Question for fellow authors and readers

[Wesley8890]

Recently i came across a story on a different site and liked it so i started reading more from the author. The site on which i was reading was a free site that operates on donations. When i reached a certain part in a story, it asked to go to the authors site for a special chapter. I did so. When i wanted to read the special chapter however i found out you had to be a member of the site. I went ok lets see if they offer free membership, turns out they dont. So i figured the special chapters probably has no bearing on the story. However as i started to read the next chapter it referenced a key event that happened in the special chapter. At this point, as a reader, i became a bit angry as if youre going to tease an special chapter you should tell us if it has any influence on the story. I felt cheated because it involved the engagement of two major characters and the next chapter its like oh yeah they got engaged. They also had a crossover between stories and would just say after so and so happened. They would make these allusions to events in the first chapter in each story involved after the special/cross -over happened. My question is as an author do you feel that it is right to do that to a reader just for the sake of money? And to readers how would you have reacted?

Edited April 23, 2020 by Wesley8890

[Dodger]

I've heard of this practice and I definitely don't agree with it. While it's perfectly legitimate for an author to want to be paid for their work, this is an underhand way of doing it. They should be honest and explain this before you start reading, or put the story in a members only section of the site like they do here. I can understand your frustration; I would be annoyed too.

[Wesley8890]

5 minutes ago, Dodger said:

I've heard of this practice and I definitely don't agree with it. While it's perfectly legitimate for an author to want to be paid for their work, this is an underhand way of doing it. They should be honest and explain this before you start reading, or put the story in a members only section of the site like they do here. I can understand your frustration; I would be annoyed too.

I honestly started to email them, but if i had it probably wouldnt have been a nice one.

[Valkyrie]

21 minutes ago, Wesley8890 said:

My question is as an author do you feel that it is right to do that to a reader just for the sake of money?

No, definitely not. The author should be up front about free and paid content.   Like Dodger said, there's nothing wrong wanting to make money, but bait and switch methods like this are a huge turn-off.  

[Wesley8890]

Just now, Valkyrie said:

No, definitely not. The author should be up front about free and paid content.   Like Dodger said, there's nothing wrong wanting to make money, but bait and switch methods like this are a huge turn-off.  

If the author had said something about it i wouldnt be so mad. It just felt deceitful to me. If theyd have said become a paid member of my site for bonus content it wouldnt have been so bad, yet theres still the matter of events that ultimately influence the story just barely being mentioned in a followup chapter. It felt like they didnt care enough for the readers on the free site

[Kitt]

I agree, bait and switch is low. But is it the author instigating or the site admins? Does the author receive a share of membership fees? How lucrative is the site? 

[Wesley8890]

2 minutes ago, Kitt said:

I agree, bait and switch is low. But is it the author instigating or the site admins? Does the author receive a share of membership fees? How lucrative is the site? 

So the site i originally read from is nifty. The site i was asked to go to is owned by the author themself. The lowest tier was 5.99 monthly while the "gold" was 17.99 monthly

Edited April 23, 2020 by Wesley8890

[Ron]

1 hour ago, Wesley8890 said:

If theyd have said become a paid member of my site for bonus content

If the content is integral to the story it cannot be considered 'bonus content' by any stretch of the imagination.

It seems that you didn't fall for the ruse. It's possible the author will not care but you can certainly offer two-cents worth of opinion -- make a concise point against the author's manipulation and be done with the thing.

[Brayon]

I wrote this a couple of years ago, over in our Writer's Circle.

I still think it's bullshyte to do bait and switch.

[Wesley8890]

1 minute ago, Brayon said:

I wrote this a couple of years ago, over in our Writer's Circle.

I still think it's bullshyte to do bait and switch.

Its saying i dont have permission to see it. 

[Brayon]

Just now, Wesley8890 said:

Its saying i dont have permission to see it. 

