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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
What "devaluing the creation of books?" I don't think anyone's saying authors should work for free.
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Sure we do. If information is free, then authors would have to work for free.
And we have PLENTY of folks saying ebooks are priced too high. They fail to see the virtue that is inherent when a product can be sold for rich rewards. Most post was to highlight this virtue. I see ebooks priced higher than I wish to pay for them. I don't consider that to be a bad thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
A lot of us are saying that if the goal is "earn $50k for the year I spent writing this book," that may be easier to do by selling 14k ebooks at $5 than 7k at $10. And it's possible that'll be easier to do by selling 28k books at $3. We are also saying it'll be much harder to make that $50k by selling 10,000 hardcovers at $30.
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I don't think many people have that in mind at all. It's most assuredly "I want stuff for cheap". And, hey, that's part of our wonderful system as well. The buyer desires to get more for less. The producer desires to get more for their work. The market is a wonderful thing.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Ebooks are luxury items like Mercedes Benzes?
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Are you suggesting they are a need like bread and milk?
Who wouldn't want to have a Mercedez Benz or other luxury car? They are priced out of my reach. I certainly don't get upset about their prices. I just buy cheaper cars.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
cheap & free ebooks are going to be the majority of what gets loaded onto those readers.
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It will be a SAD thing if ebooks take away the money there is to be made in authoring books (not just authoring, but the whole value chain). If there becomes little money to be made via ebooks, and ebooks dominate all books, then book makers will look elsewhere for their livelihoods.
I'm glad Smashwords exist -- we are all richer that there is a place like Smashwords. If all "bookdom" became like Smashwords, we'd ALL be poorer for it.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
And like music, there's not going to be any way to track "did this person pay for the book he's reading today?"
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Sure there will. DRM hopefully will improve, but it's not going away. And if piracy becomes the norm, then we arrive at Smashwords, a terrible place to be THE place that bookdom devolves to.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
I'm not saying copyright should be abolished--I just want it shortened to as little as possible that works as an incentive for wide distribution, and for the focus of it to go back to commercial exploitation, not casual sharing.
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I don't have any disagreement with you on that regard. Copyright can be adjusted, fixed. But without copyright we wouldn't have professional authors.
Lee