Are Fair Use Rights coming to an end?

[Pinecone]

The funny thing is, if this is due to the textbook thing, is the text book publishers are also not getting it. Reduce the price to something reasonable and more poeple would just buy and keep them. At least those in their major. I still reference some of my textbooks.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

The funny thing is, if this is due to the textbook thing, is the text book publishers are also not getting it. Reduce the price to something reasonable and more poeple would just buy and keep them. At least those in their major. I still reference some of my textbooks.

I agree. I still have a great deal of my old text books and I still reference them. I would never rent a text book. Gosh, that's just short sighted IMHO. I learned that sophomore year when I had to go and re-buy several books I'd sold as a freshman.

Not to say I would never use a textbook in ebook form, just not as a rental. And especially not a rental inside my major.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

The funny thing is, if this is due to the textbook thing, is the text book publishers are also not getting it. Reduce the price to something reasonable and more poeple would just buy and keep them. At least those in their major. I still reference some of my textbooks.

The problem is though, speaking as a former textbook author myself, that textbooks are very expensive to produce, and have a very small target audience, which is not particularly price-sensitive. Halve the price of a textbook, and you probably won't sell noticeably more copies. I'm afraid the economics of textbook publishing mean that you're never going to see $10 physics textbooks (my former field).

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The problem is though, speaking as a former textbook author myself, that textbooks are very expensive to produce, and have a very small target audience, which is not particularly price-sensitive. Halve the price of a textbook, and you probably won't sell noticeably more copies. I'm afraid the economics of textbook publishing mean that you're never going to see $10 physics textbooks (my former field).

Hmmm, I can understand that. I wouldn't expect textbooks to be $10 but it would be good if they weren't $100 - $200 + dollars. My Shakespeare text was $150 (not adjusted for inflation). It had very little commentary but it was complete (and gigantic!). That book should be closer to (at most) $50 as an ebook and if they only want to rent it - $20 tops.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

My Shakespeare text was $150 (not adjusted for inflation). It had very little commentary but it was complete (and gigantic!). That book should be closer to (at most) $50 as an ebook and if they only want to rent it - $20 tops.

I rescued a Riverside Shakespeare years ago from a college dormitory dumpster. I can't imagine what someone paid for it at the college bookstore (the only truly feasible option at the time). It was brand new!

I've read every bit of it several times since then.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I rescued a Riverside Shakespeare years ago from a college dormitory dumpster. I can't imagine what someone paid for it at the college bookstore (the only truly feasible option at the time). It was brand new!

I've read every bit of it several times since then.

I want to say that's the one! Brand new?! In the trash? That just makes me sad. I just looked up the prices and it's still $100-$150.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The problem is though, speaking as a former textbook author myself, that textbooks are very expensive to produce, and have a very small target audience, which is not particularly price-sensitive. Halve the price of a textbook, and you probably won't sell noticeably more copies. I'm afraid the economics of textbook publishing mean that you're never going to see $10 physics textbooks (my former field).

When I was a student the audience was price sensitive. If it was cheaper to pay for copying the book using relatively expensive copying machines then people got together and did that. Sometimes not even buying one book because they could borrow the book from the library to copy.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tompe

When I was a student the audience was price sensitive. If it was cheaper to pay for copying the book using relatively expensive copying machines then people got together and did that. Sometimes not even buying one book because they could borrow the book from the library to copy.

What used to tick me off about college textbooks was when there'd be a new edition every year, and no substantive change in the content, apparently just so the instructor could insist on the specific edition for each class, forcing students to but new books instead of used. Do they get kickbacks or something?

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The problem is though, speaking as a former textbook author myself, that textbooks are very expensive to produce, and have a very small target audience, which is not particularly price-sensitive. Halve the price of a textbook, and you probably won't sell noticeably more copies. I'm afraid the economics of textbook publishing mean that you're never going to see $10 physics textbooks (my former field).

Shouldn't you be writing textbooks for the sole purpose of enlightening future generations of humanity? If there is any type of book that should not be sold it is an educational text. I believe no book should be sold but that is just my opinion.

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The problem is though, speaking as a former textbook author myself, that textbooks are very expensive to produce, and have a very small target audience, which is not particularly price-sensitive. Halve the price of a textbook, and you probably won't sell noticeably more copies. I'm afraid the economics of textbook publishing mean that you're never going to see $10 physics textbooks (my former field).

Even back in the dark ages when I was in college, many people bought used textbooks and then sold them back to the book store at the end of each year. So you can't go by past numbers for actual sales. The same text book would be sold once new (generating a royalty) and then 5 - 6 times as used.

