Quote:
Originally Posted by Barcey
My employer is off-shoring jobs to places without minimum wage, no retire plans and no health care. You're argument isn't going to garner any sympathy.
My argument was that the author's effort and risk is exactly the same between a physical book and an ebook and their compensation should not change. You've said nothing to refute this.
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Two things I'd say to that:
1. I agree with the latter, authors should make just as much per copy sold of an e-books as a physical book. They did the same amount of work, and should get the same pay. The publisher did less work by not having to pay to print and ship as many physical copies, so they can afford to take a smaller percent as their costs are lower per copy.
2. You're comparing risk of losing a job, vs. the case of having to do the same job for less money which is what we've been talking about.
That it would suck for successful authors to get less $$ per copy for the same quality work just because of a switch from paper books to e-books.
A parallel in other industries would be what Circuit City pulled before going under with firing all employees making a certain wage, and offering them their old jobs back for several dollars an hour less than they were making before. Thus they were asked to do the same work, for less pay, despite having been good employees and having been with the company for years to get raises and promotions to make what they were making before.
That's what happens to authors if they suddenly start getting say $2 per copy sold instead of the $5 they got before because people feel e-books should cost less than paperbacks, or that ebooks must be $10 at the launch of the hardcover and cannibalize their sales.
So yeah, I'm going to feel bad for the authors if that happens, just like I felt bad for the Circuit City employees. In a world of constant inflation, people should never see their wages go down while their doing a good job and expected to keep working just as hard.
And of course I feel bad for anyone that gets laid off etc. as well. But it's one thing to lose your job, it's another to say "you're doing a great job, but we're going to pay you less anyway."