Am I to believe I was immoral, all those years when I shopped in the remainder bin at the bookstore? When I bought half-cover-price books at the used bookstore? When I bought the $5 bag-o-books at the White Elephant sale? In those cases, I got cheap books to read, and the author got no royalties.
The pro authors are starting to sound remarkably like the big music companies about used CD stores. GUYS, THAT IS NOT WHO YOU WANT TO SOUND LIKE. And yeah, it's absolutely true that writers don't get paid for every reader, or every copy. Hell, in the Victorian age when the novel exploded, a big reason for that was lending libraries. Even before the box chains stopped stocking midlist books and indie bookstores were dying off, I found about a lot of authors from used bookstores, thrift stores and libraries.
Oh, they say, but those wear out. They don't last. Not like ebooks; you can't re-read them hundreds of times and make a zillion instant copies without damaging the original.
....WHAT? FFS, I have really cheap paperbacks that were published in the sixties that I bought for a buck ten years ago that I can still read. I have hardcovers published in the 1920s (not fancy first editions or anything, just regular old books) that are still in fine if not pristine shape. No, you can't make a zillion copies of a paper book, but I'm wagering paper books will last a lot longer than ebooks because for one thing you don't have to worry about formats and ereaders. (Just silverfish and water damage.)
Those low-priced paperbacks have been available on Amazon for a long time. They made Amazon
....I don't think Amazon started selling used books until at least 2000. I could be wrong. I know a lot of authors hated logging in to check on how their just-published book was doing and seeing the ARC offered for half the price, but I don't see them complaining about Powells.com, which has been selling used books for FOREVER. Hell, Powells even has ebooks now.
I actually buy more ebooks than I might because I feel so guilty pirating books, but at $10 a pop average, I'm not going to buy a lot of stuff I might, either. I really truly don't buy the "it takes just as much time/money to put out an ebook as it does a paper copy" song, especially when so few books I see nowadays even from Big Six publishers appear to have been proofread at all. And that's hard copies -- I think nearly every ebook I've ever bought, especially for the Kindle, has had at least several glaring formatting errors. If it costs exactly the same, why are the ebooks in shittier shape?
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The pro authors are starting to sound remarkably like the big music companies about used CD stores. GUYS, THAT IS NOT WHO YOU WANT TO SOUND LIKE. And yeah, it's absolutely true that writers don't get paid for every reader, or every copy. Hell, in the Victorian age when the novel exploded, a big reason for that was lending libraries. Even before the box chains stopped stocking midlist books and indie bookstores were dying off, I found about a lot of authors from used bookstores, thrift stores and libraries.
Oh, they say, but those wear out. They don't last. Not like ebooks; you can't re-read them hundreds of times and make a zillion instant copies without damaging the original.
....WHAT? FFS, I have really cheap paperbacks that were published in the sixties that I bought for a buck ten years ago that I can still read. I have hardcovers published in the 1920s (not fancy first editions or anything, just regular old books) that are still in fine if not pristine shape. No, you can't make a zillion copies of a paper book, but I'm wagering paper books will last a lot longer than ebooks because for one thing you don't have to worry about formats and ereaders. (Just silverfish and water damage.)
Those low-priced paperbacks have been available on Amazon for a long time. They made Amazon
....I don't think Amazon started selling used books until at least 2000. I could be wrong. I know a lot of authors hated logging in to check on how their just-published book was doing and seeing the ARC offered for half the price, but I don't see them complaining about Powells.com, which has been selling used books for FOREVER. Hell, Powells even has ebooks now.
I actually buy more ebooks than I might because I feel so guilty pirating books, but at $10 a pop average, I'm not going to buy a lot of stuff I might, either. I really truly don't buy the "it takes just as much time/money to put out an ebook as it does a paper copy" song, especially when so few books I see nowadays even from Big Six publishers appear to have been proofread at all. And that's hard copies -- I think nearly every ebook I've ever bought, especially for the Kindle, has had at least several glaring formatting errors. If it costs exactly the same, why are the ebooks in shittier shape?