No One Buys Books
April 22, 2024 8:10 PM Subscribe
Elle Griffin's report on the testimony from the Justice Department's 2021 antitrust lawsuit to block the merger of Penguin Random House with Simon and Schuster reveals a disheartening truth: practically nobody buys books.
Q. Do you know approximately how many authors there are across the industry with 500,000 units or more during this four-year period?The publishing industry is supported, it turns out, primarily by outlier smash hits, the Dan Browns of the world, and by the continued sale of reliable titles on the backlist, like the Lord of the Rings. Advances to new authors function almost like venture capital, resulting in a loss for the large majority, based on the hope that a small minority will become runaway best sellers, subsidizing the rest.
A. My understanding is that it was about 50.
Q. 50 authors across the publishing industry who during this four-year period sold more than 500,000 units in a single year?
A. Yes.
— Madeline Mcintosh, CEO, Penguin Random House US
"85 percent of the books with advances of $250,000 and up never earn out their advance"
Maybe the publishing model needs revision?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:38 PM on April 22 [15 favorites]
Maybe the publishing model needs revision?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:38 PM on April 22 [15 favorites]
I was shocked hearing about this on the NY Times Books Podcast during the antitrust suit. But then I was not shocked. Most people I know have very few books and read maybe 1 or fewer books a year. I do home visits for my job and people don't seem to own books. Reading books is pretty time consuming and there are so many other easier entertainment and distraction activities.
It seems like the business model IS changing: on one hand ever shrinking number of ever larger conglomerates bank on a tiny number of massive blockbuster, and on the other extreme self publishing and on-demand are a big industry now. Like everything in late stage capitalism, middle-man rentiers like Amazon leech off the industry and have successfully monopolized the ebook and audiobook distribution market. Ugh what a trash can most of this is.
posted by latkes at 9:14 PM on April 22 [5 favorites]
It seems like the business model IS changing: on one hand ever shrinking number of ever larger conglomerates bank on a tiny number of massive blockbuster, and on the other extreme self publishing and on-demand are a big industry now. Like everything in late stage capitalism, middle-man rentiers like Amazon leech off the industry and have successfully monopolized the ebook and audiobook distribution market. Ugh what a trash can most of this is.
posted by latkes at 9:14 PM on April 22 [5 favorites]
I hate doing the "is any of this new?" schtick, but is any of this new? Readers seem to like leaning into narratives where we remind ourselves how special we are; we can all be the elite readers who devour a couple hundred books a year but articles like this still let people who count reading as a virtue feel special.
A lot of the article is on distribution. There are a lot of books published; 10% of books seem to sell more than 300k copies (which seems a much higher proportion than I'd guess? Maybe the stat is just for Penguin?) 35% of books are profitable. A tiny fraction sell like gangbusters. This leads to publishers treating authors like lottery tickets, you lose money on most of them in the dream of hitting it really big. It's a pretty common business model across many industries these days. In and of itself there's nothing alarming about this. Especially not the failure of the celebrity book: I have nothing against Billie Eilish, but I'm also not upset that her primary medium turns out to be Instagram and music and not the printed word.
Annual sales of print books are, per google, pushing close to a billion books a year. It's a couple books per person, not a ton, but it's a stat that seems like it should be included in the list.
"85 percent of the books with advances of $250,000 and up never earn out their advance"
Maybe the publishing model needs revision?
By paying authors less?
Note that not "earning out the advance" doesn't mean the publisher lost money. It just means the money you paid up front was enough that you've pre-paid all royalties. The book didn't blast through expectations but you still might have made a bit of a profit.
posted by mark k at 9:53 PM on April 22 [33 favorites]
A lot of the article is on distribution. There are a lot of books published; 10% of books seem to sell more than 300k copies (which seems a much higher proportion than I'd guess? Maybe the stat is just for Penguin?) 35% of books are profitable. A tiny fraction sell like gangbusters. This leads to publishers treating authors like lottery tickets, you lose money on most of them in the dream of hitting it really big. It's a pretty common business model across many industries these days. In and of itself there's nothing alarming about this. Especially not the failure of the celebrity book: I have nothing against Billie Eilish, but I'm also not upset that her primary medium turns out to be Instagram and music and not the printed word.
Annual sales of print books are, per google, pushing close to a billion books a year. It's a couple books per person, not a ton, but it's a stat that seems like it should be included in the list.
"85 percent of the books with advances of $250,000 and up never earn out their advance"
Maybe the publishing model needs revision?
By paying authors less?
Note that not "earning out the advance" doesn't mean the publisher lost money. It just means the money you paid up front was enough that you've pre-paid all royalties. The book didn't blast through expectations but you still might have made a bit of a profit.
posted by mark k at 9:53 PM on April 22 [33 favorites]
Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want? Just like you get all the movies you want from Netflix? Or all the music you want from Spotify?
I'm sitting here trying to figure out what that $9.99 a month would get me that my library card doesn't. (Faster access to new titles, I suppose. Is that a decisive factor for a lot of people?)
posted by aws17576 at 10:31 PM on April 22 [40 favorites]
I'm sitting here trying to figure out what that $9.99 a month would get me that my library card doesn't. (Faster access to new titles, I suppose. Is that a decisive factor for a lot of people?)
posted by aws17576 at 10:31 PM on April 22 [40 favorites]
For the movie industry, accounting tricks are used to change the revenue structure of movies, so that films that (for example) break even are considered failures, and so on, so as to justify not paying crews, writers, actors, etc. their fair share. I would ask if the testimony from publishing houses about their revenue is reliable, in that context.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:36 PM on April 22 [15 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:36 PM on April 22 [15 favorites]
Maybe the publishing model needs revision?
By paying authors less?
Some of it might be the Supreme Court ruling about the tax consequences of back inventory.
So previously, publishers could write down their back inventory that they didn't expect to sell well, and they could keep it around, and eventually it would sell - and they could price it down when they did. So you could buy relatively inexpensive paperbacks, and there was a huge market of second hand paperbacks. I remember when I was a kid, paperbacks costing around 3- 4$ new and being able to buy used paperbacks for basically quarters. But after Thor, publishers started destroying back inventory because it was the only way to take the tax loss. Now, new books cost around 10$ at a minimum - and usually more. Inflation calculator says they should cost 5.29$- 7.06$. I just looked online and am seeing prices of around 20$ for some of the new paperbacks. I imagine some of that is because they have to get all their sales within the first brief period and pulp the rest.
I've always been a voracious reader. I used to pay sticker price, and always buy books new if I could. I'll be honest - I have shifted to reading via e-reader, and downloading most of my books unless I already know and love the author. I would come back. I would love to come back. But I can't at current prices.
posted by corb at 10:44 PM on April 22 [31 favorites]
By paying authors less?
Some of it might be the Supreme Court ruling about the tax consequences of back inventory.
So previously, publishers could write down their back inventory that they didn't expect to sell well, and they could keep it around, and eventually it would sell - and they could price it down when they did. So you could buy relatively inexpensive paperbacks, and there was a huge market of second hand paperbacks. I remember when I was a kid, paperbacks costing around 3- 4$ new and being able to buy used paperbacks for basically quarters. But after Thor, publishers started destroying back inventory because it was the only way to take the tax loss. Now, new books cost around 10$ at a minimum - and usually more. Inflation calculator says they should cost 5.29$- 7.06$. I just looked online and am seeing prices of around 20$ for some of the new paperbacks. I imagine some of that is because they have to get all their sales within the first brief period and pulp the rest.
I've always been a voracious reader. I used to pay sticker price, and always buy books new if I could. I'll be honest - I have shifted to reading via e-reader, and downloading most of my books unless I already know and love the author. I would come back. I would love to come back. But I can't at current prices.
posted by corb at 10:44 PM on April 22 [31 favorites]
With these discussions, it's important to seperate out what's in the interest of publishers, agents, book shops, and writers.
Many people tend to lump them all together as if something that benefits, say, book shops automatically benefits writers.
For a very long time now publishers, agents, and to a lesser extent, bookshops, have worked by the model that the only thing worth chasing is the massive best seller.
When looking at how people read, it's helpful to seperate out the majority of people who read possibly one book a year, from the voracious readers who are motivated by passion for books and base their identity on reading.
The majority of people choose to read is what everyone else is reading, books that have visibility on mass media, have captured the popular consciousness.
The voracious reader reads writers they love, or subjects they are passionate about.
Big publishers ignore the voracious readers, and focus *only*on the "one book a year" crowd because if you can get millions of people to buy that one book, that means massive profits.
That makes sense if all you care about is making a profit.
It doesn't make sense if you care about writing, and books.
Publishers trot out the line about having the best sellers so that they can support the less profitable books, but in reality they have become even more risk averse, advances have shrunk, and contracts have become even more restrictive and invasive of writers' IP.
I don't know what the answer is.
I'm not worried about people reading less, because I don't believe people are reading less. They're not buying books. Different thing.
posted by Zumbador at 11:21 PM on April 22 [15 favorites]
Many people tend to lump them all together as if something that benefits, say, book shops automatically benefits writers.
For a very long time now publishers, agents, and to a lesser extent, bookshops, have worked by the model that the only thing worth chasing is the massive best seller.
When looking at how people read, it's helpful to seperate out the majority of people who read possibly one book a year, from the voracious readers who are motivated by passion for books and base their identity on reading.
The majority of people choose to read is what everyone else is reading, books that have visibility on mass media, have captured the popular consciousness.
The voracious reader reads writers they love, or subjects they are passionate about.
Big publishers ignore the voracious readers, and focus *only*on the "one book a year" crowd because if you can get millions of people to buy that one book, that means massive profits.
That makes sense if all you care about is making a profit.
It doesn't make sense if you care about writing, and books.
Publishers trot out the line about having the best sellers so that they can support the less profitable books, but in reality they have become even more risk averse, advances have shrunk, and contracts have become even more restrictive and invasive of writers' IP.
I don't know what the answer is.
I'm not worried about people reading less, because I don't believe people are reading less. They're not buying books. Different thing.
posted by Zumbador at 11:21 PM on April 22 [15 favorites]
I don't need to buy books myself when libraries can do it for me
posted by one for the books at 12:30 AM on April 23 [8 favorites]
posted by one for the books at 12:30 AM on April 23 [8 favorites]
Large portions of this article were debunked, a year ago, by Lincoln Michel.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:33 AM on April 23 [37 favorites]
posted by Happy Dave at 12:33 AM on April 23 [37 favorites]
Also presenting direct quotes from CEOs trying to avoid the scrutiny of anti-monopoly legislation by claiming 'wow yeah we hardly make any money of course this merger is legit and in everyone's interests' as evidence that nobody buys books is... an interesting conclusion.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:35 AM on April 23 [9 favorites]
posted by Happy Dave at 12:35 AM on April 23 [9 favorites]
they have to get all their sales within the first brief period and pulp the rest.
So is remaindering not a thing in the US? I was wondering if this was a new development, but that SC case was 1979, and I'm sure I've bought remainders in the States during visits over the years.
posted by rory at 12:49 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
So is remaindering not a thing in the US? I was wondering if this was a new development, but that SC case was 1979, and I'm sure I've bought remainders in the States during visits over the years.
posted by rory at 12:49 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
> Large portions of this article were debunked, a year ago, by Lincoln Michel.
Not really debunked. Michel notes that the claims are underspecified, so we don't really know what's the sample universe, which is true. Most of the claims in the OP article were made in a trial, so I would expect selective and massaged claims but not outright lying.
The Michel post does include a comment by an analyst at Bookscan which has concrete data. An excerpt:
Not really debunked. Michel notes that the claims are underspecified, so we don't really know what's the sample universe, which is true. Most of the claims in the OP article were made in a trial, so I would expect selective and massaged claims but not outright lying.
The Michel post does include a comment by an analyst at Bookscan which has concrete data. An excerpt:
Lots of press outlets have been calling about it today, so I did a little digging to see if I could reverse-engineer the citation, and am happy to share our numbers here for clarity.posted by daksya at 1:20 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
Because this is clearly a slice, and most likely provided by one of the parties to the suit, I decided to limit my data to the frontlist sales for the top 10 publishers by unit volume in the U.S. Trade market. My ISBN list is a little smaller than the one quoted in the DOJ, but the principals will be the same.
