Preparing To Publish Novel About Financial Crisis

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by WFT

So I guess I'm saying that I'm intrigued by the claim, but I'd like to see more factual evidence. If I can find enough to convince me, I'd put my ebook out for free while trying to sell my print book.

It's hard to find solid numbers, but poking around here will tell you that every ebook is definitely NOT a lost print sale, which seems to be what the mainstream publishers believe. Free ebooks don't always generate notable numbers of paper sales, especially for less-well-known authors, but they can't be shown to hurt.

For myself, I don't read print at all anymore. I get frustrated with the physical book (it doesn't stay open with one hand), and annoyed that I can't carry it with me easily... so for books I want to read that don't exist in e-format, I'll cut the bindings off, scan & OCR them. (This is rare; I'll only do this for books I really, REALLY want to read. Mostly I skip them and move to something else.)

So for me, a free ebook is a book I don't have to buy. Yay for me; not such good news for you. However it's not a missed print sale, because I wasn't going to read it in paper format anyway. And if I like the book, I might buy the paper version as a gift, and I'd certainly be happy to recommend it to friends.

I'm in a niche group. (This niche is over-represented here at MR; there are plenty of people here who've given up entirely on paper. These aren't, however, the majority book buyers; not even the majority of ebook buyers.)

About Smashwords:
If you offer your book "free" at Smashwords, you can set it to "pay what you like." Most of the downloads will be free, but some conscientious readers will return to pay something after they've read & enjoyed the book.

And it's likely the formatting problems come from auto-conversions of Word docs or similar, which haven't been formatted for ebooks. While they don't have a way to allow you to upload your own ebooks (yet), it's possible you can get good conversions by getting advice on how to format the Word (or whatever) document first. Starting with an HTML file that's properly tagged for easy ebook conversion (styles, headings, table of contents, etc.) should fix most of the problems.

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by WFT

Your post intrigued me. So I did some research on Doctorow. He certainly makes the case you described. The thing that bothers me is that he says, "Every writer I've heard of who's tried giving away ebooks to promote paper books has come back to do it again. That's the commercial case for doing free ebooks."

Okay, that's a very interesting claim, and I'd like to check it. The problem is finding the empirical data and being able to verify it.

I did find a story on freebooksforall.com about Paulo Coelho selling only 1,000 copies of his book, The Alchemist, in 1999 before his Russian publisher dumped him. Then he supposedly put a free ebook on a website, and his sales started to take off: 10,000 copies in one year, 100,000 in two, etc.

The problem is that I can't find verification to reliably corroborate this story. So I can't tell if it's true or if it's just an urban legend. All I can find for sure is that the book is selling well on Amazon 10 years later. To make matters even more confusing, the book has supposedly already been out 20 years according to the author himself. That means it was first published in 1989. So where did 1999 come from in that tale on freebooksforall.com?

Doctorow's own novels seem to sell fairly well on Amazon, so I suppose I can take that as some level of verification.

The freebooksforall.com lists a couple of similar claims by author M.J. Rose. One such claim reads, "Haven't enough writers proved it not only helps introduce new readers to the writers but that it does the opposite of cannibalizing sales?" I checked Rose on Amazon... except for one title, sales numbers seemed pretty dismal for that author. Maybe it's the quality of the books? I don't know.

So I guess I'm saying that I'm intrigued by the claim, but I'd like to see more factual evidence. If I can find enough to convince me, I'd put my ebook out for free while trying to sell my print book.

To answer your question: yes, it's more important to me that the ideas my novel presents get out there, but I also need to earn money. While my personal story certainly isn't much different from other first-time authors, I've spent most of the last 10 months of my life living close to the edge in order to finish this book. I'd really like to earn a good living from the fruits of my labors.

Having said that, I can't deny that my primary motivation in writing the book was to get my message out there.

You seem to suggest that it's an either/or choice: either distribution or money, but not both. I draw this inference from your statement, "That decision, of course, boils down to which concern is paramount for you: making money or distributing your work to the largest possible number of people."

