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I have to admit, I am very tired of these sorts of complaints. Writing fiction for money is, and always has been, a sales job---there is no guarantee of income in a sales job. You have to both have a project, and---here is the tricky part---convince people that your product is worth paying for. There are some books I buy the day they come out, for example, but there are other books I borrow from the library because I do not enjoy those authors as much.
I also think that until authors band together in some sort of union or league or whatever to remove barriers that prevent paying customers with money from spending that money on their stuff, they have no right to complain. How many stories have we heard on this forum of people not being able to buy books they want to pay for due to geographical restrictions? Incompatible DRM schemes? Or on a lesser level, books whose e-price has not been updated to reflect a cheaper paper edition?
I realize these problems may not affect YOUR books, Steve. But if you are lumping authors together as some sort of species (rather than, as I see them, as lone wolf salesmen some of whom in any type of sales job will do better than others) then as a species there is an element of collective responsibility involved where all of you will have to work together to help fix some of these problems. Because as long as there are paying customers wondering why somebody won't take their money, nobody has the right to complain about lower sales---because they are not SELLING!
As for piracy, I think it is a mistake to base your business model on the notion that all of your customers are potential thieves and it is your job to thwart them. Stores like iTunes have proven that if you make product available at a price people want to pay, and make it simple and convenient for them to pay it, people WILL pay for stuff they can get for free. And it is worth noting too that the most 'pirated' ebooks of all are Rowling's and that's with no e-edition to duplicate with the touch of a button. So I really don't think ebooks as a concept are the problem here.
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