piracy thread

> 3b. Re: What kinds of Books are pirated and made into EBooks?
>    Posted by: "joseph harris" [email protected] joe9438
>    Date: Thu Mar 11, 2010 3:08 pm ((PST))
>
>
> <there's an awful lot of snipping going on ;-)>

And thank goodness for it, or this thread would be impossible to read!

> From: "Marion Gropen"
>>
>> The iTunes model -- cheap, easy, secure, and good enough quality --  
>> is
>> one that we're trying to replicate via the Kindle, and other mass
>> market sites. That may be enough to pull us back from the cliff edge
>> that the music industry has fallen over. We can only hope.

> Joseph:

snipping again:
>
> Amazon flexed its big gorilla muscle to bully publishers to serve  
> the Amazon business model - this was, maybe still is, how Woolworth  
> ran contracts with suppliers before it would destroy or take over  
> that company. Others try it on too.
>
> My take is that all these remain experiments. Apart from a few  
> voracious readers most people - Erica spelled this out well - don't  
> wish to plough through the slush pile to find the occasional gem.  
> But gatekeepers have to be paid for. Authors have to be rewarded for  
> their efforts. Designers and accountants have to be paid for their  
> services.

My thought, and an awfully large number of book business folks have  
thought the same way, is that we'll re-capture a fair number of  
readers, and expand our market, if we can bring the relative price of  
books down. With ebooks that may be possible. If the ebook can be  
offered for less, because the costs of manufacturing AND DISTRIBUTION  
are lower, then we may be able to bring the relative cost of a copy  
down significantly. And that may entice readers to buy rather than  
pirate, and to read rather than whatever.


>
> It is far too early to know if the Amazon  and Google grabs will  
> enable or stifle that. Or if the current experiments will work at  
> all. I do not see how any but the big sellers will work on the  
> Kindle model, and the middle rank authors already face enough hell.

I disagree. I think that the new world will make it easier for the  
unknown to capture a cult following, and to make a modest sum (don't  
quit your day job) from practicing their art.

>
> I am much more convinced by the POD progress, where it looks like  
> the 40s and 50s regeneration of publishing with vibrant and  
> innovative samll publishers and publisher-authors. The older  
> movement was publisher-booksellers. Thus history repeats with  
> variations!

I don't see it that way. I think ebooks will wipe out POD for most  
trade uses. Non-trade books are a different matter entirely, of  
course, but they almost always are.



Marion Gropen
Gropen Associates, Inc.
By-The-Question Consulting,  Tools for Publishers, & Classes
www.GropenAssoc.com
Her blog: www.GropenAssoc.com/blog





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