But Rose, Doctorow, et al seem to suggest the opposite, that free ebooks lead to more sales, not less or lost sales. Do you doubt their claim? If so, I'd be interested in knowing your reasons.

The Paul Coelho story is true. You can verify it through the sources supporting this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho#File_Sharing.

I remember when news broke that Coelho was supporting the pirating of his own book. Coelho started distributing the book himself online (I think he may have been doing it in secrecy for a little bit in fear of what the publisher might say--but I don't remember exactly) and has attributed his success largely to that. I think there is definitely a strong correlation there but, of course, there is no data that can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that such a direct correlation exists. Publishers will usually argue that every free download results in a lost sale because this argument allows them to better fight piracy in the courts. The argument is silly because people who download tend to download a ton of things that they never would have purchased in the first place (people don't have unlimited funds for entertainment) and often times people are downloading things they never would have heard of were it not for finding the file promoted for free online.

I did not mean to insinuate that you must choose monetary reward or releasing a free e-book. I'm definitely in the Doctorow/Coelho/Rose camp. I phrased the statement that way because, more often than not, when people are more concerned about money, they become very uneasy about the idea of releasing their works for free. They see things from the Publisher standpoint: a download correlates with a lost sale. I think a free ebook may result in loss of an ebook sale but is more likely to help print sales. People (especially people like the ones on this board--adamant ebook fans) will pay for something they think deserves their money. I think that "pay what you want" idea is pretty good. Radiohead did it with their album and most people downloaded it for free, but not everyone. Furthermore, I believe the physical album sold very well. I didn't know you were publishing a print book, as well. Knowing this, I would definitely say a free ebook can only help you. Free ebooks increase "word of mouth" promotion and if someone sees your book in a store they're much more likely to buy it if they've heard of it. Even just the name. Requiring people to pay for an ebook will make people more hesitant to try it out, especially given that this is a book that tackles a topic as dense and murky as economics (even though you try to make it simpler and more accessible as part of a larger story). I think you may be surprised by the free promotion you receive simply by putting a free ebook out there. I have seen people on these boards post threads about free ebooks without even reading them first and then format shift and distribute it not only on this site but Feedbooks.com and similar sites.

At any rate, that's my opinion on the matter.

[WFT]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Be sure to publish it in ePub format so that we can download it, except for the Kindlers who need their own format. Look at the top of this page and find links to "forums" and "wiki." Our wiki has whatever tools you need to do this. And in the "Writer's Corner" forum, you can meet plenty of other authors with lots of experience epublishing.

Good Luck!

I do plan to publish in ePub format, DixieGal. Thanks for your interest!

[WFT]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

The Paul Coelho story is true. You can verify it through the sources supporting this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho#File_Sharing.

I remember when news broke that Coelho was supporting the pirating of his own book. Coelho started distributing the book himself online (I think he may have been doing it in secrecy for a little bit in fear of what the publisher might say--but I don't remember exactly) and has attributed his success largely to that. I think there is definitely a strong correlation there but, of course, there is no data that can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that such a direct correlation exists. Publishers will usually argue that every free download results in a lost sale because this argument allows them to better fight piracy in the courts. The argument is silly because people who download tend to download a ton of things that they never would have purchased in the first place (people don't have unlimited funds for entertainment) and often times people are downloading things they never would have heard of were it not for finding the file promoted for free online.

