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lilfluffNo? You're sure? Well, what if I buy the hardcover how about th--*SMACK!*
"Lynch him! String him up! How dare he give us money! Hey publisher, show that dastardly reader who is boss and delay the next ebook until after even the paperback is out!"
Exaggeration? Perhaps. Not what the people at Writer Beware intend as a message? Probably.
Is that how the response looks to this reader? Pretty much.
The short version is that someone wrote into the New York Times Ethicist column saying that --
A: He bought an ebook device to read books on while traveling
B: he really wanted to read the new Steven King novel Under The Dome, but
C: the publisher has decided not to release the ebook yet (apparently as part of the recent "Oh noes! We must drive away customers in order to support hard cover sales! Darn them for wanting to pay us for books in ebook formats!" movement among publishers), so
D: Really wanting to read the book but not wanting to feel like a gosh darn dirty thief for downloading a pirated ebook copy without having paying the publisher or author... He went out and bought the hardcover like the publisher wanted,
E: Having then given the publisher and a book store money he went to the internet and downloaded an unauthorized copy in a format compatible with his ebook device and used that to read it.
F: The Ethicist columnist says, Hmm, Illegal, but you paid the publisher so I'd say it isn't unethical.
G: People start frothing at the mouth and saying, "How dare you, how dare you!" to the columnist and reader.
I think I agree with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
haikujaguar who on seeing this decided to do an impromptu addition of the Three Micahs (her new series on the intersection of business owner, independent marketer, and artist for artists of whatever stripe (author, painter, whatever)). She noted that the response on Writer Beware amounted to, "Bad reader! Bad!" With comparisons to outright stealing print copies without ever paying and nary a glance at the publisher that nearly drove away a sale.
I figure if I found this interesting enough to comment spamhaikujaguar's post on the topic, then it is an interesting enough post to give a pointer too.
More and more I'm reminded of the late Jim Baen's comment on the Baen Bar that business practices that got between a customer and the customer wanting to pay for Baen published books, were obviously evil. (Although I recall that it was worded in a less wordy and much snappier fashion)
(Edited to actually include a link to the article)
"Lynch him! String him up! How dare he give us money! Hey publisher, show that dastardly reader who is boss and delay the next ebook until after even the paperback is out!"
Exaggeration? Perhaps. Not what the people at Writer Beware intend as a message? Probably.
Is that how the response looks to this reader? Pretty much.
The short version is that someone wrote into the New York Times Ethicist column saying that --
A: He bought an ebook device to read books on while traveling
B: he really wanted to read the new Steven King novel Under The Dome, but
C: the publisher has decided not to release the ebook yet (apparently as part of the recent "Oh noes! We must drive away customers in order to support hard cover sales! Darn them for wanting to pay us for books in ebook formats!" movement among publishers), so
D: Really wanting to read the book but not wanting to feel like a gosh darn dirty thief for downloading a pirated ebook copy without having paying the publisher or author... He went out and bought the hardcover like the publisher wanted,
E: Having then given the publisher and a book store money he went to the internet and downloaded an unauthorized copy in a format compatible with his ebook device and used that to read it.
F: The Ethicist columnist says, Hmm, Illegal, but you paid the publisher so I'd say it isn't unethical.
G: People start frothing at the mouth and saying, "How dare you, how dare you!" to the columnist and reader.
I think I agree with
haikujaguar who on seeing this decided to do an impromptu addition of the Three Micahs (her new series on the intersection of business owner, independent marketer, and artist for artists of whatever stripe (author, painter, whatever)). She noted that the response on Writer Beware amounted to, "Bad reader! Bad!" With comparisons to outright stealing print copies without ever paying and nary a glance at the publisher that nearly drove away a sale.I figure if I found this interesting enough to comment spam
haikujaguar's post on the topic, then it is an interesting enough post to give a pointer too.More and more I'm reminded of the late Jim Baen's comment on the Baen Bar that business practices that got between a customer and the customer wanting to pay for Baen published books, were obviously evil. (Although I recall that it was worded in a less wordy and much snappier fashion)
(Edited to actually include a link to the article)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-06 11:39 am (UTC)Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's just stupid. If they want to pay the publisher -- and thus the author, like me -- they should be able to do so, easily, for any version of the book they like.
The hardcover is my ultimate preferred purchase format, as an author, simply because I get more money for it. HOWEVER, the Ebook is my second, with the paperback a very distant third; I get, I think, about $1.50 for an Ebook, about twice that for a hardcover, and about $0.50 for a paperback. This means that to break even -- what's called "earn out" -- on Grand Central Arena, I have to sell about *14,200* paperbacks. That's quite a few. I'd only have to sell about 5300 E-books, and -- if it was released in hardcover -- about 2700 hardcovers, or less than one-fifth the number of required softcovers.
Since earning out is the criterion which basically determines whether an author will be published again, it's crucially important NOT TO BLOCK ANY POSSIBLE INCOME STREAM in that area.