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Originally Posted by dmaul1114
It's still rare relative to layoffs, and yes it sucks. And it's taken a near depression in the economy to cause. My points more we all feel terrible when it happens to us. Hell, it happened to me this year as all university employees in my state had to take furlough days this academic year which amount to about a 5% pay cut as well. Next years state budget doesn't look good either, so I expect the same or worse next year.
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Actually, I would say it is more common than layoffs. In my company, the number of people hit with pay cuts was orders of magnitude greater than the number layed off (we had both). I would think the California Furlough would have hit way more than layoffs too.
[QUOTE=dmaul1114;805986]Yet will any of us piss and moan when it happens to us, some bash authors for worrying about taking pay cuts on their work just because a book is sold as an e-book rather than a physical book (i.e. nothing to do with the economy, their publisher struggling to stay in business etc.).
I was upset about my furloughs, so it would be pretty hypocritical for me to say the authors should just "suck it up" and do the same work for less pay.[QUOTE]
I would never dare tell someone how they should feel. The posts I have read on this was trying to put forward (to my reading of them at least) a position that authors are unique in this, and we shouldn't want the lower prices because of this. I was responding trying to point out there is nothing unique about having to do the same work for less money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dmaul1114
The solution is to just scrap DRM (or at the very least make it much less restrictive) and price e-books close to the level of their current print counterpart. Price is higher when on the the hardcover is available, and when the paperback comes out drop the e-book price to at or a little below that price.
Without DRM the e-book should have the same value to a reader as the physical book, so not many should have issues paying the same or a little less for the paperbook like they do now. Some will still of course, but you can't please everyone.
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This may be so, but I also think that the publishers are padding trying to convince us that the difference paper to e-book is a lot less than it appears. I read (sorry I can't point to it off the top of my head, but the link was hear on the forums) of an authors account with publishers. From her writing, the expected sell through was 20-40% on a printed book. So when we buy a book, we are paying for the printing, storing, shipping, etc of 2-5 books.
I also agree DRM will be the death of publishers. With the e-book marketplace as it is, it will take one of the big names burning customers (like MicroSoft did with it's DRM) for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
I look at anything with DRM as a rental. I won't pay money for it unless I feel it is a value proposition to me as if it is a rental. For a book, I personally put that value at the same as renting a movie, or around $1 currently. This is generous, because a rental of a paper book (library) is around $50/yr (for a family), all you can eat. Typically it is pulling a dime or less per book for the family.
Now for me personally, I don't need the latest author/book. I read for enjoyment, and if I can't read a Douglas Preston book because he (or he through his publisher proxy) deems me an unworthy consumer, I can find plenty of authors (like
Randolph Lalonde who posts here) that will respect me as a costumer. I don't think my entertainment level will be reduced at all.
--Carl