I did not mean to insinuate that you must choose monetary reward or releasing a free e-book. I'm definitely in the Doctorow/Coelho/Rose camp. I phrased the statement that way because, more often than not, when people are more concerned about money, they become very uneasy about the idea of releasing their works for free. They see things from the Publisher standpoint: a download correlates with a lost sale. I think a free ebook may result in loss of an ebook sale but is more likely to help print sales. People (especially people like the ones on this board--adamant ebook fans) will pay for something they think deserves their money. I think that "pay what you want" idea is pretty good. Radiohead did it with their album and most people downloaded it for free, but not everyone. Furthermore, I believe the physical album sold very well. I didn't know you were publishing a print book, as well. Knowing this, I would definitely say a free ebook can only help you. Free ebooks increase "word of mouth" promotion and if someone sees your book in a store they're much more likely to buy it if they've heard of it. Even just the name. Requiring people to pay for an ebook will make people more hesitant to try it out, especially given that this is a book that tackles a topic as dense and murky as economics (even though you try to make it simpler and more accessible as part of a larger story). I think you may be surprised by the free promotion you receive simply by putting a free ebook out there. I have seen people on these boards post threads about free ebooks without even reading them first and then format shift and distribute it not only on this site but Feedbooks.com and similar sites.

At any rate, that's my opinion on the matter.

Interesting stuff, no doubt about it. I still want to dig deeper to discover why it worked out so well.

I'm also interested in hearing what you have to say about Stephen King's experiment with ebooks. I remembered hearing about it previously, but I had to go look it up just now to find out that it was a series of books called, The Plant. He apparently stopped offering it free after the sixth book in the series.

I looked over the pro and con arguments on the question of whether to "go free ebook" yesterday. As usual, my mind worked on the problem overnight, and when I woke up it occurred to me that an important con argument seems to be missing. Before I tell you what it is, let me tell you a very short story.

In 2000, I was involved with a small group interested in opening a Sudbury-model school in central Connecticut. The school eventually opened on September 11, 2002, exactly one year to the day after those horrible attacks. You can see the school's website at mountainlaurelsudbury.org.

During our first organizing year, we held a series of monthly public meetings, inviting members of the public to come and learn about the Sudbury concept. We did get visitors each month, usually in the range of 2-10 new people, but we weren't getting anywhere. People rarely came back for the next meeting.

Finally, my co-leader and I decided to start asking for small monetary commitments each meeting. In the past, we'd put out a basket with a sign asking for donations, and occasionally we got something, but it was very sporadic and measured in tiny amounts. It amounted to almost nothing.

So at the next meeting, we made an announcement. We announced that we were each going to put at least $2 into the basket each meeting out of our own pockets, and we would ask each attendee to do the same. We said that the reason we were doing this was that we wanted people to become committed to the cause and help out rather than merely lurking and attending an occasional meeting.

That was in February or March 2002. From that day forward, an astonishing thing happened. In the past, when someone showed up, it was very unlikely that they'd come back later. After this initiative, people started coming back every meeting. Our numbers started to grow. So did the number of meetings each month. Further, so did our cash box. By April, we had 20-25 people attending our meeting, and for the first time our new co-founders talked seriously about opening the school. By June, some of their kids involved themselves in the discussions, and that's when things really started to take off. There's nothing so motivated as a kid who realizes that this school they're talking about means real freedom!

Three months later, the school opened.

This is normal human behavior. It's like what happens with kids. If you give them a toy, tell them it's a toy, and expect it to be treated as a toy, they treat it as a toy. They abuse it. They beat it up. They show it no respect. But if you share with them something of value, even slightly delicate, and you explain to them that it's not a toy, that it's real, and that it has value, they treat it with much greater respect.

It also happens with kids in school. The Sudbury model is unique in that it empowers kids every day to run their own education, to make their own decisions day by day, minute by minute, regarding what they'll learn next. They don't even have to go to classes if they don't want to. They can play all day, every day, if they want. They take part in the school's administration. And it works out superlatively. I won't bother going into details about all the ways that it works out real well. Suffice to say for the sake of our discussion that it works very well.

Critics of the model say it can't work (despite a long history of success with the model) and to prove it, they try an experiment in a public school. They announce that for that day, the kids can behave the way a Sudbury student behaves. The result is always disastrous. The kids merely act up. The classroom becomes chaos. None of the successes that a true Sudbury school experiences manifest themselves. Then the critics smugly pat themselves on the back and say, "See? We told you so!"

