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

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 5:45 PM, Jon Jermey <jonjermey-sFbbPxZDHXw0n/[email protected]>
wrote:

>  The real completion is not between print books and eBooks --
>  this is a minor and increasingly irrelevant sideshow. The competition is
>  between free reading matter and paid reading matter.

The fact of the matter is that with free, you tend to get what you pay for.

Some free stuff is absolutely phenomenal. But Sturgeon's Law applies: 90% of
it is crud. Many people will find that it's worth paying money not to have
to waste time rummaging through the piles of crud for the nugget of
not-crud.

Eric Flint wrote a great column about the economics of writing:

http://www.baens-universe.com/articles/The_Economics_of_Writing

He points out that authors are not interchangeable. Manufactured goods can
be stamped out interchangeably, and it doesn't matter whether one particular
worker or another made them. But

The opposite is true in entertainment. Much as they might like to—in some
> cases, fervently wish to—it's just a cold fact of life that a movie producer
> can't use actors interchangeably. He can't produce a "Tom Hanks movie"
> without Tom Hanks. He can't tell the real Tom Hanks that if he doesn't agree
> to work for peanuts he'll go out and hire another Tom Hanks.
>

The same holds true for authors: you don't just want to read "a novel." You
want to read "an Agatha Christie novel" or an "Isaac Asimov novel." If a
work is by someone you want to read, you'll be willing to pay more for it
than you would for random content. If the random content does not meet your
inner need for work specifically by the person you want to read, even if
it's free, you'll still pass it up in favor of the work you want.

-- 
Chris Meadows aka | WWW: http://www.terrania.us | Somebody help,
Robotech_Master | ICQ: 5477383 AIM: RoboMastr | I'm trapped in
[email protected] | Skype, Gizmo: Robotech_Master | a sig file!
[email protected] | Yahoo: robotech_master_2000 |


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