The $15 Boycott: Will you be participating?

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Bottom line: I don't see how any of these boycotts can accomplish the purpose of changing publishers' behavior, because their behavior is rooted in a perception of economic conditions that is wrong, and price boycotting plays right into those perceptions.

Maybe price is the wrong foundation for boycotting. Maybe the better boycott is to boycott any ebook that is not either free, or free of DRM.

My view is that publishers' behaviour will be changed not by boycotting per se, but by seeing others make a success of a particular sales model. Rather than worry about what we won't buy, we could instead focus on recommending what we think is good value that we have bought. This would be particularly useful for sites like feedbooks and smashwords, where quality can be variable.

Is "reading recommendations" the appropriate forum for this?

[llreader]

EDIT: OK, we decided to drop this, fine with me.

The question that Harmon raised, cn a boycott work, is a valid one. I think that it depends whether (or really, when) someone breaks ranks. There are many sources of ebooks now outside the major publishers (and older books that have gone out of print to which the authors retain copyright - I was just reading the sample of "The Purification Ceremony" on Smashwords, a pbook from the 90's that the author seems to have recycled to ebook format).

So, I support a boycott, combined with support for other sources of ebooks (many sites, including Amazon with their new offer to authors, and perhaps Apple will offer something similar). Eventually one of the big publishers will try to get into the ebook market, but if they don't, someone else will.

Amazon could sign someone big for their 70/30 deal.

Apple could land a big author as well.

In the mean time, I imagine ereader sales will tank, and we will all have to muddle along as best we can.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

First and foremost I am not talking about law. I'm talking about morals and ethics and knowing what is right and wrong and still doing the wrong thing. I don't give a huff what the law says, I do care about people knowing and doing the right thing regardless of law. Exactly as I stated it.

Your possession of my property without my authorization is immoral yes, it's wrong, you have stolen something from me.

You know Ken, we've had this dance many times before, and as usual you don't care about the letter of the law unless it benefits you. As we discussed before, you sell photograph taken of people without model releases because, under certain aspects of the law, it is not required. But tell me, how come the protection of that loophole is so relevant when it's you using it, yet similar legal loopholes become immoral regardless of the law when others use it?

You have taken someone's image and made a profit on it, without getting a model release. Does that make you a thief? How does that differ from ebooks?

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Is "reading recommendations" the appropriate forum for this?

Hm, if you want write a review or just recommend the story itself then yes. If you just want recommend the ebook because of a low price, good qualitiy, no drm, ... then i would post the recommendation in Deals, Freebies, and Resources .

[BuddyBoy]

Switching back on topic, I may pay up to the $15 for certain very anticipated titles, but by doing so, I would want the the publishers to agree to drop the ebook price down to a reasonable percentage of the pb price when the book transitions to pb. Their track record on this has been appalling and my major ebook complaint all the way back to the Rocket eBook.

I recall a number of us MRs posting titles where the ebook price exceeded the available pb price on the Sony store back when the PRS-500 was launched. Sony initially adjusted prices and then stopped saying it was up to the publishers to make the price changes.

In the meantime, while I may be starved for excellent mass-market and lowbrow detective fiction, I have enough lengthy and scholarly non-fiction to keep me busy for a few years. Not to mention a very nicely stocked public library with oodles of epubs.

$15 is not a lot for a book, but at 50% over the 9.99 I was willing to cough up for some impulse buys, I'm afraid the publishers will be getting fewer of my dollars overall.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

$5.74 from Amazon for the eBook.

Amazon does list the digital list price as $30.

But have a look at "A" is for Alibi and you will see the eBook is $9.99 where the paperback is $6.39. So given McMillan's new pricing, why is the price not lower for he eBook?

I just got "A is for Alibi" and "L is for Lawless", and most of Sue Grafton's other books for nothing.

No, not illegally. From fictionwise, where they're currently on 100% micropay rebate. Even when paying with micropay.

If you have $30 or more in micropay balance, you can get them too, but I don't know how long the offer is going on. Even if you only have $12 micropay balance you can get all but three.

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/a24685/Sue-Grafton/?

[kwandtke]

Originally Posted by Alisa

So with MacMillan and probably HarperCollins moving to the agency model and forcing a higher retail price, a lot of folks are saying they won't buy. I suppose people's choices may change if all the big publishers go this route, but as it stands today, what are your plans?

I'm a little surprised that the publishers would start down the same road as the music industry .. they really don't get it. It's like the Kindle (mainly) has ignited interest in the ebook ..Apple is jumping in (I wonder if the pubs are thinking Apple will sell millions of iPads .. like the iPod? ) Greed pokes thru ...

Well I enjoy reading my ebooks and there are so many available for resonable cost that I will not buy from those that are trying to gouge. I wrote the same on Macmillan's web site .. to customer service .. not thinking it would do any good but thinking it would make me feel better ... and it did!

Let them know ..

