Proof that Greedo Is Good

So you find out you're going to have a baby. One day, as the nine months passes, you and your future co-parent are discussing alphabet books, and decide there's a yawning, Death-Star-sized gap in the list of available titles.

The dad half of the team, Brandon Peat, happens to be an illustrator and mom Emma is an artist. One thing leads to another and soon you have 26 illustrations of Star Wars characters. What to do with them?



Well, like any savvy user of the web, you put them on your website, of course! And offer a printed copy of them in a booklet to anyone who makes a $15 donation to your child's college fund.

They've run out of the first printing and have a second one on the way (although they're not guaranteeing Christmas delivery). As they write on the web page: "Due to a crazy high volume of donations, we are achieving our goal much more quickly than initially anticipated. So the donation drive has been shortened and is now ending on Thursday, December 9th."

Payment is done through PayPal, which is pretty easy to set up for someone with intermediate or even beginner web skills. (I wonder how much money we're talking about?)

So here we have a great example of the type of economy Vernor Vinge began to describe in his excellent near-future book Rainbow's End. Creative people make something good, put it online, and the world finds it and pays them real money for it. Even though they already put all of the artwork up where you can look at it for free. And not through a dedicated sales channel like Etsy.com, but just from a guy's personal/freelancer website.

Via Boing Boing