The Virtue of High Priced Books

[anamardoll]

@ Leyor

+1, and thanks for the article!

I find it funny that this started out as a "Wow, authors make more when their books sell for $25!" I realize that Rowling is rich and all that, but I have to think that most of that $25 per book was NOT going into her pocket. I'd venture to guess that the majority went to marketing costs...

...that probably weren't all that necessary after a certain inertia had been established, but god knows we MUST set "opening day" records, or the publisher will be sad.

That's just me guessing, though. I don't have special insight into the publishing industry. It would be interesting to break down how much of her wealth came from the book sales alone and how much from merchandise, movie tie-ins, etc.

[Lucid_Dreamer]

It depends on how she negotiated her contract. As far as I understand (and I don't understand much) most authors get rooked badly by publishers, unless they have a good agent. So I don't know how much she got, but you figure even if it was a small percentage it was still a lot. I mean, say the first book made $10 Million, if she made 10% on each sale or w/e that'd be a Million bucks. I'm awful at math but you get the idea lol

[anamardoll]

Information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling

It looks like she sold the rights to the first book for $100,000 and apparently that was a pretty unexpectedly high sum. No mention of what the further royalties were on that book.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

We had professional authors before copyright and we will have them when copyright is abolished.

Explain just how an author is to make money without copyright? They write a book. You make a copy and give it to everyone on the internet. I take their book and make a movie out of it. Elfwork takes the book, changes the names of the characters to match relatives of his, and releases the book under a new title.

Just how in the heck is the author to make money?

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The internet tends to level things, doing what it's designed to do.

The internet wasn't designed to level anything.

Lee

[Lucid_Dreamer]

I couldn't imagine having 100k haha

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Lucid_Dreamer

I couldn't imagine having 100k haha

Yeah, it's not a low sum of money, but the point is that the publisher made the bear share of the profit. Let's not pretend that with a $25 book, half of that is going to the author.

(Not that you're saying that, I know. )

One wonders how much she would have made if she had self-published in today's market. Supposedly the only reason the publisher picked up the book is because his 8-year-old daughter read the first chapter and demanded more....

[Lucid_Dreamer]

haha, but even if she self published now it might have flopped. Serendipity is serendipity.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Leyor

You're attempting to rewrite history here. Besides that the source of the actual income is irrelevant, if we're defining who could actually live off writing, it's just plain factually inaccurate.

The patronage system for the arts is factually accurate. At least historically it wasn't easy to duplicate works. In the digital world something can be reproduced for "free" and instantly distributed to the whole world.

Originally Posted by Leyor

After the introduction of paper presses, which must be seen as the milestone for making books commercially available to the public. Many authors, publishers etc. made a good living for several hundreds of years.

Would love some sort of reference to this. A nice intro to the history of copyright can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law

It's kinda funny that the very debates we are having about copyright were the same as were argued back then.

Originally Posted by Leyor

It's actually an interesting fact that with the introduction of Copyright in the UK in 1710. The UK compared to Germany who did NOT introduce copyright for another 127 years, experienced an increase in price, a reduction of actual works being made, and a steep reduction of the actual works reaching the public.

Sources?

Originally Posted by Leyor

Germany with no copyright laws flourished however, outputting 10 times more original works pr. year. As for the individual authors earnings. Sigismund Hermbstädt, an unknown chemistry and pharmacy professor in Berlin, earned more royalties for his "Principles of Leather Tanning" published in 1806 than British author Mary Shelley did for her horror novel "Frankenstein," which is still famous today.

Just how would Herr Hermbstadt make "royalties" on his book today without copyright? Can he sell his work when someone else gives it away free on the internet? What would prevent a big college school text book corporation from making his book and selling them to universities without a penny given to the author?

Originally Posted by Leyor

Whats interesting is that they had to deal with MANY of the problems copyright defenders worry about today, like others copying their work and selling it for a profit. They had to find ways around this by actually developing smarter business models, creating fancy editions for their wealthy customers and mass produce cheap paperbacks for the common workers.

ANYBODY can make copies for free and distribute them instantly around the world in the digital age. And without copyright, anybody could make those coffee table versions without compensation to the author.

Originally Posted by Leyor

Here's an interesting article about the situation for those actually wanting to read more about it:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...710976,00.html

In closing I'd like to say that:

There's no virtue to high priced books
On the contrary, in a historical content, high priced book hurts everyone except the publishers. EVEN the authors.

