Charles Stross: lunatic, provocateur, or science-fiction writer?
Johan Larson
has also announced on his site www.accelerando.org his plans to make the
full text of the novel available for free by unprotected download. The text
isn't available yet, but it is coming soon, apparently.
That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free while you
are hawking a cow? But I know Charles from his postings on this newsgroup,
and since they have generally been sensible, he must have some decent
reasons doing this. Offhand, I am guessing he wants to
a) give the finger to overprotective DRM-happy publishers, and
b) become noticed, in this case by undertaking a crazy stunt. Presumably he
hopes increased sales of future works, driven by the publicity, will offset
any lost sales on this one.
What I can't figure out is why his publisher is letting him do this. Even if
the notoriety gambit works in the long run, this present novel will probably
lose sales because of it, with any extra sales coming in later novels. And
the publisher of this novel cannot be sure they will be publishing those
later novels. So why are they agreeing to this? Some sort of loophole in the
licensing contract, perhaps?
Johan Larson
David Bilek
Because your "the present novel will probably lose sales because of
it" is possibly a false premise. Baen's experience with the Free
Library is that giving the full text of a novel away for free actually
*increases* paper sales. Charlie is clearly hoping that Baen's
experience will generalize to non-Baen entities.
I'm not sure it will. I think Baen may be a special case. But that's
just a gut feeling with nothing to back it up.
But it's nothing like a clear cut case as you make it out to be.
Charlie may, indeed, gain sales because of this.
-David
John Pelan
It's a very interesting experiment. My gut feeling is that book people
like me will settle for nothing less than a hardcover book and the
availability of an e-text means nothing to them. I also suspect that
there are enough "cautious buyers" that will either (a.) read sections
of a book in a store or (b.) peruse the text on-line before making a
purchasing decision to make this a fairly canny move. My experience
thus far has been that the folks that read pirated texts (and I don't
mean to imply that these are the same folks that use the Baen free
library or other electronic sources) aren't going to buy books anyway,
so the hypothetical "lost sales" may actually be considerably less
than the "cautious buyers" gained from this sort of promotion.
I suppose that there are a few e-book devotees that are perfectly
content reading books on a screen, but I doubt that this group forms a
large enough demographic to have an adverse impact on sales. I'll be
very interested to see how this plays out. My own experience with the
availablity of e-texts of our Fritz Leiber books is that people are
still more than happy to drop a couple of hundred bucks for a copy of
THE BLACK GONDOLIER in hardcover.
Cheers,
John Pelan
Sea Wasp
> What I can't figure out is why his publisher is letting him do this.
Because the Baen Free Library has been consistently proving, over the
past several years, that giving it away for free *INCREASES SALES*.
People (in general) don't really LIKE to read whole books online yet.
It's not a common comfortable mode for most people. But they DO like
"try before you buy". Offering the stuff for free online allows them
to try, and then if they want to read the whole thing they usually buy
the hardcopy. Or sometimes buy the electronic one online.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Andrew Plotkin
>
> That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free
> while you are hawking a cow?
Because he's hoping milk is addictive.
Cory Doctorow has also put books online for free, simultaneous with
publication, and he seems to be satisfied with the result.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.
Johan Larson
"Sea Wasp" <seaobvi...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote in message
news:42AE44F9...@sgeobviousinc.com...
> Johan Larson wrote:
>
>> What I can't figure out is why his publisher is letting him do this.
>
> Because the Baen Free Library has been consistently proving, over the past
> several years, that giving it away for free *INCREASES SALES*.
Giving _what_ away for free? Older works that can not be cost-effectively
brought into print? Sure, that sounds like good advertising and sensible
garnering of goodwill. Older works that are selling slowly in paperback?
Maaybe, since the portability of the paperback form is still a significant
asset in some cases, and offering such works in electronic copies therefore
may not cannibalize sales. But full-price hardcovers? This is my Sceptical
expression.
According to the Baen website, there are 6 new works for June. Having them
appear in the Baen Free Library would be equivalent to what Charlie is
doing. Not one of them appears there.
>
> People (in general) don't really LIKE to read whole books online yet. It's
> not a common comfortable mode for most people. But they DO like "try
> before you buy".
Try-before-you-buy is a great idea; I bought Ringo's "Into the Looking
Glass" in large part because of the free sample chapters. But why offer the
whole book?
> Offering the stuff for free online allows them to try, and then if they
> want to read the whole thing they usually buy the hardcopy. Or sometimes
> buy the electronic one online.
Johan Larson
Sean O'Hara
> Charles Stross' new book "Accelerando" is now available in the
> US.
Only at bookstores that have released it early.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Brigadier: Do you know what you're doing?
Doctor: My dear chap, I can't wait to find out.
-Doctor Who
Dan Goodman
> On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 19:04:40 -0700, "Johan Larson"
>
> > Charles Stross' new book "Accelerando" is now available in the US.
> > Oddly, he has also announced on his site www.accelerando.org his
> > plans to make the full text of the novel available for free by
> > unprotected download. The text isn't available yet, but it is
> > coming soon, apparently.
> >
> > That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free
> > while you are hawking a cow?
An excellent reason for publishers to turn down all attempts by
libraries to buy books, and to lobby for laws making it illegal to sell
used books.
And it neatly explains why music publishers prosecute anyone who dares
play their music on radio or television.
> It's a very interesting experiment. My gut feeling is that book people
> like me will settle for nothing less than a hardcover book and the
> availability of an e-text means nothing to them. I also suspect that
> there are enough "cautious buyers" that will either (a.) read sections
> of a book in a store or (b.) peruse the text on-line before making a
> purchasing decision to make this a fairly canny move.
Speaking for myself: If I see a novel which is shrink-wrapped to keep
browsers from looking at it, I figure my purchasing decision has
already been made for me. If the book shows up at my local library,
I'll look at it; and if I decide I want it permanently, I'll keep my
eyes out for a used copy.
--
Dan Goodman
Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/
Clutterers Anonymous unofficial community
http://www.livejournal.com/community/clutterers_anon/
Decluttering http://decluttering.blogspot.com
Predictions and Politics http://dsgood.blogspot.com
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.
Mark Atwood
> Maaybe, since the portability of the paperback form is still a significant
> asset in some cases, and offering such works in electronic copies therefore
> may not cannibalize sales. But full-price hardcovers? This is my Sceptical
> expression.
I have some counter-examples for your sceptisism.
"Old Man's War"
"Agent to the Stars"
"Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"
"Eastern Standard Tribe"
"Snow, Glass, Apples"
"Kevin & Kell"
All were or are available for free online, before they were available
as dead trees.
In Charlie Stross's (or any other good author's) case,
there are 5 classes of people.
1) Those who have him in "buy on sight". As long has he can keep his
quality up, putting his work online loses him nothing.
2) Those who know who he is. They browse the online text. Then they
buy a copy. He wins.
3) Those who know who he is. They browse the online text. Then they
decide not to buy a copy.
4) Those who don't read him online, and don't buy his book. He loses
nothing he didn't already not have.
5) Those who don't read him online, but who buy his book. He wins, but
no more than an offline author.
If the set of people who are in #3 who would have been in #5 if there
was no free etext, is smaller than the set of people who are in #2 who
would have been in #4, he wins.
Experience has shown that, if an author is readable and has fans,
conversion from #4 to #2 is quite a lot easier than conversion from #5
to #2.
This effect grows rather strong, as the years pass from the
publication date, and the book cannot be had in bookstores, which
forces people out of #5 into #4, whether they want to or not.
It's #5->#4 conversions that make life so hard for authors, especially
ones in the midlist or who don't have a hot book out right now.
#2->#4 conversions more than make up that loss.
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus
Bradford Holden
>
> b) become noticed, in this case by undertaking a crazy stunt. Presumably he
> hopes increased sales of future works, driven by the publicity, will offset
> any lost sales on this one.
>
I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
sucks.
--
Bradford Holden
"Let us leave philosphoy to the physicists" - Ken MacLeod _Newton's Wake_
Johan Larson
"Bradford Holden" <hol...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:ilacltk...@oddjob.uchicago.edu...
> "Johan Larson" <johan0larson8comcast0net> writes:
>>
>> b) become noticed, in this case by undertaking a crazy stunt. Presumably
>> he
>> hopes increased sales of future works, driven by the publicity, will
>> offset
>> any lost sales on this one.
>>
>
> I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
> free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
> hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
> get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
> short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
> to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
> sucks.
Well, that was rather different, since he wasn't making all of "The Atrocity
Archives" available free, but rather a sample portion of it. It was quite a
big sample, though, and it worked stand-alone.
I read "Concrete Jungle", and liked it. I looked up the book, and saw it was
only available in hardcover. The notion of paying seventeen bucks for a
novella (the other half of "The Atrocity Archives") made me slam on the
brakes. After checking the state of my to-read pile, I decided not to buy
the book. Strictly speaking, in my case, making "Concrete Jungle" available
made no difference either way.
Johan Larson
Johan Larson
"Mark Atwood" <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote in message
news:m264wh8...@amsu.fallenpegasus.com...
> "Johan Larson" <johan0larson8comcast0net> writes:
>> Maaybe, since the portability of the paperback form is still a
>> significant
>> asset in some cases, and offering such works in electronic copies
>> therefore
>> may not cannibalize sales. But full-price hardcovers? This is my
>> Sceptical
>> expression.
>
> I have some counter-examples for your sceptisism.
>
> "Old Man's War"
> "Agent to the Stars"
> "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"
> "Eastern Standard Tribe"
> "Snow, Glass, Apples"
> "Kevin & Kell"
I recognize two of those titles, and I don't recall hearing anything about
either being a great success or a great failure. Since the publishing
community is actually rather small, and word gets around, I would guess that
publishing on paper some genre works that are also available online has been
tried a few times with mediocre results. But it's probably hard to know for
sure whether it's a new win or a net loss, since ninety-some percent of new
books are failures anyway.
>
> All were or are available for free online, before they were available
> as dead trees.
>
[Snip long argument. Thank you for taking the time.]
What are you arguing? That it can make sense for an author, and in
particular a new author, to make some work available cheaply or for free to
build a market of interested readers? I am not disputing that.
That making available a free electronic version of a book can increase the
sales of that book? More so than just providing a few sample chapters? That
I'd like to hear.
Johan Larson
Peter Bruells
> John Pelan wrote:
> > > That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free
> > > while you are hawking a cow?
> An excellent reason for publishers to turn down all attempts by
> libraries to buy books, and to lobby for laws making it illegal to
> sell used books.
> And it neatly explains why music publishers prosecute anyone who
> dares play their music on radio or television.
But aren't they trying to make sure that they (a) get paid for it and
(b) that people are not able to make good copies?
