Ebooks: Scarcity, abundance and economy

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Maybe they'll have patrons who pay them to produce specific types of content. This can create skewed content, but given the number and diversity of potential patrons, it's a lot less problematic than this system was a few hundred years ago, when patrons were all upper-class white men. Kickstarter's had some terrific projects.

Patrons support artists with no expectation of recompense... essentially, out of the goodness of their hearts. I don't expect that to be particularly widespread, unless the govt changes the tax laws to allow those patrons to get a serious tax break.

I think advertising subsidies are much more likely to be common and successful than patronage. The only thing to be worked out is ad delivery (probably not embedded in books themselves, but displayed at the sale point).

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Maybe they'll have patrons who pay them to produce specific types of content. This can create skewed content, but given the number and diversity of potential patrons, it's a lot less problematic than this system was a few hundred years ago, when patrons were all upper-class white men. Kickstarter's had some terrific projects.

I'm inclined to think along the same line, before we had a thriving publishing industry, something that requires a literate population, wealthy patrons realizing the public benefit of furthering knowledge, would bankroll research and writers. If those who write non-fiction can't live on the income of the books I think we will see a resurgence of wealthy patrons, most likely in the form of a trust, that willingly support non-fiction authors.

[stonetools]

Of course, those weren't all written for free, so your point may stand. My point is not "authors will write for free" (although I did say that, and many will) but "free-to-customers reading content is not going to destroy the literary world." The collapse of the publishing industry systems of the 1960s isn't going to mean the end of quality reading material, including quality nonfiction reading material.

Yup, you simply restated my point. The fact that nonfiction reading content is available on the Internet for free ( hopefully, from legal sources) doesn't mean that it was written for free or that it took no resources to produce it.

Your last sentence should be re-written "I hope that The collapse of the publishing industry systems of the 1960s isn't going to mean the end of quality reading material, including quality nonfiction reading material." FTFY.

Maybe they'll have patrons who pay them to produce specific types of content. This can create skewed content, but given the number and diversity of potential patrons, it's a lot less problematic than this system was a few hundred years ago, when patrons were all upper-class white men. Kickstarter's had some terrific projects.

So Kickstarter replaces the publishing industry? Seriously? Hope is not a plan.

Maybe we'll have a government arts endowment.

In today's political Environment? NO . Nuff said.

I know that (1) we're not going to run out of quality content to read while the publishing industry thrashes around looking for new business models and (2) enough people value quality writing, including nonfiction, that they will actively seek ways to reward authors for it.

We have people who want to pay, and people who want to write; the fact that the internet has changed the dynamics between them doesn't mean the destruction of quality nonfic writing.

Hope is a wonderful thing. Its got feathers and everything. Ain't a plan, though. People want any number of things that the market doesn't supply , because current market incentives don't foster the creation and distribution of such things.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Patrons support artists with no expectation of recompense... essentially, out of the goodness of their hearts. I don't expect that to be particularly widespread, unless the govt changes the tax laws to allow those patrons to get a serious tax break.

I think advertising subsidies are much more likely to be common and successful than patronage. The only thing to be worked out is ad delivery (probably not embedded in books themselves, but displayed at the sale point).

Whats interesting is that Elfwreck is dead set against the idea of ad-supported ebooks , even as he supports a status quo that leads inexorably towards this as the most likely solution adopted.

Of course, there may not be much difference between "The Truth about Global Warming" , financed by Exxon, and advertising by Exxon, really.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I'm inclined to think along the same line, before we had a thriving publishing industry, something that requires a literate population, wealthy patrons realizing the public benefit of furthering knowledge, would bankroll research and writers. If those who write non-fiction can't live on the income of the books I think we will see a resurgence of wealthy patrons, most likely in the form of a trust, that willingly support non-fiction authors.

So wealthy patrons (including private corporations) are going to decide what kind of nonfiction we are going to read? I can't wait for the kind of bold and informed investigative journalism that that the General Dynamics Nonfiction Authors Trust is likely to produce!

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by stonetools

So wealthy patrons (including private corporations) are going to decide what kind of nonfiction we are going to read? I can't wait for the kind of bold and informed investigative journalism that that the General Dynamics Nonfiction Authors Trust is likely to produce!