Your article actually paints quite a different picture. There was rampant plagarization in Germany due to the lack of copyright. There was great profit in England after the enactment of copyright.

There were societal differences between England and Germany to go far more to understanding the results than copyright law. As far as that is concerned, the article supports what copyright supports believe.

Without copyright there is widespread plagiarism. If it was bad then, it is infinitely worse in the digital age.

That leaves us with the notion of "people will continue to produce works without any profit incentive". We've had historical evidence of the contrary. England in the 1700's is not a case for modern capitalism.

Lee

[anamardoll]

That leaves us with the notion of "people will continue to produce works without any profit incentive". We've had historical evidence of the contrary.

And yet I operate my blog at great expense to myself without a single penny in return.............

I'm not trying to argue with you, but a lot of your arguments seem so highly-polarized as to be almost strawmen. There will always be people who will produce valuable goods in absence of monetary profit. That doesn't mean we should/shouldn't abolish the concept of monetary profit, just that it's wrong to insist or imply that without monetary incentive there would be no books produced anymore.

People are motivated by many factors. Money is one of them. It's not the alpha and omega, at least not for everyone.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I find it funny that this started out as a "Wow, authors make more when their books sell for $25!" I realize that Rowling is rich and all that, but I have to think that most of that $25 per book was NOT going into her pocket. I'd venture to guess that the majority went to marketing costs...

Where her books ever that much? I recall thinking the HP hard covers at release day were maybe $12-$15 or so. Perhaps that's cause we pre-ordered. I recall buying 5 copies of Deathly Hallows (1 for each family member) and the audio version on release day. I seem to remember it was $12-$14.

BOb

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Where her books ever that much? I recall thinking the HP hard covers at release day were maybe $12-$15 or so. Perhaps that's cause we pre-ordered. I recall buying 5 copies of Deathly Hallows (1 for each family member) and the audio version on release day. I seem to remember it was $12-$14.

BOb

Pretty sure I paid about $15 (street price) for Deathly Hallows, but the list price was $34.99

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

That leaves us with the notion of "people will continue to produce works without any profit incentive". We've had historical evidence of the contrary.

And yet I operate my blog at great expense to myself without a single penny in return.............

I'm not trying to argue with you, but a lot of your arguments seem so highly-polarized as to be almost strawmen. There will always be people who will produce valuable goods in absence of monetary profit. That doesn't mean we should/shouldn't abolish the concept of monetary profit, just that it's wrong to insist or imply that without monetary incentive there would be no books produced anymore.

People are motivated by many factors. Money is one of them. It's not the alpha and omega, at least not for everyone.

Quite right, or else there'd be no charities in the world, no scriptorii in the Middle Ages in Europe, and no men of honor.

I will quote that great Capitalist Andrew Carnegie - "He who dies rich, dies disgraced."

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I will quote that great Capitalist Andrew Carnegie - "He who dies rich, dies disgraced."

Haha, now granted his children weren't too thrilled with his philosophy.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Haha, now granted his children weren't too thrilled with his philosophy.

But they had the same opportunity to succeed that he did.

We should all make our own way in the world, if we are capable of it.

(Something that seems to be alien to the long copyright crowd.)

[leebase]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

And yet I operate my blog at great expense to myself without a single penny in return.............

I'm not trying to argue with you, but a lot of your arguments seem so highly-polarized as to be almost strawmen.

I guess I'd give more credence to your retort if you didn't put up "I have a blog" as evidence that folks would continue to write books without compensation.

Originally Posted by anamardoll

There will always be people who will produce valuable goods in absence of monetary profit. That doesn't mean we should/shouldn't abolish the concept of monetary profit, just that it's wrong to insist or imply that without monetary incentive there would be no books produced anymore.

Nowhere in any of my arguments have I posited that without copyright no one would write books. On the contrary, we have plenty of evidence via Smashwords that all kinds of folks are happily writing books they give away or sell very cheaply.

And yet, if that was really good enough -- then no one would be upset at the high prices of professionally created books. Why bother if the free world was producing such good material to read.

Originally Posted by anamardoll

People are motivated by many factors. Money is one of them. It's not the alpha and omega, at least not for everyone.

By all means, continue to write your blog for free. I support everyone's right to give away their own work. I also recognize the virtue of financial incentive.

Lee