We haven't seen the last in RM of books and it will be a while till
etext will have a major impact on tradional books. Mostly, because
there's still no digital technolgy that delivers as good as a book
does.
After all, "books" have been polished and improved upon during
millenia, while sound and picture recording is relatively new. The
switch from analogue to digital seems recent to our generation, but
it'll be barely a glitch if seen from centuries away.
Dave Goldman
With a Subject line like that, I assumed that this thread was started by
Charlie.
(Though it did turn out to be a thread about Strossian self-promotion,
more or less.)
- Dave Goldman
Portland, OR
David Bilek
>
>I read "Concrete Jungle", and liked it. I looked up the book, and saw it was
>only available in hardcover. The notion of paying seventeen bucks for a
>novella (the other half of "The Atrocity Archives") made me slam on the
>brakes.
...
_The Atrocity Archive_ is very much a novel, not a novella. What
makes you think it is a novella? "Concrete Jungle", which you read,
is a novella. _The Atrocity Archive_ is a novel.
-David
Mark Atwood
>
> That making available a free electronic version of a book can increase the
> sales of that book? More so than just providing a few sample chapters? That
> I'd like to hear.
Take it up with Eric Flint.
That it works has made a noticable impact on his bank account.
Plus, he can cite authors who have put their works online for free
several years after they were published in paper form and had those
works suddenly start selling out more printings.
Robert Sneddon
<johan0larson8comcast0net@?.?.invalid> writes
>Charles Stross' new book "Accelerando" is now available in the US. Oddly, he
>has also announced on his site www.accelerando.org his plans to make the
>full text of the novel available for free by unprotected download. The text
>isn't available yet, but it is coming soon, apparently.
>
>That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free while you
>are hawking a cow? But I know Charles from his postings on this newsgroup,
>and since they have generally been sensible, he must have some decent
>reasons doing this.
Charlie's writing about the future, and in that future media is
fungible. It's information, not fixed on paper or in pits on a disc or
on tape. It moves freely from one form to another, through the ether to
whatever is most convenient to hand for the "consumer'. _Accelerando_ is
his novel which best encapsulates this, so what better book to make
available in a form its hero would regard as unexceptional? In the book
Manfred Macx gets rich by giving things away; Charlie's talked the talk,
now he's walking the walk.
His publishers are nervous perhaps, but he's not breaking a fresh trail
and those who went before have not suffered, it seems.
--
Email me via robert (at) nojay (dot) org (new email address)
This address no longer accepts HTML posts.
Robert Sneddon
Daniel Silevitch
> Speaking for myself: If I see a novel which is shrink-wrapped to keep
> browsers from looking at it, I figure my purchasing decision has
> already been made for me. If the book shows up at my local library,
> I'll look at it; and if I decide I want it permanently, I'll keep my
> eyes out for a used copy.
You say 'novel', but shrink-wrapping is fairly common for larger-format
books, like exhibition catalogs in art museums and the like. The normal
procedure is to have one unwrapped copy, with "Display Copy" stickers on
the cover, to let everyone paw through. The rest of the books are
wrapped so that a buyer shelling out $50 or whatever is reasonably sure
of getting a pristine copy.
-dms
Phillip SanMiguel
> Charles Stross' new book "Accelerando" is now available in the US.
Where? Amazon lists it as available July 1st.
--
Phillip
Elf M. Sternberg
> That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free while you
> are hawking a cow?
Both Cory Doctorow and I have noticed something: our fans *want*
paper. And they *want* to reward you. If you provide them with a token
made of paper, they'll provide you with tokens of appreciation, also
made of paper. I guess Charlie's decided to try it out for himself.
Charlie's an uneven writer for me. I zipped through Singularity
Sky and Iron Sunrise, struggled with the Atrocity Archive, and bounced
off his fantasy thing. But I'll probably buy Accelerando; it sounds
like the kind of thing I'd want on my shelves anyway.
Elf
Louann Miller
wrote:
>"Johan Larson" <johan0larson8comcast0net> writes:
>>
>> That making available a free electronic version of a book can increase the
>> sales of that book? More so than just providing a few sample chapters? That
>> I'd like to hear.
>
>Take it up with Eric Flint.
>
>That it works has made a noticable impact on his bank account.
>
>Plus, he can cite authors who have put their works online for free
>several years after they were published in paper form and had those
>works suddenly start selling out more printings.
I suspect Mr. Larson wasn't privy to the previous iterations of this
argument and is genuinely unaware he's hashing over old territory.
Suggested research site: the editorials on
http://www.baen.com/library/ . I'd also suggest the previous threads,
but I don't have information handy to easily Google them and I'm lazy.
Johan Larson
"Phillip SanMiguel" <pmi...@purdue.edu> wrote in message
news:42AED9E0...@purdue.edu...
> Johan Larson wrote:
>> Charles Stross' new book "Accelerando" is now available in the US.
>
> Where? Amazon lists it as available July 1st.
Sorry. My mistake; I thought it was being released June 1. I blame the
opium.
Johan
Johan Larson
"David Bilek" <dtb...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:gd6ta1t9mt14l4hst...@4ax.com...
I guessed the two parts of _The Atrocity Archives_ were approximately equal
in length, but that amy have been an error. Do you happen to have the
hardcover handy for a page count? According to Amazon, the hardcover is 295
pages. I'm guessing "Concrete Jungle" was about 100 pages, which would make
"The Atrocity Archive" about 195 pages.
Johan Larson
Robert Sneddon
<johan0larson8comcast0net@?.?.invalid> writes
Re: _Accelerando_
>Sorry. My mistake; I thought it was being released June 1. I blame the
>opium.
_Accelerando_ should be in the shops within the next few days. I saw a
copy on Sunday but it was in Charlie's study, not a bookstore.
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
I just had a thought. If we do get to a point where e-books are
generally accepted, what is the likelihood that they will still
resemble books? I can see the possibility that people start adding
special features, like background music or sound effects, that could
start driving books closer to movies. I mean, you have all that
wasted potential if you just portray text, and don't fully utilize the
power of the e-book reader.
Rebecca
GSV Three Minds in a Can
person Bradford Holden <hol...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> said
>"Johan Larson" <johan0larson8comcast0net> writes:
>>
>> b) become noticed, in this case by undertaking a crazy stunt. Presumably he
>> hopes increased sales of future works, driven by the publicity, will offset
>> any lost sales on this one.
>>
>
>I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
>free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
>hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
>get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
>short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
>to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
>sucks.
Me too. I'm going to buy it in MMPB (if it ever comes out in the UK,
else I'll bootleg one from the USA). If he puts it online I may browse
some, but I sure as hell ain't gonna read a whole novel that way
(reading in the bathroom can get you electrocuted with that technology).
I'm also more likely to buy his works because of his 'apparent
generosity' (to the world at large).
If someone wants to bootleg something they =will= find a way - library,
scanner+OCR (resulting in a really cr&p version), or hold up the nearest
BookMart at gunpoint. The author putting it online does no extra damage
afaict.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Contact recommends the use of Firefox; SC recommends it at gunpoint.
b
> I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
> free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
> hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
> get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
> short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
> to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
> sucks.
I'm curious, why did you order the hardback if you'd already read the
entire book online? I'm assuming the motivation was for future re-reads
(but presumably you already have an electronic copy stored on your hard
disk if you ever wanted to read it again)?
Maybe my thinking isn't too much different, though - I read most of my
books at the library and then buy the ones I really liked.
b*
Dan Goodman
> What are you arguing? That it can make sense for an author, and in
> particular a new author, to make some work available cheaply or for
> free to build a market of interested readers? I am not disputing that.
>
> That making available a free electronic version of a book can
> increase the sales of that book? More so than just providing a few
> sample chapters? That I'd like to hear.
What would it take to make you _believe_ that?
In Minnesota, some conservatives are convinced that public transit
cannot possibly do anything significant toward solving traffic problems.
Minneapolis now has an LRT line. When it turned out to have more
riders than predicted, several conservatives called for an
investigation. It was obvious that those figures couldn't possibly be
true, and that someone had faked them.
Bradford Holden
> I read "Concrete Jungle", and liked it. I looked up the book, and saw it was
> only available in hardcover. The notion of paying seventeen bucks for a
> novella (the other half of "The Atrocity Archives") made me slam on the
> brakes. After checking the state of my to-read pile, I decided not to buy
> the book. Strictly speaking, in my case, making "Concrete Jungle" available
> made no difference either way.
Would you have bought the hardback if you had not read "Concrete Jungle"?
I am trying to figure out if Charlie actually lost anything.
Bradford Holden
> Bradford Holden wrote:
>
> > I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
> > free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
> > hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
> > get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
> > short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
> > to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
> > sucks.
>
> I'm curious, why did you order the hardback if you'd already read the
> entire book online? I'm assuming the motivation was for future re-reads
> (but presumably you already have an electronic copy stored on your hard
> disk if you ever wanted to read it again)?
Sorry, I should have been more clear. "Concrete Jungle" is one third
of a book called the _Atrocity Archive_, the other two thirds are
a short novel or long novella called "The Atrocity Archive". After
reading the "Concrete Jungle", I wanted to read the prequel, so to speak.
After the book I arrived, I read both straight through. I did not
get a lot of sleep that week.
> Maybe my thinking isn't too much different, though - I read most of my
> books at the library and then buy the ones I really liked.
You could think of it that way as well. I really liked "Concrete Jungle",
I have read it twice now and it will go in my pile of books that
get read lots. (YMMV, cost of oatmeal, etc etc)
Alexander Kay
>Bradford Holden wrote:
>> I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
>> free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
>> hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
>> get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
>> short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
>> to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
>> sucks.
>I'm curious, why did you order the hardback if you'd already read the
>entire book online? I'm assuming the motivation was for future re-reads
>(but presumably you already have an electronic copy stored on your hard
>disk if you ever wanted to read it again)?
Possibly because of the longer-term thinking implied by the phrase "vote
with your wallet". By purchasing this book in hardcover, he is encouraging
the author (and, to a lesser extent, the publisher) to produce more books
like it.
Alexx
Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers.
alexx@carolingiaSPAMBL@CK.org http://www.panix.com/~alexx
"As a ready example, I could cite the death of a loved one: the physical
presence is gone, broken down to its constituent chemicals, its constituent
atoms. That person does not exist physically anymore as a discrete
physical entity. The Idea-Presence of that person cannot die, however.
It hangs around and wakes you up crying at four in the morning. Five
years later it taps you on the shoulder while you're doing the washing up
and it makes you smile."
