So you want to record a dramatic reading.

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

So, there’s this thing that happened where I wrote an e-book parodying another e-book. You might have heard about it, or saw what happened when John Scalzi got involved. If you didn’t, that link contains all the vital info.

The thing is, while I think Scalzi has pretty well nailed it in terms of the definitive reading, other people have expressed an interest in getting in on the fun, but with some trepidation about copyright.

Well, as sole rights holder to the work John Salzi Is Not A Very Popular Author And I Myself Am Quite Popular: How SJWs Always Lie About Our Comparative Popularity Levels, I’m here to say: knock yourself out, within the fairly lax bounds laid out below:

  1. I give permission to perform and record performances of the text, so long as they are distributed for free and following the guidelines in this post. “Distributed for free” means no selling copies, no selling admission, no putting it behind a paywall.
  2. To clarify point 1: putting your copy up on a monetized platform such as YouTube or Patreon or a page with ads is allowed, so long as the post is freely visible to all. The injunction here is that you have to give the content away, not that you can’t make money from your work.
  3. Proper attribution in this case can be made to Alexandra Erin or to the character of Theo Pratt, depending on if you want to give the joke away or not. Please accompany this attribution with a link to the book in the Amazon Kindle store and/or my direct-to-readers store. I understand some people have compunctions about giving Amazon business. I do not share them, but I respect them.
  4. While all my work is DRM-free, please actually buy a copy before you record it. It’s $3. Links in the previous point.
  5. Creative reciprocity: If you make a recording of this work available for download, you agree that I may choose to post it to my blog and/or my own Patreon feed, with a link back to the source. I call this win-win. Note that this is not a promise that I will do so. Note that my Patreon is on the monthly model, so my followers won’t be charged for your work.
  6. Do not re-distribute the actual ebook files or the text.

Them’s the terms.

Have at it!