Can you see what went wrong? It's really very simple. The true Sudbury students knew that the freedom promised to them was real and valuable. The public school students who had one day of freedom saw right through the lie. They treated the experiment the way it deserved to be treated: as a waste of time.

So what's the con argument I mentioned before? It is that the free ebook concept depends on a critical foundation. It depends upon the idea that when people get something for nothing, they'll value it as something anyway. That doesn't normally happen.

With this framework, the question with free ebooks now becomes: why did Coelho's books buck this natural tendency? I don't know the answer... yet. I'll try to dig deeper to figure it out.

Let me ask you a few more questions.

(1) If The Pirate Bay is what drove Coelho's sales, why is it necessary for me to offer my e-book for free in order to gain the "free e-book" benefit of The Pirate Bay? As you pointed out, they'll tend to pirate it anyway. Why does it follow that I need to offer my e-book for free in order to gain that benefit?

(2) What do you think of the alternative that smashwords.com and others offer of giving away the first portion of an e-book for free? In other words, give readers a chance to sink their teeth into it, then require them to pay to see the rest of the story. What do you think of that alternative?

(3) Do you see a downside to giving away free e-books?

I'll be interested in your replies.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by WFT

(1) If The Pirate Bay is what drove Coelho's sales, why is it necessary for me to offer my e-book for free in order to gain the "free e-book" benefit of The Pirate Bay? As you pointed out, they'll tend to pirate it anyway. Why does it follow that I need to offer my e-book for free in order to gain that benefit?

Author support of the free ebook helps; there are people who won't pirate books, and others who will download but not share, if they think the author (and attached publishers lawyers) might come after them. Whether or not you directly offer it for free, a public announcement of "I'm not worried about free copies" works as a promotion.

(2) What do you think of the alternative that smashwords.com and others offer of giving away the first portion of an e-book for free? In other words, give readers a chance to sink their teeth into it, then require them to pay to see the rest of the story. What do you think of that alternative?

I think that's lovely, and a very viable option. The biggest concern I'd have about it, is people downloading the sample, reading & enjoying it, and not taking the time to get back to Smashwords to buy the rest of it. (I'm in that spot on one book, and have two more samples in my Reader that keep getting bumped for more immediate works.) I haven't checked to see if the samples end with "If you liked this, go to [URL] and buy the rest of the book."

Many people with Kindles speak highly of their sampling system; it lets them try books they'd normally never consider. And it avoids one of the costs of buy-first ebooks: if they hated it, they won't tell friends "I wasted $6 on that author!"

(3) Do you see a downside to giving away free e-books?

There's an obvious downside to free ebooks as opposed to sold ebooks (you get paid for sold ebooks but not free ones), but it's not clear whether that's likely to be balanced by extra print sales. It is known that you can't estimate print sales, nor potential ebook sales, by looking at free download numbers.

Free ebooks are more advantageous to authors of multiple books, or those with political causes to support, because ebook popularity will spill over into other activities, at least somewhat.

Downsides:
Many people think that free ebooks are low-quality gimmicks, like many other free & promotional products; you'll be working against the assumption that anything free is worth what you paid for it.

Having free copies available damages your ability to get it picked up by a major publisher. (Not sure if that's important to you, but it's part of the package.)

Free ebooks means less data about your readers: you won't know who they are, and won't have a way to get good info about how to market your physical book. And even if you demand registration & an email address to download, if it's free, people will share it. (And bugmenot.com will offer free registrations, so you'll get no data from that.)

Advice:
Study the rhetoric used to explain the Baen free library, and how they give away ebooks to make money.

Read some anti-DRM rants. (You may already have, in which case, find some at different sites. The anti-fair-use-restrictions rants have a different flavor from the computer-glitch-killed-my-purchase rants.) The DRM argument is tangential, but the issues are very connected to pricing issues. (Especially since a large part of most ebook pricing is paying for the DRM software.)