-- Alan Moore in correspondence with Dave Sim about _From Hell_
grey...@gmaildo.ttocom
> "Johan Larson" <johan0larson8comcast0net> writes:
>> Maaybe, since the portability of the paperback form is still a significant
>> asset in some cases, and offering such works in electronic copies therefore
>> may not cannibalize sales. But full-price hardcovers? This is my Sceptical
>> expression.
>
> I have some counter-examples for your sceptisism.
>
> "Old Man's War"
> "Agent to the Stars"
> "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"
> "Eastern Standard Tribe"
> "Snow, Glass, Apples"
> "Kevin & Kell"
>
> All were or are available for free online, before they were available
> as dead trees.
>
> In Charlie Stross's (or any other good author's) case,
> there are 5 classes of people.
>
> 1) Those who have him in "buy on sight". As long has he can keep his
> quality up, putting his work online loses him nothing.
> 2) Those who know who he is. They browse the online text. Then they
> buy a copy. He wins.
> 3) Those who know who he is. They browse the online text. Then they
> decide not to buy a copy.
I like some of his books, HATE others (into fire with frustration).
Being able to check what its like will help to decide whether to buy.
--
greymaus
97.025% of statistics are wrong
Charlie Stross
as <> declared:
>
> "Sea Wasp" <seaobvi...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote in message
> news:42AE44F9...@sgeobviousinc.com...
>> Johan Larson wrote:
>>
>>> What I can't figure out is why his publisher is letting him do this.
Well, the marketing director at Ace seems to think it's a
good idea. As did my editor there. And my editor at Orbit in
the UK.
So it's not just me. Also ...
>> Because the Baen Free Library has been consistently proving, over the past
>> several years, that giving it away for free *INCREASES SALES*.
>
> Giving _what_ away for free? Older works that can not be cost-effectively
> brought into print?
... I've seen Cory Doctorow's sales figures for his novels.
Print runs and sales figures are publisher-confidential
stuff; too much risk of embarrassment if a much-touted book
flops. Take it from me, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"
and "Eastern Standard Tribe" did *not* flop: they sold jolly
well. And Cory did exactly the same thing I'm doing. His
novels came out as free e-books on the first day of
publication.
> Sure, that sounds like good advertising and sensible
> garnering of goodwill. Older works that are selling slowly in paperback?
> Maaybe, since the portability of the paperback form is still a significant
> asset in some cases, and offering such works in electronic copies therefore
> may not cannibalize sales. But full-price hardcovers? This is my Sceptical
> expression.
Yup. The evidence -- based on cold, hard sales figures -- is
that e-book editions do better as advertising freebies than
as a profit centre. Typical sales for most e-books
(especially DRM locked ones) are in the *hundreds*; people
just don't consider them worth paying a full cover price
for. In contrast, people can and do read sample chapters
online, but they aren't too keen on reading entire books.
> Try-before-you-buy is a great idea; I bought Ringo's "Into the Looking
> Glass" in large part because of the free sample chapters. But why offer the
> whole book?
Because it's the ultimate free sample. People are more
likely to download the entire book and read a chunk than
they are to download, say, the first third of it. There's
the sense that you're getting the whole thing.
-- Charlie
Charlie Stross
>>I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
>>free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
>>hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
>>get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
>>short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
>>to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
>>sucks.
>
> Me too. I'm going to buy it in MMPB (if it ever comes out in the UK,
> else I'll bootleg one from the USA).
"The Atrocity Archives" is coming out in Trade Paperback
from Berkeley Books next February. The mass market paperback
will follow, probably in February '07, or whenever the Trade
Paperback edition of "The Jennifer Morgue" comes out from
Berkeley. (It's coming out in hardcover from Golden Gryphon
in November next year. Ahem. Assuming I finish it in time.)
-- Charlie
David Bilek
Our tastes diverge rather a lot it seems. You've listed his books in
what I consider reverse order of quality. I thought his Clan
Corporate thing was his best stuff yet, _The Atrocity Archive_ and
_Iron Sunrise_ were quite good, and _Singularity Sky_ suffered from
being obviously not yet the work of a writer whose talent has fully
matured.
-David
David Bilek
"Concrete Jungle" is about 80 pages and _The Atrocity Archive_ is
something like 185 pages. So it is over twice as long. In terms of
word count it is 78,000 words which is firmly in the Novel category.
-David
David Bilek
Pour encourager les autres, as I am trying to do with Lawrence
Watt-Evans and is Spriggan Experiment.
-David
Mark Atwood
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:54:09 GMT, Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name>
> wrote:
>
> I suspect Mr. Larson wasn't privy to the previous iterations of this
> argument and is genuinely unaware he's hashing over old territory.
If something is being rehashed, maybe it can be reduced to the point
where it will fit in the FAQ.
John Schilling
>Charles Stross' new book "Accelerando" is now available in the US. Oddly, he
>has also announced on his site www.accelerando.org his plans to make the
>full text of the novel available for free by unprotected download. The text
>isn't available yet, but it is coming soon, apparently.
>That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free while you
>are hawking a cow? But I know Charles from his postings on this newsgroup,
>and since they have generally been sensible, he must have some decent
>reasons doing this. Offhand, I am guessing he wants to
>a) give the finger to overprotective DRM-happy publishers, and
>b) become noticed, in this case by undertaking a crazy stunt. Presumably he
>hopes increased sales of future works, driven by the publicity, will offset
>any lost sales on this one.
>What I can't figure out is why his publisher is letting him do this. Even if
>the notoriety gambit works in the long run, this present novel will probably
>lose sales because of it, with any extra sales coming in later novels. And
>the publisher of this novel cannot be sure they will be publishing those
>later novels. So why are they agreeing to this? Some sort of loophole in the
>licensing contract, perhaps?
Have you missed out on the many, many discussions we have had on this and
other closely-related subjects here?
The prodict he is giving away and the product he is selling, are not the
same. One is a bitstream, the other is an artifact of ink and paper, and
even though they both encode the same text, they are not identical. The
vast majority of the present book-buying market considers the artifact of
ink and paper to be more useful and more valuable than the bitstream,
identical texts notwithstanding. Exactly why this is, is a huge part of
all those discussions we have had in the past, but it is the way things
are.
Giving away a reduced-utility, reduced-value version of your product in
order to promote the full-utility, full-value, full-cost version is a
widely recognized and effective marketing technique. Whatever ulterior
motives Stross may or may not have for doing this, it is quite plausible
that he and his publisher will both *make* money by it, on account of
his *present* novel seeing *increased* sales.
Yes, some people will say, "Free e-text, yippee! I'd have paid good money
for this, but now I don't have to!"
This is a *very very small* group of people. Only a very small number of
people like to read novels in e-text form. Only a very small number of
people think Charlie Stross is an author whose books are worth spending
good money on. The intersection of the two sets is negligible.
A much greater number of people are ambivalent on both points. E-texts
aren't completely worthless, but not the right way to read a novel.
Charlie Stross is an author who writes SF, which we like, but is he
good enough to be worth paying for?
A free, but inadequate for the desired reading experience, preview copy,
will increase sales of hardcopy books to that much larger group. It will
even increase sales to the still larger group of people who don't want
anything to do with e-texts, by facilitating increased discussion of the
book in general. The free nature of the e-text allows them to decide that
yes, a new Charlie Stross is worth paying for. The e-text nature of the
e-text requires them to actually pay for what they actually want, which
is a book.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Sea Wasp
> "Sea Wasp" <seaobvi...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote in message
> news:42AE44F9...@sgeobviousinc.com...
>
>>Johan Larson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>several years, that giving it away for free *INCREASES SALES*.
>
>
> Giving _what_ away for free? Older works that can not be cost-effectively
> brought into print?
Giving away their current catalog, most of the time modulo about
three months lag time. Digital Knight went into the Free Library about
four months after it was published. Diamonds Are Forever was actually
available for free from the time Mountain Magic was published; ALL of
it was posted as the "free chapters".
A large chunk of the income from Digital Knight came from the
electronic form, too -- and significant amounts of it AND of paper
sales came *AFTER* it was in the Free Library.
But full-price hardcovers? This is my Sceptical
> expression.
>
I expect that Boundary will pop into the Free Library a few months
after publication.
> Try-before-you-buy is a great idea; I bought Ringo's "Into the Looking
> Glass" in large part because of the free sample chapters. But why offer the
> whole book?
>
Because most people won't READ the whole book that way, but they'll
feel (A) warm and fuzzy about having been given the chance, and (B)
will hopefully still want to finish the story, so they'll then BUY it.
And some will (C) feel guilty about having the whole thing without
paying, so they'll buy either Webscriptions or the paper.
Alexander Kay
>Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>as <> declared:
>> Try-before-you-buy is a great idea; I bought Ringo's "Into the Looking
>> Glass" in large part because of the free sample chapters. But why offer the
>> whole book?
>Because it's the ultimate free sample. People are more
>likely to download the entire book and read a chunk than
>they are to download, say, the first third of it. There's
>the sense that you're getting the whole thing.
There is also some gratification in delaying payment until you've read
the ending. More than once have I read an mostly-enjoyable book, only
to hurl it against a wall upon reaching a completely unsatisfying ending.
Or sometimes the tone of a book changes radically halfway through, not
always for the better. I would have been glad to not pay for such books.
Alexx
Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers.
alexx@carolingiaSPAMBL@CK.org http://www.panix.com/~alexx
"Can the thoughts and deeds of one person affect the continuum? Well, yes,
but the situation is actually far worse than that: the thoughts, deeds,
and minute antennae movements of an /ant/ can affect the whole continuum."
-- Alan Moore, in correspondence with Dave Sim about _From Hell_
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> said
Well as long as you're into bold experiments, how about getting the
publisher to pull the MMPBs forward?? I assure you I ain't ever gonna
buy the hardcover, so you'd just get the same money quicker by releasing
the MMPB sooner. Crazy that I can have E-book (yuk) or HB (won't fit my
shelves) but not anything in between!
Charlie Stross
as <G...@quik.clara.co.uk> declared:
>>"The Atrocity Archives" is coming out in Trade Paperback
>>from Berkeley Books next February. The mass market paperback
>>will follow, probably in February '07, or whenever the Trade
>>Paperback edition of "The Jennifer Morgue" comes out from
>>Berkeley. (It's coming out in hardcover from Golden Gryphon
>>in November next year. Ahem. Assuming I finish it in time.)
>
> Well as long as you're into bold experiments, how about getting the
> publisher to pull the MMPBs forward??
Can't and won't. It's not up to me.
> I assure you I ain't ever gonna
> buy the hardcover, so you'd just get the same money quicker by releasing
> the MMPB sooner. Crazy that I can have E-book (yuk) or HB (won't fit my
> shelves) but not anything in between!
You're not, as far as I know, getting e-book editions of
either of the Laundry novels (with the sole exception of
"The Concrete Jungle", which was released due to being on
the Hugo shortlist).
