Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing

So NYT columnist/economist Paul Krugman held forth on the Kindle and  
the future of publishing today...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/opinion/06krugman.html

My response to him:

Re: the Kindle and information wanting to be free...

I've been "in ebooks" (and publishing, written 2 pbooks) for about ten  
years now. And I know people making livings from publishing them. They  
make money from books, not appearances by authors, which had you  
checked in the last decade, no one but the largest authors even draw  
remotely large crowds even when said appearances are free.

There is another alternative to "they must find a way." It's that they  
won't find a way and that the intellectual property will just go away.  
It will never be created in the first place. People who otherwise  
would have written great books will flip burgers or go into investment  
banking. They will be tired and sapped of creativity at the end of the  
day and they will never write because they have lives and families and  
like to eat and have shelter just like the consuming public.

Okay, so only the JK Rowlings of the world will write books. But wait,  
there will never BE a JK Rowling. Because JK was once not JK and how  
did she GET to BE JK in the first place? Harry Potter was a sleeper  
hit for three books--didn't become big til the 4th book. No on goes to  
the readings of unknown novelists, much less pays for them. Thus, JK  
would have, eventually had to give up scribbling, round about book 2,  
and go get a real job. One that paid.

But even so, what happens with intellectual property that is more  
important than the marketplace, for example, news? Bloggers are very  
popular, but they don't do a lot of primary reporting. That primary-- 
and EXPENSIVE--reporting is done by organizations like the NYT, which  
spends a lot of money to create intellectual property that will become  
valueless under the new model. If the NYT can't make money selling its  
reportage--WHICH COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE--that reportage will go away.  
Democracy--all of us--will be the poorer for it.

I'd make a case that novels are the same way. What happens when all  
novels are Harry Potter (like all restaurants in Judge Dred were Taco  
Bell)? We as a society, as a civilization, will be poorer when only  
the rich can afford to create because there is nothing "in it" for the  
rest of the grubby writers.

Intellectual property does not want to be free. Books take money to  
produce: writers have to be paid, copyeditors have to be paid,  
interior and cover designers have to be paid. No money = no making a  
living = no creating. It's supply and demand. If the demand is big,  
but only at a very, very low price, it almost guarantees that shortage  
will be a constant reality.

dej
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"I loathe writing. On the other hand I'm a great believer in money."  
-- S.J. Perelman
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In the midst of winter, I finally realized that deep within me there  
lay an invincible summer.
--Albert Camus
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I am Writer, hear me Pontificate!




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