"The book industry is gonna get Napstered..."

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Boy.

Even after just skimming this thread, I'm about ready to close up shop. Here I am, sitting on an almost-finished new novel, and it seems everything I'm reading lately is painting creators as greedy, godless devils who don't deserve to profit from their work beyond some minuscule pittance decided upon by others, while consumers have every right to take what they can get.

I'd like to think that the entertainment value of the story I crafted is worth something... when everyone seems fixated on the fact that, since it's only a bunch of electrons, it is intrinsically worthless.

In short: Why am I bothering to write for anyone at all?

It sounds like I have no choice but to expect to get screwed by the public, said screwing being deeper and deeper the more successful I become. And in an atmosphere like this, why expect writers to write or publishers to publish for anyone at all? In a future of work for no pay, somehow I don't expect much work will get done for anyone but themselves.

Is this really the world consumers are looking forward to?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

The value, I would argue, is in the reading of the book and not in the 1's and 0's. To claim the copy is valueless is just plain wrong in my opinion. If it was truly valueless then there would be no desire to read the book at all. The person who wants to read the book must place some value on doing so otherwise they wouldn't want to read it.

Just because they can get it for free doesn't mean it is valueless to them. Why should they not be required to pay some fair price for the priviledge?

....

Here it is!!!!!!!!!!!



The value is in the READING, not in the file!
So, I go back to my previuos example:

Suppose you pay an amount for a total unlimited access to every ebook in the whole world for a period of time, with the only constraint of a non-share agreement.

How many ebooks do you own?
How much is it worth?

Some say you've got millions of books, and the monetary value of it is in the billions.

I don't think so.

I think you "own" just the books you read, and the value is given by the multiplication of your reading rate and the mean street price of a book.
Something in the thousands of dollars.

And you'll actually "own" a few hudred ebooks.
The ebooks you bought are still available to me, or potentially to every other reader in the world. The value of the ebooks you downloaded and din't read in the "subscription period", is exactly zero. They have a cost, of course, but actually no real value, unless you're a file hoarder...

That does not apply to printed books, of course: if you own a copy of a book, I cannot have it in the same time.
And therefore they have a physical value.

How much are you willing to pay for the ability to access every single book in the digital world?



Of course it's not easy at all to implement such a vision into a working business model. An effective way to compensate the authors you actually read has to be put in place; and the "no share agreement" has to be enforced someway (that's easier, even without DRM and Hadopis, once the idea of "copy" has been erased...). And the printed books have to be included in the model (e.g. including them in the subscription, and charging "per copy" just for the manifacturing costs*...).
It's even more difficult to find an appropriate way to charge for th eservice. Not everybody can pay everything in advance... A income-proportional fee may sound a bit socialist, but I think it's fair: the whelty pays for part of the poor's education and entertainment...


_______________
* Just for the thought of it. If you have to buy a "book card", for the unlimited access stated above, and you have to show it to librarires, newsstands, comic books dealers, etc... you won't access darknet ebook sharing to find what you're looking for. You just download it openly and legally. The card limitation is just in time.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

In short: Why am I bothering to write for anyone at all?

I understand that feeling Steve, boy do I. This "Gimmie for free" attitude is so pervasive these days it's really discouraging sometimes. Personally, I'd ask you not to close up shop and deprive people of your work.

Good luck.

Carl

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

...I'd like to think that the entertainment value of the story I crafted is worth something... when everyone seems fixated on the fact that, since it's only a bunch of electrons, it is intrinsically worthless.

In short: Why am I bothering to write for anyone at all?
...

Same old mistake. You cannot separate the concept of "your story" from the one of the "digital" copy.

So I ask you directly: in the hypothesis that you'll write a novel a year for the next 20 years, will you give me unlimited access to every past and future novel for 170€, regardless of the number of "copies" I get and regardless of how many times I re-read them?



And will you give me the same access to two books for say 20€?



Why can't we think about "us" and "you" (plural) and make the same deal including everyone in the world?
Why do you think you're getting screwed if you're paid from your readers?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

But that's not quite right either. If works rightfully belong in the public domain and are only temporarily granted to creators, then who is leasing them? The government? The people? And while the idea is to motivate creators to make more, they don't have to, so they don't have to "pay" for the "lease"...

How about we call it exactly what it is? A temporary (lol) government protected monopoly on the right to copy works created by someone.

Because in this age of sound-bytes, a long winded (even if precise) label gets ignored and the a short tag replaces it. So which short tag do you want to use? Property, will all the open-endedness of ownership implied, or lease, with the inherent concept of expiration imbedded in the tag. If everybody started talking about intellectual leases instead of intellectual property, the stretching of copyright for the sole benefit of the copyright holder would show up as the land grab it is, to the common man...

Words matter....

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by carld

I understand that feeling Steve, boy do I. This "Gimmie for free" attitude is so pervasive these days it's really discouraging sometimes. Personally, I'd ask you not to close up shop and deprive people of your work.

Good luck.

Carl

The funny part of it is in the fact nobody have written nothing similar to taht attitude in this thread...

[carld]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Because in this age of sound-bytes, a long winded (even if precise) label gets ignored and the a short tag replaces it. So which short tag do you want to use? Property, will all the open-endedness of ownership implied, or lease, with the inherent concept of expiration imbedded in the tag. If everybody started talking about intellectual leases instead of intellectual property, the stretching of copyright for the sole benefit of the copyright holder would show up as the land grab it is, to the common man...

