Nearly everyone in the media world in some form or another is grappling with one huge, massive, essential question: what should content cost in the digital era?
On one side you have the freevangelists (TRADEMARKED MUST CREIDT NATHAN BRANSFORD OMG) like Cory Doctorow who see the benefits of free and shared content in terms of building audiences, and believe that the only way forward is to follow what consumers want: online content (sometimes, if not always) for free, and definitely without DRM. Best be brushing up on your ancillary revenue streams. (more on DRM here)
On the other side you have the publishing establishment, who is looking at their P&Ls and concluding that e-books aren’t really that much cheaper to produce than a book when you consider overhead like editing, copyediting, production (cover, typesetting, etc.), marketing, sales, rent, etc. HarperStudio asserts that an e-book is only about $2.00 cheaper to produce than a paper book, and thus, any drastic price cutting for e-books will be eating away at already-slim margins.
I don’t doubt that free is great for the freevangelists like Cory Doctorow and Chris Anderson. They’ve done quite well by building their ancillaries (such as huge blogs) and benefit from the fact that they’ve been able to build a gratified audience base by giving away content. I also am sympathetic to concerns that DRM is completely annoying for the majority of consumers who want to use their content legitimately. And if publishers can make a mass market paperback original profitable when it’s priced at $6.99, surely they can make e-books work under $10.00.
But are we really comfortable with a publishing world where authors and publishers are expected to, essentially, give content away and build revenue instead through ancillary streams?
And in defense of DRM, are you (as writers, not consumers) really comfortable with a theoretical world where a book can be downloaded (cheaply no doubt) and instantly e-mailed to 1,000 of the purchaser’s closest friends? Sure, someone who has too much time on their hands can pirate a book and do precisely the same thing. But particularly when e-books become the main game in town (which is coming), should we really make sharing e-books as easy as 1 2 3? It’s not the same thing as passing around a tattered paperback to one friend at a time.
Count me as someone with my feet firmly stuck in the muck of skepticism about a brave new world of overly cheap and unencrypted books. Maybe it’s coming anyway and at 28-years-old I’m already a dinosaur. Maybe all the free blogs and content out there will make people reluctant to part with $24.95 or even $14.95 for a new book and the model is broken. Maybe DRM needs to be eased, even if it’s not done away with entirely. Better yet, maybe e-book providers can use Peter Olson’s suggestion of demand-based e-book pricing and create a pricing algorithm where a book that’s downloaded 1,000 times a week costs $14.95 and a book that’s downloaded 2 times a week costs $2.95.
I don’t think free (or close to free) works for everyone. But is free inevitable?
Conni says
Nathan, re the cassettes/CDs — I have yet to replace the stacks of cassettes from my collection. (Since I didn’t get a CD player until 1995, I’ve got quite a few.) Not exactly true, since I did buy CDs of 3 of them, two of which were special anniversary editions.
That said, I haven’t downloaded them, either. Mostly I’m lazy. But now that iTunes store is going DRM free, I might get around to that.
Anonymous says
Anon 12:17
Doesn’t that mean technology went backwards, not forwards, because we can read paper books hundreds of times. I have several books over a hundred years old that I can still read. What happens when the technology changes and we need new equipment? Doesn’t it mean we lose everything we used on the old, just like the VHS tapes? Books aren’t like the TV when suddenly you can’t watch them no more because you need different equipment. So all of these left behind theories don’t work. The only thing I may need to read a hundred year old book is new glasses, but then I’ll need them to see everything. We need a new subject “When technology goes backwards”, because IMO e-books do.
Vancouver Dame says
Just a minor comment about convertability of one product to another. We recently bought a LP2CD which converts our collectible LPs to CD. I would think that someone would invent an option to convert digitalized print books, such as the classics, etc. to e-book format in the future. That might ensure that the author/creator doesn’t suffer a loss of revenue. Great topic, and interesting comments.
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
I don’t think anyone is saying we should do away with printed books altogether. But nothing is really permanent. By your criteria, paper was a step down technologically from stone tablets.
Scotty says
What about a subscription based e-book download system like Acquisition, or even Sirius Radio? I pay $16 a year or something for a legal music downloading application, and even though I might be able to get the same stuff from a friend, I much prefer downloading whenever I want. Sirius costs a bit more than that, but you can record their material if you have the right player.
A subscription service that sells some advertising and continues to develop content and better interfacing can create a brand/community where free isn't really free, but relatively inexpensive. Once the interface becomes habit, some material may be shared, but it's likely that a great more material will be absorbed by the subscriber than if they were ripping torrents or whatever.
