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Originally Posted by rhadin
The problem with that perspective is that I see no reason to support your tastes. I prefer nonfiction and rarely read popular fiction. I certainly never read romance or westerns or erotica or horror or zombies or comics or myriad other types/genres yet I am asked to support those books by paying a higher price for nonfiction.
The "genius" of the system in its current form is that a few major bestsellers -- the James Pattersons, Stephen Kings, Tom Clancys, and similar mega authors -- provide enough profit to allow the publishing of new authors and low-volume sellers, thereby making books that interest you and interest me available. Without the mutual support, none of us would have the books that we do want.
The other "genius" of the system is that enough variety is published to induce readers like me, who buy 4 or 5 hardcovers a month, along with a number of ebooks, to continue buying at that pace. If the book industry had to rely solely on the occasional reader or on libraries (or other tax-supported institutions), we'd be lucky if 5% of the books currently published were published.
And the answer is not self-publishing. Most self-published books go undiscovered by more than family and friends. They cannot make up for the books put out by the BPHs. The very successful self-published ebook is a rarity when compared to the number of self-published ebooks published.
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So on the one hand you are paying a higher price for non-fiction to subsidise fiction, but later in your post you refer to Tom Clancy and others selling enough to subsidise new authors and low volume sellers. Then, finally, you refer to mutual support. There is no such thing in this context. Either each category stands alone succesfully, or one subsidises the other. Sorry, but you can't have it all ways. In your third paragraph what you seem to be saying is that without the subsidies from books that do sell the books that can't break even wouldn't be published. If this is in fact what you are saying, so what.
There is no genius in the system at all. I and others have no wish to subsidise your reading habits.
As to your earlier post questioning Amazon's figures, I refer you to the excellent post by fjtorres above in response to JS Wolf.