Just as General Dynamics Nonfiction Authors Trust will likely prefer to subsidize non-fiction in line with their own interest, other groups or trusts opposed to their viewpoint will be happy to support authors taking an opposite view. I'm not particularly worried.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by stonetools

So wealthy patrons (including private corporations) are going to decide what kind of nonfiction we are going to read? I can't wait for the kind of bold and informed investigative journalism that that the General Dynamics Nonfiction Authors Trust is likely to produce!

Or the Sierra Club? Or various think tanks? Or Unions? There's lots of bias to go around...

Would this be any worse the "You supply the pictures and we'll supply the war" from the Hearst chain in the 1890's? Bias has been in <sic> general non-fiction for quite a while.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Whats interesting is that Elfwreck is dead set against the idea of ad-supported ebooks , even as he supports a status quo that leads inexorably towards this as the most likely solution adopted.

Of course, there may not be much difference between "The Truth about Global Warming" , financed by Exxon, and advertising by Exxon, really.

I'm not against ad-supported ebooks. I insist that ads *in* ebooks is a doomed idea; it can't provide enough return to advertisers to be a useful market strategy.

I don't think Kickstarter will replace publishers, but I suspect it, and things like it, will fill a niche publishers have been avoiding: limited-interest high-expense projects. And that'll expand to wider-interest lower-expense projects, because crowdsourced funding for their pet projects is something lots of people will participate in.

The crowdsourcing also cuts down on the patrons being able to shape the final product--which is something a lot of patrons would prefer.

Note that I'm not suggesting kickstarter be used to fund pharmaceutical research; I'm suggesting it could be used to get Book 5 Of The Series written, or a biography of Famous Person Who Left Few Notes.

Saying that this kind of funding *needs* to go through a major publisher with the current system--advances followed by tiny royalties in the distant future, with the author locked into a long-term contract--is saying that legacy publishing is the only way that quality writing ever gets to the public.

And while yes, I have no specific plan in mind--this isn't like the alternate energy debates wherein people who say "we will find a way!" are counting on blind hope. This is a case where the elements of success: interest, money, information, writing skill--are all present; all that's left is the coordination necessary to bring them together in a way that produces books. Since we have the parts, and the desire for this to happen, this is a sociological problem, not a technological one.

We aren't going to run out of writers. Nor out of people willing to pay for quality writing. A shift in market strategies may (will) involve a shift in what kinds of books are likely to be widely published--but they won't be lower in quality than what we've had in the past. Excellent literature & nonfic is still being written, and disseminated more widely than it was in the past.

The fact that the mountain of mediocre and just plain craptastic works is 10x larger than it used to be doesn't change the number of great works available. And I'm comfortable ignoring any complaint based on "I can't find the good stuff!" Ebooks don't take up shelf space; they're not squeezing the good books off the shelves. Finding the good stuff has *always* been a problem. Now there's plenty of good stuff to find.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Or the Sierra Club? Or various think tanks? Or Unions? There's lots of bias to go around...

Just turn on a US cable box and try flipping from FOXNEWS to MSNBC TV.
Whiplash doesn't begin to describe it.
Mirror universes.

Nobody benefits from that kind of polarization.
Tying content to commercial/political agendas has been around forever.
("Freedom of the press belongs to those that own the press.")
And it's been a bad thing every step of the way.

It shouldn't be encouraged; we can do better.
We *need* to do better.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Just turn on a US cable box and try flipping from FOXNEWS to MSNBC TV.
Whiplash doesn't begin to describe it.
Mirror universes.

Nobody benefits from that kind of polarization.
Tying content to commercial/political agendas has been around forever.
("Freedom of the press belongs to those that own the press.")
And it's been a bad thing every step of the way.

It shouldn't be encouraged; we can do better.
We *need* to do better.

I'm not certain what's better? Muzzle certain viewpoints?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I'm not certain what's better? Muzzle certain viewpoints?

Isn't that what those channels are doing?
Isn't that what the Hearsts and co of the past did? (And continue to do?)
Muzzle dissent and distort reality for political/commercial gain.

