Some e-book logic

[John McFetridge]

Publishers and authors say they can learn from their peers in music, who alienated fans by using the courts aggressively to go after college students and Napster before it converted to a legitimate online store.

“If iTunes started three years earlier, I’m not sure how big Napster and the subsequent piratical environments would have been, because people would have been in the habit of legitimately purchasing at pricing that wasn’t considered pernicious,” said Richard Sarnoff, a chairman of Bertelsmann, which owns Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer titles.

That seems to make sense. The rest of the article is here, though you have to wade through the usual sensationalist fear-mongering to get to the level-headed stuff.

[Jon Loomis]

The music industry alienated fans by charging $17.99 for CDs that had lousy sound quality and cost them 19 cents to produce. That's what created Napster et al.

[John McFetridge]

Thetr's pretty much in the quote above, Jon:

"... people would have been in the habit of legitimately purchasing at pricing that wasn’t considered pernicious." (if I understand the meaning of "pernicious," but I'm one of those writers who would never use a word like that).

But there's more to creating a work of art than the physical delivery system. I'm reminded of a segment on TV I saw about a potter. He threw some clay on a wheel, stuck his fingers in it and a minute later he had a vase. The interviewer asked him how much he'd charge for it and the potter said, "After it's glazed, about five hundred dollars." The interviewer was shocked and said, "Five hundred dollars for two minutes work, that's pretty good," and the potter said, "Eighteen years and two minutes work."

Besides basing price of the cost of production is communist and we're free market capitalists ;)

[Jon Loomis]

John--makes sense for the potter, who's making one-of-a-kind stuff by hand. But the industry-wide R&D on the CD was paid off when, 1990? Hard to justify maintaining the $17.99 price point after that.

[Dana King]

$17.99 was what the market would bear in those days; not so much now. What bothers me is the whining by the record companies, like it was their divine right to overcharge for these things. $17.99 for a limited edtion CD is one thing, as virtually all the costs are up front. Once economies of scale kick in, it's an outrage.

Back to the article John cites. Was anyone but me upset by this line:

Others view digital piracy as a way for new readers to discover writers.

It's the "piracy" I object to. Piracy is a felony. Writers choosing to give their work away for free--as John did with his flash fiction, and scifi writers like Doctorow and John Scalzi have done--is a way to reach new readers. The two are not at all the same. It's upsetting to see a NYT journalist so sloppy with his usage.

[Jon Loomis]

The market would bear the $17.99 price point precisely up until the moment that it became possible to easily rip CDs and upload/download MP3 files on the internet--then, not so much.

[I. J. Parker]

I'm not sure that "digital piracy" refers to books given away for free. Actually, while it seems on the surface that copying music is the same as copying novels, I'm not sure they are comparable. By the potter's example, how many years go into a novel? Most certainly, the years it took to physically write it, revise it, read copy-edited mss, and first-run pages, and promote it. Added to the author's learning years and his research, there is an enormous investment in a novel.
In another way of looking at it, the most pirated titles belong to best-selling authors who can afford that sort of thing. It's the midlist authors who are bound to get hurt and angered most. And as their publishers also take losses, they are the ones most likely to be laid off.

[Dana King]

You're right: I wasn't clear. The author seemed to use "piracy" to mean anything downloaded for free. It should only apply to things that are downloaded for free without authorization of the copyright holder.

[Andrew Kent]

“I really feel like my problem isn’t piracy,” Mr. Doctorow said. “It’s obscurity.”

To me, that quote from the article sums up the problem. Piracy occurs when a work is so commercially valuable that demand forces some to acts of desperation or tempts them to commercial poaching. I haven't had that particular problem/blessing, I hate to admit.

We are in an age of information abundance, which creates a marketing challenge. How we solve that seems as important, if not more important, to the ultimate success of novels and fiction in the future. Creating business models that anger readers wouldn't be part of any marketing approach I'd advocate.

[John McFetridge]

Sure, but we'll have to admit for it to be a "market" and a "business model," money will need to change hands.

[Debbi Mack]

Yes, that money changing hands business. A crucial point.

I understand the desire for exposure--but why are we so willing to give our stuff away? Especially after all the work that goes into a novel. Providing a taste (like Baskin-Robbins) seems fine. Give people a chapter or two--whet their interest. But giving away whole novels online seems crazy to me.

I know there are established authors out there doing this. Since they're more established, maybe give-aways are something they can afford. But what about the rest of us?