I suppose Macmillan turning authordom loose on Amazon (and authors actually going to the attack like good soldiers) is what happens when authors perceive they have no choice but to support the current industry in order to protect their livelihoods.
They have my sympathies, but I'm not going to help publishers jack up prices. There's a lot of competition for entertainment dollars today. I'll be sad to not read books by authors I like, but there are other authors I can patronize for less... or I can just play a video game or go to the movies.
(I note: I almost never buy books from the Kindle store anymore. Almost all my e-books lately are either from Baen, or they're public domain works I thought 'hey, I'll catch up on reading the classics, it's cheaper than buying today's pulp' about.)
kindle? When I pay for a book I buy it. I do not rent the right to use for as long as it suits the retailer. If they sell me something they shouldn't have, they can do what Joe's repair shop and car dealership would have to do if they'd sold me (and I'd bought in good faith and full paperwork) Henry's car that he brought back to have the brakes done: ergo - buy it back from me, with my permission and at my price, or settle the matter with Henry - at his price. Coming and stealing the car from my garage and popping the money in my account without even telling me isn't good enough.
Most authors - myself included - need to keep a reasonable relationship with their publisher. It's just how you do it that counts - and that is good for your publisher too.
I don't know if I agree with the "I don't want to rent a book" philosophy anymore, actually. Some books I want to own and keep: reference books, art, fiction that changed my life. But a lot of the popcorn entertainment I read for fun? In the long long ago, in the before times, when there were no e-books, I bought them in paperback and then immediately turned around and either traded them in or donated them to library or charity. I didn't keep the majority of them. Almost none of the used bookstores gave money for used books, so I really didn't care where they went as long as they made room for new books
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My point relates to Amazon's removal without consent of the purchaser of I think it was Animal Farm. Do NOT dig in the guts of my computer (or e-reader)without my consent! If my agreement is explicitly and very very clearly to allow you do so, you're still risking my ire :-). You choose your own hard drive risks and back-up material _you_ care about. You'd freak if I unilaterally decided x or y was old now and I could trash it.
Readers need easily affordable books. I have a suspicion that the current upsurge in library use is because the price of books has crossed that critical threshold (at least for the non-bibliophiles/collectors amongst us). Then again, I can more than empathise with this idea, considering the [does the quick currency translation] US$16.50 mass market paperback and US$43.70 mini-hardcover I picked up at a local bookstore last week.
I'm afraid I sound a bit like a voice in the wilderness here - when books in Australia cost even more than books South Africa... you are choking readership (I don't, for the record believe large retail are set on 'bringing you cheaper books'. I also know authors are getting a very small percentage - if you were only paying me - you'd be paying 64 cents US for that paperback book. That's cheap by anyone's standards. Nevermind a small percentage profit (the cry of every other part of the chain), most authors make no profit at all. Most authors make a loss, and require other sources of income - which usually takes time out of writing. We're little one-person business too.
According to a senior librarian friend they have definitely noticed the upsurge and it was a point of conversation in at least one of their conferences over summer, particularly the number of people putting holds on new releases in advance of their actual receipt by the library system. Unfortunately it will be a double-whammy to the midlist, since not only does it mean less people will be buying books at all, but also that the public libraries are just as broke as everyone else and so will generally restrict their purchases to the bestsellers that will appeal to the greater audience. And since less people are buying the midlist there is even less incentive to do anything to help them become economically viable (or even to stock them on the shelves). Then again, Australian prices have only increased on the order of 50% compared to US prices of the same time period (which have increased on the order of 300% to 400%). But that's mainly because we were (as was South Africa) a captive market with no over options (due to government
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They have my sympathies, but I'm not going to help publishers jack up prices. There's a lot of competition for entertainment dollars today. I'll be sad to not read books by authors I like, but there are other authors I can patronize for less... or I can just play a video game or go to the movies.
(I note: I almost never buy books from the Kindle store anymore. Almost all my e-books lately are either from Baen, or they're public domain works I thought 'hey, I'll catch up on reading the classics, it's cheaper than buying today's pulp' about.)
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Most authors - myself included - need to keep a reasonable relationship with their publisher. It's just how you do it that counts - and that is good for your publisher too.
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Readers need easily affordable books.
I have a suspicion that the current upsurge in library use is because the price of books has crossed that critical threshold (at least for the non-bibliophiles/collectors amongst us).
Then again, I can more than empathise with this idea, considering the [does the quick currency translation] US$16.50 mass market paperback and US$43.70 mini-hardcover I picked up at a local bookstore last week.
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According to a senior librarian friend they have definitely noticed the upsurge and it was a point of conversation in at least one of their conferences over summer, particularly the number of people putting holds on new releases in advance of their actual receipt by the library system.
Unfortunately it will be a double-whammy to the midlist, since not only does it mean less people will be buying books at all, but also that the public libraries are just as broke as everyone else and so will generally restrict their purchases to the bestsellers that will appeal to the greater audience. And since less people are buying the midlist there is even less incentive to do anything to help them become economically viable (or even to stock them on the shelves).
Then again, Australian prices have only increased on the order of 50% compared to US prices of the same time period (which have increased on the order of 300% to 400%). But that's mainly because we were (as was South Africa) a captive market with no over options (due to government ( ... )
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