Backlash against Author Douglas Preston

[dmaul1114]

*double post*

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by mcl

I didn't see all of you author-boosters frothing at the mouth when Macmillan lowered its contractual payout by 5% late last year.

I didn't see that news, or I'd have spoken about it just as strongly.

Originally Posted by ficbot

Just to give you an arts-related example, my cousin is in a band and he gets paid for his gigs. But I can promise you that his take-home pay for a gig is not the same as Aerosmith's take-home pay for a gig, even if they both are doing the same 'job.'

I'm not saying every author should bet the same per book.

I'm saying if Steven gets $4 or whatever for a paperback copy sold of The Shining , he should get $4 for an e-book copy of The Shining etc. E-book version cost the publisher less to put out, he did the same amount of work. He should get the same per copy, the publisher can get less and come out with the same (or close ideally) profit from not having printing and shipping costs on that copy.

Lesser known authors can get less per book etc. just like a lesser known band gets less per gig etc. But if that lesser known artist gets $1 per paperback copy of book A, he should get $1 per e-book copy.

And again, yes I know other professions get salary cuts--as I said earlier with furlough days for all university employees this year we've gotten around a 5% pay cut. And yes we've all been bitching about it incessantly as though we're not supposed to work those 8 days, the nature of academic work doesn't really let you take them off. Classes still have to be prepared, research has to be done--standards for tenure and promotion aren't being lowered because we have 8 less work days.

So it would be pretty hypocritical for me to bitch about it when it happens to me and not take up for those in other professions when it happens to them!

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I'm saying if Steven gets $4 or whatever for a paperback copy sold of The Shining , he should get $4 for an e-book copy of The Shining etc. E-book version cost the publisher less to put out, he did the same amount of work. He should get the same per copy, the publisher can get less and come out with the same (or close ideally) profit from not having printing and shipping costs on that copy.

Lesser known authors can get less per book etc. just like a lesser known band gets less per gig etc. But if that lesser known artist gets $1 per paperback copy of book A, he should get $1 per e-book copy.

I'm not sure that I understand why, if you're OK with an economic system where one author can command $4 per book and another $1 (because that's what the market will stand for their work), that you're not OK with that same system dictating that they get less for the same work in another medium.

To give an example which I think has some parallels - if I write some shareware aimed at use on PCs, I might decide that $10 is a fair price and make, say, $5 on it. The same software on a mobile phone might only cost, say, $2, and make $1 - because that is the nature of that market. It's up to me as a software producer to decide which devices to code for, what price to set etc. The market will decide what my efforts are worth. It wouldn't seem reasonable to me to complain that, now we have lots of mobile phone apps at a low price, it's not fair because I get less per sale. It's a large potential market and I have to decide whether I want to enter it on its terms.

In my view, the ebook market is likely to set a lower price point compared to paper books, but there is an ease of searching, of purchase etc. (or there should be!), and a much lower cost of sale, that offers compensating opportunities. I don't see why an author should necessarily get the same amount per sale in this new world (I hope they get more).

[dmaul1114]

Well to me it's just the book is just as useful to a buyer in as an e-book as it is in paperback (ignoring DRM which I support going away), and the author did the same amount of work on it, so I think their cut should be the same (or more if savings in printing costs can be passed on to them). So e-books CAN (and probably should) COST less, but the scheme should be as such that the author's cut is the same (or higher) per copy sold compared to the print version of the same book.

The software example is pretty hard to counter, and that's an unfair situation IMO. Though I guess you could make an argument that most software written for a PC is likely to be less functional/useful on tiny cell phone screen--so maybe there is less value in it for consumers.

But in any case, I'm just a strong believer that in a world where inflation is constant and cost of living is always increasing, wages per hour, income per copy sold etc. should not go down, but should go up.

Now INCOME can go down as people by fewer copies of your book, or people get laid off or have their hours at work reduced. That sucks, but that's fair. If you need to save money, make me truly work less hours and get paid less hours--that's fair. Don't make me work the same hours, with the same effort, for less pay.

Which is what these furlough days do for us university faculty, and what happens to authors if they start making $3 per copy sold instead of $4 or whatever. I'd be fine with my furlough days if we were allowed to take them on teaching days, cancel classes and thus truly reduced our workload. Rather than expecting us to do the same work and get paid 5% less as I can't not do research work etc. on my days off as the tenure expectations aren't being reduced 5%.

[nonanon]

Publishers sell in bulk to stores like Costco and Sams and those stores can sell a $30 book for less than half of cover price. Given that there's still a distribution chain and manufacturing costs it would obviously be even cheaper to just sell the data in ebook format. Big box sellers often sell new release hardcovers so that's not really an issue either yet you don't hear authors worrying that Costco is cutting into their livelihood. New tech is always attacked and feared by the older media, LP records cause many to fear it would cut into concert ticket sales. Instead artists made far more than before. Same with cassettes where artists worried (deservedly) that many would just record music from FM radio. But their profits still went up. This also happened with CDs since it was assumed everyone would just rip a friend's CD and not buy, yet their profits still increased dramatically. As of now we're just waiting for them to find a new model to make money with the new tech and to stop fearing it and assuming all their customers are thieves. I loathe watching DVDs which almost accuse me of piracy with all their warnings and I'm sure real pirates ignore those warnings anyway.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by nonanon

...yet you don't hear authors worrying that Costco is cutting into their livelihood. ...

Because it's not threatening them in anyway. Most contracts give the author $X for each copy of the book sold to a retailer, regardless of the price the retailer paid the publisher for those books. The actual sale price doesn't affect the author's take in most cases, unless they have a crappy contract and get a % rather than a set dollar amount.

As long as that stays the same with e-books, all is well in my mind. If the author gets $4 for a trade paperback that sells for say $13.99, they should get $4 for an e-book of it that sells for $9.99. It's the publishers that has cost and effort reduced by not having to print a physical book. The author's work was the same regardless of the format it's sold in.