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LazyScot · 08-27-2008, 07:35 AM

Fascinating thread!

My better half studied the 1700's and 1800's; a time of a lot of change in the area of publishing with many familiar debates and problems.

What resonates with me most from that time is that most authors never sought (or expected) to make money from writing. Certainly some did, but the purpose was not to earn a living. It feels that the publishing industry still thinks of authors in a similar way, unless a good agent can convince them otherwise.

If we are thinking about money, how much do you pay for a couple of hours entertainment? For movies, it is probably about $10. For a newspaper, I would say it is about $2 (but then I don't read all the stuff in most papers!), and I have adverts as well. How much do you pay for a book and how much entertainment do you get out of it? Most books give me 20 to 40 hours, and probably cost c. $10. Steve Jordan's pricing seems incredibly good value to me (and as soon as I get through my backlog -- the Edinburgh Book Festival is always a bad idea).

Another interesting thing is the difference in time it takes to write a book. I believe some biographies have taken almost 10 years (from what Michael Holroyd said at a previous festival), where as others produce fiction in about a year (or Charles Stross who seems to produce a several each year). Should this factor into prices?

With the exception of perhaps a few hundred authors on the planet, I don't see how authors can make a realistic living just from writing. But if the authors of this planet looked at it like this, I think the world would be a far poorer place. We are fortunate for their calling, and willingness to do this. What I hope is that some of the places do allow the authors to take a larger cut of the price paid by the readers, allowing more of them to make a real living (or more likely a less poor one).

I'd also like to point out that there are publishers out there that don't make any money at all, and exist simply to make books and authors accessible in ways they would not otherwise be -- so I'm not against publishers, per se!

08-27-2008, 07:35 AM	#106
LazyScot DSil Posts: 3,201 Karma: 6895096 Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Hants, UK Device: Kindle, Cybook	Fascinating thread! My better half studied the 1700's and 1800's; a time of a lot of change in the area of publishing with many familiar debates and problems. What resonates with me most from that time is that most authors never sought (or expected) to make money from writing. Certainly some did, but the purpose was not to earn a living. It feels that the publishing industry still thinks of authors in a similar way, unless a good agent can convince them otherwise. If we are thinking about money, how much do you pay for a couple of hours entertainment? For movies, it is probably about $10. For a newspaper, I would say it is about $2 (but then I don't read all the stuff in most papers!), and I have adverts as well. How much do you pay for a book and how much entertainment do you get out of it? Most books give me 20 to 40 hours, and probably cost c. $10. Steve Jordan's pricing seems incredibly good value to me (and as soon as I get through my backlog -- the Edinburgh Book Festival is always a bad idea). Another interesting thing is the difference in time it takes to write a book. I believe some biographies have taken almost 10 years (from what Michael Holroyd said at a previous festival), where as others produce fiction in about a year (or Charles Stross who seems to produce a several each year). Should this factor into prices? With the exception of perhaps a few hundred authors on the planet, I don't see how authors can make a realistic living just from writing. But if the authors of this planet looked at it like this, I think the world would be a far poorer place. We are fortunate for their calling, and willingness to do this. What I hope is that some of the places do allow the authors to take a larger cut of the price paid by the readers, allowing more of them to make a real living (or more likely a less poor one). I'd also like to point out that there are publishers out there that don't make any money at all, and exist simply to make books and authors accessible in ways they would not otherwise be -- so I'm not against publishers, per se!