OT: R.A. Lafferty estate sale

--- On Mon, 3/7/11, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote: From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> Subject: (urth) OT: R.A. Lafferty estate sale To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Monday, March 7, 2011, 8:27 AM Linked in http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/03/sf-tidbits-for-3311/ An ad (http://locusmag.com/2011/Ads/digitallafferty.jpg) for the Lafferty copyrights (http://www.sfsite.com/news/2011/03/02/lafferty-estate-for-sale/). This does explain why Wildside Press didn't have any Lafferty when I went to buy some last year. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net _______________________________________________

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote: wow, so you can just buy the rights to everything he wrote? Insane. “It would peeve me no end if I had a wealthy acquaintance that I despised in life buying up my life's work, just a scenario I see as a possibility in cases like this. ?Crazy. ?Wonder how much it will go for” ?Be cool to say, I own all Lafferty's work, but it just doesn't seem just that a man's intellectual legacy is for sale ... --- On Mon, 3/7/11, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> Subject: (urth) OT: R.A. Lafferty estate sale To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Monday, March 7, 2011, 8:27 AM Linked in http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/03/sf-tidbits-for-3311/ An ad (http://locusmag.com/2011/Ads/digitallafferty.jpg) for the Lafferty copyrights (http://www.sfsite.com/news/2011/03/02/lafferty-estate-for-sale/). This does explain why Wildside Press didn't have any Lafferty when I went to buy some last year. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net _______________________________________________

On Mar 7, 2011, at 2:46 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote: Actually, what's really disgusting is that the high bid is $70K. 23 novels, for ghod's sake.

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote: wow, so you can just buy the rights to everything he wrote? Insane. It would peeve me no end if I had a wealthy acquaintance that I despised in life buying up my life's work, just a scenario I see as a possibility in cases like this. Crazy. Wonder how much it will go for? Be cool to say, I own all Lafferty's work, but it just doesn't seem just that a man's intellectual legacy is for sale ... --- On Mon, 3/7/11, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> Subject: (urth) OT: R.A. Lafferty estate sale To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Monday, March 7, 2011, 8:27 AM Linked in http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/03/sf-tidbits-for-3311/ An ad (http://locusmag.com/2011/Ads/digitallafferty.jpg) for the Lafferty copyrights (http://www.sfsite.com/news/2011/03/02/lafferty-estate-for-sale/). This does explain why Wildside Press didn't have any Lafferty when I went to buy some last year. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net _______________________________________________ Urth Mailing List To post, write urth at urth.net Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net

_______________________________________________ Urth Mailing List To post, write urth at urth.net Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net

On Mar 7, 2011, at 2:49 PM, Craig Brewer wrote: Well, hey, let's start a collection and give him a proper home!

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 3:46 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote: Actually, what's really disgusting is that the high bid is $70K. 23 novels, for ghod's sake.

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote: On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 3:46 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:

Actually, what's really disgusting is that the high bid is $70K. 23 novels, for ghod's sake.

Yeah, that is very high an asking fee for novels that never sold very much. ($70k invested over the remaining ~70 years of the Lafferty copyrights is a lot of money; I can't see how the Lafferty copyrights could possibly compete. Some quick figuring with the net present value approximations says that at 70k, to be a good investment, the royalties/revenue would have to average like $4000 a year every year.) Presumably the target audience is Lafferty fans, or those seeking status & prestige (kind of like how Encyclopedia Britannica or the New York Times stay afloat). -- gwern http://www.gwern.net _______________________________________________

On Mar 7, 2011, at 3:50 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote: I dunno. With the right management, Lafferty could be the next Phil Dick. A lot of his stories -- I'm talking more about the short stories than the novels, now -- would make great movies.

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> wrote: On Mar 7, 2011, at 3:50 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

I dunno. With the right management, Lafferty could be the next Phil Dick. A lot of his stories -- I'm talking more about the short stories than the novels, now -- would make great movies.

For $70,000, it seems likely that you could publish 99-cent ebook editions and probably make it back over a few years, even if you sold zero of the movie rights. I mean, there are certainly several of the books I'd pay a buck for to read on my mobile-device-of-choice. Spend a little on marketing to make sure that blogs that people read, like, say, BoingBoing, knew about it...I bet if you had buck-a-book ebooks, and got someone to announce it on BoingBoing, you'd get halfway to making your money back on the first day. Adam _______________________________________________

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:40 PM, Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote: Somebody alert Neil Gaiman! “I bet he'd buy this up and do something great with it. ?He's a huge Lafferty fan. ?He's definitely Laff's highest profile popularizer right now. -DOJP (Or maybe the mighty Wolfe would do it” ?He's a big fan too.) On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> wrote:

On Mar 7, 2011, at 3:50 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

I dunno. With the right management, Lafferty could be the next Phil Dick. A lot of his stories -- I'm talking more about the short stories than the novels, now -- would make great movies.