The data below includes frontlist titles from Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Scholastic, Disney, Macmillan, Abrams, Sourcebooks, and John Wiley. The figures below only include books published by these publishers themselves, not pubishers they distribute.
Here is what I found. Collectively, 45,571 unique ISBNs appear for these publishers in our frontlist sales data for the last 52 weeks (thru week ending 8-24-2022).
In this dataset:
>>>0.4% or 163 books sold 100,000 copies or more
>>>0.7% or 320 books sold between 50,000-99,999 copies
>>>2.2% or 1,015 books sold between 20,000-49,999 copies
>>>3.4% or 1,572 books sold between 10,000-19,999 copies
>>>5.5% or 2,518 books sold between 5,000-9,999 copies
>>>21.6% or 9,863 books sold between 1,000-4,999 copies
>>>51.4% or 23,419 sold between 12-999 copies
>>>14.7% or 6,701 books sold under 12 copies
So, only about 15% of all of those publisher-produced frontlist books sold less than 12 copies. That's not nothing, but nowhere as janky as what has been reported.
[...]
BUT, it does represent the general reality of the ECONOMICS of the publishing market. In general, most of the revenue that keeps publishers in business comes from the very narrow band of publishing successes in the top 8-10% of new books, along with the 70% of overall sales that come from BACKLIST books in the current market.
I'm not sure why we should be depressed that few titles sell more than half a million books a year. That's a lot of books.
The numbers from Kristen McLean, quoted above, are very interesting, but as she points out, a) it's just US figures; b) it's just frontlist books, i.e. those published in the last year; c) it's just major publishers; d) it's just print books; e) it doesn't include direct sales from publishers or authors.
I've sold about 50,000 books, over 12 years. It's not quite enough to live on, but it's close. New authors shouldn't get starry-eyed over possible sales, but traditional bestseller-based publishing isn't the only game in town.
posted by zompist at 1:54 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
The numbers from Kristen McLean, quoted above, are very interesting, but as she points out, a) it's just US figures; b) it's just frontlist books, i.e. those published in the last year; c) it's just major publishers; d) it's just print books; e) it doesn't include direct sales from publishers or authors.
I've sold about 50,000 books, over 12 years. It's not quite enough to live on, but it's close. New authors shouldn't get starry-eyed over possible sales, but traditional bestseller-based publishing isn't the only game in town.
posted by zompist at 1:54 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
Note that not "earning out the advance" doesn't mean the publisher lost money. It just means the money you paid up front was enough that you've pre-paid all royalties. The book didn't blast through expectations but you still might have made a bit of a profit.
Absolutely this.
For a writer with a $250,000 advance, $25 book, and 15% royalty, they'd need to sell 66,666 copies of their book to earn out their advance, or $1,666,666 in sales.
Those are good terms for the writer, befitting someone who can get a $250,000 advance. Some contracts are less favorable: my first book, with a small, niche publisher, was a $500 advance, 7% on physical book sales after the first 1000 copies were sold, and 10% on all ebook sales. My physical book list price is $24. So if we were only looking at physical sales, my publisher had to sell 1297 copies for me to earn out my $500 royalty; at that point, they had done $31,128 in sales, and I'd still only received $500.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:09 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
Absolutely this.
For a writer with a $250,000 advance, $25 book, and 15% royalty, they'd need to sell 66,666 copies of their book to earn out their advance, or $1,666,666 in sales.
Those are good terms for the writer, befitting someone who can get a $250,000 advance. Some contracts are less favorable: my first book, with a small, niche publisher, was a $500 advance, 7% on physical book sales after the first 1000 copies were sold, and 10% on all ebook sales. My physical book list price is $24. So if we were only looking at physical sales, my publisher had to sell 1297 copies for me to earn out my $500 royalty; at that point, they had done $31,128 in sales, and I'd still only received $500.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:09 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
Fine, but sales aren't profits. That $31,128 also has to cover the cost of editing, designing, printing and distributing your book and well as a margin for everyone who sells it at retail.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:27 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 4:27 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
Yes - that's the reason book contracts are set up like they are.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:30 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:30 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
I am going to take this opportunity to express a minor pet peeve of mine, the thoughtless hyperbole that is saying "no one" does, or is, something, when the fact is that relatively few people do/are it. In this case "no one" obscures the fact that millions of books are sold, just not by many authors.
It is true that it's rhetorically appropriate, and by saying this I don't mean anything against dis_integration. It just bothers me, in a craw-sticking kind of way. I've seen personal preferences of mine dismissed as belonging to no one too many times. I expect there are people out there saying that no one reads Metafilter any more.
posted by JHarris at 5:29 AM on April 23 [16 favorites]
It is true that it's rhetorically appropriate, and by saying this I don't mean anything against dis_integration. It just bothers me, in a craw-sticking kind of way. I've seen personal preferences of mine dismissed as belonging to no one too many times. I expect there are people out there saying that no one reads Metafilter any more.
posted by JHarris at 5:29 AM on April 23 [16 favorites]
I had about 1500 books in my house, mostly SF from ~1960-1985. Probably 90% of it was out of print. Then due to my landlord's criminal negligence, my house burned down and took all the books with it. I had taken photographs of the proof of negligence, so my wife and I ended up making a tremendous profit* on the whole thing.
We ended up moving into the high-rise part of town and live in a much smaller place, and I've not bought more than half a dozen books since. I just don't see the point of physical books, frankly. I mean, they should all be archived somewhere safe for when the internet finally collapses under the weight of corporate interference, but the prices for physical books are ghastly, and I haven't the space for them.
Digital books by authors who don't suck are stuuupidly expensive: why on earth would I pay $15 for a Kindle edition of a book? Especially when like fifty cents tops of that goes to the author. I just go straight to piracy if I can't find it on my library's system. And before anyone jumps in and tells me I should pay for books, like I was told last week here that I should pay Bezos or the NYT for news, the answer is sure, I would pay $3 or so to read a relatively unknown author's book if it came well-reviewed, and maybe $5 for a more established author's work. But only on the condition that ~80% of that went into the author's pocket. I pirate because the author's barely getting paid, anyway—and yes, if I were a Good Person I'd carefully Venmo every author I liked a couple of bucks, but I'm True Neutral and haven't the time or energy.
There was a brief time when self-publishing on Amazon was sort of a workable model, but that quickly ceased. Now, it's either Kindle prices or basically free but utterly shitty, and there's so much AI crap on there now that it's worthless to even look. The whole system sucks, is my point.
* Financially, that is. Emotionally, it was a wrecking ball. My daughter's cat died, I was nearly killed trying to rescue it, and four years later I'm still real nervous when I smell a campfire.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:42 AM on April 23 [13 favorites]
We ended up moving into the high-rise part of town and live in a much smaller place, and I've not bought more than half a dozen books since. I just don't see the point of physical books, frankly. I mean, they should all be archived somewhere safe for when the internet finally collapses under the weight of corporate interference, but the prices for physical books are ghastly, and I haven't the space for them.
Digital books by authors who don't suck are stuuupidly expensive: why on earth would I pay $15 for a Kindle edition of a book? Especially when like fifty cents tops of that goes to the author. I just go straight to piracy if I can't find it on my library's system. And before anyone jumps in and tells me I should pay for books, like I was told last week here that I should pay Bezos or the NYT for news, the answer is sure, I would pay $3 or so to read a relatively unknown author's book if it came well-reviewed, and maybe $5 for a more established author's work. But only on the condition that ~80% of that went into the author's pocket. I pirate because the author's barely getting paid, anyway—and yes, if I were a Good Person I'd carefully Venmo every author I liked a couple of bucks, but I'm True Neutral and haven't the time or energy.
There was a brief time when self-publishing on Amazon was sort of a workable model, but that quickly ceased. Now, it's either Kindle prices or basically free but utterly shitty, and there's so much AI crap on there now that it's worthless to even look. The whole system sucks, is my point.
* Financially, that is. Emotionally, it was a wrecking ball. My daughter's cat died, I was nearly killed trying to rescue it, and four years later I'm still real nervous when I smell a campfire.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:42 AM on April 23 [13 favorites]
I worked in book publishing 25 years ago and this was the conventional wisdom inside the industry even then. It's why small publishing houses have disappeared except in niche areas. When everyone is chasing a limited number of blockbusters, consolidation is the only way to stay profitable. And it's not just true for novels, but for self-help books, health, celebrity bios, everything. You're lucky if you can get the backlist to cover your overhead. You can't risk letting a book grow organically, you have to commit to an enormous print run to get it out in full force and it's more likely it will die than thrive. It's a business that makes no sense, but no one has figured out how to do it better.
posted by rikschell at 5:50 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 5:50 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
"no one" obscures the fact that millions of books are sold
"No one goes there any more - it's always so crowded."
posted by Paul Slade at 6:02 AM on April 23 [10 favorites]
"No one goes there any more - it's always so crowded."
posted by Paul Slade at 6:02 AM on April 23 [10 favorites]
> “… why on earth would I pay $15 for a Kindle edition of a book? Especially when like fifty cents tops of that goes to the author.”
Speaking as an author: 1) it’s more than 50 cents, and 2) I need that money. Please stop pirating.
posted by kyrademon at 6:12 AM on April 23 [33 favorites]
Speaking as an author: 1) it’s more than 50 cents, and 2) I need that money. Please stop pirating.
posted by kyrademon at 6:12 AM on April 23 [33 favorites]
Please stop pirating.
Um, no. Set up a way where I pay a much smaller amount, and nearly all of that goes directly to you, and we'll talk.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:15 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
Um, no. Set up a way where I pay a much smaller amount, and nearly all of that goes directly to you, and we'll talk.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:15 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
Secondhand books were a good solution to some of the problems mentioned here: kept bookshops in business, allowed people to discover new authors for less money… it’s not a solution but it’s part of an ecosystem. Modern capitalism however, doesn’t believe in ecosystems, and would rather destroy the environment completely so that for a beautiful moment in time they can create a lot of value for shareholders
posted by The River Ivel at 6:31 AM on April 23 [6 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 6:31 AM on April 23 [6 favorites]
85 percent of the books with advances of $250,000 and up never earn out their advance
My point was that large advances do not benefit the author. It's basically a betting scheme for the publishers. They're looking for the cash cow and they're willing to make a bet. If the publishers just paid out royalties, that "lost" money on bad bets would be available to the author possibly as higher royalties. (What, i can dream.)
I've written a couple books, but because they were trade (technical) there were no huge advances, and over a few years, i earned about 30k (1980s dollars) from each. I was happy. If I'd been given a large chunk of money up front, it might have felt a lot more stressful.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:46 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
My point was that large advances do not benefit the author. It's basically a betting scheme for the publishers. They're looking for the cash cow and they're willing to make a bet. If the publishers just paid out royalties, that "lost" money on bad bets would be available to the author possibly as higher royalties. (What, i can dream.)
I've written a couple books, but because they were trade (technical) there were no huge advances, and over a few years, i earned about 30k (1980s dollars) from each. I was happy. If I'd been given a large chunk of money up front, it might have felt a lot more stressful.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:46 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
MetaFilter: no one reads Metafilter any more.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:50 AM on April 23 [10 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:50 AM on April 23 [10 favorites]
You can't risk letting a book grow organically, you have to commit to an enormous print run to get it out in full force.
E-books must have changed that equation to some degree. Personally, except for publishers like Taschen, i never buy physical books any more. I have an entire wall that proves I lived before the 1990s, and I do sometimes hit up used bookstores, but digital is so much more convenient.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:52 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
E-books must have changed that equation to some degree. Personally, except for publishers like Taschen, i never buy physical books any more. I have an entire wall that proves I lived before the 1990s, and I do sometimes hit up used bookstores, but digital is so much more convenient.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:52 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
Um, no. Set up a way where I pay a much smaller amount, and nearly all of that goes directly to you, and we'll talk.
The author has no control over this. If you're going to pirate, you might consider sending the author a dollar or euro bill, same as you would for a busker. Upvotes on Goodreads are nice, but cannot be exchanged for goods and services.
I don't need to buy books myself when libraries can do it for me
Two cheers for libraries, without which I would be flummoxed. But only two cheers, in Amierca at least, since America has yet to follow the UK and others with a Public Lending Right (PLR) arrangement, by which authors get a residual for each time a book of theirs is checked out. Not a lot, granted (frequently capped at mid four figures), but at least it's a tangible and communal nod to the creators. Write your representatives!
digital is so much more convenient.
