Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
I might give a bit of an argument on your last sentence. I think on libraries the authors do get a small percentage but not positive.
On used book stores, the author might gain a new fan that wouldn't have found them otherwise who is now willing to buy new books or ebooks. Yes, I have done that too.
But then on used book stores and especially thrift shops, many times the author has already quit writing. In the case of cookbooks, many had a very limited print run to begin with and if it was a charity book to begin with the buyer if they so wished could still donate to the original cause. (I have hundreds of those.)
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Cookbooks and books put together for a specific charity, are of course, a special case. Yes, there are authors who no longer write, Harper Lee being the most famous case of an author who wrote one book and never another (leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories, btw). There are a lot of gray areas in life, which is why I tend to go with rules of thumb rather than hard fast rules. Still the general principle (buying books encourages authors to write more) holds. It's not a value judgement, but rather an observation of cause and effect.