Re: "The Elusive E-book" and the elephant in the room

Hi Aaron,

You must see the irony of writing a literate, highly-readable email to a 
group mailing list which explains that 'a lot of the free stuff' on the 
Internet is 'dreck'. Of course it is, and always has been, world without 
end, amen -- see Sturgeon's Law. But even if one thousandth of one per 
cent is quality reading, that's still far more than anyone can possibly 
ingest in a lifetime. Particularly -- my special interest -- stuff which 
has been published in the past and has demonstrated its worth by selling 
books and magazines, but is now regarded as valueless because it is a 
few years old.

Nobody paid you to write the email, but hopefully you got something out 
of it. Nobody's paying me to write this one, but I'm enjoying it anyway. 
And as long as people like to communicate -- and communicate well -- for 
the sheer joy of it, then giving billions of people access to that 
communication for free must inevitably draw readers from the old limited 
commercial forms of communications. Why should I read your articles on 
paper and fume when I can read your emails and respond <g>?

This doesn't mean that money is not an issue. I write articles for 
journals and I get paid for them, because they have recency value. But 
eventually they end up on my website where people can read them for 
nothing. And it makes financial sense too; if putting up ten free 
articles brings in one new customer, then they've returned much more 
value to me than I would get from ten years of Public Lending Rights or 
Copyright Council payments. Most material written more than six months 
ago is of interest to only a tiny fraction of people. It's uneconomical 
to market to that fraction, so why not give the stuff away?

And the 'what will happen to new writers?' argument leaves me unmoved, 
at least as far as fiction is concerned. I don't care if there are no 
new writers when I can read old ones for free, any more than I care that 
there are no typewriter repairmen now we all have computers.

Regards,

Jon.

Aaron Walker wrote:
> Jon;
>  
> People are reading more, there is no doubt about it. 
>  
> But what are we, as e-publishers, really offering?
>  
> Nothing different than paper publishers. 
>  
> A way for readers to discover a new world, learn something new about human existence, learn some new or better way of doing something.
>  
> Despite the terrabites of free stuff out there, we all would have to concede a lot of it is dreck, now that we have the internet, anyone with a connection can have a platform and prattle on well into the decades.
>  
> If book sales stopped, then I'd be worried that people no longer are willing to pay for quality, especially with so many "free alternatives" To follow your line of thinking to it's natural conclusion, then there should be no one paying for anything since all they have to do is fire up their computer.
>  
> This hasn't happened and I don't believe it will ever happen.
>  
> A paying structure will always encourage (hopefully) the best and brightest to take pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. 
>  
> As a former journalist, it is often bandied about how we would do it for free. This has helped keep salaries low and a complete fallacy I might add. But I'm sure doctors also like to help people but no one goes into medicine expecting to "get by"
>  
> Same thing with authors. They (we) write because we have a story we want to tell but also with the hope that said story will strike a chord and enable us to tell subsequent stories as our living that enables us to put food on the table.
>  
> You may get one book out of a person for the "sheer joy of telling that story." But without some economic incentives, there may be more than a few "on-off" authors. They may write that "brilliant" book, but you'd be hard pressed to get anything more out of them as they have bills to pay and families to feed.
>  
> It's simple economics. People would prefer to earn their living doing what they love. For some it is medicine, others teaching, and writers want to earn their living writing.
>  
> Take away that economic incentive and we will see very few new writers indeed. 
> Aaron J. WalkerPublisher
> http://www.walkbroadpublishing.com

------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/