Are you a member of the Writer's Circle? If not, you should be! 🙂

Spoiler

So, I posted a status last night about a story I was recommended. A brief recap:

I'm developing a LitRPG story, that is gay-themed, and was told to check out this story on Nifty. I'll refrain from naming and shaming the Author, but he is prolific on that site and has his own website as well. The story in question on Nifty has 15 chapters, has no clear ending, and hasn't been updated in years on that site. There is a link at the bottom of each .html page to the Author's website. Well, I go to said website and lo' and behold, there is a chapter 16 for this story. I click on chapter 16, and WHAM!!!! Paywall. I click on Chapter 15 and look there's content. Checking other stories that the author has on his site, all of them has chapters hidden behind the paywall, and most of those stories, you can read the majority on "free sites."

That my friends is the definition of a Dick Move.

I get authors and websites having Premium content and normally would support such moves. If the whole story was behind the Paywall; like how GA does with its premium content. What I don't agree with is an Author that publishes for free 99% of a story, and locks the last 1% behind a paywall, to where you can not read the remainder of the story.

Bottom lining:

The whole Story behind Paywall = Fine, go for it.

Partial Story behind Paywall = Dick move, and you lost me as a reader.

What say you all?

 

[Wesley8890]

19 minutes ago, Brayon said:

Are you a member of the Writer's Circle? If not, you should be! 🙂

  Reveal hidden contents

So, I posted a status last night about a story I was recommended. A brief recap:

I'm developing a LitRPG story, that is gay-themed, and was told to check out this story on Nifty. I'll refrain from naming and shaming the Author, but he is prolific on that site and has his own website as well. The story in question on Nifty has 15 chapters, has no clear ending, and hasn't been updated in years on that site. There is a link at the bottom of each .html page to the Author's website. Well, I go to said website and lo' and behold, there is a chapter 16 for this story. I click on chapter 16, and WHAM!!!! Paywall. I click on Chapter 15 and look there's content. Checking other stories that the author has on his site, all of them has chapters hidden behind the paywall, and most of those stories, you can read the majority on "free sites."

That my friends is the definition of a Dick Move.

I get authors and websites having Premium content and normally would support such moves. If the whole story was behind the Paywall; like how GA does with its premium content. What I don't agree with is an Author that publishes for free 99% of a story, and locks the last 1% behind a paywall, to where you can not read the remainder of the story.

Bottom lining:

The whole Story behind Paywall = Fine, go for it.

Partial Story behind Paywall = Dick move, and you lost me as a reader.

What say you all?

 

Ok so i went and requested to join.

What you described was a clear violation of nifty posting guidelines. I encountered this from an author as well. Theyre not a prolific author, if they are they have a different name, but theyre a fantastic scifi writer and i love their stories but often times they would stop at a pivotal part and never post that story again. So i went to the site at the bottom of the page and discovered there were at least two more chapter behind a paywall. I'm not sure how the author gets away with it as they still post to nifty. I guess it must be in the way its worded because the last chapter they post makes it seem like an open-ended finale, like you can believe it ends this way or another, yet theres extra chapters on the site that show a definite ending. 

 

[drpaladin]

Nifty refers to it as teaser stories and it is against their guidelines as Wesley has said. Here we call it bait and switch. It's unethical. Fortunately, Cia is good at ferreting out people who are trying this when they join and we have members who report suspicious activity.

Nifty has a lot of content. If it's not reported, they won't just find it.

Edited April 23, 2020 by drpaladin

[Wesley8890]

8 hours ago, drpaladin said:

Nifty refers to it as teaser stories and it is against their guidelines as Wesley has said. Here we call it bait and switch. It's unethical. Fortunately, Cia is good at ferreting out people who are trying this when they join and we have members who report suspicious activity.

Nifty has a lot of content. If it's not reported, they won't just find it.

The problem is its hard to report a story on nifty. I havent found out how because they dont tell you how.

[Zombie]

It’s like when you get suckered into downloading an Apple app that promises to be useful only then to find out the useful bits are premium

[Brayon]

3 hours ago, Wesley8890 said:

The problem is its hard to report a story on nifty. I havent found out how because they dont tell you how.