Book clubs, once a thing of the past, can return, pay their authors, and develop user friendly sites that provide author interviews, extras, free stories, video, discussion, community interaction, live Q & A feeds, etc. In other words, "build it and they will come".
And why not start here, Nathan? 😉
Marilyn Peake says
Scott,
What happens with eBooks today is that people pirate them and actually try to sell them on eBay and other online sites. Publishers and authors are forever going after those people and shutting them down. It really stinks for publishers and authors when someone pays $6 to $10 for one copy of their eBook and then sells (or gives away) limitless numbers of copies online. Also, at the present time, eBooks published in countries that have copyright laws, including the U.S. and Canada, are sold in huge quantities in countries without copyright protection, and the publishers and authors never see a penny of the profit.
150 says
reader @ 12:08: I go to the cheap theater to see if I want to buy a movie in DVD. I borrow my sister’s sandals to see if I’d want a pair like them. And in the past year I’ve bought more than half a dozen books that I’d already read, in whole or in part, for free.
Anonymous says
Should ebooks be free?
No.
Does DRM stop pirating?
NO. It never has and never will. I don’t pirate music, but I strip the DRM off my files so that I can play them anywhere. It takes me about two minutes per song to strip the DRM. I do it using a legal software product, and I do it for my convenience. And now that Amazon offers DRM free files, I don’t buy from iTunes anymore… because of DRM. I also don’t buy those special CDs that don’t work in CD-ROM drives, because I mostly listen to music on my laptop while I’m writing.
DRM encoding costs publishers more than its worth. And the statistics say that DRM doesn’t stop people from sending their music to their 1000 closest friends. Why would books be different?
Annalee says
Personally, I’d rather a have a thousand bootleggers of my work than even one paying customer who’s cheated out of the rights associated with owning a copy. I have a moral objection to telling people I’m selling them something when I am in fact renting or leasing it to them.
I’m just plain not that bothered about bootlegging–and I’m not one of those people who says that because I’m trying to justify the way I acquire my entertainment. I’ve got a public library within walking distance and enough money for paperbacks. I’ve never read an illegal copy of a book in my life. As a reader, I believe in supporting authors whenever I can.
As a writer, though, I’m a mercenary. All I’m worried about is the extent to which bootlegging would affect my sales. Until I see real data indicating that file sharing is starving writers (and the data I’ve seen actually indicates the opposite), I can’t see how treating paying customers like thieves is at all justified.
Kylie says
I don’t like the idea of free e-books at all. That’s destroying so many jobs, and (see current state of the economy) America should no that no jobs equals something very bad, indeed.
Of course, I am also on the side of the “pry paper from my cold dead hands” side of the paper versus e-book opinion.
Musicians had this battle years ago, and they lost. Musicians can still, however, make money from selling actual CD’s (but who buys CD’s?) and from merchandise and concerts and little things like that. Everything an author does, except the actual book, is almost always for free.
Anonymous says
Thinking about this has given me a headache. First, I imagined a world of free ebooks, which as your readers pointed out, would be the general equivalent of making Publish America king of the hill.
So there has to be a way to sort the wheat from the chaff. Who’s gonna do it? Traditional publishers? Amazon? Agents? Hard to say.
I see a world where junk is free and quality isn’t…sorta like it is now. I see rain-soaked mattresses along the freeway every once in a while. Apparently somebody didn’t tie things down quite tight enough. They’re free for the taking, but I still prefer the furniture store.
One other thought. What happens to agents if bokks are free. I ain’t gonna be sittin’ on the edge of my seat waiting for a phone call from Nathan so he can tell me he got a great deal that pays zero bucks. By the way, 15% of zero is still zero, isn’t it?
K.S. Clay says
I only like the idea of free in terms of supplements and advertising (like offering a chapter of the latest book, then making people buy it if they decide it’s worth it to read the rest, or offering a short story that expands on a world already developed in novels that fans have bought and read).
The truth is that I don’t see any reason why artists should be expected to give their work away for free when other people aren’t. It treats artists like second class professionals. I mean I don’t see anyone claiming that doctors, lawyers, architects, or even athletes, for instance, should all work for free and should just come up with extra business ventures on the side to make money to feed their families. People don’t say “It would be really cool to have a house built for me for free, or to have a lawyer spend hours working on my case without having to pay him, so because it would be convenient for me I think they should be required to do that, and then I can spend my money on a tropical vacation while they find second jobs to feed their kids.” Seriously. I find the idea that artists should work for free (by requirement and not by choice) to be demeaning to all artists everywhere.