True enough, but on the other hand....
MetaFilter: no one reads Metafilter any more.
No surprise there. It's too crowded.
posted by BWA at 6:57 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
The author has no control over this. If you're going to pirate, you might consider sending the author a dollar or euro bill, same as you would for a busker. Upvotes on Goodreads are nice, but cannot be exchanged for goods and services.
I don't need to buy books myself when libraries can do it for me
Two cheers for libraries, without which I would be flummoxed. But only two cheers, in Amierca at least, since America has yet to follow the UK and others with a Public Lending Right (PLR) arrangement, by which authors get a residual for each time a book of theirs is checked out. Not a lot, granted (frequently capped at mid four figures), but at least it's a tangible and communal nod to the creators. Write your representatives!
digital is so much more convenient.
True enough, but on the other hand....
MetaFilter: no one reads Metafilter any more.
No surprise there. It's too crowded.
posted by BWA at 6:57 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
“…and nearly all of that goes directly to you”
If the money went directly to me, I would have to spend most of it on editing, design, art, printing, marketing, distribution, and the other things I effectively pay a publisher to do. Don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor.
posted by kyrademon at 7:00 AM on April 23 [32 favorites]
If the money went directly to me, I would have to spend most of it on editing, design, art, printing, marketing, distribution, and the other things I effectively pay a publisher to do. Don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor.
posted by kyrademon at 7:00 AM on April 23 [32 favorites]
Secondhand books were a good solution to some of the problems mentioned here
eBay, Abebooks and Amazon (yeah, I know the latter two are Bezos, but loads of secondhand shops do business with them) are also obviously loaded with often reasonably priced used books if you know what you’re looking for. I probably fall into the voracious category and still browse in used shops, but eBay is where I’ve been buying most of my books in recent years.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:03 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
eBay, Abebooks and Amazon (yeah, I know the latter two are Bezos, but loads of secondhand shops do business with them) are also obviously loaded with often reasonably priced used books if you know what you’re looking for. I probably fall into the voracious category and still browse in used shops, but eBay is where I’ve been buying most of my books in recent years.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:03 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
The author has no control over this. If you're going to pirate, you might consider sending the author a dollar or euro bill, same as you would for a busker. Upvotes on Goodreads are nice, but cannot be exchanged for goods and services.
Bold of you to assume I would give money to a busker or use Goodreads at all. My point is that the system is fundamentally broken, just like it is for streaming TV now: unless and until some kind of major change is made where authors/creators can get their work to readers/watchers for a fair price without the vampire squid of capitalism jamming its blood funnel into every step of the exchange, piracy is the only reasonable option.
I'm willing to pay small amounts so that the website for this hypothetical exchange can be maintained, and so that someone or some group is doing the work of filtering out the garbage and AI and promoting the books that are actually wonderful. But I'm not willing to pay 10x as much so that shareholders can increase value.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:10 AM on April 23
Bold of you to assume I would give money to a busker or use Goodreads at all. My point is that the system is fundamentally broken, just like it is for streaming TV now: unless and until some kind of major change is made where authors/creators can get their work to readers/watchers for a fair price without the vampire squid of capitalism jamming its blood funnel into every step of the exchange, piracy is the only reasonable option.
I'm willing to pay small amounts so that the website for this hypothetical exchange can be maintained, and so that someone or some group is doing the work of filtering out the garbage and AI and promoting the books that are actually wonderful. But I'm not willing to pay 10x as much so that shareholders can increase value.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:10 AM on April 23
One wierd trick is making a request of your local library to get a book in and often they will. Everyone gets paid, you get a book for free, and the library system increases its circulation numbers to justify its budget. Piracy as a last resort please.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:11 AM on April 23 [21 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:11 AM on April 23 [21 favorites]
Bold of you to assume I would give money to a busker or use Goodreads at all.
I assumed no such thing. (Well, okay, I did pay you the compliment of assuming that you paid buskers.) I merely suggested that you might consider it, since you don't like the system as it exists, and yet claim to want creators to get a fair price.
posted by BWA at 7:16 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
I assumed no such thing. (Well, okay, I did pay you the compliment of assuming that you paid buskers.) I merely suggested that you might consider it, since you don't like the system as it exists, and yet claim to want creators to get a fair price.
posted by BWA at 7:16 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
One wierd trick is making a request of your local library to get a book in and often they will.
This is true! Even the library system in my modest-sized city routinely punches above its weight with this service. The only time my requests have been denied is when the publisher was too small press and overseas so they couldn't procure the book in question.
I have been a voracious reader my entire life and having access to a really good library system has made all the difference to my reading and my bank account.
posted by Kitteh at 7:18 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
This is true! Even the library system in my modest-sized city routinely punches above its weight with this service. The only time my requests have been denied is when the publisher was too small press and overseas so they couldn't procure the book in question.
I have been a voracious reader my entire life and having access to a really good library system has made all the difference to my reading and my bank account.
posted by Kitteh at 7:18 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
Apropos of nothing much, this year I've decided to buy more new books. This year my budget is also very tight and I'm hoping to move to smaller digs in another year or two, so that seems foolish at best, but I started to worry about availability down the road. Even used bookstores curate so heavily right now that it can be very difficult to find an older book if it wasn't extremely popular across multiple audiences.
NGL, I have been known to read pirate copies of things, but I'm really trying to buy paper copies of anything newish that I like well enough to finish. (I'm not someone who finishes all books on principle) and I'm buying some more things up front.
Amusingly, this is also happening as I conduct a massive purge of books - back in the high and palmy days of my twenties and early thirties, I had more truly disposable income and there were more great used bookstores, and I bought books like they were going out of style, so to speak, and thus have a lot of stuff that I bought on spec and don't really want to keep. There was a time when I thought I was really going to read Derrida, for instance, but that time has passed.
posted by Frowner at 7:23 AM on April 23 [5 favorites]
NGL, I have been known to read pirate copies of things, but I'm really trying to buy paper copies of anything newish that I like well enough to finish. (I'm not someone who finishes all books on principle) and I'm buying some more things up front.
Amusingly, this is also happening as I conduct a massive purge of books - back in the high and palmy days of my twenties and early thirties, I had more truly disposable income and there were more great used bookstores, and I bought books like they were going out of style, so to speak, and thus have a lot of stuff that I bought on spec and don't really want to keep. There was a time when I thought I was really going to read Derrida, for instance, but that time has passed.
posted by Frowner at 7:23 AM on April 23 [5 favorites]
I pirate because the author's barely getting paid, anyway—and yes, if I were a Good Person I'd carefully Venmo every author I liked a couple of bucks, but I'm True Neutral and haven't the time or energy.
No, you pirate because you think you have the right to dictate to creative laborers the terms by which you'll deem them worthy of actually recieving payment for the fruits of their labor which you're taking. Not to mention that you're happy to make arguments about their business to justify your actions that seem predicated on you having a better understanding of it than they do.
If you don't like the deal you're being offered - for any reason - you're welcome to walk away. But don't pretend that you're somehow striking a blow against The Man for creative laborers by taking their labor without recompense.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:02 AM on April 23 [23 favorites]
No, you pirate because you think you have the right to dictate to creative laborers the terms by which you'll deem them worthy of actually recieving payment for the fruits of their labor which you're taking. Not to mention that you're happy to make arguments about their business to justify your actions that seem predicated on you having a better understanding of it than they do.
If you don't like the deal you're being offered - for any reason - you're welcome to walk away. But don't pretend that you're somehow striking a blow against The Man for creative laborers by taking their labor without recompense.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:02 AM on April 23 [23 favorites]
How many of these "costs" that prevent the book from earning back its advance are real vs how many are created by accountants to ensure they never have to pay the authors another dime.
posted by interogative mood at 8:04 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
posted by interogative mood at 8:04 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
In this case "no one" obscures the fact that millions of books are sold, just not by many authors.
I did not want to "well actually" this author who has clearly done a lot of work but I wanted to point out (besides the obvious "THE LIBRARY FFS") that there are actually a lot of people selling a lot of books but what we're seeing is that there's less reliance on the Big Five (or is it three now) of publishing. A lot of best-seller lists include a huge number of self-published titles especially in genre fiction. This article is good, the title is stupid and designed to be like "HOW" and the answer is that the data is looking at a certain slice, a big slice but still a slice, of the overall publishing ecosystem.
Please consider keeping the piracy talk down to a minimum if you would, it's fighty and it never goes anywhere.
posted by jessamyn at 8:05 AM on April 23 [18 favorites]
I did not want to "well actually" this author who has clearly done a lot of work but I wanted to point out (besides the obvious "THE LIBRARY FFS") that there are actually a lot of people selling a lot of books but what we're seeing is that there's less reliance on the Big Five (or is it three now) of publishing. A lot of best-seller lists include a huge number of self-published titles especially in genre fiction. This article is good, the title is stupid and designed to be like "HOW" and the answer is that the data is looking at a certain slice, a big slice but still a slice, of the overall publishing ecosystem.
Please consider keeping the piracy talk down to a minimum if you would, it's fighty and it never goes anywhere.
posted by jessamyn at 8:05 AM on April 23 [18 favorites]
If you're going to pirate, you might consider sending the author a dollar or euro bill, same as you would for a busker. Upvotes on Goodreads are nice, but cannot be exchanged for goods and services.
I would in fact do this, but there doesn't really seem to be a mechanism for doing this. I just googled a few of my favorites. Most have a link to all social media sites and the Amazon page for their books, but no way to send cash. One (Michelle Sagara-West) has a link to a Patreon, which I do appreciate, but Patreon requires me to sign up for yet another website and doesn't offer me an opportunity to tip-at-will, instead requiring me to set up a monthly subscription. However, she's probably doing things the closest to what feels normal within those confines - offering people who have subscribed to the Patreon for at least 5 months a copy of the ebook when she's done, which is pretty direct-to-service.
For those who do write - is there a reason why more people don't do this? Do publishers require that authors not have alternate funding sources? Do authors feel it looks bad if they look like they're 'begging for money'?
posted by corb at 8:09 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
I would in fact do this, but there doesn't really seem to be a mechanism for doing this. I just googled a few of my favorites. Most have a link to all social media sites and the Amazon page for their books, but no way to send cash. One (Michelle Sagara-West) has a link to a Patreon, which I do appreciate, but Patreon requires me to sign up for yet another website and doesn't offer me an opportunity to tip-at-will, instead requiring me to set up a monthly subscription. However, she's probably doing things the closest to what feels normal within those confines - offering people who have subscribed to the Patreon for at least 5 months a copy of the ebook when she's done, which is pretty direct-to-service.
For those who do write - is there a reason why more people don't do this? Do publishers require that authors not have alternate funding sources? Do authors feel it looks bad if they look like they're 'begging for money'?
posted by corb at 8:09 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
the market cannot fund artistic production in any meaningful way — it is flatly terrible at it — and so the only option is to demarketize art.
> stop pirating
no. piracy, library systems and the public domain are the three-legged stool that makes mass access to knowledge possible. piracy is indispensable and facilitating piracy is an unalloyed moral good.
> But if piracy how do writers make a living?
the market only allows a vanishingly small number of people to make a meaningful living off of writing books.
if you want more people to write books and not starve, and if you want a broader range of people to write books, and if you want more books, and if you want better books than can be squeezed through the market system, then you're not looking for tighter controls on distributing copies of texts. you're looking for reduced work weeks and the reëstablishment of a robust welfare state.
the market can't do it. but the dole can.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:10 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
> stop pirating
no. piracy, library systems and the public domain are the three-legged stool that makes mass access to knowledge possible. piracy is indispensable and facilitating piracy is an unalloyed moral good.
> But if piracy how do writers make a living?
the market only allows a vanishingly small number of people to make a meaningful living off of writing books.
if you want more people to write books and not starve, and if you want a broader range of people to write books, and if you want more books, and if you want better books than can be squeezed through the market system, then you're not looking for tighter controls on distributing copies of texts. you're looking for reduced work weeks and the reëstablishment of a robust welfare state.
the market can't do it. but the dole can.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:10 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
also you should support ao3, because that's where writers come from
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:19 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:19 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
is there a reason why more people don't do this?