Broadcast TV and Radio *used* to have an equal access requirement from the FCC that basically said that biased one-sided reporting could be challenged and the dissenting viewpoint would automatically get *free* air time to counter the report.
In those days, the airtime scarcity made air time valuable so the Evening News shows were *really* careful to stick to verifiable facts and maintain a civil tone.

With the equal access requirement relaxed more recently, there is an overabundance of cable news venues happy to feed both fringes for fun and profit.

Not sure how much can be done to deal with that particular economy of abundance other than maybe regular pop-ups reminding viewers that a given pundit is a paid corporate shill or rabid marxist, as the case may apply.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Maybe we'll have a government arts endowment. (I have doubts about this working--not because it wouldn't be effective, but because if we've reached the point of considering public education a form of "socialist welfare," the public's been brainwashed against believing there's a value in widespread access to knowledge of any sort.)

Well, the "socialist welfare" view of public education is a particularly US phenomenon, but the US is likely to pay a heavy price for it. And this is coming from two papers, the FT and the Telegraph, which are firmly on the "non-socialist" end of the spectrum.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Whats interesting is that Elfwreck is dead set against the idea of ad-supported ebooks , even as he supports a status quo that leads inexorably towards this as the most likely solution adopted.

"Ad-supported" never sounds like a good deal to consumers, because they generally believe that they will be unhappy seeing any ads. Reality indicates otherwise: People watch ads; they respond to ads; they buy according to ads; and this is especially when the ads themselves are entertaining, but even when they are only informative, but happen to satisfy a present need.

Advertisers know this. That's why they're willing to subsidize television shows and radio, the mediums that get their messages to the public. If advertisers see a worthwhile medium in literature and ebooks, they'll be seeking out the authors to finance.

The downside is creating a network that connects authors to advertisers. There will also be the tendency for major advertisers to only want to support the biggest authors, and lesser authors fighting for ad sponsoring.

And there's always the danger of having those advertisers dictate what will be written... just as they dictate what we see on television.

But there are a lot of people selling things... many more than there are serious writers. The system could work.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

"Ad-supported" never sounds like a good deal to consumers, because they generally believe that they will be unhappy seeing any ads. Reality indicates otherwise: People watch ads; they respond to ads; they buy according to ads; and this is especially when the ads themselves are entertaining, but even when they are only informative, but happen to satisfy a present need.

Advertisers know this. That's why they're willing to subsidize television shows and radio, the mediums that get their messages to the public. If advertisers see a worthwhile medium in literature and ebooks, they'll be seeking out the authors to finance.

The downside is creating a network that connects authors to advertisers. There will also be the tendency for major advertisers to only want to support the biggest authors, and lesser authors fighting for ad sponsoring.

And there's always the danger of having those advertisers dictate what will be written... just as they dictate what we see on television.

But there are a lot of people selling things... many more than there are serious writers. The system could work.

I will note that in current times, advertising becomes more of an option. There are too many entertainmemt choices without ads. While people adioving ads in such a manners may be a small demgraphic, it does exist. (I suspect it's growing.)

There's a lot of "pull" (the customer seeks out the niformation as he/she determines the need) advertising out there. This site is an example of "pull" advertising.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I will note that in current times, advertising becomes more of an option. There are too many entertainmemt choices without ads. While people adioving ads in such a manners may be a small demgraphic, it does exist. (I suspect it's growing.)

Ebooks could take advantage of this as well, with customers paying for books obtained from ad-free sites, and ad-based sites giving the books away... it's the customer's choice which they use.

And as I suggested in my earlier post, I'm not sure ad avoidance is growing. Anecdotally, people claim to be avoiding more ads; but I don't think the facts equal the anecdotes. What I think is happening is that people are becoming more selective about the ads they will expose themselves to... which is why targeted ads are becoming the norm, and generally demanding more attention from consumers than wide-demographic ads.

Ads on ebook sites could be targeted or wide-demographic, but I'd bet targeted ads would be better... which might suggest an ad agency-author connection, rather than a specific author-specific company arrangement (unless that company sells a wide-enough variety of products that it can still target consumers... IOW, 20 colognes for different individuals, instead of one cologne for everyone).