10-15-2010, 08:55 AM | #31 |
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Actually, they're not as out of touch as you might think. They just act out of touch to minimize the backlash that would happen if people discovered that they're acting the way they are intentionally to steer the outcome favorably in their direction. They know they can't stop the market from changing, but they can almost certainly steer it in ways that benefit them by forcing people unwittingly to make the necessary changes for them. Then when the time is right, they "relent" and appear to go forward into the new market begrudgingly, when they're actually sipping champaign and eating caviar in celebration of a controlled market switchover.
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10-15-2010, 08:55 AM | #32 | |
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Readers are not solely Top-40 hits consumers, and the appeal of selling 99¢ chapters from an "album of chapters" does not apply. MP3s are consumed in 3 minutes; a book is consumed over a period of days. While folks might download lots of pirated ebooks, these are in many cases "sales" that would never have happened. Some posters here brag about libraries of 10,000 e-books -- a fraction of those will get read and no doubt those posters will continue to expand their libraries with PD or pirated material. The true failure of publishers is lacking vision to monetize what they already have, and assist their distribution channels -- old and new -- as they attempt to find a soft landing or morph into a new model. People continue to read; people continue to be willing to pay for "premium" content. Publishers have to ensure they can reach consumers in a timely way to capitalise on new content, backlist content and impulse content. So far, publishers are still in the slow lane (and some sit in the spectator stand) watching their bricks and mortar allies wilt on the vine. There are glimmers of hope and it's not too late. But each passing day will make the transitions harder. Last edited by SensualPoet; 10-15-2010 at 08:58 AM. |
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10-15-2010, 09:30 AM | #33 |
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Well... OK! "Opening" may not have been the right word. Let's say "Only one book can be read at any given time in a household. If someone else is reading one of its owner's other books, this one closes".
How does that sound? I'm sure you understand where I'm going with that. Me and my wife can sit on the same sofa and read two different paper books that I bought. But if you lock the two e-books I bought to my only e-reader, then I cannot share one of them with her, even if she has her own e-reader. |
10-15-2010, 10:43 AM | #34 | |
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Then you say that the publisher can't be blamed for "...only being granted rights to sell the book in a restricted territory." What? If the publisher writes the contract, as you imply in your first two sentences, whose fault is it? |
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10-15-2010, 11:12 AM | #35 | |
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Of course, this requires all ereaders on that account to be the same brand - all Kindles or all Nooks. |
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10-15-2010, 12:03 PM | #36 | |
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Publishing industry, however, now faces a substantially different situation. Yes, one could scan pbook, proofread it and and upload it to the net. The process, however, is prohibitively complex for the average person and the quality of end result depends almost completely on the amount of human work that went into proofreading. For the blockbuster editions, pbook piracy is an issue, the pbooks WILL be pirated, but those books sell anyway. For a smaller publishing projects, it is highly likely that demand is small enough that obstacle (amount of work needed to pirate a pbook) is effective. So we come to the other and newly emerging source of material, DRMed (and then DRM is stripped) ebooks. "DRM liberation" is even quicker and simpler than it was with CD ripping. ANY electronic edition is in danger of this scenario, blockbusters and smaller editions alike. So what is the first reaction of the publishing industry? Hell, cut the second supply, resist by any means and as long as it is humanely possible! It is logical. It also doesn't work on the long run, the transition to digital content and delivery is inevitable. |
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10-15-2010, 12:13 PM | #37 |
monkey on the fringe
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The easiest way to bring the publishers to their knees is to quit buying books in all formats (hardcover, paperback, audio, ebook); and then tell them why.
Resist the temptation to buy. But human nature being what it is, most people will buy anyway and rationalize their particular purchase. This enables the publishers to continue the status quo. |
10-15-2010, 12:48 PM | #38 |
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People Rationalize Everything. Even the irrational. That's why this issue has been stuck in the same bog for a decade, and will be a decade from now.
My ebooks aren't expensive (less than $3), aren't covered with DRM, are available in most any country, have nice custom-made covers, are high quality digital products, and are not written by someone famous. And they still ended up in BitTorrents. (Yes, I've seen them.) So, obviously someone rationalized a perfectly good reason to put them there, such as "He's rich," "He's an old geezer and doesn't need more income," "He's a jerk, this'll teach him," "He's black," "He's not black enough," "He's American," "He's not a good American," "He's a geek," "He's a nerd," "He hates Madonna," "He hates Lady GaGa," "My buds will think I'm cool," "This is just for my family," "No one will see them," "No one will know I did it," "The Devil made me do it," etc, etc, etc... Bottom line, we can't rationalize away piracy. The only thing that can be done is to make piracy undesirable, so people won't want to be bothered doing it in significant numbers. And the best way to do that is to make products available in an easy and reasonable package, so people won't think twice about just buying them. You'll still have piracy, but the better your package is, the less piracy you'll have, and the less it will matter. |
10-15-2010, 01:14 PM | #39 | |
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10-15-2010, 01:43 PM | #40 | ||
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As for "the odd error"... I've read many legitimate ebooks that are chock full of errors. It doesn't make the 'real' product more appealing than piracy. |
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10-15-2010, 02:30 PM | #41 |
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10-15-2010, 02:31 PM | #42 |
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10-15-2010, 02:47 PM | #43 | |
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To buy or not to buy = to enable or not to enable. I choose not to buy. |
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10-15-2010, 03:15 PM | #44 |
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Being a free market does not justify the violation of consumer rights.
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10-15-2010, 03:27 PM | #45 |
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I'm afraid I still think you have it back to front. It's the authors who offer the restrictive contracts to the publishers, not vice versa. A world-wide publisher such as, say, Penguin, would like nothing better than to acquire world-wide rights to a book, but very often the author holds out for, say, separate UK and US rights because they can make more money that way.
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