I think maybe because Patreon is a whole job unto itself, with the same sort of discoverability problems as everything else. Like, maybe you can get your readers to move over to Patreon to stabilize your income, but how will new readers find it? It feels like it works best for people who are already in that kind of online-marketing mindset, ordering swag, ready to dole out rewards and do a lot of interaction--but really badly for people who just wanted to put their heads down and write?
posted by mittens at 8:27 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
I think maybe because Patreon is a whole job unto itself, with the same sort of discoverability problems as everything else. Like, maybe you can get your readers to move over to Patreon to stabilize your income, but how will new readers find it? It feels like it works best for people who are already in that kind of online-marketing mindset, ordering swag, ready to dole out rewards and do a lot of interaction--but really badly for people who just wanted to put their heads down and write?
posted by mittens at 8:27 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
American Time Use Survey, table 11A: Average leisure reading time (not books, but all reading) is about 15 minutes. For those 25+ with an advanced degree, 28 minutes.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:29 AM on April 23
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:29 AM on April 23
Also: piracy is indispensable and facilitating piracy is an unalloyed moral good.
Harming writers because you can envision a better world, is not, in fact, a moral good.
posted by mittens at 8:30 AM on April 23 [5 favorites]
Harming writers because you can envision a better world, is not, in fact, a moral good.
posted by mittens at 8:30 AM on April 23 [5 favorites]
Agreeing with mittens. All these social media-based "support the creators" sites seem to only produce practical, useful revenue if you spend a lot of time interacting with followers, creating limited access content, doing Q&As and so on. It's a performance.
As an artist without the social interaction genes, I'd rather just deliver a portfolio of work to a broker every couple months and get a cheque in return. But that requires its own sort of magic.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:31 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
As an artist without the social interaction genes, I'd rather just deliver a portfolio of work to a broker every couple months and get a cheque in return. But that requires its own sort of magic.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:31 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
nah. democratized access to culture is how writers get made. writers don’t get made by the market paying writers, because the market doesn’t pay many writers and it pays even fewer of them enough to make writing worthwhile in terms of writers getting to live inside and not starve.
creating a better world where writers can make a living via market means is significantly harder than creating a better world where writers can write while living indoors and not starving. we can’t just pretend that the first type of better world in the previous sentence is already here.
in the meantime we have libraries, we have the public domain, we have gray-legal works by emerging artists on ao3, and we have — thank god! — the ability to steal culture via piracy.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:44 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
creating a better world where writers can make a living via market means is significantly harder than creating a better world where writers can write while living indoors and not starving. we can’t just pretend that the first type of better world in the previous sentence is already here.
in the meantime we have libraries, we have the public domain, we have gray-legal works by emerging artists on ao3, and we have — thank god! — the ability to steal culture via piracy.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:44 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
For those who do write - is there a reason why more people don't do this?
From what I've heard writers say, the reason seems to be that they already have a mechanism for you to compensate them - paying for their work.
It amazes me with the knots people will tie themselves into just to avoid acknowledging that creative labor is exactly that - labor - and what that actually means.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:46 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
From what I've heard writers say, the reason seems to be that they already have a mechanism for you to compensate them - paying for their work.
It amazes me with the knots people will tie themselves into just to avoid acknowledging that creative labor is exactly that - labor - and what that actually means.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:46 AM on April 23 [7 favorites]
"Um, no. Set up a way where I pay a much smaller amount, and nearly all of that goes directly to you, and we'll talk"
Holy shit! no malice in disrespect, but this is a brutally callous thing to say to an author. Kyrademon needs to change the entire publishing industry before he can get paid for his no doubt excellent work? And should everyone else in the economy have to make massive structural changes in their industry's model?
Damn, after saying the really sad results of your fire, to go with this..... Its very surprising....
posted by WatTylerJr at 8:49 AM on April 23 [8 favorites]
Holy shit! no malice in disrespect, but this is a brutally callous thing to say to an author. Kyrademon needs to change the entire publishing industry before he can get paid for his no doubt excellent work? And should everyone else in the economy have to make massive structural changes in their industry's model?
Damn, after saying the really sad results of your fire, to go with this..... Its very surprising....
posted by WatTylerJr at 8:49 AM on April 23 [8 favorites]
I'd love a stipend to create my work. As it is, my partner works full time and I create art full time. I realize I'm extraordinarily fortunate. Nevertheless, I post two pieces of new art every day. Thousands of people see my work daily. Less than 0.1% of them give me any money for it. Down from like 1% three years ago.
Everything has gotten really fucked lately for people on the edge of society, have you noticed. If you can afford to pay the people who make your brain meats happy, please to do so. Thank you kindly.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:04 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
Everything has gotten really fucked lately for people on the edge of society, have you noticed. If you can afford to pay the people who make your brain meats happy, please to do so. Thank you kindly.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:04 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
Everyone gets paid, you get a book for free, and the library system increases its circulation numbers to justify its budget.
And if you live in a country, like Canada, that has a public lending rights program, the author continues to get paid!
posted by eekernohan at 9:06 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
And if you live in a country, like Canada, that has a public lending rights program, the author continues to get paid!
posted by eekernohan at 9:06 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]
(perhaps this belongs in an Ask but...)
* My library recently seems to have gutted its selection of books. I had about 15 books on my wishlist, and now most of them are showing as "not available" (with 0 copies existing). The selection of new releases seems similarly limited. Is this just my library or is this a trend?
* For those of you recommending Libraries, is there one that actually has a deep selection that allows people to join from outside the geographic area? I'd be more than happy to pay. (I'm in California, USA).
* I want authors to get paid as much as possible. What's the best way to ensure this: buy physical book at full price? Ebook at full price? Ebook on discount?...
posted by soylent00FF00 at 9:12 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
* My library recently seems to have gutted its selection of books. I had about 15 books on my wishlist, and now most of them are showing as "not available" (with 0 copies existing). The selection of new releases seems similarly limited. Is this just my library or is this a trend?
* For those of you recommending Libraries, is there one that actually has a deep selection that allows people to join from outside the geographic area? I'd be more than happy to pay. (I'm in California, USA).
* I want authors to get paid as much as possible. What's the best way to ensure this: buy physical book at full price? Ebook at full price? Ebook on discount?...
posted by soylent00FF00 at 9:12 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
There's a vicious circle, or really a vicious ecosystem in place here - with the internet serving, just like platform services do, as a workaround to true costs and a way to conceal wage stagnation/inflation/rent robbery etc.
So first off, rent and greedflation reduce people's disposable income.
Second, our looter political environment means that there's less money for public services in every area.
Third, in a number of cities, the police and the city government are in cahoots, and taxes rise to fund cop raises and police brutality settlements while libraries get cut. That's what happened here in Minneapolis - my taxes went up quite a lot this year, and it's because we pay so much police overtime and have so many lawsuits to settle, but our library hours keep getting cut. We also use a lot more cops to bust up homeless encampments, see points 1 and 2.
As a result, even though a determined person can use the library, the library has less money for books and many fewer open hours so more people will be discouraged.
Piracy lets people get more for less, just like platform services let them get more services for less, because both are more exploitative.
Up to a point, obviously people are going to exploit unless prevented by law, but we have an economic ecosystem which pushes people to exploit.
Right now, it feels like every area of consumption is outlandishly bad and you can only Not Do the Bad by spending a lot of money and/or time. Don't want sweatshop clothes? Up to a point you can thrift, but whenever you need something new, it will cost ten million dollars and you will have to order it without trying it on. Want your food to be free of pesticides and harvested by people paid fairly? Again, you will pay ten million dollars. Don't want to take Lyfts? You'd better have a great bus system, a lot of time to bike or the money for your own car, and don't get me started on the carbon footprint. Want to take the train to see your family instead of flying? Better have a lot of vacation time, which you don't, also it will cost more. Don't want to use Amazon? Again, you'll pay more, it will take longer and you may not be able to access some genuinely useful things.
So anyway - most people will only be able to consume ethically some of the time, and they will probably have to prioritize one or two areas or else one or two sub-areas. Famously, no ethical consumption under capitalism, but often people still like to try, but with the looter economy we have now, people just don't have money for every area.
posted by Frowner at 9:35 AM on April 23 [9 favorites]
So first off, rent and greedflation reduce people's disposable income.
Second, our looter political environment means that there's less money for public services in every area.
Third, in a number of cities, the police and the city government are in cahoots, and taxes rise to fund cop raises and police brutality settlements while libraries get cut. That's what happened here in Minneapolis - my taxes went up quite a lot this year, and it's because we pay so much police overtime and have so many lawsuits to settle, but our library hours keep getting cut. We also use a lot more cops to bust up homeless encampments, see points 1 and 2.
As a result, even though a determined person can use the library, the library has less money for books and many fewer open hours so more people will be discouraged.
Piracy lets people get more for less, just like platform services let them get more services for less, because both are more exploitative.
Up to a point, obviously people are going to exploit unless prevented by law, but we have an economic ecosystem which pushes people to exploit.
Right now, it feels like every area of consumption is outlandishly bad and you can only Not Do the Bad by spending a lot of money and/or time. Don't want sweatshop clothes? Up to a point you can thrift, but whenever you need something new, it will cost ten million dollars and you will have to order it without trying it on. Want your food to be free of pesticides and harvested by people paid fairly? Again, you will pay ten million dollars. Don't want to take Lyfts? You'd better have a great bus system, a lot of time to bike or the money for your own car, and don't get me started on the carbon footprint. Want to take the train to see your family instead of flying? Better have a lot of vacation time, which you don't, also it will cost more. Don't want to use Amazon? Again, you'll pay more, it will take longer and you may not be able to access some genuinely useful things.
So anyway - most people will only be able to consume ethically some of the time, and they will probably have to prioritize one or two areas or else one or two sub-areas. Famously, no ethical consumption under capitalism, but often people still like to try, but with the looter economy we have now, people just don't have money for every area.
posted by Frowner at 9:35 AM on April 23 [9 favorites]
Soylent00FF00, you should ask your library. I can think of 2 things happening here--
1) You were in the holds queue when the license for an ebook ran out, and they can either buy a new license or not depending on how much they think someone wants that book (ebook library licensing is a MESS and it's the publishers' fault, in my opinion)
2) The budget drastically got cut for some reason and they're in the process of figuring out what to do.
Either way, you should ask.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:35 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
1) You were in the holds queue when the license for an ebook ran out, and they can either buy a new license or not depending on how much they think someone wants that book (ebook library licensing is a MESS and it's the publishers' fault, in my opinion)
2) The budget drastically got cut for some reason and they're in the process of figuring out what to do.
Either way, you should ask.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:35 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
Not speaking to reading in general, but I can tell you from my own experience that the niche hobbyist/DIY market has absolutely collapsed into a jibbering pile of youtube videos. Such a sinking pit of feeling when you realize that for all the copies of a book you're going to sell, you've effectively given each buyer an hour of your labor.
And yes, if you're going to pirate, own the fact that you're doing it because you want to be entertained for "free". Dressing it up in protest airs is akin to being the kid in art school who sniffs the air at people's popular tastes while secretly going home and scarfing down Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey. For all your internal discourse that you're sticking it to the man, it's hypocritical.
(also, I'd have to go dig into my contracts, but I'm fairly certain that publishers would throw a snit fit if an author opened an alternate revenue source for pirate readers - hence patreon with alternative production streams)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:36 AM on April 23 [8 favorites]
And yes, if you're going to pirate, own the fact that you're doing it because you want to be entertained for "free". Dressing it up in protest airs is akin to being the kid in art school who sniffs the air at people's popular tastes while secretly going home and scarfing down Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey. For all your internal discourse that you're sticking it to the man, it's hypocritical.