Nathan Bransford says
anon@1:51-
I still think music is different, particularly because iTunes dominates the sphere and (for now) it has DRM. Most people don’t go through the trouble of stripping the DRM, ergo, you don’t see much piracy.
Let’s say, hypothetically, in the future everyone has an eReader and the next HARRY POTTER-of-the-future publishers in non-DRM format. You really think everyone would buy it? Or would one person buy it and share it with every HARRY POTTER-of-the-future fan they know?
I know the studies say that DRM does not prevent piracy, but they’re also being conducted in a vacuum. The fact is that when non-DRM files were readily available for free (via Napster) people didn’t really care about right or wrong. They just went for it.
Scott says
This is a topic near and dear to my heart on several fronts, one being newspapers. Newspapers are starting to go extinct because: 1. ad revenue has gone largely to the internet and 2. the pressure to provide content for free. Newspapers have not been able to find a way to make money from the internet. Time Magazine recently did an article on the subject. I hope the Publishing industry doesn’t suffer the same fate as newspapers.
Raethe says
Actually, Apple has recently dropped DRM from iTunes: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/companies/07apple.html?_r=2&hp
Unless they've changed it again and I haven't heard. Which I suppose is possible.
I still don't see providing free content as the absolute death of all income. Going back to Doctorow and Coulton, they've found that releasing some of their stuff free (and DRM free) has actually helped drive print (or, uh, mp3) sales. A lot of people ARE willing to pay for things they appreciate, or, if they don't pay for a free/pirated copy of one thing, they might go out and buy something else from that artist. They'll also tell ten of their friends, some of whom may also check out that artist and be willing to support their work.
The "I don't wanna pay for it" is something that I personally have grown out of since, I dunno, high school (even though I'm now a starving university student) and a lot of people seem to feel the same way. Not all, but some.
Also, I have to second what Annalee said one hundred per cent. More than that, I think there's something wrong with a world wherein I can turn around and sue that person over there who has an illegal copy for enjoying my work. Something about "buy my next book, I'll see you in court" doesn't quite sit with me.
Nathan Bransford says
raethe-
Someone might enjoy my TV even more than I do. That doesn’t mean I’d be happy if they stole it illegally.
T. Anne says
If people choose to personally progress from tapes to CD’s to MP3 players is a mute point. The fact is, technology swayed the masses. The same might be said for books although the overall conversion might be slower. I never did cuddle up with my boom box or walkman nor do I with my ipod so there was no love loss there. Also, all modes of listening to music require some form of generated electricity so I never did think it much of a hassle to keep my ipod charged.
The ebook is a whole different animal than the paper book. I look forward to this new era of reading.
The ebook world hasn’t organized itself enough for us to understand the terrain as writers, BUT we have a unique opportunity to help shape the landscape. This new chapter of publishing history may see the end to the narrow gates of publishing and usher in a broader opportunity for new authors. Where’s the money for author’s? IMHO, I believe it will come In small bite sized chunks, paid in full with each sale of the ebook. Doesn’t sound too alluring? I didn’t think so either, but then I would never give up writing just because it wasn’t profitable.
Heidi C. Vlach says
The Internet is full of free content because anyone can upload anything. With no quality control, there’s lots of garbage out there. I refuse to pay to access websites. How do I know that the content is worth the money? I visit websites that are free, knowing that if the content is poor, I can click Back and all I’ve wasted is a few seconds of my time.
Professionally published books, though, have a higher rate of quality because of all the screening involved. Why else would people be annoyed when a novel is poorly written or edited? Books are supposed to be good to be published! They’re not just the Internet between covers. There’s an implication of quality in books that makes people more willing to pay money.
I’d really hate to see novels become free, even if the authors still (somehow) made money. Making books free would cheapen them in every sense of the word.
Raethe says
Heh, it’s funny you should say that Nathan. Instantly after I posted last I thought it was funny that I could think so differently about intellectual property versus physical property. I found out a week ago someone stole my guitar and you can bet I’m not happy about the thought of someone else enjoying that. (Though I guess it’s better than my poor guitar being thrown into a dumpster somewhere.)
I’ll have to think about that one.
Anonymous says
Nathan,
I can see several advantages of paper over stone. Can’t see an advantage of having to buy a machine to read a book that will likely change in a year or two causing the loss of your entire library. There is also the possiblilty of the equipment dying. A paper book your losses tend to be fire, water, or a mean sibling, all of which can kill a kindle also. IMO the worry over e-books is irrelevant, because it will only affect a few people for a very very long time.
