Quote:
Originally Posted by GA Russell
I think that the publishers are now at a fork in the road, and that it is imperative that they maintain the goodwill of the reading public rather than maximize short term profits. If they don't, I see them losing a ton of sales a few years down the road.
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I don't think that most book readers will ever care much more about the publishers than they do now. Nor do I think that publishers are too dependent on the goodwill of the reading public - even if they sell their new HC books at $8, you still can't compete with free. And you will always find people who will justify their thefts of e-books on the theory that the publishers are "evil." With "evil" being variously defined, of course, but they will probably glom on to the fact that not all of the money paid for a book goes directly to the author.
I think that's one of the "reasons" that music publishers are "evil."
But mostly it's just people wanting an excuse to steal. As we saw in the other thread about why people buy e-book readers, people may also trot out the "fact" that authors are wealthy, too.
However, I think that the demographics of heavy readers are going to make them less likely overall to torrent, etc.
And I think that people take a lot of wrong lessons from what they believe happened with the music business and mp3s. When mp3s came out, there was no legal way to download music, and the music business at first didn't permit it, and then sort of permitted it, but it was cumbersome. ITunes was so successful because: (1) it gave you a really easy, idiot-proof way of integrating your mp3 player with the music you downloaded; and (2) it gave you a really easy way to buy music online.
People didn't buy from iTunes because they had goodwill toward the publisher; they bought from iTunes because it was more convenient than other methods.
E-books didn't make the mistakes music publishers made. The kindle, in particular, made it extremely easy to buy book - you could do it without a computer, it would automatically download to your e-reader; if the book was still in the store, you could redownload it, etc. You didn't need a computer; you didn't need wifi - even iTunes still requires you to hook your player to the computer.
So I think that the greatest protection that book publishers have against piracy, etc., is to make it as easy as possible to buy books legally.