RE: Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing

Jon, whose saying anything about taking money by force?
 
You obviously don't feel what writers produce should be something you pay for. Okay, that's your choice.
 
But millions of other people gladly voluntarily pay for an entertaining or informative read. Be it purchasing a paper book, having it sent in the mail, downloading an e-book, going to the movies, renting the DVD or watching over an IP connection. Not to mention a similar scenario for music:  going to the store to purchase the CD, having it delivered to their door, or downloading from iTunes.
 
No one is forcing this on anyone. 
 
And that millions of people are still willing to pay for these instead of waiting for them to show up in Project Guttenberg or grapping them off some illegal P2P network speaks volumes against your basic assertion.
 
I for one don't have a problem paying for something that I think is reasonably priced, whether it's durable goods, services, information or the fruit of someone's creative talent.
Aaron J. Walker
Writer/Illustrator
"Good Morning, Friend Moon"Publisher
http://www.walkbroadpublishing.com


To: ebook-community-hHKSG33Tihig7M29m/[email protected]: [email protected]: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:43:24 +1000Subject: Re: [ebook-community] Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing




Because that money has to be obtained from someone else, either voluntarily or by force. And the only way to obtain money voluntarily is to provide a product that a person is willing to pay for in the economic environment that prevails at the time. But if you support taking money from people by force (eg grants from taxation) to support writers, then you should explain -- why just writers, and why not buggy-whip makers, typesetters, typewriter repairers and all the other professions that have found themselves being left behind by progress?If you like to write, that's your privilege. If I don't want to fund you, that should be mine. A genuinely free market remains the most efficient way of getting people paid for providing value.Jon.Lady K'Lyssia wrote:> Why shouldn't we be able to make a living off our writing? Carol Hightshoe "A Time To..." - EPPIE Award Finalist // Tiptree Award Nominee Award winning editor of The Lorelei Signal and Sorcerous Signals e-zines Don't Write What You Know; Write What You Care About -- Passionately!> From: jonjermey-sFbbPxZDHXw0n/[email protected]> > Nothing esoteric about this; it's the kind of question wage > tribunals deal with all the time. Basically, a 'fair wage' > for writing is the minimum that an average person with the > requisite skills and an alternative source of income would > accept in return for the effort involved in producing a > novel. But because all novels are different, let's be more > flexible and say it's the minimum that _that person_ would > accept in return for the effort. So if Steven King would > produce a novel for $50,000, then paying him $1,000,000 for > it is a gross misallocation of resources which could be > better spent elsewhere, just as it is to pay someone $1,000 > for a novel when they would have written it for nothing. The > degree of misallocation gives us an indication of how badly > the market is malfunctioning due to artificial restrictions > on trade and distribution.> > Jon.>> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]>  






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