My answer was in reply to ANON 12:17’s “Yes, and I would like to play my cassettes in my CD player. But I can’t. And that’s just life.”
And Scott,
I agree we share paper books, but no, at a public library there is no fee per a book. It is a pain, however, to wait for the one you want to read when it is just published.
Allegory19 says
Noooo!!!! I was just thinking about this today. e-books might be the future (although I REALLY hope not completely), but I’m not willing to pay $14.95 to read them. A downloadable document isn’t the same as a tangible book.
We associate the Internet with free content, but is that what we want to degrade the publishing industry to?
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
The advantage paper has over stone tablets is portability, which is the same advantage eBooks have over paper books.
If you’re buying books for permanence, however, sure, can’t you beat paper, which can’t beat stone tablets.
I think most people value convenience over permanence except for their most prized possessions, which is why there will always be paper books, but the eBook era is coming.
Catalina says
Call me a brontosaurus, but at this present time, I don’t see ebooks becoming mainstream in the next, say 5 years unless a trendy company like Apple comes out with something that matches the Kindle, an iBook, so to speak. Most people associate headaches and strained eyes to electronic text. It’s hard enough to watch a movie on the iPhones and Nano’s much less a whole book.
But lets say I am wrong and everyone is given a Kindle or Sony Reader as part of the Stimulus Package. I do not think people will try to pirate ebooks. Why spend hours trying to crack a code when you can buy it for a couple dollars?
Plus, I think we forget that even though it does seem like the world is going to Haydes with a vengence, people still know stealing is stealing. Most will refrain from doing so.
Of course, I may be an optimistic brontosaurus, and we all know what happened to the even most positive thinking brontosauri in the end.
Anonymous says
I guess it’s hard for me to understand since I only read one book at a time, and I have my own personal library in my home (where I go every night). If I am near the end of one book I grab two, but it doesn’t happen often, and I am still fairly strong so I am able to carry more than one book at a time.
Loren Eaton says
Free works well for the prolific. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go write!
Anonymous says
I hate to tell the truth about myself but… here goes.
We grew up v. poor and buying a cassette took an enormous amount of resources. I would find a way to do it for the great albums.
Growing older hasn’t led to riches, but over years I was able to buy my favorite movies on VHS. Now, both those forms are obsolete. I bought cds and dvds of new favorites – but buying again what I have already bought is v. disheartening. I cannot keep re-buying what I have already bought.
Now, when new formats come out – they seem so temporal, and well, transient, and well, I do not want to pay for something that will not last. I don’t want to buy the same thing every 5 years. I feel exploited when I pay again and again for the same content I already paid the artist and supplier for.
Books are different, to me, in my lifetime (I came after stone tablets!). They have ALWAYS lasted. Every book I bought in high school and college I still own and can still enjoy. My kids can enjoy them, as I enjoyed my parents books. I want books to stay.
If I had a certain amount of discretionary income I might want to pay full price for a book I could only enjoy for a few years in the format it came in. I could always buy it again in the next format if I wanted to!
But I don’t. And some others don’t, too. And changing formats all the time frustrates people who are struggling and keep finding their stuff obsolete. And it makes free content more appealing. This is not something you want. You want someone to pay a fair price ONCE for a great product and then everyone in the chain gets paid ONCE for producing it. And the user can keep it forever.
Vic says
Just taking this question in a roundabout way… I don’t buy e-books and I don’t read them. I wouldn’t read one that was emailed to me either. I think the thing is, I associate e-books with poor quality writing.
I know it is elitist behaviour but I can’t help but think there’s no credibility for a writer unless they’ve been printed and published on paper by a mainstream publisher. So I don’t pay for second tier quality – or crap – basically.
As a writer, I wouldn’t sign a contract to sell my work via e-book. I’d be humiliated to admit to friends and family that my work was only available as an e-book.
Now all that said, I’d probably at some point in the future buy an ibook or kindle. But I would buy books that were also available in print and if I loved them I’d probably then buy the hardcover version for my library later. What the ibook/kindle system would allow me to do would be sift more through published titles and add my favourites to my collection, rather than blindly buying books and then selling or giving away the ones I don’t like some later.
Bringing all this musing back on point, I think there’s intrinsic value represented by paying for a product.
Free e-books? Worthless to everyone. Content should be paid for and paying for it should provide the food chain with a living.