Words matter....

It's not a land grab. People have a right to get paid for their work. You take that away and people stop working.

Carl

[carld]

Originally Posted by Format C:

The funny part of it is in the fact nobody have written nothing similar to taht attitude in this thread...

I wasn't speaking specifically of this thread, but more of an overall attitude that's creeping into our society. And if the discussion of ebookbay isn't promoting a "something for nothing" attitude, it's coming awfully close from the way I read this thread.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by carld

It's not a land grab. People have a right to get paid for their work. You take that away and people stop working.

Carl

Only those who see writing as "work;" as solely a way to earn wages. People who want to write because they like it, to entertain others, to become famous, to advocate certain viewpoints, etc... will remain.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Only those who see writing as "work;" as solely a way to earn wages. People who want to write because they like it, to entertain others, to become famous, to advocate certain viewpoints, etc... will remain.

Writing is work, for which the authors deserve to be paid, unless you want to return to the days when the only things published were royal edicts, religious tracts, and political manifestos.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by carld

It's not a land grab. People have a right to get paid for their work. You take that away and people stop working.

Carl

And who didn't say that? How long? Should the terms be changed after the deal was signed? These are important questions, questions that aren't addressed to the public, who through their government, granted the lease in the first place!. Instead there has been and is still going on a honking big land grab by the lessees - the copyright holders. By howdy, I'd like to lease a car and suddenly change mileage or length clauses with no penalty....That's what you've been seeing in the copyright world for the last 30 + years....

[carld]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

And who didn't say that? How long? Should the terms be changed after the deal was signed? These are important questions, questions that aren't addressed to the public, who through their government, granted the lease in the first place!. Instead there has been and is still going on a honking big land grab by the lessees - the copyright holders. By howdy, I'd like to lease a car and suddenly change mileage or length clauses with no penalty....That's what you've been seeing in the copyright world for the last 30 + years....

Sorry, I don't really understand what you're saying. I still don't see what you're calling a "land grab." Copyright holders have a right to own their copyrights, and to be paid for their usage. Now, if you're talking about the changes the government has made to public domain laws, I fully agree on that, but I'm not sure if that's what you mean or not.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by carld

Writing is work, for which the authors deserve to be paid, unless you want to return to the days when the only things published were royal edicts, religious tracts, and political manifestos.

AFAIK, in present time the author who doesn't sell a copy is not paid for his work.
Not to speak of the one who is not even published...

Haven't they worked on their books?

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I'd like to think that the entertainment value of the story I crafted is worth something... when everyone seems fixated on the fact that, since it's only a bunch of electrons, it is intrinsically worthless.

So, you are just totally skimming over the money of us who replied that it was and that we personally had spent hundreds of dollars of money WE had earned, often at pay rates less than what WE are worth, to support the authors we love?

Look, the story is worth something, but how it's presented is part of the package too. If you've ever tried to read a paperback book that has been damaged by water, fire or babies, you can see how the entertainment value---no matter how great the story is---can be diminished by a distracting presentation.

For me, ebooks are the same thing. There is nothing more frustrating for a passionate reader than to find a book they want, to be sitting there with money in hand ready, as you want us to be, to buy it, and then be told---

wait a minute, only if you have a Kindle (aka live in the USA)
and not if you plan to read it on a Sony
or on a cell phone
or a Mac or Linux system
or on more than three devices
which are registered on our server (aka you have an internet connection)
and not if you live in Australia/UK (or ONLY if you live in them)
and certainly not if you are hearing or vision impaired and need TTS
etc.

I know the authors are not completely to blame here and have little say on some of these matters. But I am sick and tired of hearing the same arguments over and over again from people in the industry who seem completely unable to conceive of any future beyond the current status quo. I spoke with an author who is part of the Romance Writer's Association once, and she had a lot to say about why this or that is the way it is and how unfair it was. I suggested that since there are so many authors like her, and they are all in a group, perhaps they should all band together, start a union or coalition or group or something, and campaign for a better deal. They should be part of the change. She told me it didn't work that way. Why not make it work that way? Why not accept that we live in a digital age and instead of focusing on how to keep out the thieves (who are a tiny fraction and you aren't going to stop them anyway) focus on how to HELP the actual paying customer to get your books in a way that's easy and that works for them. It's worked for the music industry already. I'm sure Michael Jackson os all over the Darknet, but he's also a best-seller on iTunes right now, and that's because it's dead easy, buy now, you in or you out? It's easier for people to buy it legally than to go looking for it. You just have to put it out there in front of them and LET THEM.

So, you are asking us 'why should I produce it.' I am going to turn the tables on you and ask 'why should I buy it?' I can explain, if you want to, exactly what steps I must take to get a secure eReader file onto my Sony Reader. It's quite labour intensive, involves three software programs and about 5% of the time, does not produce a readable book anyway. If you want me to be a customer so badly, why do you have to make it so hard?

[carld]

Originally Posted by Format C:

AFAIK, in present time the author who doesn't sell a copy is not paid for his work.
Not to speak of the one who is not even published...

Haven't they worked on their books?

If you go the traditional publishing route, then yes, you're normally paid an advance by the publisher. If you self-publish and don't sell anything, it still doesn't mean that your work isn't your property to dispense or not, as you see fit.