Cut the price to that half those people buy them outright and keep them, and you will increase sales by 3 - 4 times (accounting for those who bought and kept anyway).

And no, not $10, but $100+ is nuts.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

Even back in the dark ages when I was in college, many people bought used textbooks and then sold them back to the book store at the end of each year. So you can't go by past numbers for actual sales. The same text book would be sold once new (generating a royalty) and then 5 - 6 times as used.

Cut the price to that half those people buy them outright and keep them, and you will increase sales by 3 - 4 times (accounting for those who bought and kept anyway).

And no, not $10, but $100+ is nuts.

Physics books have a notoriously short shelf life, and it's getting shorter with every new discovery.

[Elfwreck]

Textbooks, especially on technical subjects, is an area where the "ebook revolution" is going to cause serious problems.

Because copies really are going to get easier to make (they're certainly never going to get harder), and textbooks have always been "too expensive" for many of the people who need them, or at least, they thought the books were too expensive. There's always been a huge secondhand market, and irritation at new editions (justified or not, another big debate topic) that require a whole incoming year of students to buy new books.

And now they're relatively easy to scan & send as PDFs to each other--even aside from the official bootleg sites, the "bring a flash drive to Dave's and he'll give you a copy" method has to be active on many colleges. And as much as the "no DRM, make it affordable" method works to sell lots of genre novels; it can't work for textbooks--that have real and substantial production costs.

An author can write 80,000 words of fiction in a few months. Add a few weeks for fact-checking, a few more for editing, and you're still looking at a solid potential for 2 books/year. (Not every author writes at that speed, but it's not an unreasonable pace for a full-time author.) Half a year, maybe looking for an income of $30,000 from that book... which can be spread out over time. 15,000 books at $2.99 is not an unreasonable goal, especially since that doesn't have to happen this year.

Writing 80,000 words of nonfiction, or even half that, especially in a technical field, can take a lot longer. And someone needs to check more than the grammar and overview of facts. The editor needs to know not only if anything's wrong, but if anything was missed--did the author leave out any essential topics? Were the topics that were covered, all covered to roughly the same depth?

The writing takes a more rarified skill base (while not everyone can write a romance novel, pretty much everyone can plot one out; most people can't describe "essential physics topics for engineering majors," much less fill in those details), and so does the editing, and it all takes longer to put together than fiction. And the target audience is much, much smaller; there's never going to be an Amanda Hocking of physics textbooks, selling thousands of ebooks per day for a few bucks each.

I'm not sure where the textbook market is going, but it's one of the areas likely to suffer greatly until we figure out entirely new economic methods for dealing with content.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Writing 80,000 words of nonfiction, or even half that, especially in a technical field, can take a lot longer. And someone needs to check more than the grammar and overview of facts. The editor needs to know not only if anything's wrong, but if anything was missed--did the author leave out any essential topics? Were the topics that were covered, all covered to roughly the same depth?

Along these lines, the preface in my Riverside Shakespeare indicates that it was over ten years in the making. So while it sucks that they cost so much, I can definitely see why they cost more.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The correct action is to lobby for change; not break DRM.

Well, this is going to pretty much crater this discussion, but coming from a Linux and Open Source background, lobbying these days is completely worthless unless it has a lot of money behind it. Just look at Washington. :P

Actually, the only effective way to stop the march of DRM is to do three things:

1. Boycott ANY and ALL authors and/or their publishers, as well as any companies who sell DRM encumbered books. Yes, it might be a "must have" book that you can't live without. But unless you sacrifice, nothing will get changed. Especially if you keep giving your money to the same people who are stomping all over your fair use right like a Russian grape press.

2. Voice your displeasure at said author/publisher's use of DRM. For every letter they receive denoting your displeasure at their policies, they count it as though 100 people had talked to them. (they assume that for every 1 person who writes to them, 100 others would have but didn't) While it might not seem like your letter would affect them, it really does.

3. Openly and loudly support any author/publisher who believes in DRM free ebooks. Give them all your business, and absolutely nothing to the Pro-DRM individuals/companies.

Bonus Item: If #1 and 2 fail to get their attention, the sudden and drastic loss of business will. Money talks and it's the only thing these companies will listen to. So if you want your fair use rights, vote with your wallet. Trust me, they'll listen. If they won't, then they don't need to be in business, and the stampede of people away from them will ensure that. Just look at Borders. :P IE, either give the customer what they want, or go stand in the soup line.

[speedlever]

Steven,

I noticed your first book, Oort Perimeter is DRM free on Amazon. I just bought it and thought I'd give it a read. Thanks for the DRM free experience.