Read some pro-DRM rants, or arguments, or whatever they're called.

While authors may not consider it their job to understand a dozen ebook formats (which I think is a mostly reasonable belief), they do need to understand DRM, for the same reason they need to understand hardcover vs paperback, or the difference between selling a story to an anthology or to a magazine. There's a drastically different market involved, and even if one category of that market is of no interest to them, they need to know it exists, and have some idea about what's involved with it.

[WFT]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Author support of the free ebook helps; there are people who won't pirate books, and others who will download but not share, if they think the author (and attached publishers lawyers) might come after them. Whether or not you directly offer it for free, a public announcement of "I'm not worried about free copies" works as a promotion.

Thanks for all the great input, Elfwreck. You've been very, very helpful since I introduced myself here, and I really appreciate it.

I had actually already studied DRM before I came to this forum and decided it wasn't for me. Given popular input about it, I guess I'm a little surprised (not a lot) that traditional publishers are still so resistant to the idea of going without it. Fear does strange things to people, and I'm sure that's the root of the matter.

I've been thinking about an alternative way to offer e-books. I ran it past my brother, who is very net-literate, and he tells me he's never heard of anyone doing something like it.

I'm thinking of putting up the e-books in five formats: pdf, epub, lrf, mobi, and ereader on a web page on my website that allows people to download them without interference but states that they're expected to pay for it on "The Honor System." In other words, I'll have no way to check up on anyone, but I expect to be paid for my work, either before or after the person reads the novel. As you suggested, I thought I'd also include a payment link at the end of the novel itself.

What I'm trying to do is to make the payment strictly voluntary, but remind people that they have an obligation to the author for enjoying his/her story.

What do you think of this idea?

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by WFT

I'm also interested in hearing what you have to say about Stephen King's experiment with ebooks. I remembered hearing about it previously, but I had to go look it up just now to find out that it was a series of books called, The Plant. He apparently stopped offering it free after the sixth book in the series.

According to Wikipedia, Stephen King and his publisher threated to stop publishing the Plant if more than 25% of the people reading weren't paying. I think that's a bit of an absurd expectation on their part given the nature of the internet. He did reach expectations on multiple installments but Stephen King already established himself as a popular writer. People had high expectations. Electronic books weren't popular at all at the turn of the century, though. There were no eink devices and wireless delivery to portable electronics. Most people were simply not interested in the idea of reading on a computer or PDA. Things are rapidly changing thanks to the publicity of the Sony Reader and the Kindle. So I think the unpopularity of ebooks coupled with the popularity of Stephen King--resulting in his high expectations, knowing he can sell any book by the hundreds simply by putting his name on it--doomed the project. Lesser known authors don't have the comfort of knowing they can put any book on the shelf and make a profit.

Originally Posted by WFT

Can you see what went wrong? It's really very simple. The true Sudbury students knew that the freedom promised to them was real and valuable. The public school students who had one day of freedom saw right through the lie. They treated the experiment the way it deserved to be treated: as a waste of time.

I agree that the students acted in the way they did because they knew the "freedom" they were afforded would last for only a single day. Why waste it? Back to the daily drudge tomorrow. Information doesn't work that way, though. Information is not a tangible good (freedom is tangible and can be taken away). In the "Information Age" people are not concerned about the monetary value of information. People regularly use Wikipedia as a reliable source (though not in academic papers because it can be edited at a moment's notice, but for the most part, its articles are fairly accurate and can be checked via the sources at the bottom). People are more than happy to facilitate the free propagation of information (books, music, movies, software, etc.) and it doesn't make any of those things less valuable. Bootlegged software downloaded from a pirate site is more often than not just as useful and reliable as that same software when you pay hundreds of dollars for it at the store. Information propagates by its very nature. A person who reads your book now has your story in his mind. He can tell that story to his friends or let his friends borrow the book and then they have that story in their minds. They do not own the physical book but most people are not in the habit of rereading books because the ideas, the information, are now permanently in their minds (and even when forgotten, they may eventually be recalled). People realize that there is no monetary value that can be placed on information that makes it more valuable. For physical items, when something is more expensive, it is usually better quality. Things don't work that way on the internet. Indeed, now people expect to get things for free. One of the reasons I'd love to see your book released for free is because I know a lot of people in my age group have the mindset of "if you're not going to give me this book for free, I'll just move on to this book over here which is free." Granted, a lot of people in my age group don't really have much money to spare, so I don't blame them. But a free book is that much easier for someone like me to help push out to others.