Sandie Dent says
Who are all these people with 1,000 friends?
Simon Haynes says
“an e-book is only about $2.00 cheaper to produce than a paper book”
Oh yah, sure. Cost of duplication and warehousing ebooks is …?
My publisher is about to release the ebook versions of the Hal Spacejock books, DRM-free, for 1/4 the paperback price. (A$5 vs A$20, with $20-$22 being the usual price for a paperback in Australia.)
Since ebooks apparently make up a paltry 1% of publisher revenue, either they’re pricing them wrong or there’s very little market for them. Either way, they should just regard them as cheap marketing for the printed versions, rather than an opportunity to gouge maximum dollar.
Anonymous says
The gaming industry has been dealing with DRM for years. Last year, Electronic Arts release Spore with the most restrictive DRM a game has had to date. Guess what one of the most pirated game of 2008 was? Some estimates are 500,000 copies off BitTorrent (and 1 million in sales based on the press release I saw).
(EA also got slapped with a lawsuit for their use of SecuROM).
Fallout 3 was another 2008 release. The only copy protection is a disc check (you have to have the disc in the drive). Sales at launch: 4.7 million (PC, Xbox360, and PS3). Was it pirated? Of course. (The Xbox version was available on torrent sites before the game was even out). But pirating didn’t affect sales to a significant degree.
DRM HURTS CONSUMERS MORE THAN IT HURTS PIRATES. And there’s evidence that the more restrictive you make DRM, the more likely you are to turn people into pirates.
Also, DRM is not done to stop piracy. It’s done to eliminate the legitimate resale market.
The publishing industry is relatively new to this issue compared to games and music. But why do you think games and music are moving *away* from DRM? Hopefully publishing will learn from the other entertainment industries mistakes rather than blindly follow along making them, too.
Chris Bates says
Okay, Bransford, here’s my take: the whole fre-ebook thing is a crock of shit.
I like Cory Doctorow’s work but he is not representative of the stereotypical author. Doctorow reaps income from BoingBoing.net, thus his revenue stream from blogging allows him to distribute free novels without fear of starving. I wonder how supportive of the coming publishing revolution Doctorow would be without another income source. Please, Cory, enlighten me how one is supposed to put kids through school, cover mortgage/rent payments and generally make ends-meet if anyone with access to the net can consume your novel for free? Convention speeches and novels embedded with keyword links, perhaps? Hell, let’s plaster some corporate logos on the ebook’s page headers right next to the author’s name – talk about pre-empting a Max Barry satire.
And anyway, how many online idols like Cory Doctorow and Jeff Jarvis can the internet sustain?
Personally, I don’t sit down in front of a computer and ‘write’ a book – I research, I outline, I interview, I research some more, I agonize over structure, plot and character arc … I spend years on the craft. I’ve had an agent, written and plotted demoralizing TV, trashed multi-national mining companies in print, published magazines – this is not some fucking hobby in the vain hope of improving my literacy and numeracy standards. I’m at the coal-face. This is my job.
And guess what? I do the novel writing for free … on the speculative hope that once published the reader will financially support my endeavour ensuring that I can lace-up the steel-cap boots and go back out and move mountains with a spoon.
Like most authors, I write because I have to. There is no alternative for us – we need to do this. We don’t choose this profession. Hell, why would you? It’s hard work … yet, infinitely rewarding.
When the new-dawn of publishing truly arrives – and it will – you will see two things:
1) Piracy (because that’s the most popular past-time that people engage in on the net – Amazon knows this, which is why they are selling an ebook reader. Control the hardware because you’ll never be able to fully control the content once market saturation occurs), and
2) A reduction of good content (seen many good films lately?).
Yes, as an author there are numerous ways to hustle the average reader for their hard-earned but most writers will be unable to master these avenues like the oft-quoted Doctorow, Jarvis or Godin.
So?
Well, musicians can play live on tour. Movies – laced with product endorsement – hold valiantly onto cinema as a premium-paid entertainment experience. Newspapers, well, they have ad revenue problem, thus reporters have been axed … notice how many opinion pieces are in newspapers? That’s because investigative journalism costs money.
As for books? Well, readers enjoy them in a type of shared solitude – just you and (hopefully) a few well-written words. It’s a thrill that I gladly pay money for … but in a few years time I don’t think many others will.
