Lee Child - BBC Newsnight interview and discussion on The Passive Voice.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

The interview is fine to me as well. But did you also read his comments responding to others below that? There's quite a few comments to read through, but that's when I found him insulting and condescending.

No, I just listened to the interview.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by ApK

Hey, you can refuse to see the next 'Jack Reacher' movie and boycott two at once!

Never even saw the first one. So not seeing the next one would not really be that hard.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger View Post
The interview is fine to me as well. But did you also read his comments responding to others below that? There's quite a few comments to read through, but that's when I found him insulting and condescending.

In fairness, some of the folks on that thread had already attacked him/the video/piled on before he even arrived at the thread. Then when he did show up, some of those same folks continued the attack in rather strident tones. I took a number of his responses as trying to lighten a bad situation, and he didn't get personal until that one guy got pretty dang personal. But anytime someone reads something like that, it's open to interpretation. I can understand that some people took exception to the "affordability" of books--that has happened here on mobileread a number of time. One person's latte is another person's meal.

I will say that I had a question about the ITW (international Thriller Writers organization, of which he is president) and he responded within a couple of days, was polite and very welcoming. I write to authors all the time (sometimes because I find errors in their books, both trad and indie, sometimes because I'm a fan, sometimes because I have a question). Not all of them respond. Some do respond and are incredibly rude. Some respond and are very nice. Authors are just another segment of the population. We have bad days and good days, and sometimes we get snarky. Most of us are just trying to make it the best way we know how!

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by Synamon

His comment that his digital to paper sales ratio is declining is an interesting data point and clearly skews his perspective. I suspect this holds true for most bestselling/blockbuster authors, since attaining that level of sales means capturing a lot of casual readers. Casual readers picking up only a few books a year won't be reading digitally on a Kindle and they probably don't care what the book costs.

But he's shortsighted if he thinks the status quo is representative of the future. More and more people have tablets and phones and even casual readers will eventually move to digital content. They'll have more choice (content and price), from public domain classics to backlist bestsellers of years gone by to indie hits everyone is talking about on social media, rather than the 20 current paperback bestsellers racked at Walmart. He's probably right to be wary of the digital future and defensive of the publishing industry that's made him rich.

Great point. I tend to forget that MR represents a rather narrow view of the reading public. But I know from personal experience that the annual trip to Borders to stock up on books for vacation is no more, and if I see a book that looks particularly attractive in an airport newsstand (assuming I don't already have it or have it on hold at my library), I just download it at the airport. I can't recall the series I was reading on one vacation, and on the trip home I noticed the next book was out in the series. Since I only had a chapter or two left on the last book of the series, I purchased and downloaded the book before we boarded. Since we were separated on the trip home, I was really glad I was absorbed in a book.

But, as much as I love my kindle (or kindle app) and love reading, I love playing video games, reading magazines from the library on my tablet, watching movies from Amazon Prime, and knitting. And, while I know the book will be better, it will take 5 hours versus 2 hours for the movie. Now, rather than make a trip to the bookstore, I make sure to download whatever I want to watch on my Fire.

Child is right, the kindle is so 2012. But the Fire, or iPad, or whatever device I sideload books onto is not. I avoided getting e versions of knitting books for the longest time, until I borrowed one I had in hardcover in ebook format from my library. I loved it! I got a bunch of knitting books, converted them to epub and sideloaded them to my ipad. For the past month, I have read only on my paperwhite while going to sleep. During the day, I knit, or read about knitting on my ipad (I don't count that as reading, because it is mostly pictures).

Child is absolutely WRONG when he thinks he will get the readers at $15 and then a year later get them at $10. When I go to get ebooks from my library, I always sort by publication date. There are too many books coming out--I can't keep up. My library is buying a lot of backlist books--if I run out of everything else, or get caught up in a series, I may look for them, or buy a backlist book to round out the series, because my library doesn't have it. But that book isn't $10, it is $5.

What the authors and publishers don't understand is that their most lucrative base-the voracious readers, who bought hardcovers and paid to join frequent buyer clubs at B&N to get discounts on those hardcovers, have moved on. I am so over hardcover books. They are expensive, unwieldy, hard to read in the dark, and dirty if I borrow them from the library. I will not pay $15 for your ebook that I cannot lend to a friend. Actually, you may get paid for your ebook, but since I don't have a pile on my bedside table anymore, I may not read it for years. I just finished Under the Dome. (It had such a lame ending, I am not rushing to read King's newest, although I did get it from the library.) So you are going to have a harder time building up new readers. And if everyone isn't reading your book at the same time, conversations about it aren't going to happen.

The times, they are a changing.

