Harlan Ellison -- Pay the Writer

BRILLIANT!!!

WORD!!!!

Love him or hate him, Harlan has always been a voice of sanity in an insane world.
Oh, and iwantmyisland -- yes, freebies never lead to paying work, just more freebies. Voice of experience here.
Never give away what you can get paid.

Harlan is absolutely right and YES, this DOES really happen. Does Harlan inspire you? THEN BUY HIS BOOKS.
Hell, buy MY books, too! And my clients' books! I'm a literary agent and a writer and I can tell you for sure that no one but an idiot ever wrote for free.

Well, maybe I am. but the point is, his interviews HAVE inspired me.

And maybe his books should be free too.

It's not true that there's no publicity value. Almost every time I've ever bought a Harlan Ellison book or item it was because I was inspired by some free interview he gave. Not making this up.

I don't believe this really happened. He mishears things a lot.

^ I agree that people in the creative/artistic industries are especially (ab)used for freebies. Unfortunately.

Sorry, but you are wrong, all you do is establish a relationship where you do the favour and they receive it. Freebies never lead to paying work, just more freebies

Then you have never worked in the film industry. Freebies are a huge thing there. Hell, I've asked equipment rental places for freebies because we were in an emergency situation. A few said "no", but one went "Yeah, sure"

And you know what? Now when I'm renting equipment, I'm going to deal with them because I -know- that when I'm in trouble they can help me out.