Orange Slushie says
just comparing to music publishing. if you love vinyl, for example, no mp3 will ever replace it. however, you still want to listen to the music you buy in digital formats. record labels now issue free, one-off, encoded mp3 downloads with vinyl purchases. this does mean you can share the music once you’ve downloaded it, by burning it onto a cd for a friend. but it can only be downloaded onto itunes once by one person, it can’t be emailed to those 1000 friends.
using music as an example again, in my experience as a music lover, free content is mostly used as a try-before-you-buy. you might download something for free to have a listen or a friend might burn it for you for the same reason, but if you love it, you’ll want to own a genuine hard copy. and if you don’t love it you won’t listen to the free download any more, which you would never have bought in the first place without hearing it anyway, so no one’s lost anything there.
Nathan Bransford says
anon@3:49-
What is the “legitimate resale” market when it comes to digital copies?
You sell a used book, it’s maybe a slightly tarnished version of the original, and it’s priced less accordingly. Once you sell it you don’t own it anymore.
You sell a used digital file, you’re selling the exact same file, and you can use the game. Doesn’t it seem like you’re just screwing the content provider and making money for doing nothing? Maybe I’m missing something?
Yvette Davis says
Gee, I wonder if Netscape and Mozilla thought about that. Hmm…
What’s what though is that if you have a website you cannot give everything away for free. So say you have advertising revenue, that’s great, but you also need to sell a product. If you don’t sell a product then that can be a service. From the discussions I’ve had with Internet folks, the subscription model is what works, and it is possilbe that a book seller could take a subscription model and run all the way to the bank with it, I think.
Please, somebody do that right now.
denese says
You are 28 years old?
Matt S says
There were too many comments to read, but I noticed a lot of derogatory words being linked to the concept of “free.” I think the world of writing should take a look at the world of webcomics and see if there might be a lesson or two to learn. Webcartoonists put their stuff up online for free, and then sell print collections of the free comics (along with t-shirts and other assorted merchandise). The artists who resonate can make a living, the others continue to work day jobs and lament about their undiscovered genius.
There are writers who podcast novels, some that post short stories regularly, some who write poetry… all kinds. Since it’s the internet, some of them are truly awful, but for the hard-working, it seems like a great way to build some cred to impress agents.
Anonymous says
What is the “legitimate resale” market when it comes to digital copies?
You sell a used book, it’s maybe a slightly tarnished version of the original, and it’s priced less accordingly. Once you sell it you don’t own it anymore.
The words aren’t any different with a used book than a new one. I derive no less enjoyment from a used copy than a new one. The physical media is less perfect, but the entertainment value is derived from the words inside, not the paper it’s printed on. A legitimate resale of a digital product you buy means you do not keep a copy for yourself. Once I buy something, I should have to right to sell it or give it away as I see fit. Once, of course, not to an infinite number of people. I’m *not* defending piracy.
But take your Kindle, for example. What if you bought a book you loved and thought for sure one of your friends would love? If the book were physical, you could hand it to them. Royalties to author: $0. And yet, no one says used books should disappear. But if it’s a Kindle version, you have to tell them, “Go buy your own.” That’s fantastic for the writer, the publisher, and the agent of course.
But is it right for you, the consumer? You should be able to give over a digital book to someone else (which deletes it from your Kindle account, of course).
Simon Haynes says
“But why are e-books suddenly the End of the Line for format changes?”
Because you listen to an album many, many times, but you may only read the same book once or twice.
Buying an album in a new format once is a low cost per use, and people went from cassette tape to CD because music in the new format was far better.
Paying to format shift ebooks is like buying the thing every time you want to read it. And how will The Hobbit be improved by selling it with a new, incompatible, DRM scheme?
Marilyn Peake says
Speaking of free eBooks, Fictionwise now offers selected titles for free, some only for a limited period of time. Right now, 15 Harlequin romance novels are free…plus there’s a button at the top of their home page for a larger number of free eBooks including some classics and dictionaries.
Word verification: “deread”. Freaky.
Joel Hoekstra says
I still collect all of my favorite TV shows on DVD, even thought I’ve seen them before, perhaps even though I’ve already taped them on VHS. I didn’t see the shows for “free” since I paid a subscription service (cable bill) in order to view these shows in the first place. But I’m limited in my viewing choices by what time the show is on and how many commercial interruptions are interspersed throughout. So if I really like the show, I’m going to buy the DVD just to skip the commercials or pick and choose the episode in whatever order I want.
I could easily see e-Books going to a subscription service type format with an iTunes-like cross-referencing system that helps pick out similar fare that might interest you, or like how Amazon generates “suggestions” for future purchases. For the price of admission (subscription fee), you could download X number of “books” (novel, non-fic, self help, whatever) for a limited time. Once those books are no longer “aired” you would have to pay a fee to download them your Kindle/Reader device – or have them printed out for permanent storage.