There's an email for questions, under the submission guidelines. I'd use that.

[Thorn Wilde]

Wow, that is not okay by any stretch of the imagination. Paid bonus content that isn't integral to the story, that's fine. Previewing content to, say, patrons on Patreon before making it publicly available for free, also totally cool. But making people pay for part of a story when the rest is free? That's just a dick move. 

[drpaladin]

4 hours ago, Wesley8890 said:

The problem is its hard to report a story on nifty. I havent found out how because they dont tell you how.

 

1 hour ago, Brayon said:

There's an email for questions, under the submission guidelines. I'd use that.

They don't make it easy.

The archivist email is:

nifty (at) nifty (dot) org

 

[Wayne Gray]

Yeah, that's wrong. It's also against Nifty's terms for writers (as has been mentioned by multiple folks here). Definitely report it, even if you have to jump through a hoop or two.

[Wesley8890]

4 hours ago, Zombie said:

It’s like when you get suckered into downloading an Apple app that promises to be useful only then to find out the useful bits are premium

Thats exactly how it felt.

[Headstall]

Totally unethical in my opinion. 

[CassieQ]

That's so sketchy.  I'm fine with a writer who asks for payment for a bonus chapter or something like that, but not something that directly relates to the events happening in the main (free) story.  That's just wrong.  

[Reader1810]

@Wesley8890 while it might not be quite what you’re looking for - or what the site should have available for members/non-members) I found an email address for problems with donating at the bottom of the donations page. 

https://donate.nifty.org/donate.html

As this is a donation (more like ransom if you ask me)  issue, I’d think using this email would be appropriate.

If you decide to contact them, good luck! 

As an aside, it’s quite something this site doesn’t have a way for readers to contact the administrators for things other than donating to their cause. 🤨

Edit: @drpaladin I see I’ve basically repeated the info you found. 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Reader1810

[Sherye Story Reader]

On 4/22/2020 at 9:46 PM, Wesley8890 said:

So the site i originally read from is nifty. The site i was asked to go to is owned by the author themself. The lowest tier was 5.99 monthly while the "gold" was 17.99 monthly

I read stories from nifty but never have I seen that before. If you can send me the authors name in a message then I can see what you are saying. I wouldn't think that the owners of nifty would allow that but from your info it seems they did. That is actually wrong when they always get donations from a lot of people and only that author can do that so far. That site does have some great stories but I have only been on GA for a little over 2 months and GA has better stories by far. I do go back there ever once in awhile to see if there is any updates to stories I read. But I stay on this better site. Thank you GA members for being the better reading site!

[Myr]

2 hours ago, Story Reader said:

I wouldn't think that the owners of nifty would allow that but from your info it seems they did. That is actually wrong when they always get donations from a lot of people and only that author can do that so far.

There are a lot things that go on with administrating a site. Nifty is pretty busy and it's very easy for this sort of thing to fall under the radar.  And I know from personal experience that emails and such don't always get received. 

 

2 hours ago, Story Reader said:

That site does have some great stories but I have only been on GA for a little over 2 months and GA has better stories by far. I do go back there ever once in awhile to see if there is any updates to stories I read. But I stay on this better site. Thank you GA members for being the better reading site!

We appreciate the kind words.  I will say that each story site has stuff they focus on and are good at.  Gay Authors in intended to focus on plot and character more than the aspects that Nifty tends to focus on.  For people that want plot and character, we're in good shape.  For people that want other aspects, we are not so good at those.  We try to stay focused on making Gay Authors the best Gay Authors we can be and let other sites do their thing.  It's not a zero-sum game.  Plenty of room for everyone to do the thing.

As for the original topic, we try very hard to avoid bait and switch situations here.  Unfortunately, at times there can be the appearance of such.  For example, some authors choose to take down their content completely to e-publish somewhere.  Sometimes, we are able to negotiate keeping the content on site, but in premium instead of losing it completely.  This can appear to be a bait-and-switch, if you were reading it free and suddenly it went premium. 

I think I rambled again.