Don't confuse my SF marketing strategy with the fantasy or
horror lines. Different publishers, different situations,
different contracts. Not saying it'll never happen, but it's
not currently on the agenda.
-- Charlie
steve miller
>I just had a thought. If we do get to a point where e-books are
>generally accepted, what is the likelihood that they will still
>resemble books? I can see the possibility that people start adding
>special features, like background music or sound effects, that could
>start driving books closer to movies. I mean, you have all that
>wasted potential if you just portray text, and don't fully utilize the
>power of the e-book reader.
The problem is that many good stories will be ruined by trying to add
appropriate "utitlization." With books, you need to get the story
right. With movies you need the right story, the right script, the
right director, the right characters, the right location.... Books
work. Books with automatic voices (for example) can suffer from the
audiobook "wrong-reader" problem.
"All that wasted potential" is what you avoid when you buy a book --
you want the story as is, not all the stories that might be if you
made each page the flavor of a different ice cream, with a musical
score, and hyperlinks to the nude photos or court cases that made the
author famous.
The potential *needs* to be wasted, else you get a bedtime story
that's a floorwax and a dessert topping.
Steve
Crystal Soldier on sale worldwide
Balance of Trade:Hal Clement Award Best YA Novel 2004
Local Custom audiobook from Buzzy Multimedia 6/27
--
Johan Larson
"Bradford Holden" <hol...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:il1x742...@oddjob.uchicago.edu...
>> I read "Concrete Jungle", and liked it. I looked up the book, and saw it
>> was
>> only available in hardcover. The notion of paying seventeen bucks for a
>> novella (the other half of "The Atrocity Archives") made me slam on the
>> brakes. After checking the state of my to-read pile, I decided not to buy
>> the book. Strictly speaking, in my case, making "Concrete Jungle"
>> available
>> made no difference either way.
>
> Would you have bought the hardback if you had not read "Concrete Jungle"?
> I am trying to figure out if Charlie actually lost anything.
In this case, I was very interested in reading "Concrete Jungle", since it
was nominated for an award, and rather less interested in "The Atrocity
Archive". I was already familiar with the author.
In the case "Concrete Jungle" is available for free electronically, buying
the book gets me:
Concrete Jungle accessible on paper -- interest: Low
The Atrocity Archive accessible -- interest: Moderate
The Atrocity Archive accessible on paper -- interest: Low
Net interest: Moderate
In the case where "Concrete Jungle" is available only in the hardcover,
buying the book gets me:
Concrete Jungle accessible -- interest: High
Concrete Jungle accessible on paper -- interest: Low
The Atrocity Archive accessible -- interest: Moderate
The Atrocity Archive accessible on paper -- interest: Low
Net interest: High
Best bet, making "Concrete Jungle" available for free caused my interest in
the book to drop from High to Moderate. On average, ignoring secondary
factors, Charlie lost maybe 20% of a sale.
Johan Larson
Johan Larson
"Louann Miller" <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
news:1118759455.38d5b2e329a3e10befce9b51062fbbe1@teranews...
That is indeed a very good source for the loose-IP-control side of the
argument. We would do well to point people there whenever this thread
reappears.
If we had a similar source for the tight-IP-control side, we would have a
fine FAQ entry. Hmm, who can we tap? Stirling, maybe?
Johan Larson
Sean Eric Fagan
steve miller <chee...@starswarmnews.com> wrote:
>The problem is that many good stories will be ruined by trying to add
>appropriate "utitlization."
No doubt. But perhaps it is like desktop publishing: when it first became
popular, people were being *nuts*, adding graphics, and multiple fonts, and
strange layouts, simply because they *could*. Similar things happened with a
bunch of "multimedia" stuff. And then with Flash and Java and whatnot on web
pages.
But then it settled down, and you ended up with things that were very much
improved by the features.
When I read the original post, I thought about children's books, which usually
have some sort of image on the page -- the one that really jumped into mind
had a pasture, with some animals, and a night sky overhead. (I have no idea
what book this is, or if it's just a generic image :).) I could then see a
child's "book" that had the same thing, but with slowly moving animals and
stars, and some pleasant, relaxing, lullaby-esque music playing.
Nuts? I dunno.
Mark Atwood
>
> Best bet, making "Concrete Jungle" available for free caused my interest in
> the book to drop from High to Moderate. On average, ignoring secondary
> factors, Charlie lost maybe 20% of a sale.
But on the other hand, he has a mildly disinterested reader, instead of
a pissed off one. This also translates into better sales for his FUTURE
output.
r.r...@thevine.net
<chee...@starswarmnews.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:15:09 -0700, r.r...@thevine.net wrotD:
>
>
>>I just had a thought. If we do get to a point where e-books are
>>generally accepted, what is the likelihood that they will still
>>resemble books? I can see the possibility that people start adding
>>special features, like background music or sound effects, that could
>>start driving books closer to movies. I mean, you have all that
>>wasted potential if you just portray text, and don't fully utilize the
>>power of the e-book reader.
>
>The problem is that many good stories will be ruined by trying to add
>appropriate "utitlization." With books, you need to get the story
>right. With movies you need the right story, the right script, the
>right director, the right characters, the right location.... Books
>work. Books with automatic voices (for example) can suffer from the
>audiobook "wrong-reader" problem.
>
>"All that wasted potential" is what you avoid when you buy a book --
>you want the story as is, not all the stories that might be if you
>made each page the flavor of a different ice cream, with a musical
>score, and hyperlinks to the nude photos or court cases that made the
>author famous.
>
>The potential *needs* to be wasted, else you get a bedtime story
>that's a floorwax and a dessert topping.
>
First, let me say that I agree with you 100%. However... I'm just
thinking about some time in the future. Everyone gets their books in
e-format. And someone saying "Hey, we could include X". Much the way
they do with DVDs now. (Why, I don't know. I want to watch the
movie, not the making of, or the director's commentary, or whatever.
But a bunch of other people apparently do want to see that stuff, so
it gets added.) I can see the same thing happening with books, if the
public gets used to them being more of an interactive experience.
Rebecca
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
Actually, that's a very good point, since children's books are more
interactive than adult's. Think of the pop-up books, and Pat the
Bunny, and the books with holes for things to stick through. You
could duplicate some of that electronically.
Rebecca
Keith Morrison
>>The potential *needs* to be wasted, else you get a bedtime story
>>that's a floorwax and a dessert topping.
>>
>First, let me say that I agree with you 100%. However... I'm just
>thinking about some time in the future. Everyone gets their books in
>e-format. And someone saying "Hey, we could include X". Much the way
>they do with DVDs now. (Why, I don't know. I want to watch the
>movie, not the making of, or the director's commentary, or whatever.
>But a bunch of other people apparently do want to see that stuff, so
>it gets added.) I can see the same thing happening with books, if the
>public gets used to them being more of an interactive experience.
More to the point, you create the type of story where those extras
make sense.
Scott McCloud in _Reinventing Comics_ makes the same point regarding
comics on the net. The vast, vast majority of the comics follow the
exact same format as if they were in print, either as newspaper strips
or comic books/graphic novels. One scene after another in a mostly
linear layout.
Now this works if you want to, basically, tell the same sort of story
the same way as a printed version. But you have the option of doing
more things. One example from comics that is ideally suited to this
sort of thing was an issue of Fantastic Four where Reed and Dr. Doom
are fighting via time travel and keep popping up in the story in a
non-linear fashion. You can read the book once the normal way and see
this nonlinear fight happening amongst the activities of people living
normally, or you can skip back and forth using the internal timeline
of the fight to read it in a linear fashion (as the two combatants
experience it) while the people not involved in it are living the
nonlinear story.
This sort of thing is ideal for an electronic version. Click to
rearrange the pages so you can read either in the linear fashion
without having to jump from page to page manually.
Going to pure ebooks, the obvious first step is the "author's cut"
version with extended infodumps or extraneous scenes. If someone want
to read it in sequence with the rest of the book, they can knock
themselves out. Anyone wanting a leaner story gets it too.
--
Keith
Keith Morrison
>> That making available a free electronic version of a book can increase the
>> sales of that book? More so than just providing a few sample chapters? That
>> I'd like to hear.
>
>Take it up with Eric Flint.
>
>That it works has made a noticable impact on his bank account.
>
>Plus, he can cite authors who have put their works online for free
>several years after they were published in paper form and had those
>works suddenly start selling out more printings.
The classic example is probably Weber. Flint mentions that sales for
_On Basilisk Station_ dead-tree editions went up after it was placed
in the Free Library.
I know I've bought several books (digital or otherwise) based purely
on my impression of their work that was available for free.
--
Keith
Mark Atwood
> Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote:
>
> The classic example is probably Weber. Flint mentions that sales for
> _On Basilisk Station_ dead-tree editions went up after it was placed
> in the Free Library.
>
> I know I've bought several books (digital or otherwise) based purely
> on my impression of their work that was available for free.
Mercedes Lackey as well
G Bell
>... My experience
>thus far has been that the folks that read pirated texts (and I don't
>mean to imply that these are the same folks that use the Baen free
>library or other electronic sources) aren't going to buy books anyway,
>so the hypothetical "lost sales" may actually be considerably less
>than the "cautious buyers" gained from this sort of promotion.
I think this is a good statement; in fact I've seen the same argument in
articles about online music and movies that there are people who will read,
listen or watch something for free but will not buy the normal cd, dvd or
book, if that's the only way something is available. Also this is why the figures
for lost sales of music and movies are highly inflated.
Graham
Peter Meilinger
>Now this works if you want to, basically, tell the same sort of story
>the same way as a printed version. But you have the option of doing
>more things. One example from comics that is ideally suited to this
>sort of thing was an issue of Fantastic Four where Reed and Dr. Doom
>are fighting via time travel and keep popping up in the story in a
>non-linear fashion. You can read the book once the normal way and see
>this nonlinear fight happening amongst the activities of people living
>normally, or you can skip back and forth using the internal timeline
>of the fight to read it in a linear fashion (as the two combatants
>experience it) while the people not involved in it are living the
>nonlinear story.
Written by Walt Simonson. I want to say it was #352. It occurs to me
that there's no one who can stop me, so what the heck.
It was #352.
>This sort of thing is ideal for an electronic version. Click to
>rearrange the pages so you can read either in the linear fashion
>without having to jump from page to page manually.
I dunno. Two thoughts.
1) Actually flipping back and forth through the book to get to
the correct pages was part of the fun for me. It got across the
idea that this was a new, strange but cool way of telling a
story much better than having two distinct versions of the story
would have.