Speaking of which, paper and binding doesn’t last forever. Libraries spend plenty of time and dollars on upkeep for well-read tomes. I don’t consider paperbacks to be any more permanent/transient than their digital counterparts (at least in terms of keeping up with formats).
In this day and age, established authors already advertise current releases by posting opening chapters online (Orson Scott Card’s site comes to mind). Publishers bait the hook with “free” stuff hoping to lure the reader in for the final purchase. Amazon has digital samples of songs posted so you can listen to at least a portion of them before you buy.
I cry no tears for the Music Industry. For years we were forced to purchase albums, most songs unheard (I was about to say “sight unseen” but that doesn’t sound right ;-), perhaps one or two songs of which we MIGHT have heard on the radio beforehand. More often than not, those two songs were the only ones we really wanted and then we spent hours generating our own mix tapes just so we could put a cassette in the deck without having to hit Fast Forward to find the next worth-while tune. The entire “album” model was a huge rip-off in my not-so-humble opinion, forcing consumers to purchase hours and hours of material they had no interest in hearing.
Burning iTunes to CD based on the playlist of your choosing is how music was MEANT to be. THAT was inevitable. Now we simply have the digital tools to mix and master our own “albums.” I envision my future e-Book purchases to be much the same – a “playlist” of my favorite novels and/or articles, to be viewed and printed at my leisure. But I don’t expect any of it to be “free.” Either by subscription/preview, or individual purchase, if people can’t make any money at it, it won’t get done. Capitalism works! Honest! 😉
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
You should be able to give over a digital book to someone else (which deletes it from your Kindle account, of course).
Actually, this exists in the library digital audio market already. You can “check out” a digital file, but no one else can use it until it’s “checked” back in. So I think we’re in agreement on that, provided it’s a “one at a time” model.
This is what I mean by loosening up DRM — I have no problems with legitimate uses, and it would be awesome if you could digitally assign, say, a Kindle book to someone else easily and give it away.
Nathan Bransford says
Simon-
You could argue that mp3s aren’t actually an improvement to vinyl or even CDs if you’re talking sound quality and experience. When people upgraded to CDs and mp3s they’re buying portability, not permanence. Same with eBooks.
Anonymous says
Anon @ 4:06 said, “You should be able to give over a digital book to someone else (which deletes it from your Kindle account, of course).”
Well, not if that isn’t what you paid for. If you buy a product that is designed and sold for a specific purpose (such as only working on the machine it was originally downloaded to), then you don’t have rights beyond that, just because the digital file is your property. Nobody is making you buy an ebook (or any other type of book) in the first place.
I don’t understand this idea that limits on what we can do with property are somehow automatically Wrong and Must Be Rectified. And the thing is, people will just make copies of Kindle books and give them to their friends, if you let them. That does not make it defensible. Just because we *can* do something (like pirate digital files), that doesn’t give us the right to do it. But most of us will, anyway. I bet most of us have illegal mp3s on our computers or iPods right now. I’m sure I have files friends have emailed me, and I know I’ve emailed files to friends. We don’t even think about it, because it’s just attaching something to an email and we do not live in a culture where we think of that act as theft. But it is.
Kate says
As an aspiring writer, I love the idea of e-books. When e-books become the norm, the question of how many books to print will begin to disappear. So at least in my mind I can imagine selling millions of copies of a book – even if a publisher only wants to print a couple thousand.
As a reader my vision of e-books is slightly different, but still positive. I currently get most of the books I read from the library – for free. But it is often hard to find popular best sellers at the library. Someone else always has them checked out, and I am far too impatient to deal with waiting lists. So I almost always buy “new books”.
I could see publishers making “classic literature” free or nearly free on e-books. The cost of layout and editing was covered decades ago and most bricks and mortar stores dedicate limited space to the classics. The continence of paying $2 for Dickens on your kindle might seem a nice alternative to driving to the library.
As for “new releases” in the book world, my guess is that readers will be willing to pay for the books that all their friends are raving about. Maybe not $25, but probably $10. Jane Austin is dead and isn’t missing out on any royalties when “Emma” is distributed for next to nothing, but I think most readers do understand that work went into the creation of the books they love and the people who did that work deserve to be paid.
Anonymous says
I think Nathan is right – the issue is convenience over permanence.
However, we have 2 kids and live on $20,000 a year, and I will not buy things that are not permanent.
