How Much is "Free Horror" Worth? Guest Post from The Madore Brothers

How much is “free horror” worth?

We are Bob and Dave Madore, better known as The Madore Brothers and we are internationally recognized zombie experts.  We became experts out of love for our subject matter (zombies) and we became internationally recognized because we embraced “open -source” as our distribution philosophy. We allow all of our writing to be read for free over the internet.  We publish our scientific papers on our own website Necropology.com  and on Scribd.com.   We do not charge to read any of our materials. 

Of course, like any other writers, we’d love to be paid for any and every word that crosses our keyboards, however, we have found the “free to all” model to be much more profitable and successful for us.   Much more profitable and successful!

We believe in the open-source model.  As mentioned, we do not charge our readers.  Readers may download, copy, print or reproduce our work for free – the only thing we ask is that if they use our material they give us explicit credit.  Both of us have strong academic backgrounds and we feel that this method, even with our fiction, closely resembles the spirit of academic sharing that produces innovation and the spread of knowledge.  We like that.

Frankly speaking we also did not like the idea of having to battle piracy in the internet age.  It simply seems too difficult for us to worry about folks copying, downloading, sharing and giving away our writing to their friends and family.  So, why not simply give it away before they do?  We like that too.

We also greatly enjoy the horror community with all of its attendant weirdoes, nerds, geeks, freaks and boffins.  We did not want anything to stand in the way of joining the conversation and the community and certainly not something as banal as money. 

We wanted to reach the most people, with the fewest barriers at the lowest cost to us.  Being FREE does that for us quite well.

Lastly, while The Madore Brothers are greatly amused by their own work and thinks it’s the greatest stuff since sliced bread, we had no notion if others would find it so.  When you put something out for free the only value it as on it is “nothing” to begin with and it can only climb from there! 

Okay, well, there is also the notion that “free” works in other ways too…

Giving away free copies of work does provide a lot of people with a sample of what we can do.   There’s a reason why there are free samples at the local supermarket and warehouse store:  they encourage people to “try then buy.”   That’s been our experience in the horror world.

Being FREE has been successful for us.   It’s as simple as that.   We feel that if we had charged for our writing we would have, at best, made a few hundred dollars on Amazon.  AT BEST.  In the course of making that few hundred we would have missed the amazing opportunities that have come to us through the widespread readership we’ve experienced – experienced only because we did not charge!

Our first zombie paper on Zombie Black Holes brought us into contact with screenwriter and director Matthew A. Collins.  We posted the paper on Scribd.com and within two weeks we were conversing with Matt who was doing research for his upcoming film (Heart Land).  We are a part of that film – as associate producers and technical advisers.  We have been working with Matt on the film for over a year and a half now and are excited over the fact that we will be shooting this winter in the heart of Georgia, USA with a full cast of A-list actors and actresses.  

Our second zombie paper on Zombie Vision and how zombies target their prey brought us major coverage in France and Europe when Salon France did a special article on the science of zombies featuring The Madore Brothers.   They did the piece without ever contacting us directly and based solely upon the freely available writing we’ve done.  We do not believe this would have happened had our papers been behind a pay wall.   Journalists do not exactly have unlimited budgets these days to pay for papers just in case they might use them in an article.  You are more likely to grab their attention and be of use if you are free.

The same thing happened again with our third zombie paper (on the source of Zombie Vitality).  Once again the French press came-a-calling.  This time it was Science et Vie Junior – France’s (and Europe’s) leading popular science magazine.   More than a half-million homes subscribe to Science Et Vie and they put out an issue devoted to zombies and the science of zombies.  We made the centerfold and our work was spotlighted.   Once again, the author accessed our work because it was public and free.

The Madore Brothers now reach a global audience.  At times, more than half our readership is European and never less than forty percent of our reach.   We have been courted for a reality TV show, radio shows here in the USA and in France; guest spots on various podcasts and of course, making a major motion picture that’s sure to change the face of horror! 

We are getting paid.  However, we will always be free. 

Please feel free to join the Madore Brothers for free conversation on Twitter @Necropology or drop by the website Necropology.com.

Lastly, we would like to say thanks to the crew at Freebookdude.com for asking us to write this post.  We dig everything they’re doing and we are happy to be a part, however small, of that effort.

**October is horror month on FreeBookDude.com. Watch for special blocks of dark fiction and non-fiction plus special horror themed guest posts everyday. To win special horror books and prizes, enter our monthly contests on the Free Book Dude Contests & Giveaways page. For even more FREE Amazon Kindle books, visit our free Amazon Kindle books page. **