| Chapter 20: Publishing |

| 20.1. Finding a readership

This chapter is about what to do when we have a complete, finished work on our hands.

There is a thriving community of readers and writers of interactive fiction, and it is sometimes supported by grants from arts foundations and other cultural bodies: there's increasing attention from the academic world, and a general consensus has gradually grown that interactive fiction is a "valid" artistic medium for expression. Like poetry, it is something that a few people like a lot, and which most people can see the point of, even if they don't read it themselves. Over the last thirty years, a few authors have established durable reputations: they give occasional newspaper interviews, and have a very low-key kind of fame. There are competitions, and annual awards ceremonies. Newcomers are always welcome.

With a small number of exceptions, though, the most important works of interactive fiction have never been "published" in the sense of being issued for sale by a for-profit company. They have instead been uploaded to "the IF archive", which is the nearest we have to an Alexandrian Library of all the world's interactive fiction, past and present; and have been talked about, and reviewed, on two long-standing Usenet newsgroups - rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction.

For the most part, IF has not been commercially valuable since about 1988. Successful authors of IF generally take the view that while they could, perhaps, make a very modest amount of money from sales, it would be a nuisance to collect and make no meaningful difference to their incomes; it would cut the number of readers, whereas one wants the satisfaction of being read; and besides, the whole culture of IF has always been characterised by giving and sharing. (Inform itself is free.)

Inform has nevertheless occasionally been used to produce commercial works (generally add-ons or bonuses to other games), and users are welcome to sell works created by Inform with no royalty or requirement for rights clearance.

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