For $70,000, it seems likely that you could publish 99-cent ebook editions and probably make it back over a few years, even if you sold zero of the movie rights. I mean, there are certainly several of the books I'd pay a buck for to read on my mobile-device-of-choice. ?Spend a little on marketing to make sure that blogs that people read, like, say, BoingBoing, knew about it...I bet if you had buck-a-book ebooks, and got someone to announce it on BoingBoing, you'd get halfway to making your money back on the first day. Adam _______________________________________________

From: "Marc Aramini" <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wow, so you can just buy the rights to everything he wrote? Insane. It would peeve me no end if I had a wealthy acquaintance that I despised in life buying up my life's work, just a scenario I see as a possibility in cases like this. Crazy. Wonder how much it will go for? Be cool to say, I own all Lafferty's work, but it just doesn't seem just that a man's intellectual legacy is for sale ...

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 5:46 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote: Somehow, I doubt that either Gaiman or Wolfe has $70K to toss around. I could be wrong. But neither of them is in Stephen King/JK Rowling territory. On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:40 PM, Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

Somebody alert Neil Gaiman! I bet he'd buy this up and do something great with it. He's a huge Lafferty fan. He's definitely Laff's highest profile popularizer right now. -DOJP (Or maybe the mighty Wolfe would do it? He's a big fan too.) On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> wrote:

On Mar 7, 2011, at 3:50 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

I dunno. With the right management, Lafferty could be the next Phil Dick. A lot of his stories -- I'm talking more about the short stories than the novels, now -- would make great movies.

For $70,000, it seems likely that you could publish 99-cent ebook editions and probably make it back over a few years, even if you sold zero of the movie rights. I mean, there are certainly several of the books I'd pay a buck for to read on my mobile-device-of-choice. Spend a little on marketing to make sure that blogs that people read, like, say, BoingBoing, knew about it...I bet if you had buck-a-book ebooks, and got someone to announce it on BoingBoing, you'd get halfway to making your money back on the first day. Adam _______________________________________________

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote: Linked in http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/03/sf-tidbits-for-3311/ An ad (http://locusmag.com/2011/Ads/digitallafferty.jpg) for the Lafferty copyrights (http://www.sfsite.com/news/2011/03/02/lafferty-estate-for-sale/). This does explain why Wildside Press didn't have any Lafferty when I went to buy some last year.

The Lafferty Estate has proposed to sell the literary rights to Lafferty's entire body of work to the Locus Science Fiction Foundation on May 1, 2011 for $70,000 plus a share of future profits, unless the bid is overturned by a better offer before then. Inquiries at LaffertyProbate at gmail.com.

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote: A curious update: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=R._A._Lafferty&curidH245&diffA8162212&oldidA8161910

The Lafferty Estate has proposed to sell the literary rights to Lafferty's entire body of work to the Locus Science Fiction Foundation on May 1, 2011 for $70,000 plus a share of future profits, unless the bid is overturned by a better offer before then. Inquiries at LaffertyProbate at gmail.com.

Different address than the ad, and note that none of my links mention anything about the Locus Science Fiction Foundation being the buyer who submitted the 70k bid.

From http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com/RAL/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t–&p08#p308

I wanted to let you know that on May 1 the Lafferty Estate tentatively plans to sell the rights to the entire literary output of the science fiction writer, R.A. Lafferty, to the Locus Science Fiction Foundation for $70,000 plus 50% of any future profit from the Lafferty rights in excess of $30,000 in any single year. The sale will proceed unless someone makes a more favorable offer. If you know of anyone who might be interested in purchasing the Lafferty literary works, please have them contact me at LaffertyEstate at gmail.com or 919-286-9519 and I will provide additional information to help them decide whether they would like to make a better offer before May 1. This sale will include the rights to approximately 21 published and 13 unpublished novels, approximately 297 published and 96 unpublished short works such as short stories, essays and poems, approximately 8 published and 4 unpublished book-length collections of short works and approximately 24 published trade paperbacks or booklets. The complete description of the rights being offered for sale is contained in my "Letter to Potential Bidders", which I will provide upon request.