[tompe]

The voracious reader have never been important for best sellers. And for the person that buy a few bestseller per year the price is not so relevant.

[crossi]

Originally Posted by tompe

The voracious reader have never been important for best sellers. And for the person that buy a few bestseller per year the price is not so relevant.

I would like to see some statistics. Like those who buy <5 books/yr buy what percent of yearly book sales, 5-10 books/yr, 10-20 books, ect. It seems strange to me the concept that customers who buy the most aren't important customers to a business. I easily buy over 100 books/yr and at that rate price matters.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by crossi

I would like to see some statistics. Like those who buy <5 books/yr buy what percent of yearly book sales, 5-10 books/yr, 10-20 books, ect. It seems strange to me the concept that customers who buy the most aren't important customers to a business. I easily buy over 100 books/yr and at that rate price matters.

At a guess, EVERY buyer is important to book sellers! Yes, even best sellers. I think the difference is that those who buy 4 or 5 books a year are probably MOST likely to buy best sellers and not do much shopping around for new authors. A few of my relatives are 4 and fivers. They tend to hear about a book making the news and buy that book (Water for Elephants or whatever it was, try a Harry Potter back when it first was big news, etc). They never see or hear about the other books and don't go browsing very often (if ever). They have probably tried Lee Child, Nora Roberts and so on. Just because you hear about those authors more.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by crossi

It seems strange to me the concept that customers who buy the most aren't important customers to a business. I easily buy over 100 books/yr and at that rate price matters.

The people that buy between one and four books per year are more important to Lee Child. They buy what they see on a bestseller shelf in grocery store or at airport.
Those who buy 200 books a year still only buy one Lee Child book per year, because he can't write them faster. And the first group is much larger than the second.
The heavy reader group is more important for midlist authors, or genere writers, or niche books. Also, the other group is more sensitive to price and they can find something interesting to read and wait until they can get the next Reacher installment from the discount bin.

[fjtorres]

The conventional wisdom holds that low volume readers (variously referred to as casual readers, social readers, etc...) are "pile on" buyers, who buy books *after* they become successful, mostly because of the buzz. So they are considered the difference between "merely" good sellers and true bestsellers. A lot of effort is expended trying to reach them...more than what is expended trying to reach heavy readers, who are expected to find their own way to their reads.

[Waylander]

Yes BearMountainBooks, that one person who shall remain namelss was really annoying, and I personally found him offensive. He was offended that Lee Child addressed him by his first name, but saw nothing wrong in being extremely rude and nasty in return. He even had the cheek to lecture Mr Child on how to address someone you don't know. He got his comeuppance from one of the posters though, who really took the **** out of him, which he deserved. He just got boring in the end. Thankfully, the people on here are polite and know how to have a civilised conversation, and don't descend into name calling and insults.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Waylander

Thankfully, the people on here are polite and know how to have a civilised conversation, and don't descend into name calling and insults.

Who the %!*$ are you calling 'civilised', you @$*&$!?



As an aside, has anyone else noticed that the people who are most vehemently, and even violently, outraged over being 'disrespected' (or 'dissed') are, almost without exception, the people who are the most disrespectful and the least worthy of respect?

ApK

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by ApK

Who the %!*$ are you calling 'civilised', you @$*&$!?



As an aside, has anyone else noticed that the people who are most vehemently, and even violently, outraged over being 'disrespected' (or 'dissed') are, almost without exception, the people who are the most disrespectful and the least worthy of respect?

ApK

That pretty much sums it up.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ApK

Who the %!*$ are you calling 'civilised', you @$*&$!?

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

Childs says that the publishers sell to the people prepared to pay $15, then they sell to the people prepared to pay $10.

If the initial price of a book is beyond my means, I am willing to wait for the price to drop to a level I can afford. I figure the people who are impatient and/or wealthy enough to buy all the books they want when they first hit the market help keep authors in business. I don't begrudge authors wanting to make money at their chosen career.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I don't begrudge authors wanting to make money at their chosen career.

For me, it's not just that.

More than half the books I read are research-based non-fiction. This gives me a selfish reason for wanting the publishers to get as much money as possible from the affluent and/or impatient people who buy books shortly after release, while eventually bringing in larger audiences. I think books with low prices at release will be given ever lower advances, and then be more quickly written with less spending on travel, research assistance and editing.

When I read this next quote from an Amazon executive, I say, whoa, that is not likely to produce books I want to read:

"The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader. Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity."

Yes, there are good authors who do not require a village to produce their books. But I think they are far rarer than sometimes supposed. I wouldn't want to read a police procedural if the author didn't spend a lot of time not just with editors, but also with actual police, prosecutors, and defense attorneys.