Agent to the Stars

The Front of the Book

A shareware novel is like any other novel you might read, except that instead of buying the novel first, and deciding after reading it whether it's worth what you paid for it, you read this novel first, and then decide if you want to pay me for having had the (let's hope) pleasure of reading it. It's that simple.

The existence of the World Wide Web and the ability to download make this method possible — neither I nor a publisher had to spend thousands of dollars printing up paper version in the hopes of getting you to buy it. My costs (minus the time and effort spent writing the novel, of course) is minimal: Simply the time I spent formatting this novel, and the other essays/intros/etc. that go with it. My reasons for going this route are explained in depth in "Dr. Impatient, or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Publishing My Novel Online," at the back of the book. For now, let's just say the benefit for you is that I don't start in a financial hole — and this allows me to let you pay what you think this novel is worth.

You might decide, for whatever reason, that there's no need to pay me anything for it. That's your decision to make — you might not like it, or you might decide the entertainment value was too low, or you might just be one of those folks who believe you shouldn't pay for anything that you don't absolutely have to pay for. Well, fair enough; by putting this novel out there in this form, that's the risk I take.

But if you do enjoy the novel, and it's something you could possibly see buying in a book store, or recommending to friends, I hope that you'll make the effort to send along a little something. My costs of production are indeed minimal, but like most creative people, I do also appreciate the peculiar type of applause that comes in the form of cash money. I'm not ashamed to say it — after all, I have a mortgage, a child, a dog, and a truly insane computer videogame habit. All of these must be fed. Frequently.

If you're wondering how much to send, I'll make it easy for you:

$1.

Yup, that's it. One dollar. I figure one dollar is an amount almost everyone can afford to send (you'll have to pitch in an additional 33 cents for a stamp, of course). One dollar is both rather substantially less than you'd pay for a science fiction novel in a bookstore (where paperbacks now average upwards of $6 dollars, and hardbacks hover around $25) and rather substantially more than I'd get in royalties from a paperback publisher — the standard royalty rate is 7 to 12 percent, which translates (on a $6 paperback) to 42 to 72 cents per book. So everyone is happy. Yes, there's a risk you won't pay even a dollar. But if it were in the stores, and you had to buy it first, there's a risk you wouldn't buy it at all (if you could find it at all). I figure the risk is about equal. At least this way you have a chance to give the novel a fair shake without having a salesperson pressuring you to buy the book, or to get out of the store because they're closing down for the day.

(If you're not in the United States, send along the equivalent to $1. I'm sure my bank will love getting funds of all nationalities. Might as well make the tellers work for their pay!)

Now, mind you, if you want to send more than $1, by all means, please do. Baby needs a college education.

If you like the novel, but don't feel like or honestly can't afford sending along a dollar, do this for me instead: Tell your friends about the novel. Send them the Web site address. Download the novel and share it with your friends and other people you know. I want people to find and hopefully enjoy this novel — I think it's pretty good, and something most science fiction fans will get a kick out of. I'll be honest, I hope you'll tell your friends and send me a dollar. But ultimately it's up to you, the reader (ultimately, it's always up to you, the reader. I just recognize it).

Here's where to send payment — checks are always the safest way to go, though I suppose if you send a buck through the mail, it's not like you're out a bundle if it suddenly gets lost. Just wrap it in a sheet of paper to confuse the sticky-fingered postal types:

John Scalzi

310 Newman Court

Sterling, Va.

20164

USA

Put "re: Agent to the Stars" in the bottom left corner so I know what it's about.

I hope you enjoy reading Agent to the Stars as much as I did writing it. Thanks for dropping by — I look forward to hearing your comments (and getting your mail!) soon.

My acknowledgments are primarily to those friends of mine who willfully served as beta testers for Agent to the Stars, reading it in its first rough form, and sending me back notes on grammar errors, plot inconsistencies, factual boo-boos, and stylistic faux pas. Any that remain are of course my fault entirely; you should have seen what it looked like before they got to it. So hats off to Stephen Bennett, Mykal Burns, Jill Burnett Hart, Daniel Mainz and Kevin Stampfl.

Also a special thanks to Pam Wallace, my screenwriting friend, whose professional assessment of the novel and its publishing chances ("It's great. You'll never sell it") in many ways precipitated its publication in this form. Pam has always been supportive of my writing efforts, and that means a lot, since she is a good friend, a great writer, and has an Oscar to boot. Polymathic author and science fiction writer W.T. Quick gave me an assist early on; his efforts on the part of someone he only casually knew were (and are) greatly appreciated.

Why not thank a teacher? Keith Johnson, John Heyes, and Larry McMillin all encouraged me in different ways to write, and imagine I could write. Good teachers mean a great deal; it's a damned shame there aren't more of them. Jackie Kahn was not a teacher in a classroom, but exposed me to writing, thinking and imagination, and encouraged me in my writing with her own. She is a great friend, and a great friend to my writing.

My dedications are to three women.

To Regan Avery, who served as my frontline editor, and was in fact the only person who read the book previous to its completion. In many ways, this was like giving someone a knife and allowing them to cut you without anesthesia. Regan's deft eye and editorial observations made this process easy — she returned my trust and made this book better. I was exceptionally fortunate to have Regan as an editor, and am exceptionally fortunate to have her as a friend.

To Kristine Scalzi, my wife, who tolerates me clacking away on the computer when she really wants me to get off the damned thing and pay attention to her (well, tolerates it up to a point). Krissy knows better than anyone whether something I've written is worth reading. When she told me she liked this novel, that was when I actually knew it was good enough. I love her more than anything, and I'm glad beyond words she loves me.