Christ Anderson, editor of Wired, recently had his book Free published. It's about the economics of giving away things for free online. He actually had the book up for free on several sites for the first month after it was released. Here's an excerpt I thought pertinent:

This new form of free is based on the economics of bits, not atoms. It is a unique quality of the digital age that once something becomes software, it inevitably becomes free—in cost, certainly, and often in price. (Imagine if the price of steel had dropped so close to zero that King Gillette could give away both razor and blade, and make his money on something else entirely—shaving cream?) And it’s creating a multibillion-dollar economy—the first in history—where the primary price is zero.

In the atoms economy, which is to say most of the stuff around us, things tend to get more expensive over time. But in the bits economy, which is the online world, things get cheaper. The atoms economy is inflationary, while the bits economy is deflationary.

Information used to be sparse and limited because technology limited it. I've always thought of the idea of purchasing ideas to be peculiar. It always made sense to me that people bought CDs or books, physically limited products, not the unlimited information provided via those mediums. I'm not saying you shouldn't be rewarded for your work but ultimately consumers will decide whether you will or won't and you get to decide whether they're reading your work or not reading your work when they finally make that decision.

To sum up my point, the extrinsic value placed on information does not correlate with its intrinsic value. People realize this more than ever in the "Information Age."

Originally Posted by WFT

(1) If The Pirate Bay is what drove Coelho's sales, why is it necessary for me to offer my e-book for free in order to gain the "free e-book" benefit of The Pirate Bay? As you pointed out, they'll tend to pirate it anyway. Why does it follow that I need to offer my e-book for free in order to gain that benefit?

It's not always a guarantee that your book will eventually make it up on a pirate site. And if people don't already know about you, it becomes very unlikely unless you do it yourself. I believe Coelho was helping the piracy of his book privately because there may have been consequences from his publisher had they known in the beginning (they didn't find out until after the Alchemist became a success), possibly a lawsuit. This is just what I'm remembering from when the story first broke. I'm not certain of Coelho's methods or motivation.

If you offer the book for free under the Creative Commons license, that means people are legally able to distribute your book. Many people aren't willing or don't have the desire to figure out how to pirate books. Many people simply won't do it on moral grounds. Many more people won't do it just because they're afraid of the legal ramifications. Your book is more likely to spread if you release it for free yourself. Otherwise, the law, as far as it has an influence and can be enforced, is very prohibitive.

Originally Posted by WFT

(2) What do you think of the alternative that smashwords.com and others offer of giving away the first portion of an e-book for free? In other words, give readers a chance to sink their teeth into it, then require them to pay to see the rest of the story. What do you think of that alternative?

As Elfwreck said, this is always a good idea. If you decide that giving away free copies of your ebook has more negatives than positives then this would definitely be the way to go.

Originally Posted by WFT

(3) Do you see a downside to giving away free e-books?

There's a downside to everything. If your book isn't as successful as you hoped, you may always wonder if releasing your ebook for free hurt sales. There's no sure way to prove whether it did or didn't. I think it's unlikely to hurt more than help, but that's only an opinion based on what I've seen and experienced. Hardly scientific.

Originally Posted by WFT

I'm thinking of putting up the e-books in five formats: pdf, epub, lrf, mobi, and ereader on a web page on my website that allows people to download them without interference but states that they're expected to pay for it on "The Honor System." In other words, I'll have no way to check up on anyone, but I expect to be paid for my work, either before or after the person reads the novel. As you suggested, I thought I'd also include a payment link at the end of the novel itself.

