[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by petrucci

I thought that you stated the books were unique. Regardless, some people regard wine as interchangable. There are even people who drink hand sanitizer. There are also people who regard some books as interchangable, such as my quoted romance novel a and romance novel b. The books are interchangable because they all satisfy the reader's desire for entertainment.

Yes, there are people who drink hand sanitizer. Vinters generally don't go after this market segment. If someone can't get the fine wine they are looking for, they aren't going to drink hand sanitizer. If someone can't get Jane Austen, they aren't going to read some random marginal romance novel.

I agree that interchangability is a matter of personal preference. I doubt that there are many people who think that all books are interchangable with one another. However, I suspect that almost everyone regards some books as interchangeable.

Your point relied on the best books ever written being interchangeable with the marginal books of struggling authors.

I do not disagree with the first part of your argument. However, not all people want to read the same types of books. Some people want sci-fi and others want a spy novel. There are even people who really like trashy novels. Many books from one of these genera may satisfy the desires of a particular reader. There is no reason that some of these may be written by a 'marginal' author. In fact, some 'marginal' authors are really great writers

Being in a genre does not mean the book is interchangable. If someone wants a science fiction novel, not just any science fiction novel will do. Once the books sell, they aren't marginal authors. If they are really great authors, their books will sell.

You never really know what you are going to get until you read the book. A perfect example would be the Jar Jar Binks debacle. This is not to say that series, authors, and genera are not very important. Many people choose books based on these factors. However, I explained in my previous post, that each of these factors does not necessarily play a role in the decision to buy a book. In a certain sense when you buy a book you are really going in blind. For this reason some people will only buy books that have been recommended to them. However, I think that a great many readers will buy books without such reviews. A case in point are displays in bookstores. If people were only going to purchase books that were recommended, such displays would be of little use.

If I pick up a copy of Analog, I know what to expect. Analog is a well-known brand. If I get a Big Mac, I know what to expect. It doesn't mean that you can't be disappointed. I can get a bad hamburger or I could be disappointed with Star Wars after seing Jar Jar binks. You can't be disappointed unless you had some reason to expect better. Your point about bookstores is off base. People are not just randomly selecting books in a bookstore. I can walk into the bookstore, and see books by Asimov. I know what to expect, Asimov is a known brand. I can then take a look at the book, and flip through the pages to see if it looks like it might be worth my time.

I agree. However, this does not mean that several books will not do. For example, if you wanted a good romance novel and had not read much of Austen, then several of her books may be interchangeable.

Sure, you could read any of Jane Austen's books and have a pretty good expectation of it being good. But again, your point relied on Jane Austen's books being interchangeable with any random romance novel. People don't read Jane Austen just because it is available for free. Only a small number of public domain books are read by significant percentages of people. If all people cared about was the cheapness of a book, we wouldn't see this, we would see people reading public domain books at random.

It may be unlikely, but not impossible. To give another musical example, Mozart stuggled to earn a living for much of his life.

I suppose he would have worked as a musician in a hotel lobby. The funny thing is that with his talents, Mozart would have thrived today, while in his time, he had to struggle.

I really do not know the exact effect of free books on the market, as I would need to know the condition of the market without such books. I do know that lots of people are downloading free books. It is reasonable to assume that some of these people are reading the downloaded books.

Not everyone who downloads free books reads them. The market is dominated by new books that people pay money for. Many people see a free book, and download it to see if it interests them. If your assertion was correct, sales of new books would be suffering, but they aren't. We don't see free or 99 cent books dominating the market. Public domain books have a limited appeal, they are quite old, the language has drifted considerably, and the world-view is often rather obscure for people living in 2012. As it is, no new books will be entering the public domain until 2019.

I am not totally convinced that this is the case. There are many examples of backlash from raising prices despite swift sales. One that comes to mind is Netflix. To some extent people pay what they expect to be a reasonable amount. If they are used to paying very little or nothing for something then they will not be willing to pay more than that amount. I am rather perplexed about Twilight. It may be able to command a high price because people are used to paying such prices for books. It may also be that it is not interchangable with many other vampire novels, as Twilight is targeted at a young adult female audience, which is not the typical audience of most vampire books.

Netflix is service which people pay for on an ongoing basis. Raise the price, and people object. A book is not. If you paid 99 cents for a book, but now the price is $5.99, you're not out a cent. If you didn't buy the book when it was 99 cents, you just missed a good deal. Twilight isn't selling because people are used to paying full price for books. If that were the case, surely some other vampire novel would be selling. Why this one, and not some other. Clearly, readers don't think Twilight is interchangable with any random vampire novel. Women have been reading vampire novels for a long time. Twilight has given readers what they want, and thus people will pay $5.99 when they could have had another vampuire book for free. I'm not interested in this book, but readers decided that this book worth $5.99, despite the availablity of free books. The success of Twilight is strong evidence against the idea that free books are causing the market for new books to dry up.