To Athena Marie Scalzi, my daughter, who is a week shy of three months old as I write this. Because I love her more than anything, too. She's my first child, this is my first novel. You can see the link there.

Not too much to say here, but I'll say it anyway.

Technical: The website was designed (if you want to call it that) on Netscape's Composer software; logically enough, it looks best on Netscape. It's also been produced on a PC and not a Mac — this may make a difference in terms of what fonts you see. My monitor is set at 600 x 800; this site probably looks best at that resolution. If you are using IE on a Mac with 480 x 640 resolution, I don't know that there's much I can do other than give you my sympathy. I'm sure it looks fine. Really.

The background image stretches 1000 pixels; after that, you'll get the planet again. If you're working on some amazing monitor that allows you that sort of width, you might want to adjust your browser (I can't imagine reading laterally across 1000 pixels is much fun, anyway).

If you're planning to download the novel, it's a pretty bare-bones process: I've included a link which goes directly to the file. Your browser will either download it directly, or ask you if you want it opened first (I'd just download it, personally). The file is an ".rtf" file, which means that you should be able to open it, with all the formatting, on your favorite word processor without problems, regardless of your computer platform (unless your using either an ancient computer or word processor). The file is virus free, of course, although if you receive the file from somewhere other than this Web site, I obviously can't say that that particular copy will be virus-free. I can't be everywhere, alas.

The .rtf file will be double spaced and largely in 12-point fonts. Do with it what you will to make it more readable for you, or more printer friendly. Really, I don't mind.

Editorial: Editorially speaking, the novel's been read and re-read about a hundred times by myself and others with an eye toward catching grammar, spelling and continuity errors. Be that as it may, a few will almost certainly still exist; I'll fix 'em as I catch them (or they are reported to me). Be that as it may, I don't expect you'll find any more errors than you'd find in a bound and printed book. I remember reading that a version of James Joyce's Ulysses released about a decade ago fixed, on average, an error a page. True, this ain't Ulysses. But then, it also doesn't have an error a page, either.

If you find any editorial errors, by all means let me know at john@scalzi.com.

This book is a work of fiction, of course. Any resemblance between characters in the book and people living or dead is a coincidence of amazing proportions. Names of celebrities are used but should not in any way be construed to represent these folks factually — in short, everything in the book is made up in my own silly little head.

Reader Agreement

Hi, there. I'm offering up this novel as shareware, not as freeware, and it comes with certain restrictions. By reading the novel on this site, or downloading the novel, you agree to bide by these rules and restrictions. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask for your first born (I already have one of those). But I do want to make sure that the reading experience you get is the one I intended; thus, this agreement.

If you find you can't live by this agreement, you shouldn't continue on this site or with the novel. Flee, flee, as fast as your mouse clicks will carry you.

Heck, you say, just give me the short version or the reader agreement. Fine: Don't steal the novel. That's pretty much the gist of it. Elaborations on this theme await you below.

1. You acknowledge that this novel is "shareware" — you are encouraged but not required to pay for its use (i.e., reading the thing). The suggested payment is $1 in US funds or its equivalent where ever you might live (payment address is available here).

2. You acknowledge that the copyright for this work is held exclusively by John Scalzi, and that all decisions regarding the distribution, formatting, and publishing of the work are his alone.

3. You agree not to market or sell this work in any way or in any format. This includes traditional formats such as books, or electronic formats such as CD-ROMs. You may provide electronic duplications of the novel to others, free of charge, in accordance to the conditions stipulated below. You may also print a hard copy and share that, provided you do not sell it.

1. You agree not to mirror this site in your or any other web or online space.

2. You agree not to remove any content on this site, including text and artwork, and present it, in any format, as the work of yourself or any other person other than John Scalzi.

3. You agree not edit or transform any portion of this web site, including text and artwork, and present it, in any format, as the work of yourself or any other person other than John Scalzi. Excerpting passages or lines for review or promotional purposes is acceptable.

4. You are free to link to the novel from your own sites; however, please link to the index page of this area (http://www.scalzi.com/agent), and not to individual novel chapters. There's nothing worse than getting dumped into the middle of a story. You may freely link to ancillary text, including the Table of Contents and all content described as "The Front of the Book" and "The Back of the Book" at that Web page.

1. You agree not to mirror this document in your or any other web or online space.

2. You agree not to present the document, in any format, as the work of yourself or any other person other than John Scalzi.

3. You agree not edit or transform any portion of the document and present it, in any format, as the work of yourself or any other person other than John Scalzi. Excerpting passages or lines for review or promotional purposes is acceptable.

4. You are free to provide electronic copies of the document to others, through disks, e-mail or other private means (i.e., not on a web or online site freely accessible by large numbers of people) under the condition that the copies are provided without alteration of any kind (the sole exception being changes in word processing format, although the ".rtf" format is acceptable to most word processors). You may also provide hard copies. You may not remove or edit any portion of the text in any way.

5. All attempts have been made to ensure that the downloadable file on the Scalzi.Com site is virus-free. However, John Scalzi cannot be held responsible for any viruses found attached to the document; nor is he responsible for the condition of the document received from sources other than Scalzi.Com.

Really, really, really want to put a copy of the book on your Website? Talk to me about it at john@scalzi.com. Hint: It'll help your cause if you are a major media outlet (or at least, a media outlet dealing with science fiction).