2) If you do it as pages in order, with multiple versions in
different order as needed, you're really not taking advantage
of the electronic format all that much. You're still producing
pages full of panels, just like in the printed format.
>Going to pure ebooks, the obvious first step is the "author's cut"
>version with extended infodumps or extraneous scenes. If someone want
>to read it in sequence with the rest of the book, they can knock
>themselves out. Anyone wanting a leaner story gets it too.
That could be very interesting and useful. The first use that
comes to mind, though, is cutting out the "bad" parts so as
not to offend anyone. The way that WalMart apparently requires
clean versions of CDs, or the way some device or other blocks
out the sex/violence/whatever when watching TV and movies.
Pete
Sean O'Hara
declared:
>
> No doubt. But perhaps it is like desktop publishing: when it
> first became popular, people were being *nuts*, adding graphics,
> and multiple fonts, and strange layouts, simply because they
> *could*. Similar things happened with a bunch of "multimedia"
> stuff. And then with Flash and Java and whatnot on web pages.
>
> But then it settled down, and you ended up with things that were
> very much improved by the features.
>
I've yet to see Flash add anything useful to a non-game site.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Brent: The bad news is Neil will be taking over both branches and
some of you will lose your jobs. On a more positive note the good
news is I've been promoted. So every cloud... you're still thinking
about the bad news aren't you?
-The Office
Sean O'Hara
> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> writes:
>
>>Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote:
>>
>>The classic example is probably Weber. Flint mentions that sales for
>>_On Basilisk Station_ dead-tree editions went up after it was placed
>>in the Free Library.
>>
>>I know I've bought several books (digital or otherwise) based purely
>>on my impression of their work that was available for free.
>
> Mercedes Lackey as well
>
Strange, because Lackey is an author who's sales, I'd think, would
go down if people had fair war^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Ha chance to sample her
in advance.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice
person.
-Dave Barry
Mark Atwood
> >>Mark Atwood <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote:
> >>
> >>I know I've bought several books (digital or otherwise) based purely
> >>on my impression of their work that was available for free.
> > Mercedes Lackey as well
>
> Strange, because Lackey is an author who's sales, I'd think, would go
> down if people had fair war^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Ha chance to sample her in
> advance.
Being able to read her books for free (being lent a copy by a friend)
stopped me from buying any of them. But said friend has her on "buy
on sight" status.)
So she has a disinterested non-reader instead of an angry ex-reader.
That's still a win.
Sean Eric Fagan
Sean O'Hara <sean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I've yet to see Flash add anything useful to a non-game site.
It's useful for doing animation. To pick a non-internet example: at least
one Cartoon Network show (Harvey Birdman, or Aqua Teen? I forget which one)
is done using Flash. As were the Guide animations from the recent Hitchhiker
movie.
When I was new-car shopping, several manufacturers also used Flash pages for
pricing and configuration sessions. Some of that can be done using
javascript, but doing it with plain HTML would be difficult.
That you don't necessarily like them is pretty irrelevent -- it *does* better
further the goals of the designer of the site, and that's the only point that
matters. (As opposed to the countless pages where it gets in the way, or
distracts. Which is also the point I was making.)
Hallvard B Furuseth
>Johan Larson wrote:
>>> the Baen Free Library has been consistently proving, over the
>>> past several years, that giving it away for free *INCREASES SALES*.
>> But full-price hardcovers? This is my Sceptical expression.
Most people do not have PDAs - though perhaps they are more common among
regular hardcover buyers than the rest of us:-) Anyway, it's nicer to
read a hardcover - which is released a long time before the paperback -
than to sit at a computer and read an electronic copy. I imagine
hardcovers will lose (or are losing) to electronic free copies when PDAs
become sufficiently convenient and common.
IIRC, Jim Baen credits his web politics with his move from mostly soft-
cover publishing to major hardcover publishing. I don't know how to
split that between Webscriptions, Free Library and large free samples.
Ranking Baen hardcovers by "bestselling" at Amazon, the best selling
in the Free Library rank as #26, #44 and #46 of Baen's hardcovers
(Destiny's Shield, 1633 and On Basilisk Station). I don't know what
that means in practice, though. E.g. does the rank include paperbacks?
How does time of sales influence it? The books usually arrive in the
Free Library a while after the hardcover release.
>> Try-before-you-buy is a great idea; I bought Ringo's "Into the Looking
>> Glass" in large part because of the free sample chapters. But why
>> offer the whole book?
>
> Because (...) And some will (C) feel guilty about having the whole
> thing without paying, so they'll buy either Webscriptions or the
> paper.
I hope not. If it's free, then it's free. The Free Library is in part
a marketing device, and not one which says "please pay if you like it".
OTOH, people may want to pay in order to say "thank you" and maybe
"please keep writing". Some years ago, "how can I pay for a Free
Library book?" was a FAQ at Baen's Bar. (It's solved now by making
most books separately available in Webscriptions.)
--
Hallvard
Mark Atwood
>
> It's useful for doing animation. To pick a non-internet example: at least
> one Cartoon Network show (Harvey Birdman, or Aqua Teen? I forget which one)
> is done using Flash. As were the Guide animations from the recent Hitchhiker
> movie.
"Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" is done in Flash, using
Boomtube.
Quite a few shows are now done fully or partially with SWF composition
programs in the pipeline. From the animators point of view, its just
yet another tool
pacm...@gmail.com
HTML and RTF) way back in the 90's with the author's annotations
included as footnotes. IIRC, it was much later available as as a e-book
on the web.
--
Paul Carter
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp wrote:
>>Because (...) And some will (C) feel guilty about having the whole
>>thing without paying, so they'll buy either Webscriptions or the
>>paper.
>
>
> I hope not. If it's free, then it's free.
So? I'd still feel I owed them something.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Hallvard B Furuseth
>Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>>Sea Wasp wrote:
>>>Because (...) And some will (C) feel guilty about having the whole
>>>thing without paying, so they'll buy either Webscriptions or the
>>>paper.
>>
>> I hope not. If it's free, then it's free.
>
> So? I'd still feel I owed them something.
Well, fine. But that shouldn't translate to feeling _guilty_ about
owing them something. Reading is for pleasure and guilt isn't pleasant.
I reserve that for "I owe them something but I'm not going to pay".
--
Hallvard
David E. Siegel
r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
> On 14 Jun 2005 08:13:37 +0200, Peter Bruells <p...@ecce-terram.de>
> wrote:
>
> >"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> writes:
> >
> >
> >
> >> John Pelan wrote:
> >
> >> > > That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free
> >> > > while you are hawking a cow?
> >
> >> An excellent reason for publishers to turn down all attempts by
> >> libraries to buy books, and to lobby for laws making it illegal to
> >> sell used books.
> >
> >> And it neatly explains why music publishers prosecute anyone who
> >> dares play their music on radio or television.
> >
> >But aren't they trying to make sure that they (a) get paid for it and
> >(b) that people are not able to make good copies?
> >
> >We haven't seen the last in RM of books and it will be a while till
> >etext will have a major impact on tradional books. Mostly, because
> >there's still no digital technolgy that delivers as good as a book
> >does.
> >
> >After all, "books" have been polished and improved upon during
> >millenia, while sound and picture recording is relatively new. The
> >switch from analogue to digital seems recent to our generation, but
> >it'll be barely a glitch if seen from centuries away.
> >
> I just had a thought. If we do get to a point where e-books are
> generally accepted, what is the likelihood that they will still
> resemble books? I can see the possibility that people start adding
> special features, like background music or sound effects, that could
> start driving books closer to movies. I mean, you have all that
> wasted potential if you just portray text, and don't fully utilize the
> power of the e-book reader.
>
> Rebecca
Some books might have this, but many i suspect wouldn't. But various
hypertext-like devices, linking to footnotes, dictionary defs, or cross
references (or literary refs) or possiblly critical analyses might well
become common.
-DES
Earl Colby Pottinger
> Giving _what_ away for free? Older works that can not be cost-effectively
> brought into print? Sure, that sounds like good advertising and sensible
> garnering of goodwill. Older works that are selling slowly in paperback?
> Maaybe, since the portability of the paperback form is still a significant
> asset in some cases, and offering such works in electronic copies therefore
> may not cannibalize sales. But full-price hardcovers? This is my Sceptical
> expression.
Check again, those older works are also available from Baen in
paperback/hardcover - and guess what they are selling. I know because I
bought them myself. If they did not sell they would not still be on the book
shelves.
> According to the Baen website, there are 6 new works for June. Having them
> appear in the Baen Free Library would be equivalent to what Charlie is
> doing. Not one of them appears there.
??? Did you just look at the pretty pictures or did you not think to check
the hyperlinks. Most new books at Baen have links that let you read the
first third-half of the book if it is a novel to see how you like it. If it
is a collect of short stories, usually the first three or four *complete*
short stories are there for you reading pleasure.
Additionally, many of the series that Baen publish have the books leading up
to the latest one in the free libraries. So books like Ringo's march to the
stars series you can download the first books leading up to the latest one
and get a good idea of the series and if you want to buy it. What good is it
to read book 5 in a series if you have not read the first four? Baen's
appoach drops 4 and half books in your lap for free.
Additionally, Baen has released new books in the free library at the same
time as the publishing of the paperback (which is 99% of my books anyway),
infact there are many times I see the book in the free library for months
before it appears in on the shelves.
-------------------------------------------
I just went to Baen - every single release for June has a 'free sample' link!
How easy do you need it to be?
Earl Colby Pottinger
--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp
b
> Some books might have this, but many i suspect wouldn't. But various
> hypertext-like devices, linking to footnotes, dictionary defs, or cross
> references (or literary refs) or possiblly critical analyses might well
> become common.
>
> -DES
What I'd really like to see is a way of collaboratively marking up a
text (novel, textbook, diary, etc.).
It could serve as a gloss, a running dialogue in the margins (as with
Rabbis in the Torah?). Links to more information, opinion, the critical
analyses mentioned above ...
One way to do it would be to have an online version of the entire text
available for free distribution. Maybe we could do it with _Accelerando_!
b*
Earl Colby Pottinger
> Charles Stross' new book "Accelerando" is now available in the US. Oddly,
> he
> has also announced on his site www.accelerando.org his plans to make the
> full text of the novel available for free by unprotected download. The text
> isn't available yet, but it is coming soon, apparently.
>
> That sounds flat out nuts to me. Why give the milk away for free while you
> are hawking a cow? But I know Charles from his postings on this newsgroup,
> and since they have generally been sensible, he must have some decent
> reasons doing this. Offhand, I am guessing he wants to
>
> a) give the finger to overprotective DRM-happy publishers, and
>
> b) become noticed, in this case by undertaking a crazy stunt. Presumably he
> hopes increased sales of future works, driven by the publicity, will offset
> any lost sales on this one.