[Mare of Earth]

I used to buy used books anyway. The inability to buy used ebooks has been irritating, however, generally enough of the prices have been low enough to be acceptable to me. I very rarely buy an ebook that costs more than $6. - I adopted ebooks almost 10 years ago, due to the fact that paper books took up too much space. In high school, my room was lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves, and even then I still had stacks and stacks of books on the floor and under the bed (approx. 2-3k books, mixed paper and hardcover, with books I was inclined to re-read often as hardcovers due to the paperback versions having already fallen apart). Now, I just have an ebook reader.
I would have loved to have had access to an ebook reader and an online bookseller when we lived overseas - generally, the only books in English that were available you either brought with you in your shipment, or you borrowed from other English-speaking people in the country you were in. New releases? Yeah, you might get your hands on one if someone was traveling and picked it up and was willing to lend it out, or if you had a catalog and ordered it, but for the most part, the books that you could get to read were older titles and used.
So, not only is the forced pricing model stupidly not consumer friendly, but the geographic restrictions are equally ridiculous!

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Priniciples, morals, ethics, doing what is right.

We all have different ideas about what is right and what ethical behavior is. I, for example, believe that the public was the victim of theft when copyrights for existing publications were extended. It was a fact of law, when those books were published, that they'd be freely available to us at a specific point in the future. In 1976, that point changed--that was as much theft as filesharing. More, perhaps, because there's no question of possible fair use to get in the way.

I've said that all along and will continue to have to apparently cause no one want's to listen. They just want to argue semantics and make excuses to support criminal behavior.

It's only "criminal behavior" if it's illegal. Morality has nothing to do with what's criminal.

If you want any chance of convincing anyone that you're right, you need to say "what should be criminal behavior," rather than claiming something that's just not true. It undermines your claim of what's right--because if your belief about what the the law says is wrong, why should anyone trust your judgment about what's good behavior?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

We all have different ideas about what is right and what ethical behavior is. I, for example, believe that the public was the victim of theft when copyrights for existing publications were extended. It was a fact of law, when those books were published, that they'd be freely available to us at a specific point in the future. In 1976, that point changed--that was as much theft as filesharing. More, perhaps, because there's no question of possible fair use to get in the way.



It's only "criminal behavior" if it's illegal. Morality has nothing to do with what's criminal.

If you want any chance of convincing anyone that you're right, you need to say "what should be criminal behavior," rather than claiming something that's just not true. It undermines your claim of what's right--because if your belief about what the the law says is wrong, why should anyone trust your judgment about what's good behavior?

You raise good points with which I somewhat agree. - certainly on the copyright extensions and the ability of corporations to do that!

I'm not really trying to convince anyone, it's clear everyone has already taken sides on this. But I have my own opinions of where it may end up. Only time will tell.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

My view is that publishers' behaviour will be changed not by boycotting per se, but by seeing others make a success of a particular sales model.

Well, that sure didn't work for Amazon. They were too successful with their sales model - Apple had to squash them.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Well, that sure didn't work for Amazon. They were too successful with their sales model - Apple had to squash them.

That's true - but I don't think that we've seen this play itself out yet. Once technology reaches a point where electronic reading is seen by the majority as practical, which is a point that it seems we are fast approaching, there will be a surge in demand for content. The providers who make it convenient and cheap to get good quality content will win out.

I'm hoping that if I say it lots of times, it'll happen

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I'm not really trying to convince anyone, it's clear everyone has already taken sides on this.

The vocal, educated people with a strong interest have taken sides. But MR gets lots of lurkers and people discovering ebooks for the first time.

In any internet discussion, if you're arguing with someone who's not going to be convinced (and the pro/anti filesharing sides are pretty well entrenched here), you argue *at* that person but *to* the lurkers.

You're not going to convince me. And I'm too much of an anarchist to care what random people online think is "criminal" anyway. ("Random" in the sense of "not working for a law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction over me.")

You might convince newcomers who are just now discovering ebooks and trying to figure out how the tech works and where they can get new books to read--but not if you make statements of "fact" that are easily disproven.

[JimC]

In the six months since I got my Kindle, I've read so many great books by Indies for $1-$2 that I may never pay $10 for another book. I'm serious, there are some great Indie books out there.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

That's true - but I don't think that we've seen this play itself out yet. Once technology reaches a point where electronic reading is seen by the majority as practical, which is a point that it seems we are fast approaching, there will be a surge in demand for content. The providers who make it convenient and cheap to get good quality content will win out.

I'm hoping that if I say it lots of times, it'll happen

Yeah right. Not.

I just popped over to eReader.com and Fictionwise to see what this week's offerings would yield. Guess what? Lots of the new fiction releases are priced between $11.99 and $16.99! Didn't take the 'big 3' long to fix prices.

Now when it's a new Stephen King, while I don't *like* a higher price, he's such a big draw that it makes sense that a publisher would jack the price up for a while.

However, Virginia DeBerry has a new novel released this week. Never heard of her? Not a problem. eReader has all three of her novels available. The new one runs $14.99 - the older two have been jacked up to $14.00!

I'm feeling the urge to darknet, I swear I am!

Derek

P.S. What *really* makes no sense is the number of new Young Adult titles that have been put through the Price-Jack-O-Matic machine!