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about payment |
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Why is payment
voluntary?
As described elsewhere in this web site, a revolution in publishing is taking place with the Internet. The volume of information available to a reader is no longer limited by the number of printing presses and bookstores or restricted by the prejudices of agents and editors. Publishing, in its infancy, (in the USA anyway), was not controlled by agents, editors, ISBN codes, and distributors. A couple hundred years ago, anyone who could buy or cobble together a printing press and obtain paper was free to crank out anything he wished. And they did, thank God. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin should be acknowledged for their pluck in doing so. The literacy rate in the population was not great, not to mention the literacy of many authors themselves. There were few bestsellers. Fewer still were the authors who became wealthy, or expected to. And there were, at first, no middle men - agents, editors, publishers. The enterprise of publishing soon emerged, saving the authors from the trouble of also printing and distributing their work. Once publishing became a firmly established industry, it became less and less concerned with providing an outlet for writers and more and more concerned with corporate profits. [DamnYankee.com is not opposed to capitalism and corporate profits!] Anyone in the USA has been free to print and distribute anything she wishes ever since, of course. But the publishing industry has effectively snubbed anyone who has refused to accept its collective judgment on salability and who has found a way to disperse copies of something that still deserves to be read. No one published by DamnYankee.com expects to get rich. Each author is chiefly interested in being read. We all have something to say, or something to offer that we believe will be entertaining, inspiring, comforting, or possibly, even disturbing. We seek readers, not wealth. Therefore, we offer what we have created with the expectation that each customer will take the time to send a payment to the publisher. In the past we required a credit card number for a download, which no doubt deterred some customers. We no longer take credit cards, so you are free to send a check or cash at your convenience. We may be like the bundle of newspapers outside a newsstand at five in the morning, well before opening time, with a few copies missing and a small pile of change on top of the bundle. You would be among those who paid for the paper, too. We accept cash payment in any currency of any country, but if you send a money order or bank draft, we prefer that you convert it to US$ first. Thank you... |
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