(also, I'd have to go dig into my contracts, but I'm fairly certain that publishers would throw a snit fit if an author opened an alternate revenue source for pirate readers - hence patreon with alternative production streams)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:36 AM on April 23 [8 favorites]
in conclusion, everyone should pirate everything all the time always
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:50 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:50 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
I'd love to buy books, but I have found that reading on my Kindle is soooo much better than reading dead tree format. I often use Libby to borrow from the library, but the wait times can be long. When that's the case, I go to amazon to buy a Kindle version of a book only find that the Kindle version is as much as the dead tree version. Make that Kindle version a "reasonable" price for digital content and I'll be happy to buy more (digital) books.
posted by milnak at 10:02 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
posted by milnak at 10:02 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
Something that ties into this is the decline of smaller bookstores (especially niche/genre venues) and the corresponding loss of booksellers with deep knowledge of their stock, where you can go in and say “I liked these authors’ work; what else is there?” and reasonably expect informed and helpful recommendations. If you dig around the internet, you can find reviews, but it’s more work and not the same.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:09 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:09 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]
I don't think that a 10% or 12% or 15% royalty means that I'm getting ripped off, as a writer. I think that a 10% or 12% or 15% royalty means that the rest of the money is going to pay people fairly for their work - editors, marketers, cover designers, bookstore employees, and all the rest. I want that ecosystem to continue to exist. The amount of that money that's just profit for the CEO of Penguin is such a small fraction that I don't even care about it. If I found a genie in a lamp and asked the genie to restructure all publishers as not-for-profit cooperatives, I imagine that writers would still get a 10% or 15% royalty just because of all the necessary work that needs to get done in order to make a book happen.
(That said: the CEOs of Penguin, MacMillan, etc, may not be making unfair amounts of profit, but Jeff Bezos definitely is; and also, if publishers didn't insist on paying Manhattan rents for their office space, there's probably some money that could be saved there.)
posted by Jeanne at 10:12 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
(That said: the CEOs of Penguin, MacMillan, etc, may not be making unfair amounts of profit, but Jeff Bezos definitely is; and also, if publishers didn't insist on paying Manhattan rents for their office space, there's probably some money that could be saved there.)
posted by Jeanne at 10:12 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
in conclusion, everyone should pirate everything all the time always
I dunno, that seems like it's building the cart before you have even the ghost of a dream of a night thought where you're going to get the horse.
I bought Worlds Beyond Time: Science Fiction Art of the Seventies for thirty five dollars plus shipping and honestly I'm glad that the author is getting some money out of it. That book is a great resource if you're interested in SF history.
I like buying books from Aqueduct Press, similarly, because I like to know that the people who work there and the people they publish are slightly more able to devote time and energy to their unique brand of SFF than they otherwise would be.
In theory, of course, if we all rapidly convert to piracy and have the revolution tomorrow, these folks could be writing for the people inside a couple of years, but in actual practice if they don't get any money they probably won't publish anything else in my lifetime.
Similarly, back when my old beloved radical bookstore collective existed, I can assure you that we only kept going because people bought books. We hosted events and did fundraisers but without the sales, we were sunk As sales declined and rents rose, we ended up closing. Not a perfect place, but it was a free hang-out spot, it was fun to browse, we hosted several local radical projects and I really bought some extremely cool books and zines there over the years.
We definitely did ask people not to shoplift and in general my impression was that the people who could pay did so.
I was also on the collective of an events space with a free library, from which people did steal all the time both on purpose and by just sort of not bringing things back because there was no sanction against that. This was fine when it was just random books, but we had some great special stuff there which it was nice to have circulating. And it was a LOT of work to sustain that place, even at probably the last low rent in the Twin Cities, because we had to do it all based on donations and fundraising events with no sales to prop us up.
There's nothing like either of those spaces right now - there are some cafes and bars that host radical events and are politically sympathetic, but there's no place free where there's a culture of dropping in and chatting. It's been eight years since the events space closed. I'm not young enough to meet people easily at demos or through connections to campus organizing, and my social world is a lot poorer for it. Further, I think the social world of MPLS is poorer too.
My point being that the books were good, actually.
posted by Frowner at 10:26 AM on April 23 [13 favorites]
I dunno, that seems like it's building the cart before you have even the ghost of a dream of a night thought where you're going to get the horse.
I bought Worlds Beyond Time: Science Fiction Art of the Seventies for thirty five dollars plus shipping and honestly I'm glad that the author is getting some money out of it. That book is a great resource if you're interested in SF history.
I like buying books from Aqueduct Press, similarly, because I like to know that the people who work there and the people they publish are slightly more able to devote time and energy to their unique brand of SFF than they otherwise would be.
In theory, of course, if we all rapidly convert to piracy and have the revolution tomorrow, these folks could be writing for the people inside a couple of years, but in actual practice if they don't get any money they probably won't publish anything else in my lifetime.
Similarly, back when my old beloved radical bookstore collective existed, I can assure you that we only kept going because people bought books. We hosted events and did fundraisers but without the sales, we were sunk As sales declined and rents rose, we ended up closing. Not a perfect place, but it was a free hang-out spot, it was fun to browse, we hosted several local radical projects and I really bought some extremely cool books and zines there over the years.
We definitely did ask people not to shoplift and in general my impression was that the people who could pay did so.
I was also on the collective of an events space with a free library, from which people did steal all the time both on purpose and by just sort of not bringing things back because there was no sanction against that. This was fine when it was just random books, but we had some great special stuff there which it was nice to have circulating. And it was a LOT of work to sustain that place, even at probably the last low rent in the Twin Cities, because we had to do it all based on donations and fundraising events with no sales to prop us up.
There's nothing like either of those spaces right now - there are some cafes and bars that host radical events and are politically sympathetic, but there's no place free where there's a culture of dropping in and chatting. It's been eight years since the events space closed. I'm not young enough to meet people easily at demos or through connections to campus organizing, and my social world is a lot poorer for it. Further, I think the social world of MPLS is poorer too.
My point being that the books were good, actually.
posted by Frowner at 10:26 AM on April 23 [13 favorites]
Mittens is exactly right about why more writers don't do patreon or equivalent.
Some writers have the skills, energy and passion to manage that process, but many don't. Many writers don't really fit into the patreon model, it's not well suited to books that aren't episodic, or don't have extras. You end up having to generate a whole other stream of content to justify patreon levels.
I'm also not sure how aware most people are that even writers with traditional contracts still have to do a massive amount of work promoting their books. If you're not a celebrity, or big name writer already, you're expected to hustle to get your books sold.
Very few people get to focus on just writing.
It's similar to the problem faced by musicians. You can't make money by selling tracks or albums, you're supposed to make up for that by live performance and selling swag. Which is just not possible for many musicians.
I
posted by Zumbador at 10:32 AM on April 23 [6 favorites]
Some writers have the skills, energy and passion to manage that process, but many don't. Many writers don't really fit into the patreon model, it's not well suited to books that aren't episodic, or don't have extras. You end up having to generate a whole other stream of content to justify patreon levels.
I'm also not sure how aware most people are that even writers with traditional contracts still have to do a massive amount of work promoting their books. If you're not a celebrity, or big name writer already, you're expected to hustle to get your books sold.
Very few people get to focus on just writing.
It's similar to the problem faced by musicians. You can't make money by selling tracks or albums, you're supposed to make up for that by live performance and selling swag. Which is just not possible for many musicians.
I
posted by Zumbador at 10:32 AM on April 23 [6 favorites]
Please stop pirating.
Um, no.
It's refreshing to see finally see someone on MetaFilter finally just admit they are going to steal content directly to a content creator's face. These conversations always go down a "um actually, it's like I am curing cancer..." rabbit hole when it's obvious it's just "I just want shit for free", same as it ever was.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 10:38 AM on April 23 [11 favorites]
Um, no.
It's refreshing to see finally see someone on MetaFilter finally just admit they are going to steal content directly to a content creator's face. These conversations always go down a "um actually, it's like I am curing cancer..." rabbit hole when it's obvious it's just "I just want shit for free", same as it ever was.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 10:38 AM on April 23 [11 favorites]
I will say that social media presence has sold books to me - like, that SF art book, I bought that because I followed the writer. It sounds like goodreads and booktok "fandom" is an utter fucking nightmare, but I think that's a genre culture problem that is specific to YA, new adult and romance/romantasy*. I follow a lot of writers and the light "I liked this movie" or "this essay about southeast Asian fantasy is great" style of tweeting is just the right style of parasocial relationship to sell books, at least to me. Writers, tell me what you're reading! Did you get a great new haircut? How was WorldCon? Don't worry, I won't think that we're actually friends, but I will feel a warm willingness to give you money.
*Seriously, I read a tweet about the latest Goodreads blow-up (where there was really egregious behavior by the author, absolutely deserved all the bad press, would comment negatively again) and thought "I've never heard of this person even though the person tweeting about it is SFF-adjacent, I bet this is YA or romantasy - and it turned out that not only was it romantasy, it was mpreg polycule omegaverse m/m/m romantasy by an AFAB author, and the excerpt I read was bad. Sidenote: this is why I don't think that Ao3 is where all the good writers come from - there's lots of good fic out there, probably even good mpreg polycule omegaverse m/m/m by AFAB writers, but somehow the published stuff that I see that's clearly by Ao3 writers is almost uniformly bad. You can read great stuff on Ao3! For free! Just not good stuff adjacent to Ao3 for money, as far as I can tell.
posted by Frowner at 10:44 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
*Seriously, I read a tweet about the latest Goodreads blow-up (where there was really egregious behavior by the author, absolutely deserved all the bad press, would comment negatively again) and thought "I've never heard of this person even though the person tweeting about it is SFF-adjacent, I bet this is YA or romantasy - and it turned out that not only was it romantasy, it was mpreg polycule omegaverse m/m/m romantasy by an AFAB author, and the excerpt I read was bad. Sidenote: this is why I don't think that Ao3 is where all the good writers come from - there's lots of good fic out there, probably even good mpreg polycule omegaverse m/m/m by AFAB writers, but somehow the published stuff that I see that's clearly by Ao3 writers is almost uniformly bad. You can read great stuff on Ao3! For free! Just not good stuff adjacent to Ao3 for money, as far as I can tell.
posted by Frowner at 10:44 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]
when it's obvious it's just "I just want shit for free", same as it ever was
The existence of fanfiction in its current format - hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction, essentially novelized fanfiction - with people both creating and reading fanfiction - suggests that the ungenerous application of "I want shit for free" to people not wanting to play significant chunks of their income in order to read books is not really fair. I think that bombastic lowercase pronouncements, while eponysterical as always, has a good bit of things right: it's genuinely hard to get good writing done under capitalism, and in a better world for both writers and consumers, we wouldn't have capitalism.
I think that people's attitudes towards piracy in many cases are often informed by their attitudes towards capitalism: for those who think that capitalism is on its way towards a hopefully-hastened-but-inevitable collapse, piracy seems somewhere on a spectrum between moral and neutral. For those who think that capitalism is bad, but it's eternal, and thus any attack against it is literally snatching the bread out of people's mouths, piracy is seen as full-stop terrible.
It is also difficult for people who are withdrawing from capitalism in some form or another: for those people, money is less accessible as an object to offer because they have other things to offer in the world, but those things are not fungible. That's how the fanfiction economy works - people write for each other, and it all comes around.
For example, I believe in giving labor for labor, but I don't always believe in giving money for labor, and those principles sometimes get complicated when interacting with people who are functionally strangers in a way that they don't when you're interacting with people who are some degree of separation connected to you. With someone I know, I can say, "Hey, I've really appreciated the assistance / books / music / advice - if you're ever in need of my professional services, I'm happy to give them to you gratis." Thus, I'm exchanging labor for labor - I'm not simply taking - but I'm also able to continue minimizing my participation in capitalism overall.
I think a tip jar helps to bridge this gap, but I do understand that publishers would, as said above, "throw a snit fit", even if creators didn't say 'Here, pay me if you pirate my work', the mere existence of a tip jar could very well appear to legitimize piracy in such a ways as to make publishers unhappy. Or really, any alternate revenue stream for the work, even if it wound up being more useful or remunerative. For example: two hours of legal advice, or dentristry, or even professional organizational services or housecleaning, would probably be more money than an author would receive in royalties for their entire catalog. A number of people would prefer to do two hours of work in their specialty field than have to pay 20$ for each book they want to read.
It's a pickle! I don't know that, again, it's really resolvable under capitalism. Thus,
Ceterum censeo Capitalism esse delendam
posted by corb at 11:20 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
The existence of fanfiction in its current format - hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction, essentially novelized fanfiction - with people both creating and reading fanfiction - suggests that the ungenerous application of "I want shit for free" to people not wanting to play significant chunks of their income in order to read books is not really fair. I think that bombastic lowercase pronouncements, while eponysterical as always, has a good bit of things right: it's genuinely hard to get good writing done under capitalism, and in a better world for both writers and consumers, we wouldn't have capitalism.
