Eric Flint

(continued)

Interview by Alyce Wilson

Let's talk about that, the publishing side of it, because I know that you're involved in some very innovative aspects of publishing. [...] It sounds like you had a very positive relationship with Jim Baen. You kind of saw eye to eye on a lot of issues. Did it stem from that, or where did it come from? I'm talking about, of course, being a proponent of e-books and some of the online projects that you've been involved with.

I don't know if I'd say it stemmed from it exactly. It was certainly enabled by it. You had an unusual combination, possibly a unique one. [...] First of all, Jim Baen was the only commercial publisher, in my opinion, that had the talent and [...] the vision to see the right way to publish electronically. He has to this day made books as unique, as far as I know, among major commercial publishers, in publishing the way it does. There are some academic presses who do much the same thing, but commercially, Baen Books is the only one who regularly produces e-books, including unencrypted, cheaply and doesn't worry about protecting them from piracy, just pushes them.

So I had a publisher. And then, for Jim's part, he had an author who was willing to experiment and use his own works as a guinea pig. And so the two of us — it wasn't just the two of us, by the way. A third very important figure in this is David Drake. David's always kind of a silent, invisible partner. It was really a triangular partnership. And Dave, mostly it was his temperament; he's a very private kind of person, so Dave's never been publicly visible in the same way that Jim and I have. But Dave was always part of these discussions. The very next author whose books went into the public library was David Drake's.

And for a long stretch he had more in there than anyone did. I think I do now, but for a long time Dave did. When Jim got the idea of launching an electronic magazine, he actually discussed it with Dave Drake first, and the two of them approached me to be the editor. So it's always been a three-way thing.

I'm wondering how much of your willingness to embrace that concept came from your political background as a socialist. Is there a connection at all?

There might be an indirect one. [...] I have to be very careful here. It's important to keep in mind that...

I mean in the sense that you were willing to look at other ways of doing things and not necessarily do things by the status quo.

No, I don't think that. I'd love to be able to [say that], but I think that'd be dishonest. Let's keep in mind that Jim Baen came up with at least as many of these ideas as I did, probably more. And Jim Baen is very far removed from the Socialist Party.

I'm talking about your willingness to embrace it.

Yes, maybe. I think what was more involved is… because I don't know, Dave Drake was quite willing to embrace it and he's not a socialist. I think where my political convictions possibly do play a role is something more subtle, which is that the big risk I took, initially — it's not a risk now, but initially it was — was that doing it this way was kind of experimenting, and I was essentially putting up my own property on the line and my own livelihood.

I think the one great advantage my socialist history and background gave me is that I really don't care that much about money. I'm not impractical about it. I've been dirt poor, and it's no fun at all. Right now I'm actually very prosperous, and it's really much better. But on an emotional level… I don't know how to put this. A lot of authors seem to get really worked up over "This writing is my property and some pirate has taken it!" I don't know; I sort of feel like when I write, I like to think I'm contributing something to, however modest it might be, the human culture. Yes, I want to be paid, so I can be recompensed so I can keep doing it, but I don't get all fussy about it being my property.

And it's not what drives you.

It's not what drives me. It's never the way I looked at the world. [...] I get in a lot of clashes — they're often funny ones because they're often with people I like personally — but I tend to get in a lot of clashes with libertarians. Libertarianism is a philosophy I utterly despise, and they're always shocked to discover that, because I seem to share so many positions that they often do. And that's true, but part of what irritates me about them is I think they think they invented these positions. Many times they were created by people they oppose. But mostly I just have a deep -- and typically the underlying basis of libertarianism is because it's all about me. "Me, me, me, me, me." I just really do not have much use for that kind of individualism. I just don't.