MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - I am interviewed by Paula B of 'The Writing Show'

charleski · 02-28-2010, 09:14 PM

You should be in politics.

You write a post which is rant about readers not wanting to pay $15 for a book, but by the time you get interviewed, the issue has morphed into editing mistakes in ebooks.
Teleread: "readers at Mobileread are organizing initiatives such as a boycott on all $15 books, and an interesting campaign to catch author and agent attention by deluging offending books with 1-star reviews."
The Writing Show: "The genesis behind that post was essentially a post that was made at mobileread where several readers who were unhappy with editing mistakes in the ebooks they were buying instituted a campaign [...] where they left 1-star reviews for books that had been downloaded by them and had these problems."
Were you hoping people wouldn't notice?

AFAICR the 1-star review campaign started over publishers wanting to window their releases, and then predictably diverted to the whole pricing issue. Let's search through the threads to see if the word 'editing' appears:
Kindle users give 1 star rating to book with delayed ebook release Nope, nothing relevant there
The $15 Boycott: Will you be participating? 1 post explaining that Baen eARCs are uncorrected proofs.

Way to go with putting on the spin in your opening paragraph! Instead of it being about readers who want to pay as little as possible for their books, it becomes an issue about publishers not devoting enough attention to ebook creation.

I'd certainly like to see publishers devote the same care to producing ebooks that they do for physical product. I'd certainly like to see them give ebooks the importance they deserve as part of their release schedule. I'd certainly like to see DRM die a miserable death. But this isn't a 'community', this is a market, and good books come at a price.

We need to keep putting pressure on publishers to get their ebook strategies sorted out. But everyone who reads this forum knows very well that all the fuss that was made at the start of February was about one thing - price. And all it managed to do was justify everything that publishers had been saying over the past year about the way ebooks (and the Kindle in particular) had been degrading the perceived value of books. Any publisher who's frightened by the way ebooks will change the market will just look at that and see their fears confirmed.

02-28-2010, 09:14 PM	#4
charleski Wizard Posts: 1,196 Karma: 1281258 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-505	You should be in politics. You write a post which is rant about readers not wanting to pay $15 for a book, but by the time you get interviewed, the issue has morphed into editing mistakes in ebooks. Teleread: "readers at Mobileread are organizing initiatives such as a boycott on all $15 books, and an interesting campaign to catch author and agent attention by deluging offending books with 1-star reviews." The Writing Show: "The genesis behind that post was essentially a post that was made at mobileread where several readers who were unhappy with editing mistakes in the ebooks they were buying instituted a campaign [...] where they left 1-star reviews for books that had been downloaded by them and had these problems." Were you hoping people wouldn't notice? AFAICR the 1-star review campaign started over publishers wanting to window their releases, and then predictably diverted to the whole pricing issue. Let's search through the threads to see if the word 'editing' appears: Kindle users give 1 star rating to book with delayed ebook release Nope, nothing relevant there The $15 Boycott: Will you be participating? 1 post explaining that Baen eARCs are uncorrected proofs. Way to go with putting on the spin in your opening paragraph! Instead of it being about readers who want to pay as little as possible for their books, it becomes an issue about publishers not devoting enough attention to ebook creation. I'd certainly like to see publishers devote the same care to producing ebooks that they do for physical product. I'd certainly like to see them give ebooks the importance they deserve as part of their release schedule. I'd certainly like to see DRM die a miserable death. But this isn't a 'community', this is a market, and good books come at a price. We need to keep putting pressure on publishers to get their ebook strategies sorted out. But everyone who reads this forum knows very well that all the fuss that was made at the start of February was about one thing - price. And all it managed to do was justify everything that publishers had been saying over the past year about the way ebooks (and the Kindle in particular) had been degrading the perceived value of books. Any publisher who's frightened by the way ebooks will change the market will just look at that and see their fears confirmed.