[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

They don't have to sell a single copy to divert attention away from your writing. You could be the greatest writer on earth but a FREE novel is always going to be a better value proposition to a reader than a paid-for novel. The more people publish freely, maybe using a donation model, the less and less you as the in-print/traditional writer has to offer the market. And now we have services like ScribD and others popping up that are offering writers 80% revenues on their electronic works, why do you think that the traditional publishing route can even survive the next five to ten years, let alone sustain the old and grossly unfair pricing models ?

Because the quality of those FREE novels is generally quite low. It's like your saying people will stop paying for movies or cable television because there's all this stuff you can get for free on YouTube made by people who aren't getting the big Hollywood deals. Yes, there's an impact, but it's a minimal one.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

My Maths is terrible, I'll grant you that. But from your Maths we see that you'd have to sell those 2 books, which if your first book doesn't earn out you're highly unlikely to do.

If your first book doesn't earn out and you can't sell another book, then likely your writing isn't good enough anyway. But again, that's not the analogy here. Of course, if a good writer CAN'T GET PUBLISHED AT ALL, then you might as well go the self-published or free routes. But IF YOU CAN, you'll make more money being published, generally. Again, the existance of failed commercial authors is not justification for your conclusion that all writers should therefore not get paid very much.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

NOW, still publish 'now' should be the added word at the end there. Because the industry is changing so rapidly that what you think is right NOW will mean nothing in 6 months time. The digerati are changing the face of publishing, they're laughing at the old ways (check out recent #agentfail on Twitter), they're constantly inventing new ways to interact with the reading audience and expanding that relationship that will within a couple of years time make the publishing industry look stale and outmoded for the most part.

Yes, and I was there when news sites and blogs began killing newspapers. But guess what? Your average writer for a news magazine still makes more money than your average blogger. (They probably blog, too, but that's another story.) And it's not like the web is all free; there are websites that pay 25 cents a word, far more than any print publication ever did, reporting the same news about video gaming or tech stuff that other people write for free on another website.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Why quote him, well the quotation I referenced was the main part of his argument. Writers don't make money for the most part, and that's going to be doubly so in the brave new world of digital reading.

Eric never made the point that writer's don't make money for the most part. Instead, he made a very compelling case at how offering ebooks for free on the web help you make MORE money off your printed books. But ONLY offering your ebooks for free obviously isn't going to make you anything.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

And sure, Eric Flint sold and continues to sell lots of print books, but he started 10 years ago in an industry that was still bouyant, where Amazon was only just getting a foothold and the iPhone didn't exist. He's built a relationship with his audience from print into digital. Do you think any 'new' writer will have that same kind of advantage, coming into this industry as it takes its last faltering breaths?

Yes. Things were not great when Eric stated, either. The industry has been in decline for a decade or more.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

(Okay so it's not dying overnight, but it's not getting nay healthier. You get published now and it's going to get harder and harder to sustain your writing over the coming years as the transition occurs).

This is only true if you accept your a priori assumption that such a transition will occur and make it impossible for writers to make money the old fashioned way. If all of these great new writers are free, then why would people continue to PAY Eric Flint? If some of these great new writers are so great, they could also get PAID.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

And here we get to 'worth'. And worth as it is measured by the publishing industry. Worth = sale-ability. Worth = price tag. If publishing company X can shift Y amount of Book A at a cost of....etc, etc.. The profit game in a nutshell. Doesn't matter if the book is good or not, its whether it can make a profit. Whereas the web/internet works differently. A web hit might not make any profit at all for the writer, but it might make that writer well-known. It will elevate that writer in the community and then monetary opportunities might follow. And what has this new writer lost? A few quid, the opportunity to slave along in a dying industry? And he's gained all that loverly soul-satisfying stuff that you can't put a price tag on.

Again, false dichotomy. A writer who gets paid also gets all of those things, and yet gets paid via a working mechanism, not some vague "monetary opportunities might follow". Any opportunities available to the free writer are going to be available to the paid writer. Yes, obviously, IF YOU CAN'T BREAK IN AS A PAID WRITER, then going free is better than nothing -- again, look at Boyd Morrison. But that's not the argument you're making.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

And here we come to the crux of the whole argument. Elbow grease means nought if the traditional way is dying out. What you get now, whatever paltry sum that might be in the traditional publishing world (Unless you're a no-talent celebrity, the publishing world loves those) it won't be what you get a year from now, five years from now when the whole game has changed. When your publishing contract means absolutely zero because the publishing companies are about as meaningful to a web audience as the major record labels and the TV networks. Just think about how social media is changing everything, how much weight an artist has for going against the traditional routes and releasing stuff under CC and other licenses. You really think there's going to be much of a place for the static, hierarchical, slow-moving, bottom-liners in this world?

Considering that lots of people still make buttloads of money from "major record labels" and the "TV networks", yes.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I mean, Baen has the right idea up to now (although I wince at the quasi-fascistic, war-loving titles it seems to produce, not really my cup of tea), but that can't last forever. Once print-publishing dies out (and I give it 10 years at most) then what are you left with? How do you make money in a world where your product is competing constantly with free?

And you're back to your self-referential logic again. Look, we all GET what you're saying. But it's not necessarily true, and it's not necessarily going to kill off traditional publishers. But you simply CAN'T say that "Because I think publishing is going to change, then authors who want to make money should stop wanting that." You're like the crazy homeless guy with carrying around a sign that says "THE END IS NIGH." You may be right, but it's not reason for me to sell all my posessions.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

EDIT: and let me just add, I approach writing from a zero-money approach. I fully expect to make ZERO from my writing now and in the future.

Good for you. Again, this is no justification for you to say others should suffer the same fate.