Free-ePress is a venture I was involved in for a bit and I was arguably a pain in it’s side, but that’s not what this is about.

It started out as an idealistic notion that people would pay for books, much in the same way that people voluntarily pay for software. This is not a new concept and has long been known as shareware. It fall along the lines of “If you build it, they will come.”

So if you start a web site to sell books, you need books to sell. Where did the books on Free-ePress come from? Initially they came from the volunteers at the site, and apart from a couple exceptions was made up entirely of short stories. While some of those stories are actually pretty good, I don’t think the public is quite ready to plunk down cash for just a few pages of prose.

One goal of Free-ePress was to provide a place where other authors could also showcase their stories. With that in mind there was a method in use for anyone to submit a story. I don’t think the response to this was completely expected. The amount of raw work submitted to the queue was surprising.

Nearly everything that came through was in need of editing in some fashion in order to maintain some kind of quality in the site. The volunteers were quickly whittled down as they all have day jobs and other projects to work on. The response from some of the authors to editing was also less than encouraging.

So in the end I think the volunteers were disenchanted with the enterprise, and currently Free-ePress is teetering on the brink of static oblivion.

Does it have to die?

That’s a difficult question to answer. The amount of effort put into the site versus the amount of benefit received from it has left opinions somewhat jaded. Those who have worked so hard to ensure decent content are tired and they want to move on. That’s understandable; the job has been almost completely thankless. While letting the site die would provide closure to this saga, I’m left wondering if it couldn’t succeed in a different format.

When the experiment was proposed, I think it had merit. I don’t think it’s lost anything, but the concept definitely requires a different approach. Because the site is run entirely by volunteer labor, it’s important to reduce the work load.

Going through a slush pile of manuscripts is disheartening, let alone trying to work with the halfway decent ones to get them into shape. Editing is a process that should happen before a manuscript is submitted. Granted most publications will edit a manuscript before publishing it, but in this environment no one is getting paid to do the work. Free editing has to go.

The second process that has to go is converting manuscripts to different file formats. While I realize this is a great convenience to many readers, it also takes time to generate and proof all of the files. This again is time that was donated entirely by volunteers.

So what could replace it? How about a system where the authors not only submit manuscripts, but have to judge which manuscripts are posted. It would remove the burden from the volunteer staff, and also place responsibility for a quality site in the hands of those who stand to benefit from it the most. Of course the opposite result is that the site devolves into chaos and second rate stories. It would be a risk, but I think giving the contributors a stake in the success of the site could only be a good thing.

I debated leaving this as a column or putting into the 8-ball section, however I think the future is clouded enough that this deserves a prediction: Will Free-ePress fade away into obscurity? “Don’t count on it.”