What I'm trying to do is to make the payment strictly voluntary, but remind people that they have an obligation to the author for enjoying his/her story.

What do you think of this idea?

I think you're likely to find more people willing to download without paying than vice versa. This is just how the internet operates. I don't mean for that to be discouraging but I think it's a reality. You're not Stephen King, so expecting something close to 75% of people paying for your work may be a high expectation. Also, if you retain full copyright (i.e. people aren't able to freely distribute your work outside your website) then you don't get the full benefits of releasing your book for free. For an unknown author, the word of mouth promotion and the propagation of a book around the web may be the most important part. Then again, Coehlo seems to have made it work while retaining copyright restrictions. Depends on the book, I guess. If you want to go that route, you can release your book for sale only and if sales don't meet your expectations after the first decade, you can put it online for free.

But seriously, I hope you find something that works for you and your readers.

[WFT]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

I think you're likely to find more people willing to download without paying than vice versa. This is just how the internet operates. I don't mean for that to be discouraging but I think it's a reality. You're not Stephen King, so expecting something close to 75% of people paying for your work may be a high expectation. Also, if you retain full copyright (i.e. people aren't able to freely distribute your work outside your website) then you don't get the full benefits of releasing your book for free. For an unknown author, the word of mouth promotion and the propagation of a book around the web may be the most important part. Then again, Coehlo seems to have made it work while retaining copyright restrictions. Depends on the book, I guess. If you want to go that route, you can release your book for sale only and if sales don't meet your expectations after the first decade, you can put it online for free.

But seriously, I hope you find something that works for you and your readers.

Thanks for all the good feedback, SpiderMatt. Like Elfwreck, you've been very helpful.

I should qualify what I wrote. My "honor system" idea would include the permission to send a copy to a friend, with the understanding that the same "honor system" applies to all.

It was Coelho's experience which gave me the idea for the "honor system." I'm curious, what do you mean when you say, "it depends on the book"?

[animedude01]

I've been downloading all the free books I can. Why? Well, I'm a bit of a pack rat so I end up collecting things just because I can. Another reason, though, is that it doesn't cost me anything, but I may enjoy it. What do I have to lose, other than some time spent reading. If I like the author, I'm much more likely to buy other books of theirs. If I had to pay for the book, it would be less likely for me to get it. I'd have to see if it got good reviews and good word of mouth, especially from sites or people I think have similar tastes. Considering the number of books I have in my queue, both physical and digital, if I have to pay, I'll wait.

I consider free e-books a good way to try out an author. If I like the book or the author, I'm much more likely to pay for more books in the series or by the author. Baen is great with that. They have a lot of books in their free library that start a series and I've gone on to buy the rest of the series after I've read the first.

I think for a small author, it's getting more difficult to justify not having any of their books for free. I don't expect all their books to be free, but I think it makes for good marketing.

My $.02 anyway

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by WFT

It was Coelho's experience which gave me the idea for the "honor system." I'm curious, what do you mean when you say, "it depends on the book"?

I just mean it depends on how readers respond to any given book. Obviously readers liked Coelho's book, so it took off once people knew about it. It wouldn't have worked so well if no one liked his book. But nothing can help a book no one likes.

[WFT]

Originally Posted by animedude01

I've been downloading all the free books I can. Why? Well, I'm a bit of a pack rat so I end up collecting things just because I can. Another reason, though, is that it doesn't cost me anything, but I may enjoy it. What do I have to lose, other than some time spent reading. If I like the author, I'm much more likely to buy other books of theirs. If I had to pay for the book, it would be less likely for me to get it. I'd have to see if it got good reviews and good word of mouth, especially from sites or people I think have similar tastes. Considering the number of books I have in my queue, both physical and digital, if I have to pay, I'll wait.

