Authors Electric

Eva Noemi Cienfuegos Sometimes we don't see the trees in a forest. We've been preoccupied - justifiably - about the flagrant abuses of privacy and exploitation of social media by deadpanned corporate owners in puerile tee-shirts, along with their platforms being weaponized in the interests of oligarchs and fascists in Moscow, London and Washington. A lot of us - including some of my good friends - have quit Facebook and other forums in disgust. I myself have stopped buying social media promo-services in protest - a gesture, I know, but I did let them know.  But I don't want to quit hanging out with my friends on Facebook, Twitter, et al, however, given their too-often discounted, fine company. Why cut off my nose that way? We've all been using the Internet to commingle long before there was a Facebook anyway (beginning with forums and bulletin boards back in the day). Before that we had (and still have) coffee houses, taverns, graffiti, and letters, poetry and or...

Hope it's a good one! It falls to me once more (and it comes round scarily quickly) to wish you all a very happy new year, and a good year to come. To celebrate, Authors Electric are not charging you to read this blog… but then we never do. Nor do all the other bloggers I know of. In fact, our online lives, lucky us, are crammed with Free Stuff. Woohoo! Spoiled rotten, we are. Facebook? Free. Wikipedia? Wonga-less. Google? Gratis. Amazon? Amazingly free to publish with and awash with free Kindle books. Youtube? Yes, buckshee as well. And yet, and yet… Something odd happens when people get things for nowt. On the one hand, they start to resent paying for stuff. On the other hand, they have less respect for the free stuff. They take it for granted. An example. When you are holding a poetry reading or a book event, if you sell tickets in advance even if they are just £3, people are more likely to turn up on the night. Give away the tickets, and if it rains, they’ll stay away in dr...