|
Some fairly bizarre ideas here but to each his own.
It begs the question if you believe that a book -- say, a 300 page novel -- has any intrinsic value at all? Is a 20 page "novel" worth 1/15th the value of a 300 page novel? Should Tolstoy have been paid more for War and Peace than TS Eliot for The Wasteland? And what about popularity? Should it be rewarded? Does it have value? Should John Grisham be paid more per word than DB Henson?
These are not rhetorical questions.
It is true that some books can be found online for "free" and simultaneously illegally, and some other people, oddly, pay $10 for the same book, and others borrow them at the library (which they likely support invisibly with their state or local taxes) for "free".
In my world, I am hoping there will continue to be readers who love reading enough to actually pay for it for many years to come. Otherwise, writers will stop writing or end up as civil servants, writing in their government pensioned pod waiting for retirement.
|