>
> What I can't figure out is why his publisher is letting him do this. Even
> if
> the notoriety gambit works in the long run, this present novel will
> probably
> lose sales because of it, with any extra sales coming in later novels. And
> the publisher of this novel cannot be sure they will be publishing those
> later novels. So why are they agreeing to this? Some sort of loophole in
> the
> licensing contract, perhaps?
Boy, are you behind the times, Baen Books has been doing this for years and
make good money too. I have at least thirty books that I have downloaded of
thier site, and guess what - I bought about half the paperbacks too. And
when D. Weber did it by publishing the first half of one of his latest books
he made me buy the hardcover - he made me do I tell you :)
Books are expensive now-a-days and to get someone like me who already has a
back log of books and anime to read a new author is hard. I have never read
a Charles Stross book yet, I have been tempted, but the price of even paper
backs have held me back (I have been out of work for the last two years).
But just like when my friend gave me a Morgan book that he hated but I loved
so much that I bought the rest, I will get this free download. And if I
really like it, I will likewise buy up his other books.
So no free download, and I may not buy any of his books at all, or if I do
buy it may be years from now.
One free download, and if I don't buy he is no worse off than before, but if
he sets the hook into me, atlest half a dozen sales.
Earl Colby Pottinger
PS. If you are a Shrill - good job :)
Earl Colby Pottinger
> Bradford Holden wrote:
>
> > I will join the pile-on. He put Concrete Jungle online for
> > free. The evening I finished it, that very evening, I ordered the
> > hardback. One data point and all, but Charlie is still trying to
> > get noticed, and he wants to win some big awards that he is on the
> > short list for. For a young writer, I cannot see how this is going
> > to hurt. Especially since reading a long novel on a computer kinda
> > sucks.
>
> I'm curious, why did you order the hardback if you'd already read the
> entire book online? I'm assuming the motivation was for future re-reads
> (but presumably you already have an electronic copy stored on your hard
> disk if you ever wanted to read it again)?
>
> Maybe my thinking isn't too much different, though - I read most of my
> books at the library and then buy the ones I really liked.
Good books are worth read more than one.
Personally reading on a computer screen does not bother me one bit, I have
read a number of novels at home that way.
But:
Reading off a laptop screen is hard in a car, because of the way the
vibration moves the screen.
Reading off a laptop screen is hard in a bus, because of the way the other
passengers get poked by the screen.
Reading off a laptop screen is hard in a canoe, because of the water all
around has magnetic properties towards expensive electronic items. Note:
also if the book get wet you can still read, as long as you readit before
dries up into a solid lump.
Reading off a laptop screen is hard while hiking, because you suppose to look
out for bears, and if one comes along you can throw your book at it to scare,
you don't want to do that with a laptop.
Reading off a laptop screen is hard while walking, because your arms get
tried.
Reading off a laptop screen is hard while climbing a waterfalls (Dunn's River
Falls in fact), my book got damp. My laptop would be toast.
Additional points, it annoys you if you forget a book in the cab. But
'Bimbos of the Death Sun' probably made the cabbie life a bit more fun.
Leaving him my laptop would ruin mine.
I don't use PDA to small a screen. I don't use E-Books, too expensive for
something that can't use the cpu of anything else. Plus my laptop lets me
mess with the fonts to get what I find most comfortable in size (18-24
points) and fonts (Courier BT) for my reading pleasure.
Earl Colby Pottinger
b
> What I'd really like to see is a way of collaboratively marking up a
> text (novel, textbook, diary, etc.).
>
> It could serve as a gloss, a running dialogue in the margins (as with
> Rabbis in the Torah?). Links to more information, opinion, the critical
> analyses mentioned above ...
>
> One way to do it would be to have an online version of the entire text
> available for free distribution. Maybe we could do it with _Accelerando_!
>
> b*
[following up on my own post]
Um, with the author's permission, of course. And based on
accelerando.org, this would probably be after the conclusion of the data
collection experiment counting how many people download the free version.
b*
Earl Colby Pottinger
> I suppose that there are a few e-book devotees that are perfectly
> content reading books on a screen, but I doubt that this group forms a
> large enough demographic to have an adverse impact on sales. I'll be
> very interested to see how this plays out. My own experience with the
> availablity of e-texts of our Fritz Leiber books is that people are
> still more than happy to drop a couple of hundred bucks for a copy of
> THE BLACK GONDOLIER in hardcover.
Well, I have no problem with my eyesight, comfort sitting, or need to feel
paper. I have read a number of books just on my computer's screen. Both SF
and Manga. But when it comes to taking a walk, riding in a car or bus, or
canoeing on a lake a computer just does not cut it. So I still buy the books
in paperback and so do a lot of other people.
Earl Colby Pottinger
> Speaking for myself: If I see a novel which is shrink-wrapped to keep
> browsers from looking at it, I figure my purchasing decision has
> already been made for me. If the book shows up at my local library,
> I'll look at it; and if I decide I want it permanently, I'll keep my
> eyes out for a used copy.
Ah, that explain why Baka (SF book store in Toronto) always has atlest on of
these 'sealed' books unsealed and on top of the pile of sealed books.
Earl Colby Pottinger
> Yup. The evidence -- based on cold, hard sales figures -- is
> that e-book editions do better as advertising freebies than
> as a profit centre. Typical sales for most e-books
> (especially DRM locked ones) are in the *hundreds*; people
> just don't consider them worth paying a full cover price
> for. In contrast, people can and do read sample chapters
> online, but they aren't too keen on reading entire books.
Note: Eric Flint's 163x books including the Gazettes are selling the
thousands of electronic copies per edition, and there is no copy protection
on his books. People could give copies away without them being traced and
still he is selling e-books by the thousands. Yes, they are making a profit.
Mark Atwood
>
> Reading off a laptop screen is hard while walking, because your arms get
> tried.
But running the text file thru a text to speech translator, and then
playing the resulting mp3 out of your music player, is pretty cool.
It tends to mangle the proper nouns, but so what?
Peter Bruells
> s...@kithrup.com (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:
> >
> > It's useful for doing animation. To pick a non-internet example: at least
> > one Cartoon Network show (Harvey Birdman, or Aqua Teen? I forget which one)
> > is done using Flash. As were the Guide animations from the recent Hitchhiker
> > movie.
>
> "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" is done in Flash, using
> Boomtube.
>
> Quite a few shows are now done fully or partially with SWF composition
> programs in the pipeline. From the animators point of view, its just
> yet another tool
And I've seen online classes which use flash animations in their
scripts - sometimes to very good effect.
Charlie Stross
as <bee...@shaw.ca> declared:
I'd actually been seriously thinking about doing something
along those lines -- "Accelerando, the Wiki".
The problem is twofold: time and editorial oversight. Time
I spend checking updates to avoid wiki-poisoning is time I'm
not spending writing the next novel. Time spent writing the
annotations myself is also time I spend not writing the next
novel (and not researching it either, for that matter).
I began looking into wiki tools that would be suitable for
group annotation, but I didn't see anything that fitted the
bill for providing annotations to a novel, with one or more
editors keeping an eye on the contributors (to avoid it
turning into a spammers' paradise, as much as anything
else). If you've got anything in mind, tell me.
-- Charlie
Dr. Dave
> I began looking into wiki tools that would be suitable for
> group annotation, but I didn't see anything that fitted the
> bill for providing annotations to a novel, with one or more
> editors keeping an eye on the contributors (to avoid it
> turning into a spammers' paradise, as much as anything
> else). If you've got anything in mind, tell me.
I don't know much about wiki flavors, but I was once in a gaming
guild[1] that used TWiki to run a collaborative information site for
the guild. It worked quite well, and seemed to have at least some
features along the lines of what you're looking for. Their intro blurb
is
"Welcome to TWiki, a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise
collaboration platform. It is a structured Wiki, typically used to run
a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge
base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet."
Info at http://www.twiki.org/
David Tate
[1]For "A Tale in the Desert", first telling. The most original MMO
game ever.
Peter Trei
Without the online text, exactly this has been done for
Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Check out:
It's not organized in the way I would find most useful
(getting the list of annotations by page is too difficult),
but is a very useful tool.
Peter Trei
Peter Trei
> b <bee...@shaw.ca> :
>>
>>Maybe my thinking isn't too much different, though - I read most of my
>>books at the library and then buy the ones I really liked.
>
> Good books are worth read more than one.
>
> Personally reading on a computer screen does not bother me one bit, I have
> read a number of novels at home that way.
>
> But:
[...]
> I don't use PDA to small a screen. I don't use E-Books, too expensive for
> something that can't use the cpu of anything else. Plus my laptop lets me
> mess with the fonts to get what I find most comfortable in size (18-24
> points) and fonts (Courier BT) for my reading pleasure.
> Earl Colby Pottinger
Well, that's your decision. I just yesterday finished reading
Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" on my T5 Palm
(larger screen then most), and it was a pretty good experience.
(DaOitMK is available as a free download from Cory's site).
Advantages:
* It's *always* *there*. I carry the PDA all my waking moments
anyway, so the book is no extra weight or bulk.
* I can read a page or two at any momentary downtime, and
anyplace. My life is busy enough that spending several
hours with a book in one shot is a rare treat.
* With any decent reader, you can set fonts at will, and
you scroll by a simple thumbtouch to the top or bottom half
of the screen - you can easily read one-handed, or in
dark environments (no snickering please!).
* I can carry literally dozens of books at once.
Drawbacks -
* The screen is still a little small.
* Reading in bright sunlight is difficult - the backlight
has to be cranked up to its highest level, shortening the
battery life.
* Any graphical addenda are lost.
* I don't really feel as if I 'own' a copy of the book.
All the drawbacks are technical issues which can be fixed.
Take a look at Sony's Librie book reader, which uses a
hi-res e-paper screen, and would be a huge seller if
Sony hadn't crippled it from the start with comical
levels of DRM.
Will I buy a physical copy? Probably not. However, if I
run into Cory at a con, I'd be more than happy to give
him a few bucks.
I think most people would be willing to pay money for
e-books (I certainly am), but the price has to be
commensurate with the cost of production. Since the
costs of distribution and manufacture drop to near-zero,
those have to be taken out. Payment is owed to the
author (of course!), and to the other entities involved
in selling it, for PR, running the website, and
editorial functions, but whole author -> publisher ->
manufacturer -> warehouser -> distributor -> bookstore
-> reader food chain has been drasticaly shortened.