I think that people's attitudes towards piracy in many cases are often informed by their attitudes towards capitalism: for those who think that capitalism is on its way towards a hopefully-hastened-but-inevitable collapse, piracy seems somewhere on a spectrum between moral and neutral. For those who think that capitalism is bad, but it's eternal, and thus any attack against it is literally snatching the bread out of people's mouths, piracy is seen as full-stop terrible.
It is also difficult for people who are withdrawing from capitalism in some form or another: for those people, money is less accessible as an object to offer because they have other things to offer in the world, but those things are not fungible. That's how the fanfiction economy works - people write for each other, and it all comes around.
For example, I believe in giving labor for labor, but I don't always believe in giving money for labor, and those principles sometimes get complicated when interacting with people who are functionally strangers in a way that they don't when you're interacting with people who are some degree of separation connected to you. With someone I know, I can say, "Hey, I've really appreciated the assistance / books / music / advice - if you're ever in need of my professional services, I'm happy to give them to you gratis." Thus, I'm exchanging labor for labor - I'm not simply taking - but I'm also able to continue minimizing my participation in capitalism overall.
I think a tip jar helps to bridge this gap, but I do understand that publishers would, as said above, "throw a snit fit", even if creators didn't say 'Here, pay me if you pirate my work', the mere existence of a tip jar could very well appear to legitimize piracy in such a ways as to make publishers unhappy. Or really, any alternate revenue stream for the work, even if it wound up being more useful or remunerative. For example: two hours of legal advice, or dentristry, or even professional organizational services or housecleaning, would probably be more money than an author would receive in royalties for their entire catalog. A number of people would prefer to do two hours of work in their specialty field than have to pay 20$ for each book they want to read.
It's a pickle! I don't know that, again, it's really resolvable under capitalism. Thus,
Ceterum censeo Capitalism esse delendam
posted by corb at 11:20 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]
Nobody is saying the creator shouldn't get paid.
No, you're just saying that the creator should be paid only in a manner you deem fit, and if they refuse to meet your terms, you will just take their work without recompense. I personally don't see much of a difference between the two positions.
(seriously, the Kindle version is nearly the same price as the paper one, so it's obvious robbery)
This is one of those statements that always makes me laugh, given that it shows a deep lack of knowledge in manufacturing both physical (you'd be surprised by how much of the actual cost breakdown physical materials actually make up when it comes to media) and digital (while lower, things like server space and bandwidth are not free either.) Being surprised that two items that share the vast majority of their costs (because the lion's share of a book's backend costs are tied up in its non-physical production - which is the same regardless of format) being similarly priced has always struck me as being unaware.
Were I a better, or at least better-organized, person, I would send a few dollars to the creator,
I've always found this sort of remark to have an arrogance to it that rarely gets remarked on. The creator has already set up a mechanism for you to compensate them for their work - to pay them for it. Beyond the contractual issues, many creators want to be paid for their labor, just like any other laborer (which is the source of one of the more notable knots - the refusal to treat creative labor as labor.) As many people have pointed out, there are a lot of reasons that creators choose their model of recompense, because it best works for them. And if it doesn't work for you, that's your choice - but part of that is you accept that means you don't get to take their labor.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:32 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
No, you're just saying that the creator should be paid only in a manner you deem fit, and if they refuse to meet your terms, you will just take their work without recompense. I personally don't see much of a difference between the two positions.
(seriously, the Kindle version is nearly the same price as the paper one, so it's obvious robbery)
This is one of those statements that always makes me laugh, given that it shows a deep lack of knowledge in manufacturing both physical (you'd be surprised by how much of the actual cost breakdown physical materials actually make up when it comes to media) and digital (while lower, things like server space and bandwidth are not free either.) Being surprised that two items that share the vast majority of their costs (because the lion's share of a book's backend costs are tied up in its non-physical production - which is the same regardless of format) being similarly priced has always struck me as being unaware.
Were I a better, or at least better-organized, person, I would send a few dollars to the creator,
I've always found this sort of remark to have an arrogance to it that rarely gets remarked on. The creator has already set up a mechanism for you to compensate them for their work - to pay them for it. Beyond the contractual issues, many creators want to be paid for their labor, just like any other laborer (which is the source of one of the more notable knots - the refusal to treat creative labor as labor.) As many people have pointed out, there are a lot of reasons that creators choose their model of recompense, because it best works for them. And if it doesn't work for you, that's your choice - but part of that is you accept that means you don't get to take their labor.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:32 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
You go through the acknowledgements of most major novels and they're chock full of people the author is deeply thankful to for all of the work they did to help their book get published. Agents, editors, workshop leaders, publishers, cover artists, illustrators, designers. Sometimes, for graphic novels, the print shop crew for actually giving a shit about colour and crispness. I haven't met an author who wouldn't be annoyed as hell that you shorted all those other people by wanting to just pay the named author for their words. Which, if it weren't for those agents and editors, would be entirely different -- and not as enjoyable -- words.
I think we all agree that Jeff Buzzard and all billionaires must be shorn from the earth like the cancer they are. Let's just stop pretending that "no ethical consumption under capitalism" means that just giving up and stealing everything is the solution. If you want direct action, don't you suggest that shoplifting, even en masse, is going to make a difference. Pay for shit when you can, and work for regime change.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:49 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
I think we all agree that Jeff Buzzard and all billionaires must be shorn from the earth like the cancer they are. Let's just stop pretending that "no ethical consumption under capitalism" means that just giving up and stealing everything is the solution. If you want direct action, don't you suggest that shoplifting, even en masse, is going to make a difference. Pay for shit when you can, and work for regime change.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:49 AM on April 23 [12 favorites]
I think that people's attitudes towards piracy in many cases are often informed by their attitudes towards capitalism: for those who think that capitalism is on its way towards a hopefully-hastened-but-inevitable collapse, piracy seems somewhere on a spectrum between moral and neutral. For those who think that capitalism is bad, but it's eternal, and thus any attack against it is literally snatching the bread out of people's mouths, piracy is seen as full-stop terrible.
And yet how many of the people who feel that piracy is neutral or good (even when you can afford to pay at least something) would gnaw off a forearm before failing to tip! I think most people who are supporting piracy on here tip their servers and even if they get free haircuts from friends and never take cabs, they probably also tip whenever else tips are appropriate.
Or are we all also sneaking into the independent movie theater, grabbing our newly repaired bikes and running for the door, paying the tattoo artist with bad checks, etc?
Obviously if you can't pay for something you legitimately need (and, I'd argue, if you can't pay for something to support a decent and dignified life, and I think that does include books) it's perfectly reasonable to pirate or steal. And of course, one doesn't exactly cry if Jeff Bezos isn't making another dollar. But if you don't pay authors the authors at best have less time to devote to writing. If you don't pay for physical books, the bookstores go out of business, and I promise that you don't know what you've got till it's gone on that front.
posted by Frowner at 12:00 PM on April 23 [6 favorites]
And yet how many of the people who feel that piracy is neutral or good (even when you can afford to pay at least something) would gnaw off a forearm before failing to tip! I think most people who are supporting piracy on here tip their servers and even if they get free haircuts from friends and never take cabs, they probably also tip whenever else tips are appropriate.
Or are we all also sneaking into the independent movie theater, grabbing our newly repaired bikes and running for the door, paying the tattoo artist with bad checks, etc?
Obviously if you can't pay for something you legitimately need (and, I'd argue, if you can't pay for something to support a decent and dignified life, and I think that does include books) it's perfectly reasonable to pirate or steal. And of course, one doesn't exactly cry if Jeff Bezos isn't making another dollar. But if you don't pay authors the authors at best have less time to devote to writing. If you don't pay for physical books, the bookstores go out of business, and I promise that you don't know what you've got till it's gone on that front.
posted by Frowner at 12:00 PM on April 23 [6 favorites]
Let's just stop pretending that "no ethical consumption under capitalism" means that just giving up and stealing everything is the solution. If you want direct action, don't you suggest that shoplifting, even en masse, is going to make a difference
But here's the problem. I think that the words you chose to use actually illustrate perfectly why these things do actually make a difference - I'd like to tease it out a little bit more to explain.
You see, you used the word "shoplifting" in a negative connotation, to associate the act of digital book piracy with the act of physical 'theft' from a retail store, for discursive effect, because, at least on some level, you have a taboo against the latter, and believe that other people here will have a taboo against the latter, and want to connect the thing that has less of a taboo with the thing that has more of a taboo. And you're correct in one thing - physical shoplifting does, for some people in certain generations, carry more of a stigma.
But discursive power is real power, and so normalizing the taking of goods does actually make a difference in changing the world in real terms, both for good and for ill. I think you and other creators are aware of it, which is why it is such a political live wire and gets so much pushback - because you're aware that as the normalization happens, it makes it more likely that people will engage in it, and the less people will spend money on physical creation items, and royalties will go down, which will hit your bottom line. But there are also positive effects of normalizing the taking of goods, which is the reason why Gen Z has a lot of memes around it, such as "If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn't."
Right now, our normative understanding that it is acceptable to charge monetary prices for things, that it is not acceptable for people to take things that they need unless they pay money for them, that doing otherwise is 'theft', and that doing so is morally wrong, is what allows police to fill the jails with the poor, and what allows juries to convict the poor and send them to prison for the 'crimes' of stealing, as Frowner notes above, necessary goods. Removing those normative understandings - breaking the connection between people's understanding of property as something that requires monetary exchange - actually does have positive impact on keeping actual human people from being thrown into a hole for years and sometimes decades. I'll be honest - that's not why I engage in piracy. But that is why I talk about it rather than doing it quietly - because I think that it's morally important to disconnect the idea that you must pay with dollars for the things that are necessary for a functional society. And as Frowner notes, that is not just the physical items, but also the items for a decent and dignified life, that enable an educated and interested society.
However, Frowner's other points are also valid, too - we have not yet torn down capitalism, people do still need to survive under it, and if we entirely stop paying for physical books, we have no more bookstores. There is a middle ground; in reality I think most of my actual physical books are purchased secondhand at a small bookstore that is somehow hanging on. But of course, secondhand books pay no royalties.
Bringing it back to the main OP though, books are also an interesting item in that the "whales" of the book world - the people who consume what apparently is an abnormal amount of books - often tend to read more quickly, so books tend to last them less time, thus making the rising price of new books seem less reasonable. Most high-volume readers I know tend to do like myself and buy used books. I am not sure, because I haven't run the numbers, if our consumption levels would make up for the high priced new books bought by occasional readers if the price of new books fell overall; it's an interesting question to ponder.
posted by corb at 12:23 PM on April 23 [3 favorites]
But here's the problem. I think that the words you chose to use actually illustrate perfectly why these things do actually make a difference - I'd like to tease it out a little bit more to explain.
You see, you used the word "shoplifting" in a negative connotation, to associate the act of digital book piracy with the act of physical 'theft' from a retail store, for discursive effect, because, at least on some level, you have a taboo against the latter, and believe that other people here will have a taboo against the latter, and want to connect the thing that has less of a taboo with the thing that has more of a taboo. And you're correct in one thing - physical shoplifting does, for some people in certain generations, carry more of a stigma.
But discursive power is real power, and so normalizing the taking of goods does actually make a difference in changing the world in real terms, both for good and for ill. I think you and other creators are aware of it, which is why it is such a political live wire and gets so much pushback - because you're aware that as the normalization happens, it makes it more likely that people will engage in it, and the less people will spend money on physical creation items, and royalties will go down, which will hit your bottom line. But there are also positive effects of normalizing the taking of goods, which is the reason why Gen Z has a lot of memes around it, such as "If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn't."
Right now, our normative understanding that it is acceptable to charge monetary prices for things, that it is not acceptable for people to take things that they need unless they pay money for them, that doing otherwise is 'theft', and that doing so is morally wrong, is what allows police to fill the jails with the poor, and what allows juries to convict the poor and send them to prison for the 'crimes' of stealing, as Frowner notes above, necessary goods. Removing those normative understandings - breaking the connection between people's understanding of property as something that requires monetary exchange - actually does have positive impact on keeping actual human people from being thrown into a hole for years and sometimes decades. I'll be honest - that's not why I engage in piracy. But that is why I talk about it rather than doing it quietly - because I think that it's morally important to disconnect the idea that you must pay with dollars for the things that are necessary for a functional society. And as Frowner notes, that is not just the physical items, but also the items for a decent and dignified life, that enable an educated and interested society.
