Not unless the publishing crisis becomes so serious they need a complete paradigm shift in order to survive.
I think it's getting there. I don't think it'll happen nearly as soon as some people predict; a lot of the technorati have forgotten that the vast majority of people in the world don't have computers, much less an interest in ebooks. But they are facing big problems--the big-box bookstores have squeezed out the mom&pop stores, and Amazon is squeezing out the big boxes; there may not be a bookstore to wander into and buy a book on a whim in 10 years.
The Big 6 publishers are working *frantically* hard to sustain a business model that's always been fraught with problems (bookstore returns are a huge drain on the industry), because it's at least been a fairly stable model. It's now become unstable, and they're trying to prop it up instead of looking at other options--because all the other options are new & untested, and it's certain that some of them will fail horribly. And they don't even know how to evaluate them; for the last century, publishers' customers have been distributors, not bookstores, not readers; they have no idea how to take online individual-reader data and turn that into a sales model.
I have sympathies for them, and for the authors who are stuck with them. The sympathies don't extend as far as handing them money for something I don't want, though; DRM'd ebooks are not going to save them.
---- Normally, I write as a reader, as someone who loves books & wants every day to contain an hour or two of leisure reading. I want access to MOAR BOOX, and I can barely tolerate paper anymore; I read constantly on my Sony PRS-505. And since most of my paper reading was books that never got royalties to the authors, I didn't consider it a problem that much of my digital reading never got royalties to the authors.
I bought a lot of used books, and got a lot of loans from friends, and went to a lot of $5/bag-o-books rummage sales. The ebook equivalent is... promotional freebies, and unauthorized downloads. And I was absolutely baffled that so many authors and publishers *scream* about how *evil* these things are--not about whether or not they're losing sales (they yell about that too, but most grudgingly acknowledge that no, not all those downloads are lost sales), but like it's immoral to read without paying royalties. Like the majority of reading I did in my childhood was some kind of depraved idea-theft, because I spent money at yard sales and used bookstores, and friends & I shared books.
Mentioning this directly to most modern authors, esp. ebook authors, hits a blank wall of confusion. I think that, before the last few years of ebook publishing, I'd never heard an author say, "if you can't or won't pay full price for my books, don't read them."
I had several jaw-dropping moments of, "did you really just tell people who like your writing to go away & read something else?" I don't know if they're under the impression that paying fans spring up spontaneously, with no history of reading anything they didn't pay for. Or that there are so *few* books these days, so *little* digital content available, that when they do have spare money, that author's name will be the one that snaps into their heads.
I don't get it. This was part of a set of several posts I've made trying to work through that idea. This one was aimed at authors and publishers, trying to remind them that it's a lot easier to get fans to buy stuff, than to convince random people-who-buy-stuff to become fans.
no subject
I think it's getting there. I don't think it'll happen nearly as soon as some people predict; a lot of the technorati have forgotten that the vast majority of people in the world don't have computers, much less an interest in ebooks. But they are facing big problems--the big-box bookstores have squeezed out the mom&pop stores, and Amazon is squeezing out the big boxes; there may not be a bookstore to wander into and buy a book on a whim in 10 years.
The Big 6 publishers are working *frantically* hard to sustain a business model that's always been fraught with problems (bookstore returns are a huge drain on the industry), because it's at least been a fairly stable model. It's now become unstable, and they're trying to prop it up instead of looking at other options--because all the other options are new & untested, and it's certain that some of them will fail horribly. And they don't even know how to evaluate them; for the last century, publishers' customers have been distributors, not bookstores, not readers; they have no idea how to take online individual-reader data and turn that into a sales model.
I have sympathies for them, and for the authors who are stuck with them. The sympathies don't extend as far as handing them money for something I don't want, though; DRM'd ebooks are not going to save them.
----
Normally, I write as a reader, as someone who loves books & wants every day to contain an hour or two of leisure reading. I want access to MOAR BOOX, and I can barely tolerate paper anymore; I read constantly on my Sony PRS-505. And since most of my paper reading was books that never got royalties to the authors, I didn't consider it a problem that much of my digital reading never got royalties to the authors.
I bought a lot of used books, and got a lot of loans from friends, and went to a lot of $5/bag-o-books rummage sales. The ebook equivalent is... promotional freebies, and unauthorized downloads. And I was absolutely baffled that so many authors and publishers *scream* about how *evil* these things are--not about whether or not they're losing sales (they yell about that too, but most grudgingly acknowledge that no, not all those downloads are lost sales), but like it's immoral to read without paying royalties. Like the majority of reading I did in my childhood was some kind of depraved idea-theft, because I spent money at yard sales and used bookstores, and friends & I shared books.
Mentioning this directly to most modern authors, esp. ebook authors, hits a blank wall of confusion. I think that, before the last few years of ebook publishing, I'd never heard an author say, "if you can't or won't pay full price for my books, don't read them."
I had several jaw-dropping moments of, "did you really just tell people who like your writing to go away & read something else?" I don't know if they're under the impression that paying fans spring up spontaneously, with no history of reading anything they didn't pay for. Or that there are so *few* books these days, so *little* digital content available, that when they do have spare money, that author's name will be the one that snaps into their heads.
I don't get it. This was part of a set of several posts I've made trying to work through that idea. This one was aimed at authors and publishers, trying to remind them that it's a lot easier to get fans to buy stuff, than to convince random people-who-buy-stuff to become fans.