You're being very selective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psykhe
pay money (-)
support producer (+)
get it *now* (+)
vs
get it for free (+)
do not support producer (-)
wait an unknown period of time (-)
|
Actually, it's more like this:
pay more money than you would for the paperback (-)
support producer with a few pennies (+)
get it whenever the publisher feels like it, or maybe not at all (-)
deal with hassles trying to actually use it (-)
vs
get it for free (+)
do not support producer with those few pennies (-)
get it the day it comes out if not before (+)
get it in the format you need (+)
For someone who doesn't care much about the author, or who knows how little of a book's cover price actually goes to the author, those downloads look like a better and better deal. If their consciences bother them, they can snail off anonymous money orders to authors, I suppose.
The people I really don't want to support are the publishers who make my life as difficult as they can. They're the ones demanding hardcover prices for ebooks. They're the ones applying DRM, geographic restrictions, and delays. They're the ones screwing the authors out of their fair pay. They're the ones giving chain bookstores huge discounts so the independents can't compete. They're the ones pushing celebrity tell-alls or politicians' whines while letting midlist authors die on the vine. They're the ones who will neither print nor release books, leaving the authors without the rights to their own backlists. They are, in short, the
last people I would want to support, not the
only.
That's why I buy books from publishers who get it. That's why I download public domain books. That's why I won't buy from the cartel publishers, because they're looking out for only their own interests, not mine, not the author's, not the bookseller's, not anyone else's. You want to support the cartel: how about telling them to give the public what they want, instead of trying to force the public to want what they give them?
Everything someone says affects how they're seen. Yes, that can include using the wrong words for things. Someone can say "wutevah wurds i wanna uu shuld be gud enuf 4 u cuz u kin reed it" but they're not going to have the same credibility among people who value good writing that they would have if they'd taken the time to use that shared communication protocol called "language". I can guarantee you that, were I writing in German, I'd have my posts checked by a native speaker to be sure I was saying what I meant, and not just hoping someone could figure it out.