However, Frowner's other points are also valid, too - we have not yet torn down capitalism, people do still need to survive under it, and if we entirely stop paying for physical books, we have no more bookstores. There is a middle ground; in reality I think most of my actual physical books are purchased secondhand at a small bookstore that is somehow hanging on. But of course, secondhand books pay no royalties.
Bringing it back to the main OP though, books are also an interesting item in that the "whales" of the book world - the people who consume what apparently is an abnormal amount of books - often tend to read more quickly, so books tend to last them less time, thus making the rising price of new books seem less reasonable. Most high-volume readers I know tend to do like myself and buy used books. I am not sure, because I haven't run the numbers, if our consumption levels would make up for the high priced new books bought by occasional readers if the price of new books fell overall; it's an interesting question to ponder.
posted by corb at 12:23 PM on April 23 [3 favorites]
When that's the case, I go to amazon to buy a Kindle version of a book only find that the Kindle version is as much as the dead tree version.
In my experience, ebooks will range from half-price to same price. There's a sort of lifecycle: Ebooks start out at trade paperback levels, so they are much cheaper than the hardback. They'll be the same price again mid-life, then get cheaper than print again later.
I just checked my purchase history and only 2 of the last 15 e-books were over $10. The median price would probably be a $15 trade paperback if I were buying dead tree, assuming I could find them at all. Considering that this is now my preferred format (for convenience, portability, storage, and control over font size) it's a great deal for me personally. YMMV.
The used book store world had its own charms and I definitely miss the days when I had a half-dozen in easy biking distance. But no question it's easier and cheaper to get the books I'm looking for now.
I haven't met an author who wouldn't be annoyed as hell that you shorted all those other people by wanting to just pay the named author for their words.
Yes, I think there's a strong tendency to overlook what publishers actually provide. I don't know enough to know whether it's "fair value" but it's not nothing. Even just saying you want to read a book with "good reviews" usually means something a publisher has gotten in front of people who write thoughtful reviews.
People who just want to read words have lots of cheap options. You only need to opt in to the publisher controlled content model if you think those books are better than the other ones, in which case the model of publishers as pure vampires might be a bit suspect.
My retired mother is a heavy reader, and a lifetime of frugality means she gravitates towards free-ish deals. And then she enjoys them but also regales us kids with complaints about all sorts of basic language mistakes that seem rampant to her because copy and line editing is too expensive for these editions.
posted by mark k at 12:33 PM on April 23 [2 favorites]
In my experience, ebooks will range from half-price to same price. There's a sort of lifecycle: Ebooks start out at trade paperback levels, so they are much cheaper than the hardback. They'll be the same price again mid-life, then get cheaper than print again later.
I just checked my purchase history and only 2 of the last 15 e-books were over $10. The median price would probably be a $15 trade paperback if I were buying dead tree, assuming I could find them at all. Considering that this is now my preferred format (for convenience, portability, storage, and control over font size) it's a great deal for me personally. YMMV.
The used book store world had its own charms and I definitely miss the days when I had a half-dozen in easy biking distance. But no question it's easier and cheaper to get the books I'm looking for now.
I haven't met an author who wouldn't be annoyed as hell that you shorted all those other people by wanting to just pay the named author for their words.
Yes, I think there's a strong tendency to overlook what publishers actually provide. I don't know enough to know whether it's "fair value" but it's not nothing. Even just saying you want to read a book with "good reviews" usually means something a publisher has gotten in front of people who write thoughtful reviews.
People who just want to read words have lots of cheap options. You only need to opt in to the publisher controlled content model if you think those books are better than the other ones, in which case the model of publishers as pure vampires might be a bit suspect.
My retired mother is a heavy reader, and a lifetime of frugality means she gravitates towards free-ish deals. And then she enjoys them but also regales us kids with complaints about all sorts of basic language mistakes that seem rampant to her because copy and line editing is too expensive for these editions.
posted by mark k at 12:33 PM on April 23 [2 favorites]
Nobody is saying the creator shouldn't get paid.
No, you're just saying that the editors and illustrators and designers shouldn't get paid.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:11 PM on April 23 [10 favorites]
No, you're just saying that the editors and illustrators and designers shouldn't get paid.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:11 PM on April 23 [10 favorites]
Just curious, question - do the people who think piracy is the answer work for free? Or is it just other people who should work for free.
posted by WatTylerJr at 2:52 PM on April 23 [5 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr at 2:52 PM on April 23 [5 favorites]
It's refreshing to see finally see someone on MetaFilter finally just admit they are going to steal content directly to a content creator's face. These conversations always go down a "um actually, it's like I am curing cancer..." rabbit hole when it's obvious it's just "I just want shit for free", same as it ever was.
For reasons, I just love that this place has mostly, basically, taken an entirely 180-degree turn to be against piracy of creative work. That's not sarcasm, just a remark on progress.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:26 PM on April 23 [2 favorites]
For reasons, I just love that this place has mostly, basically, taken an entirely 180-degree turn to be against piracy of creative work. That's not sarcasm, just a remark on progress.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:26 PM on April 23 [2 favorites]
I think piracy is so trivially easy that everyone reading this sentence has done it accidentally. For example, there was a thread on Metafilter within the past week that included the entire written content of the link, and also it is typical to for a poster to link to an *ahem* non-paywalled version of an article. And mefites are always standing by to help you get around that paywall, if you have somehow managed to make it to 2024 without having a browser that automates the process for you. Nobody is obligated to care about anyone else's broken business plan, and for the most part nobody cares, and that's the world artists and authors have always lived in.
I have a buddy who made an indie game back in the 00's which sank without a trace. He told me he wished people pirated his game, not because he wanted people taking his labor for free, but because if there were pirates, they would have been some fraction of the sales he also didn't have. I don't think piracy is to blame for those (published! By a real publisher?) books that sold fewer than than 12 copies. Piracy seems like a bit of a red herring here.
This article does make me see why authors might like libraries, though. If you are regularly selling to libraries, you have a way to get out of the double digit basement.
posted by surlyben at 4:24 PM on April 23 [7 favorites]
I have a buddy who made an indie game back in the 00's which sank without a trace. He told me he wished people pirated his game, not because he wanted people taking his labor for free, but because if there were pirates, they would have been some fraction of the sales he also didn't have. I don't think piracy is to blame for those (published! By a real publisher?) books that sold fewer than than 12 copies. Piracy seems like a bit of a red herring here.
This article does make me see why authors might like libraries, though. If you are regularly selling to libraries, you have a way to get out of the double digit basement.
posted by surlyben at 4:24 PM on April 23 [7 favorites]
While it's a complicated problem, I don't have much patience for people complaining about piracy who somehow think the money that's not being paid would mostly be going to the humble craftspeople who wrote the book, illustrated the cover, etc.
somehow the published stuff that I see that's clearly by Ao3 writers is almost uniformly bad
(psst multiple Hugo winners and nominees have come out of AO3, in fact, one was a founder of AO3)
posted by praemunire at 5:06 PM on April 23 [4 favorites]
somehow the published stuff that I see that's clearly by Ao3 writers is almost uniformly bad
(psst multiple Hugo winners and nominees have come out of AO3, in fact, one was a founder of AO3)
posted by praemunire at 5:06 PM on April 23 [4 favorites]
do the people who think piracy is the answer work for free? Or is it just other people who should work for free
Speaking only for self, I have booked around 230 hours, or nearly 6 full time work weeks, worth of of free labor in my professional field in the last three months. That does not count mutual aid work, legal observer work, or other solidarity work outside of my professional field, which I have no reason to track. I also turned down an offer from a partner to take a position at his firm, which would not have allowed me to do the amount and type of free work that I prefer to be doing. I believe deeply in the idea that we owe obligations to each other as humans that cannot and should not be tracked by how much capital is exchanged for those obligations.
I think that it is often challenging to remember that people can have nuanced and sympathetic, yet oppositional, positions. Things are rarely as simple as "*Those* people are ruining everything, and if not for them, everything would be perfect!" While I sometimes fail at this myself, I think it's important to remember that while we turn on each other and fight about scraps, the people destroying our communal and societal bonds laugh all the way to the bank.
posted by corb at 5:13 PM on April 23 [5 favorites]
Speaking only for self, I have booked around 230 hours, or nearly 6 full time work weeks, worth of of free labor in my professional field in the last three months. That does not count mutual aid work, legal observer work, or other solidarity work outside of my professional field, which I have no reason to track. I also turned down an offer from a partner to take a position at his firm, which would not have allowed me to do the amount and type of free work that I prefer to be doing. I believe deeply in the idea that we owe obligations to each other as humans that cannot and should not be tracked by how much capital is exchanged for those obligations.
I think that it is often challenging to remember that people can have nuanced and sympathetic, yet oppositional, positions. Things are rarely as simple as "*Those* people are ruining everything, and if not for them, everything would be perfect!" While I sometimes fail at this myself, I think it's important to remember that while we turn on each other and fight about scraps, the people destroying our communal and societal bonds laugh all the way to the bank.
posted by corb at 5:13 PM on April 23 [5 favorites]
(psst multiple Hugo winners and nominees have come out of AO3, in fact, one was a founder of AO3)
In page output, I bet they are vastly outnumbered by the appalling romantasy that my queer book group tries to make us read all the time that is either fic with the serial numbers filed off or else slightly transposed fanfic, a la the omegaverse one above. If I never ever again have to read something along the lines of "Weepily, Sebastian caressed his pregnant belly. Outside, the rain beat on the window of his remote, rose-grown cottage by the seashore. He thought sadly of his tall, handsome sea captain husband who was far away on a noble ship and had probably totally forgotten him despite being frantically devoted, buying him the cottage and so on. Thoughts of his husband soon turned to reminiscences of his husband's huge [etc etc]. He felt the baby kick - would his husband still want him with his post-pregnancy body ----"
I want to stress that I've read some really outstanding stuff on Ao3 - I have no complaints and would certainly donate again, speaking of paying for one's fun. But ohmygod, I have encountered some dreadful, dreadful things broken loose from the archive. At least on Ao3 you can use the "exclude" function.
posted by Frowner at 5:30 PM on April 23 [1 favorite]
In page output, I bet they are vastly outnumbered by the appalling romantasy that my queer book group tries to make us read all the time that is either fic with the serial numbers filed off or else slightly transposed fanfic, a la the omegaverse one above. If I never ever again have to read something along the lines of "Weepily, Sebastian caressed his pregnant belly. Outside, the rain beat on the window of his remote, rose-grown cottage by the seashore. He thought sadly of his tall, handsome sea captain husband who was far away on a noble ship and had probably totally forgotten him despite being frantically devoted, buying him the cottage and so on. Thoughts of his husband soon turned to reminiscences of his husband's huge [etc etc]. He felt the baby kick - would his husband still want him with his post-pregnancy body ----"
I want to stress that I've read some really outstanding stuff on Ao3 - I have no complaints and would certainly donate again, speaking of paying for one's fun. But ohmygod, I have encountered some dreadful, dreadful things broken loose from the archive. At least on Ao3 you can use the "exclude" function.
posted by Frowner at 5:30 PM on April 23 [1 favorite]
Sea-captain abandonment is the #1 reason omegas get kidnapped by mafia assassins.
posted by mittens at 5:44 PM on April 23 [9 favorites]
posted by mittens at 5:44 PM on April 23 [9 favorites]
But sexy mafia assassins with hearts of gold, though. Who really like babies. And who only assassinate people who really deserve it.
posted by Frowner at 5:51 PM on April 23 [4 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 5:51 PM on April 23 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: mpreg polycule omegaverse m/m/m romantasy
posted by sammyo at 11:05 PM on April 23 [4 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 11:05 PM on April 23 [4 favorites]
Mod note: Comment removed. Please remember the guidelines and to be considerate and respectful and avoid accusing others of virtue signaling.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:13 AM on April 24 [2 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:13 AM on April 24 [2 favorites]
I use the library a lot but try to buy books especially when the author is alive. Probably I read 2 to 3 books a month and buy maybe a book every month or 2 on average. A coffee drink where I live can cost $6, gas can be $5 a gallon, so the cost of a book seems pretty reasonable to me. Having said that, my personal consumer choices can't fix rentier capitalism nor the lack of public funding for artists. (And likewise, by what mechanism will one person's piracy achieve a different economic system for artists?) That kind of change takes a commitment to organize with others for a better world.
