Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Trying to figure out how that follows from our discussions. But here goes. It is possible to price a product so high that no one will buy it. That's the other side of failing to come to a place where buyer and seller can do business.
So, now that you are at least acknowledging this, you should be able to understand that there is a price too low such that the producer will refuse to do the work.
Ah...I see the light begin to dawn in your eyes. I'm speaking about the reality that publishers need to see a good profit making potential for backlist works before they will engage in producing them.
Since backlist books, almost by definition do not sell loads of copies, the costs to produce them are higher per book, not lower. Arguing for backlists to be produced but yet they be priced extremely low -- is an argument against producing them at all.
It is entirely possible for a product that COULD exist, for which there is a demand for -- and yet the value to the purchases is too low to entice it's production.
Just as people can want cars, but not just "at any price" -- so car companies are willing to produce cars but not just "at any price".
Lee
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The gleam you see are my eyes glazing over...
What you keep failing to grasp, over and over, that for the backlist,
I don't need the publisher! I'd like to have the publisher, I'm willing to pay a reasonable (to me) amount for the publisher, it would save me much effort to have the publisher, but I don't
have to have the publisher.
Remember
The Crystal Button?
Do I want to spend 40 hours of time scanning and proofing a book? No. But if I want it
bad enough, I can.
The old days are
over. If the publishers want to play
Don Quiotxe, mourning Chivalry and tilting at windmills, be my guest. Doesn't change the current reality.
Many of the authors are getting it, and I happily do business with them, to our mutual benefit. I'll even give the middleman a reasonable cut, if they offer me what I want for a reasonable mark-up. What
I define as reasonable, not them.
But the "good old days" of the publisher controlling what's out there, as they saw fit, with the only option being
maybe you could find a particular book at a particular used book store are OVER. Stop the darknet. Bust every last scanner. Used bookstores have banded together in clearinghouses like American Bookseller Exchange (abe.com) and you can find virtually any book you ever heard of. Used. And that isn't going away. Not with a 1917 Supremem Court ruling backing it.
The control is gone with the wind....