I consider free e-books a good way to try out an author. If I like the book or the author, I'm much more likely to pay for more books in the series or by the author. Baen is great with that. They have a lot of books in their free library that start a series and I've gone on to buy the rest of the series after I've read the first.

I think for a small author, it's getting more difficult to justify not having any of their books for free. I don't expect all their books to be free, but I think it makes for good marketing.

My $.02 anyway

Interesting take. What do you think an author like me should do when he has just one book? After all, this is my first novel... my first book of any kind, in fact. If I make my book free, then I haven't just made some of my books free. I've made all of them free, because there's only one.

[WFT]

I just wanted to alert those of you who previously expressed interest that I've finally released my novel, The Money Suckers, as a free e-book. You can read the details at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=637021.

[GizmoPlanet]

I claim that since the earliest days of modern banking dating back to the late 17th Century in Britain (and possibly earlier), banks and governments have engaged in three forms of what I call "legalized fraud." They are:

1. Banks lending money that does not belong to the banks
2. Banks lending money long-term using short-term funds
3. Governments and banks issuing currency backed by nothing but debt and false promises

I maintain that these three forms of "legalized fraud," so-called because they are fraudulent in nature but are considered legal, ethical activity by government authorities, may be found in various combinations at the root of every financial crisis experienced in United States history, as well as nearly all of the financial crises experienced abroad in other countries around the world. If we make these forms of fraud illegal, we will go a long, long way toward eliminating systemic financial crises for present and future generations.

How about adding fractional reserve banking to the mix? In Canada and the United States, banks are required to have only a fraction of what they lend out backed by actual deposits. This means banks can actually create money out of thin air simply by generating a ledger entry.

The US Federal Reserve (or the Bank of Canada) then funds the loans the banks make and the money supply is increased. As the loan is paid, the banks receive the loan payments, take their cut and either lend out more money from these returning funds, or send them back to the reserve bank.

What this means in practical terms is that banks can make loans with little financial downside, if any.

I agree with your contention that the sub-prime mortgage crisis is part of the problem, but not the entire cause of the problems that the US economy is facing.

I would say that decades of sending jobs offshore and the ensuing decline in research and development plays a much bigger role. You can't run an economy on consumer debt and a service sector alone. You still have to produce something tangible.

Looking forward to seeing the publication of your book. Looks like an interesting read.

[WFT]

Originally Posted by GizmoPlanet

How about adding fractional reserve banking to the mix? In Canada and the United States, banks are required to have only a fraction of what they lend out backed by actual deposits. This means banks can actually create money out of thin air simply by generating a ledger entry.

I agree completely regarding the importance and impact of fractional reserve banking. However, I framed my "three forms of legalized fraud" instead of discussing fractional reserve banking because most people don't understand fractional reserve banking even when you explain it to them. When you do discuss it with people, their eyes tend to glaze over within a few minutes. It was that fact, combined with the confusion that occurs whenever you explain most financial concepts which led me to focus instead on my legalized fraud triad. After all, anyone can understand that fraud is wrong, and the forms of fraud I identify don't take a rocket scientist to understand or discuss them.

It's not surprising that the concepts regarding fractional reserve banking are so difficult to follow. After all, ethically and logically they don't make sense and are counter-intuitive. Lend out money that has already been loaned out previously? Count a liability as an asset in your bookkeeping? Understand the multiplier effect and why it tends to approach ten times the original loan value? Ask people to try to comprehend all that, and for most of them their brains will melt.

I do mention fractional reserve banking in the novel, as well as creating money out of thin air. The challenge was to do so without losing the attention of the average reader, and I think I succeeded. Even with what I wrote, my volunteer editors and my professional editor all found the concepts to be a bit daunting...but something they could handle. I'm certain that if I became more technical, I would have lost most readers.

The Money Suckers was and is intended as a popular novel, not a financial tome. Hopefully, it will be received that way.

Besides, "End Fractional Reserve Banking" doesn't have the same ring as "End Legalized Fraud".