While I would like to assume the best, crowing about one's commitment not to pay for books in the face of several authors is just rude. Art is deeply undervalued in the US. I feel so much gratitude and awe for the writers and other artists here and only want to send appreciation. Perhaps those who have made their pro-piracy point can read the room and move on.
posted by latkes at 5:25 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]
While I would like to assume the best, crowing about one's commitment not to pay for books in the face of several authors is just rude. Art is deeply undervalued in the US. I feel so much gratitude and awe for the writers and other artists here and only want to send appreciation. Perhaps those who have made their pro-piracy point can read the room and move on.
posted by latkes at 5:25 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]
Oh and thanks to those who shared about public lending rights. I never heard of that but seems like a good system!
posted by latkes at 5:30 AM on April 24
posted by latkes at 5:30 AM on April 24
Speaking only for self, I have booked around 230 hours, or nearly 6 full time work weeks, worth of of free labor in my professional field in the last three months.
I mean, congratulations for having a job where people *can't* steal your labor. I can't sneak into your law office and make you look at a contract for me without, you know, you and your brain actually being there and doing it. So yay. It's impossible steal your labor, because it's contained in your head. It sure must be nice to get to choose whether people get your labor for free!
posted by headspace at 11:15 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]
I mean, congratulations for having a job where people *can't* steal your labor. I can't sneak into your law office and make you look at a contract for me without, you know, you and your brain actually being there and doing it. So yay. It's impossible steal your labor, because it's contained in your head. It sure must be nice to get to choose whether people get your labor for free!
posted by headspace at 11:15 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]
congratulations for having a job where people *can't* steal your labor. I can't sneak into your law office and make you look at a contract for me without, you know, you and your brain actually being there and doing it. So yay. It's impossible steal your labor, because it's contained in your head. It sure must be nice to get to choose whether people get your labor for free!
Actually it's absolutely possible to force lawyers to work for people for free in certain scenarios, because of the ethical obligations incurred by entering an attorney-client relationship. You have to ask permission of the court in order to withdraw from representation of certain clients, and there could be a material adverse effect on the client's interests from doing so, even if that client has, in fact, stopped paying you, so the court can just say no and force you to continue anyway. In fact, it's one of the few professions where you can be legally compelled to work for free.
I mean, I'm a part of the bleeding heart brigade, so I consider that a feature, not a bug, but not all of my peers would consider it that way.
posted by corb at 11:43 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]
Actually it's absolutely possible to force lawyers to work for people for free in certain scenarios, because of the ethical obligations incurred by entering an attorney-client relationship. You have to ask permission of the court in order to withdraw from representation of certain clients, and there could be a material adverse effect on the client's interests from doing so, even if that client has, in fact, stopped paying you, so the court can just say no and force you to continue anyway. In fact, it's one of the few professions where you can be legally compelled to work for free.
I mean, I'm a part of the bleeding heart brigade, so I consider that a feature, not a bug, but not all of my peers would consider it that way.
posted by corb at 11:43 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]
For reasons, I just love that this place has mostly, basically, taken an entirely 180-degree turn to be against piracy of creative work. That's not sarcasm, just a remark on progress.
I think this place is pretty divided and factional on this topic and I think that’s actually a fine state for it to be in because it’s not a trivial issue. I am certain I am not the only person here who pays for plenty of media but also makes a point of maintaining the option to acquire it in other ways, because it’s the last line of defense against Zaslav-ism. And that’s not getting into adjacent issues like the academic publishing racket. If you believe there’s inherent value to the work I don’t know how you could not believe there’s social value in its widespread accessibility.
posted by atoxyl at 12:43 PM on April 24 [3 favorites]
I think this place is pretty divided and factional on this topic and I think that’s actually a fine state for it to be in because it’s not a trivial issue. I am certain I am not the only person here who pays for plenty of media but also makes a point of maintaining the option to acquire it in other ways, because it’s the last line of defense against Zaslav-ism. And that’s not getting into adjacent issues like the academic publishing racket. If you believe there’s inherent value to the work I don’t know how you could not believe there’s social value in its widespread accessibility.
posted by atoxyl at 12:43 PM on April 24 [3 favorites]
I don't have much patience for people complaining about piracy who somehow think the money that's not being paid would mostly be going to the humble craftspeople who wrote the book, illustrated the cover, etc.
How...as exactly one such "humble craftspeople" I just don't understand this at all. No, the pure math probably doesn't work out to me getting "most" of the money from any individual book sale. But if the book sales don't happen then my company kicks me to the curb and I make no percentage of any sale.
There are a lot of book-related jobs that are not glamorous enough or creative enough to have a fun BookTok with a Patreon attached, but they're a big part of what makes a book worth reading. Discussions about piracy tend to focus exclusively on the labor of the author when that's not remotely the only labor of value being done on any given work.
Now realistically, is piracy enough to drive every publisher out of business and therefore cast every last editor, proofreader, production manager, designer, and illustrator into the desert? No. But all of those people belong in a conversation about book publishing and the business model of it.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:15 PM on April 24 [5 favorites]
How...as exactly one such "humble craftspeople" I just don't understand this at all. No, the pure math probably doesn't work out to me getting "most" of the money from any individual book sale. But if the book sales don't happen then my company kicks me to the curb and I make no percentage of any sale.
There are a lot of book-related jobs that are not glamorous enough or creative enough to have a fun BookTok with a Patreon attached, but they're a big part of what makes a book worth reading. Discussions about piracy tend to focus exclusively on the labor of the author when that's not remotely the only labor of value being done on any given work.
Now realistically, is piracy enough to drive every publisher out of business and therefore cast every last editor, proofreader, production manager, designer, and illustrator into the desert? No. But all of those people belong in a conversation about book publishing and the business model of it.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:15 PM on April 24 [5 favorites]
I think most people who are supporting piracy on here tip their servers and even if they get free haircuts from friends and never take cabs, they probably also tip whenever else tips are appropriate.
I'll be honest, I think you're being very generous towards these people.
posted by biogeo at 3:15 PM on April 24
do the people who think piracy is the answer work for free? Or is it just other people who should work for free
I’m a professional software developer and an amateur musician. I’m pretty happy to pay for software, and for music - because I can and because I like to see software developers and musicians getting paid. When it comes to software for making music I’d be surprised if I’m not in the top 5 percent for lifetime personal expenditure. But when I first started learning to make electronic music when I was 16 I sure as shit wasn’t paying for the software, and I know that goes for a whole lot of people who ended up as professional musicians as well.
I’m not actually a piracy maximalist/IP minimalist. IP laws are a good idea for balancing a particular set of tradeoffs, and I wouldn’t want to get rid of them - maybe just shift the balance a bit. But it seems entirely viable to argue that the existence of an “escape valve” might be a net benefit to the culture. See also the stories about how the availability of stolen DJ gear after the 1977 NYC blackouts helped kick off hip hop.
posted by atoxyl at 4:16 PM on April 24 [3 favorites]
I’m a professional software developer and an amateur musician. I’m pretty happy to pay for software, and for music - because I can and because I like to see software developers and musicians getting paid. When it comes to software for making music I’d be surprised if I’m not in the top 5 percent for lifetime personal expenditure. But when I first started learning to make electronic music when I was 16 I sure as shit wasn’t paying for the software, and I know that goes for a whole lot of people who ended up as professional musicians as well.
I’m not actually a piracy maximalist/IP minimalist. IP laws are a good idea for balancing a particular set of tradeoffs, and I wouldn’t want to get rid of them - maybe just shift the balance a bit. But it seems entirely viable to argue that the existence of an “escape valve” might be a net benefit to the culture. See also the stories about how the availability of stolen DJ gear after the 1977 NYC blackouts helped kick off hip hop.
posted by atoxyl at 4:16 PM on April 24 [3 favorites]
But it seems entirely viable to argue that the existence of an “escape valve” might be a net benefit to the culture
One could even view it as a tax of sorts.
posted by atoxyl at 4:35 PM on April 24
One could even view it as a tax of sorts.
posted by atoxyl at 4:35 PM on April 24
I treat content on the web as free, which counts as piracy. But I salve my conscience by buying a physical copy of whatever content I found remarkable. So I have stacks of unviewed, unread and unused things that I semi-regularly throw out. Yup, sending unopened packages to the landfill is my solution to piracy. That is yet another sentence that can only make sense in the 21st century.
posted by SnowRottie at 5:24 PM on April 24
posted by SnowRottie at 5:24 PM on April 24
sure, I would pay $3 or so to read a relatively unknown author's book if it came well-reviewed, and maybe $5 for a more established author's work. But only on the condition that ~80% of that went into the author's pocket. I pirate because the author's barely getting paid, anyway
How does that work at the grocery store? I would pay $3 for this broccoli but since the farm worker who picked it only got 12 cents, I'm gonna steal it? That'll show those greedy agribusinesses they need to pay their workers more!!!
As an author myself, your choice here appears completely to be a self-serving rationalization for theft, cloaked in false virtue signaling. Your virtuous options remain: don't read the book, or get it from the library.
You aren't making any political statement through piracy, you're just taking what money authors do earn out of their pocket.
As a songwriter and musician I have the same attitude towards music piracy. You always have the option not to buy it. I never believe pirates when they claim "I would have paid for this intellectual property and creative labor but instead I steal it to make a statement." No you don't. You steal it to save a few bucks at the ultimate expense of artists and writers.
Clearly you actually just don't think creative work is real labor. I always wish I could come into the workplaces of self-justifying IP pirates and help myself to the fruits of whatever they do for a living.
Cue the usual moral justifications for piracy as the good kind of theft.
posted by spitbull at 3:22 AM on April 25 [4 favorites]
How does that work at the grocery store? I would pay $3 for this broccoli but since the farm worker who picked it only got 12 cents, I'm gonna steal it? That'll show those greedy agribusinesses they need to pay their workers more!!!
As an author myself, your choice here appears completely to be a self-serving rationalization for theft, cloaked in false virtue signaling. Your virtuous options remain: don't read the book, or get it from the library.
You aren't making any political statement through piracy, you're just taking what money authors do earn out of their pocket.
As a songwriter and musician I have the same attitude towards music piracy. You always have the option not to buy it. I never believe pirates when they claim "I would have paid for this intellectual property and creative labor but instead I steal it to make a statement." No you don't. You steal it to save a few bucks at the ultimate expense of artists and writers.
Clearly you actually just don't think creative work is real labor. I always wish I could come into the workplaces of self-justifying IP pirates and help myself to the fruits of whatever they do for a living.
Cue the usual moral justifications for piracy as the good kind of theft.
posted by spitbull at 3:22 AM on April 25 [4 favorites]
People who just want to read words have lots of cheap options. You only need to opt in to the publisher controlled content model if you think those books are better than the other ones, in which case the model of publishers as pure vampires might be a bit suspect.
There are cheap options with the traditional publishers too. Obviously this will vary with what genre you read, and you may well be stuck with a certain price if you want one specific book. But if you are an ebook reader who likes a certain genre-- and literary fiction is a genre for these purposes-- you can check the discounts periodically through sites like Early Bird Books and BookBub. I do this for ten minutes every day, to fill my mystery, thriller and true crime needs. We are talking really steep discounts. You can also use something like NetGalley to request review copies. In my opinion, if you claim to have principled reasons for not paying sticker prices, you should at least be looking into sites like Early Bird that offer books for $1.99 or $2.99. Or requesting advance copies and reviewing them online as a way of helping the authors out. (And they really do appreciate that.)
If you're pirating, I'm prepared to believe none of these suggestions work for you because of your particular interests and circumstances, but is it really necessary to make zero effort to participate in the economy that's making these works possible?
posted by BibiRose at 4:32 AM on April 25 [2 favorites]
If the person believes that A03 is sufficient, there’s no need to pirate because there is so much free content to read.
posted by Selena777 at 1:45 PM on April 25
posted by Selena777 at 1:45 PM on April 25
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Shit.
posted by metametamind at 8:18 PM on April 22 [45 favorites]