So authors like Neil Gaiman, John Grisham, Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Amy Tan and others are going on ebay to get help naming their characters. You too can go bid on ebay for the right to name a character in one of their books.
While the person who wins King's rights will get to name a nasty zombie (are there any other kind?), Gaiman will let the lucky winner name a tombstone.
This stunt, for The First Amendment Project is supposed to raise over $50,000 for charity.
Is this the true intersection of art and commodity? What gets auctioned off next? Characters' destinies? Titles of novels? Literature itself?
Yeah, so it's some kind of noble cause...aren't they all? $50,000 doesn't seem that much when these authors make millions a year.
Aren't there other ways to involve readers into the fight for free speech?
3 comments:
Agreed - I think they could manage to scape together a $50,000 donation if they passed the hat around amongst themselves, and they must surely have some idea about how to drum up a bit of PR for the cause.
I agree as well. Each one of them could afford a $50,000 donation plus a few bucks, and ideas, for publicity.
This basically seems like a publicity stunt for their books to me. That's kind of sad in a time when the first amendment is under attack. What does 50K do for free speech? Well, it sells some books for King and Gaiman and others. Makes them some money.
A sad state of affairs.
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