunch of folks doing it with him.

If you're into him, but don't like shadowmarch, get along to a signing (he's on tour at the minute) and listen to him talk about it. You'll have a different impression, I promise you.

Tour dates are on the tadwilliams.com site somewhere, and if you can't find them there they're on my own site too.

Aleya - http://silver-oak.com

[Zsinj16]

Well, Aleya, about Tad Williams saying he's not doind any more MST novels, I saw completely differently. On his website, in fact he said that he plans to do some novels that return to the MST world. He's planning on doing them in bound form, though, not as e-books.

[Cadfael]

Tad William's answered an email I sent him, he stated that he would NOT be returning to Osten Ard...

... okay... this was a while ago, he may have had a re-think

[bookfreak13]

On the Tad Williams Fan Site message board, he said that he would do some short stories set in Osten Ard, but they would be in one book, and wouldn't be published for awhile, at least until his next actual book, The War of Flowers, comes out.
And yeah, I too think that E-books are lame, and I would also want to read the entire story all at once, rather than dragging it out for weeks/months. But again, I read the prelude to Shadowmarch, and it was pretty cool...

[Rob B]

I think Tad said his experience with the short novel for Legends has made him rethink Osten Ard and he is doing a collection of stories in Osten Ard like a couple of you mentioned.

I also thought I saw on his site www.tadwilliams.com (http://www.tadwilliams.com) or one of the fan sites he posted that he may eventually make ShadowMarch a standard book.