[Dumas]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The music industry as grown because they have those mentioned sources of revenue.

So you think the music industry has grown (and offset lost recording revenues) because artists perform live? They've been doing that since before recorded music/wax cylinders (the advent of which it was claimed would starve artists accustomed to making a living from performances.) You're going to have to do better than that.

Remember, one of the recording industry's positions on digital music and distribution is that the quality and quantity of acts is going to decrease (a similar position proposed earlier in this discussion as it relates to authors and eBooks.) This doesn't seem to have been the case and I suggest a greater number of acts and their accessibility to a much larger market is what has resulted in the industry's growth.

I think eBooks will see similar growth as well for current and future authors. Don't forget the roughly 5M out-of-print and/or orphaned US works that Google has already scanned as well that will most likely eventually become available. This is one area where the music/book industry experiences diverge. As far as I know, the music industry hasn't tried to capitalize on its back catalog and has apparently actively prevented artists from recovering the copyright to their own material so they could re-release their own out-of-print works.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

And I mentioned such a high figure ($150), since $10 to $15 each from a very small audience won't help much.

RRRRight ... tell that to all the bands doing local gigs, and ask them what kind of an audience they think they could draw if they were charging $150 at the door. And isn't attracting an audience/readership really what's most important? Without either you've got bubkes.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Authors don't have the same options musicians have. So the only alternatives to charging for books would be advertising or state sponsorship. Neither would be any better than just paying for what we want.

I think you're off track here. We were discussing business model choices (author-reader or author-publisher-reader) and whether a change in model would result in an increase or decrease in quality and quantity of content. I don't see where anyone suggested people would stop paying for books, just who and how they would be paid for.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

What will the future bring? My money is on advertising.

Okay. So what does that look like: author-advertiser-reader, author-publisher-advertiser-reader, or what exactly? Why and how do you think this works?