So, I bought Tunnel of Love on cassette years ago. Loved it. Watched Bruce on the Superbowl, wanted to hear it again – and I can’t. But I will not pay for it a second time, I’ve already paid Bruce for Tunnel of Love. So I listen to it on YouTube. Then I hear Bruce’s amazing song for The Wrestler. Unbelievable. Worth money. But will I buy it? No, because everything I buy I want to still be able to listen to when I am 80. I want permanence for my dollar. The format for The Wrestler will change on me and become worthless. So, I will listen to The Wrestler song on YouTube. Bruce, though, this time loses money.
I no longer buy music – except for v. particular niche items. Really. Truly. The music industry is hollowed out because of me. I don’t download it illegally, either. I go without or listen via YouTube.
I still buy books. Way too many books for our situation. I will ALWAYS have them and love them and enjoy them when I am 80. The authors still get my money. Change books to be formats of convenience, not permanence and I will only read them from the library. Authors will no longer get money from me.
In our economy, more people are entering into my situation. It used to be we were all going up bit by bit. Not anymore. In the future, I predict people will want things that will last. Or they will find ways to get it for free.
Anonymous says
A lot of you are arguing about the Kindle, and it’s the next thing coming and we had better hold on for the ride. It’s just like the explosion of cd’s, HDTV, etc. Technology is supposed to improve the consumer’s experience, so let’s weigh the pros and cons of e-books, and compare them to some of our favorite technology. How about an iPod. They were out a couple of years before my family broke down and bought one.
IPOD pros:
1. I can carry thousands of songs at one time (which is good I can listen to hundreds of songs in one day). I’d say that is a really good reason to buy an IPOD, and it is a lot less bulky than carry all of those CDS.
2. I can create my own playlists. (nice bonus)
3. I can watch videos (another nice bonus)
4. Add pictures (cool)
Okay, I’m sold on an IPOD.
Let’s list the cons:
1. price $250 (still worth it to me.)
2. I break it I lose it (same goes for anything else I play music on). So not really a con. I replace it for 250 bucks but I still have my music on the computer.
3. Uh I am out of cons for the IPOD. Oh here is one; it will be replaced by something better, and I will have to start over. (Oh but that happens in music every few years anyway.)
Okay let’s shoot for the KINDLE pros
1. download fast (pretty cool)
2. hold your hold library in your hand (neat),but I only read one book at a time and it last three days usually, unlike 1 song.
3. Help me out here people I’m running out of pros, and I am sure there are more.
Okay, I’m stumped, so we’ll try the cons
1. price- I can read a paperback for only the cost of the book.
2. I drop it, spill coffee on it, etc. I not only lose my Kindle I lose my library. If there is a way to retrieve it I am still out the time until I can afford another one. (Paperback 8.95 I have another one.)
3. replaced by new technology, (again I lose my whole library and I can no longer buy new books for the Kindle)unlike the iPod or HDTV, books didn’t need to be improved for a better picture or sound, the words stay the same.
4. Where I put it. I have to worry about my child sitting on it or dropping my purse to hard, which again comes back to price.
5. The rest of the family can’t read at the same time I do, unless I buy one for every family member. (Wierd for a whole family to read at the same time? Two of my family members are reading while right now while I am typing, and I know a lot of other families just like us.
Okay, you get it price is a big deal to me, and I adore technology (pretty much have it all). I didn’t need a kindle to read a book, and it didn’t improve my experience in any way. It is going to take more than convenience to entice the average family and even the the not so average. Very few readers I know will buy a Kindle. I would even go as far to say LESS than 1 out of 200, and I am the most likely to be that one (considering I have a greater interest in recieving books fast than most other people).
Anonymous says
PS sorry for all of the errors, but the print is tiny in this little, bitty, teeny, weeny, box I have to type in.
Roscoe James says
It should not be free. It should cost… enough. Enough that talented people can answer your question in the previous post.
Marilyn Peake says
Kate,
Jane Austen’s Emma is free for download at Fictionwise. And Another version at Fictionwise is under $5.
Court says
I don’t know exactly what content should cost, but since the music industry has surrendered, I’d say it’s only a matter of time until the publishing industry catches on. There are books I haven’t bought because of DRM protection. In my view, resistance to e-books is futile. There just isn’t a good case to be made against unrestricted content.
Sorry for all the hyperlinks, but it’s something I’ve been thinking and writing about for a while now. But let me let Woody Guthrie sum it up for me: “This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”
That’s pretty much how I feel, too.