Peter Trei
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 19:48:41 -0400, steve miller
> <chee...@starswarmnews.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:15:09 -0700, r.r...@thevine.net wrotD:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I just had a thought. If we do get to a point where e-books are
>>>generally accepted, what is the likelihood that they will still
>>>resemble books? I can see the possibility that people start adding
>>>special features, like background music or sound effects, that could
>>>start driving books closer to movies. I mean, you have all that
>>>wasted potential if you just portray text, and don't fully utilize the
>>>power of the e-book reader.
>>
>>appropriate "utitlization." With books, you need to get the story
>>right. With movies you need the right story, the right script, the
>>right director, the right characters, the right location.... Books
>>work. Books with automatic voices (for example) can suffer from the
>>audiobook "wrong-reader" problem.
>>
>>"All that wasted potential" is what you avoid when you buy a book --
>>you want the story as is, not all the stories that might be if you
>>made each page the flavor of a different ice cream, with a musical
>>score, and hyperlinks to the nude photos or court cases that made the
>>author famous.
>>
>>The potential *needs* to be wasted, else you get a bedtime story
>>that's a floorwax and a dessert topping.
>>
>
> First, let me say that I agree with you 100%. However... I'm just
> thinking about some time in the future. Everyone gets their books in
> e-format. And someone saying "Hey, we could include X". Much the way
> they do with DVDs now. (Why, I don't know. I want to watch the
> movie, not the making of, or the director's commentary, or whatever.
> But a bunch of other people apparently do want to see that stuff, so
> it gets added.)
Most extra features are worthless fluff -- actors are, by and large,
too vapid to contribute anything interesting, and most directors
have surprisingly little insight into their work. However writers
and (if you go in for older movies) film historians/critics tend to
offer informative comments that actually enhance your understanding
of the story.
Some of the best extra features tend to be the ones not directly
related to the film -- the Errol Flynn DVDs from Warner Bros, for
example, contain news reels, cartoons, and short films that would've
been in the theaters at the time the movies were released, so you
can reconstruct a night at the theater from the '30s and '40s. The
/I Love Lucy/ sets include episodes of Lucille Ball's radio show,
/My Favorite Husband/. And one of my favorites is the Charlie Rose
parody included on /The Royal Tenenbaums/ DVD, which is absolutely
hilarious if you've ever watched the Charlie Rose Show.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Jeff: When God made the arse, he didn't say, 'Hey, it's just your
basic hinge, let's knock off early.' He said, 'Behold ye angels, I
have created the arse. Throughout the ages to come, men and women
shall grab hold of these, and shout my name!
-Coupling
J Cresswell-Jones
"Charlie Stross" <cha...@antipope.org> wrote in message
news:st38o2-...@antipope.org...
A friend and beta-reader of mine has been experimenting with a wiki setup
that might suit. We're still messing around with it, but it does have the
advantage that editing control can be limited to specific IDs.
It's set up using MediaWiki[link] on a HP PII 200mhz running gentoo linux.
--
Jonathan CJ
Velk
Sean Eric Fagan wrote:
> In article <coqua1d8q2o7u2433...@4ax.com>,
> steve miller <chee...@starswarmnews.com> wrote:
> >The problem is that many good stories will be ruined by trying to add
> >appropriate "utitlization."
>
> No doubt. But perhaps it is like desktop publishing: when it first became
> popular, people were being *nuts*, adding graphics, and multiple fonts, and
> strange layouts, simply because they *could*. Similar things happened with a
> bunch of "multimedia" stuff. And then with Flash and Java and whatnot on web
> pages.
>
> But then it settled down, and you ended up with things that were very much
> improved by the features.
>
> When I read the original post, I thought about children's books, which usually
> have some sort of image on the page -- the one that really jumped into mind
> had a pasture, with some animals, and a night sky overhead. (I have no idea
> what book this is, or if it's just a generic image :).) I could then see a
> child's "book" that had the same thing, but with slowly moving animals and
> stars, and some pleasant, relaxing, lullaby-esque music playing.
>
> Nuts? I dunno.
Yeah, one thing that sprang to mind quite vividly when reading
'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' was how an ebook version which used
tooltip popups for footnotes would be a dramatic improvement. Of
course, most books don't have footnotes that run for 5 or 6 pages, but
that's at least one basic thing you could do. Oddly, despite mobipocket
and microsoft reader having exactly that feature, I haven't ever seen
anything that uses it.
Chuk Goodin
>
>Actually, that's a very good point, since children's books are more
>interactive than adult's. Think of the pop-up books, and Pat the
>Bunny, and the books with holes for things to stick through. You
>could duplicate some of that electronically.
There are lots of CD-ROMs available that are essentially just that --
computerized versions of kids' books. Most of them will read the book to
you and have at least some of the pictures animated. Several of them have
little games that you can play and let you click on scenes in the picture.
Some of them are written specifically for the computer, and some of them
are just computerizations of regular children's books. My kids have (or
have had) a bunch of them, and our local library even carries some.
--
chuk
trike
>that's a floorwax and a dessert topping.
"It's a broach and a raincoat -- it's an umbrella and your parents!"
Paul Reiser
To me, the next interesting evolution of the book will be the hyperbook
that fully utilizes hypertext links. Not just a "create your own
adventure" but a way to explore back alleys, backstories and dead ends
that pique your interest in a story.
If this ever comes true, it's likely I'll only read one book a year,
because that's all I'd have time for, if the material were sufficiently
interesting. The closest thing we have today are videogames like Grand
Theft Auto, where you can pretty much do anything you want. You can
follow the story, or just do your own thing. Take on the crime lord,
or deliver pizzas -- the choice is yours. A hyperbook would almost
have to be written by a team of writers. Any magnum opus written by
one person would be celebrated, but almost surely an oddity.
Imagine reading Stoker's _Dracula_ and being able to follow Van
Helsing's backstory, or Renfield's or whoever. I can imagine S.E.
Hinton's books would actually be one big book, since minor characters
in one are leads in others. Like that, except even more inclusive and
informative, because you don't have to stop at fiction. "James Dean
drove a Prosche 550 Spyder" can lead down all sorts of interesting
paths -- the history of the marque, Dean's life, the story that his car
was "cursed" and so on.
Christmas, 2014:
10-year-old Kid: "Yay! I got the book!"
Dad: "Enjoy it -- we'll buy you another when you graduate from
college."
Doug
trike
>e-books (I certainly am), but the price has to be
>commensurate with the cost of production. Since the
>costs of distribution and manufacture drop to near-zero,
>those have to be taken out. Payment is owed to the
>author (of course!), and to the other entities involved
>in selling it, for PR, running the website, and
>editorial functions, but whole author -> publisher ->
>manufacturer -> warehouser -> distributor -> bookstore
>-> reader food chain has been drasticaly shortened.
Yes, exactly. Once e-books are equal to a normal book in ability, sign
me up. What does an author make from a book now? 35 cents? A dollar?
For a novel I'll pay 15-20% over that, _max_. For something with
pictures and such, maybe a bit more, but that would essentially be like
reading a photoblog, still not a huge outlay in cost for the author to
produce.
Doug
trike
>hi-res e-paper screen, and would be a huge seller if
>Sony hadn't crippled it from the start with comical
>levels of DRM.
Seriously. This is one of those instances where you just have to ask
them, "Are you guys totally fucking retarded?" A book that
disintegrates after two months? Are they out of their minds?
Open letter to Sony: Hello, McFly... do you rocket surgeons not
remember the disdain that DivX received with their similar gambit?
Doug
low_key
"trike" <dougtr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1119031835.5...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
[...]
This thought - that independent of the utility a buyer receives from the
product, it must not be priced 'too high' above production costs - is
curious.
Let me ask this: Assume you are selling your house which has increased
drastically in market price since you bought. Would you reject an offer as
being 'too high' above what you paid? Would you find it reasonable for the
buyer to do so?
--
'The first rule in Italian racing:
What is behind you'
*Tears off rearview mirror*
'Does no matter' -gumball rally
joy beeson
wrote:
> Yeah, one thing that sprang to mind quite vividly when reading
> 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' was how an ebook version which used
> tooltip popups for footnotes would be a dramatic improvement. Of
> course, most books don't have footnotes that run for 5 or 6 pages, but
> that's at least one basic thing you could do.
Plain ol' links work just fine:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/CONEFR01.HTM
Joy Beeson
--
http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ -- needlework
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/ROUGH.HTM
http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ -- Writers' Exchange
joy beeson at earthlink dot net
Kai Henningsen
> In article <coqua1d8q2o7u2433...@4ax.com>,
> steve miller <chee...@starswarmnews.com> wrote:
> >The problem is that many good stories will be ruined by trying to add
> >appropriate "utitlization."
>
> No doubt. But perhaps it is like desktop publishing: when it first became
> popular, people were being *nuts*, adding graphics, and multiple fonts, and
> strange layouts, simply because they *could*. Similar things happened with
> a bunch of "multimedia" stuff. And then with Flash and Java and whatnot on
> web pages.
>
> But then it settled down, and you ended up with things that were very much
> improved by the features.
Hmm.
N, I can't think of a page that was improved by Flash or Java.
(Javascript, yes.)
Oh, and people are still being nuts about graphics, multiple fonts,
strange layouts ... on web pages.
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
Earl Colby Pottinger
> Drawbacks -
> * The screen is still a little small.
This is a major beef with most E-Readers
> All the drawbacks are technical issues which can be fixed.
> Take a look at Sony's Librie book reader, which uses a
> hi-res e-paper screen, and would be a huge seller if
> Sony hadn't crippled it from the start with comical
> levels of DRM.
Another major beef. When I buy a book, I can do just about any thing I want
with it. With DRM they even limit my abilities to mark up the book or rip
out pages for personal use.
> Will I buy a physical copy? Probably not. However, if I
> run into Cory at a con, I'd be more than happy to give
> him a few bucks.
> I think most people would be willing to pay money for
> e-books (I certainly am), but the price has to be
> commensurate with the cost of production. Since the
> costs of distribution and manufacture drop to near-zero,
> those have to be taken out. Payment is owed to the
> author (of course!), and to the other entities involved
> in selling it, for PR, running the website, and
> editorial functions, but whole author -> publisher ->
> manufacturer -> warehouser -> distributor -> bookstore
> -> reader food chain has been drasticaly shortened.
Check out Baen's site - the E-version of thier book tend to be one half to
one third the cost of the paperback versions. Ofcourse that means even
bigger savings compared to the hard-cover versions.
trike
>has increased drastically in market price since you bought.
>Would you reject an offer as being 'too high' above what
>you paid? Would you find it reasonable for the buyer to
>do so?
Is it a tangible house or a virtual house? Does it exist in the real
world or will it disappear during a hard drive crash?
Doug
W. Citoan
> Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
> > Sea Wasp wrote:
>
> >>Because (...) And some will (C) feel guilty about having the whole
> >>thing without paying, so they'll buy either Webscriptions or the
> >>paper.
