Weblit as Gifting Culture

I wrote a guest post over at Cheap Ass Fiction about weblit as gifting culture,primarily exploring the drive to share as well as some other reasons people want to give their stories away (marketing, monetizing, etc). Thought people might be interested, and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts!

When I first started reading weblit other than fanfiction, it kind of knocked my paradigm of publishing on its ass. Not because it was on the internet. The internet was just a flexible, fluid, far-reaching medium. What hit me was that so many authors were giving their stories away, for free. Because they loved it. Because they would rather give, with no expectation of reciprocation, than keep it to themselves and maybe get a contract some day.

There’s a saying where I live, “Giving is receiving.”