> >
> >
> > I hope not. If it's free, then it's free.
>
> So? I'd still feel I owed them something.
Eh? The whole point is that it's put out for advertising right? If I
try a free book and like it, I'd buy the paper version because I prefer
paper to electronic and I'd buy other books by the same author. I'm not
going to buy the same one because I feel guilty or feel that I owe the
author something. It was the author's / publisher's choice to release
it free. They might gain future sales from me, but they don't obligate
me to anything.
- W. Citoan
--
I have not yet begun to fight.
-- John Paul Jones
Jaimie Vandenbergh
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>Sea Wasp wrote:
>>
>> So? I'd still feel I owed them something.
>
>Eh? The whole point is that it's put out for advertising right? If I
>try a free book and like it, I'd buy the paper version because I prefer
>paper to electronic and I'd buy other books by the same author. I'm not
>going to buy the same one because I feel guilty or feel that I owe the
>author something.
So you _do_ feel that you owe the author a reward of some sort for the
hour(s) of amusement their text gave you? That's enough, I think. As
you say,
> They might gain future sales from me, but they don't obligate
>me to anything.
Future sales are the thing. I find myself encouraged to buy books on
the strength of already having enjoyed another by the same author -
the number of times I've had to go hunting for the out-of-print first
volume a decade after buying books 2/3/4 of a series can be counted on
two hands and a foot...
Free web-available versions are subbing for libraries more than
bookshops, I reckon.
Jaimie
--
On diving in UK waters:
'Sharp edges? Must be the wreck.'
'It's moving? Must be supper.'
'Too big to go in the goodie bag? Must be my buddy.' - nigelH, ukrs
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp wrote:
>
>> Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>>
>>>Sea Wasp wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>Because (...) And some will (C) feel guilty about having the whole
>>>>thing without paying, so they'll buy either Webscriptions or the
>>>>paper.
>>>
>>>
>>>I hope not. If it's free, then it's free.
>>
>> So? I'd still feel I owed them something.
>
>
> Eh? The whole point is that it's put out for advertising right? If I
> try a free book and like it, I'd buy the paper version because I prefer
> paper to electronic and I'd buy other books by the same author.
And I'd feel guilty if I didn't.
I said nothing about whether YOU had to. I stated that there was a
population of people who would get the free one and feel guilty if
they didn't then purchase the material. Which there obviously are --
minimum set size =1, me, but I've heard similar comments from others.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
W. Citoan
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:39:20 -0000, "W. Citoan"
> <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Sea Wasp wrote:
> >>
> >> So? I'd still feel I owed them something.
> >
> >Eh? The whole point is that it's put out for advertising right? If
> >I try a free book and like it, I'd buy the paper version because I
> >prefer paper to electronic and I'd buy other books by the same
> >author. I'm not going to buy the same one because I feel guilty or
> >feel that I owe the author something.
>
> So you _do_ feel that you owe the author a reward of some sort for
> the hour(s) of amusement their text gave you? That's enough, I think.
> As you say,
Did you miss the "not" or did you not believe I meant what I wrote? No,
I don't feel I owe them a reward. The author made a strategic business
decision. Buying paper because that's what I prefer to read, buying
future books because I want to read them, or supporting an author
because I recognize that they'll only be able to write more if they can
make a living at it are all about benefits to me; not about rewarding
the author. This is a business and I'm the customer.
If you hear a song on the radio you really like, do you think you owe it
to the artist to buy their CD? If you watch a TV commercial that makes
you laugh, do you think you owe it to the advertiser to buy their
product? If you eat a trial item in the supermarket, do you think you
owe it to them to pay for the one you ate?
> > They might gain future sales from me, but they don't obligate
> >me to anything.
>
> Future sales are the thing. I find myself encouraged to buy books on
> the strength of already having enjoyed another by the same author -
Exactly. This is what an author should be counting on; not upon direct
compensation for what they released as free.
> the number of times I've had to go hunting for the out-of-print first
> volume a decade after buying books 2/3/4 of a series can be counted
> on two hands and a foot...
Er, buying used books does little to directly reward an author...
> Free web-available versions are subbing for libraries more than
> bookshops, I reckon.
Agreed. With the added advantage that they are probably reaching a
decent population that normally doesn't step foot into a library.
W. Citoan
Honest curiosity: Do you feel the same way about the library? And if
not, why the difference?
- W. Citoan
--
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
-- Graffiti
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp wrote:
>
>> W. Citoan wrote:
>>
>>>Sea Wasp wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Sea Wasp wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>Because (...) And some will (C) feel guilty about having the whole
>>>>>>thing without paying, so they'll buy either Webscriptions or the
>>>>>>paper.
>>>>>
>>>>>I hope not. If it's free, then it's free.
>>>>
>>>> So? I'd still feel I owed them something.
>>>
>>>Eh? The whole point is that it's put out for advertising right? If
>>>I try a free book and like it, I'd buy the paper version because I
>>>prefer paper to electronic and I'd buy other books by the same
>>>author.
>>
>> And I'd feel guilty if I didn't.
>>
>> I said nothing about whether YOU had to. I stated that there was a
>> population of people who would get the free one and feel guilty if
>> they didn't then purchase the material. Which there obviously are
>> -- minimum set size =1, me, but I've heard similar comments from
>> others.
>
>
> Honest curiosity: Do you feel the same way about the library?
Not as much. But some.
And if
> not, why the difference?
>
Somebody already bought the book that I'm reading. Money exchanged
hands there -- mine, perhaps. The author has been paid for that purpose.
But not as much as he would if I bought a copy. So I generally do, if
it's one I like, and if I didn't like it I wouldn't have finished the
book.
Though I almost never use libraries any more; anything a library has,
I already got, or have no interest in.
Velk
joy beeson wrote:
> On 17 Jun 2005 02:33:43 -0700, "Velk" <velk...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Yeah, one thing that sprang to mind quite vividly when reading
> > 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' was how an ebook version which used
> > tooltip popups for footnotes would be a dramatic improvement. Of
> > course, most books don't have footnotes that run for 5 or 6 pages, but
> > that's at least one basic thing you could do.
>
> Plain ol' links work just fine:
> http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/CONEFR01.HTM
>
The main attraction of the popup approach to footnotes, for me anyway,
is that it appears in an overlay window similar to a speech bubble. I
found it less disruptive to the flow of reading when I could still see
the original context while reading it, particularly if it was a long
footnote.
The other, more technical, problem with standard links in ebooks is
that pagination often takes some time when moving ahead by a number of
pages (microsoft reader is particularly bad at this), which produces
annoying delays when following internal links.
Jaimie Vandenbergh
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>> On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:39:20 -0000, "W. Citoan"
>> <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >I'm not going to buy the same one because I feel guilty or
>> >feel that I owe the author something.
>>
>> So you _do_ feel that you owe the author a reward of some sort for
>> the hour(s) of amusement their text gave you? That's enough, I think.
>> As you say,
>
>Did you miss the "not" or did you not believe I meant what I wrote?
Sorry, I misinterpreted: for some reason I parsed that as meaning "I'm
going to buy the same one, but not because I feel that I owe the
author [etc]".
I spotted it after I posted, but thought there was an even chance you
did mean that so I waited for a reply rather than followup with a
possibly confusing explanation.
>If you hear a song on the radio you really like, do you think you owe it
>to the artist to buy their CD?
If I really like it, I probably want to be able to hear it at my whim:
so yes, I may buy it for that reason, and not because I feel I owe it
to the artist.
> If you watch a TV commercial that makes
>you laugh, do you think you owe it to the advertiser to buy their
>product? If you eat a trial item in the supermarket, do you think you
>owe it to them to pay for the one you ate?
Indeed not, as you expect. Though if I wanted to advertise something
commercially myself I would be tempted to reward the advertising
company (not the producing company) with the contract.
>> > They might gain future sales from me, but they don't obligate
>> >me to anything.
>>
>> Future sales are the thing. I find myself encouraged to buy books on
>> the strength of already having enjoyed another by the same author -
>
>Exactly. This is what an author should be counting on; not upon direct
>compensation for what they released as free.
Yep. I think we're largely in agreement, barring miscomprehension and
my fuzzy writing skills last night.
I think the difference is that I am counting "buying the paper version
of the web release" as direct compensation, for the same reasons as I
would the music above. I don't need to buy to enjoy the novel again
(and indeed I could pirate the music), but I do feel the urge to
reward the author for the pleasure they have given me.
>> the number of times I've had to go hunting for the out-of-print first
>> volume a decade after buying books 2/3/4 of a series can be counted
>> on two hands and a foot...
>
>Er, buying used books does little to directly reward an author...
This wasn't clear either, I really should give up posting after
midnight.
What I meant was: I have in the past borrowed volume 1 from a
library/friend, then bought the rest. Then gone back a decade later to
have to hunt down the first volume, when I wanted to re-read the
series. It was a tangent leading to this comment:
>> Free web-available versions are subbing for libraries more than
>> bookshops, I reckon.
>
>Agreed. With the added advantage that they are probably reaching a
>decent population that normally doesn't step foot into a library.
Hurrah for free books on the interweb, and their use as sales tools!
Isn't this sort of thing what accountants call "good will" and count
as a credit on the balance sheet?
Cheers - Jaimie
--
There are no normal people--only people you don't know very much about.
-- Nancy Lebovitz, rasfw
W. Citoan
> W. Citoan wrote:
> > Sea Wasp wrote:
> >>
> >> And I'd feel guilty if I didn't.
> >>
> >> I said nothing about whether YOU had to. I stated that there was a
> >> population of people who would get the free one and feel guilty if
> >> they didn't then purchase the material. Which there obviously are
> >> -- minimum set size =1, me, but I've heard similar comments from
> >> others.
> >
> > Honest curiosity: Do you feel the same way about the library?
>
> Not as much. But some.
>
> > And if not, why the difference?
>
> Somebody already bought the book that I'm reading. Money exchanged
> hands there -- mine, perhaps. The author has been paid for that
> purpose.
>
> But not as much as he would if I bought a copy.
If you take a popular library book and divide its price by the number of
readers, it will be close enough to $0/reader to make no difference.
> So I generally do, if it's one I like, and if I didn't like it I
> wouldn't have finished the book.
>
> Though I almost never use libraries any more; anything a library
> has, I already got, or have no interest in.
In the past years, my reading time has been less than it used to be and
I pretty much stopped using the library. I concentrated on books with
higher interest to me (known writers, trusted recommendations, etc.).
Lately, I've been making a conscious effort to set aside more time for
reading. I've started using the library again for authors that I'm less
certain about and not willing to pop money down without trying first.
If they hook me, I'll buy future books from them. If they don't, I
won't.