![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
I know I should stay clear of Amazonfail, but I just want to say that a publisher which can't make a profit selling $9 etexts (or $5, or $2) deserves to go bankrupt. If amortized editing and design costs are really the lion's share of a physical book, the system is deeply, deeply broken.
(Even applying design costs to the etext version is largely ridiculous. How much design work does an etext need? I'd prefer it as a raw text file anyway, but a LaTeX-generated PDF would also be just fine as well. The only reason for fancy design in the first place is to catch people's attention in a store. Etext selection and browsing is nothing like that, so why bother with it in the first place? Tradition? Snob factor? Anything that can't be seen in the scaled down image of the book cover in an Amazon listing is a complete waste of money.)
I remain unconvinced of the long-term viability of selling data as a business model. But if you want to find a way for authors to make money, don't make it even harder by trying to defend these dinosaurs at the same time.
(Even applying design costs to the etext version is largely ridiculous. How much design work does an etext need? I'd prefer it as a raw text file anyway, but a LaTeX-generated PDF would also be just fine as well. The only reason for fancy design in the first place is to catch people's attention in a store. Etext selection and browsing is nothing like that, so why bother with it in the first place? Tradition? Snob factor? Anything that can't be seen in the scaled down image of the book cover in an Amazon listing is a complete waste of money.)
I remain unconvinced of the long-term viability of selling data as a business model. But if you want to find a way for authors to make money, don't make it even harder by trying to defend these dinosaurs at the same time.
no subject
Piracy also solves your final problem. Quality control isn't a problem if the content is free! Just keep downloading until you find something you like. That sounds flippant, but it sure works in the rest of my online life.
(As a more out there approach to the issue of editors, we might want to think about social forces. Everyone wants to be an author because it's sexy and glamorous. Seriously, how many people do you know who haven't tried writing at some point? Very few want to be an editor, obviously. But people *are* willing to donate their time in other unsexy, unglamorous ways. Maybe what we should be thinking about, if we want to guarantee good editing in the post-IP world, is how we reward editors with social capitol. The fanfic world probably has the right idea, explicitly thanking 'beta readers', making that something of an honor, particularly if the writer is well liked. Reputation economies are how things get done in post-scarcity environments, so maybe we need to start putting some real thought in how to engineer them for optimal results.)
Piracy also hurts people, true. But it sure seems to be inevitable, so maybe we should just be glad it has some good benefits too? I didn't really want to get into this here, but I'm not sure where else to go with that. We obviously can't stop it technologically. We *might* be able to legally if we mandate locked-platform computing, universal DRM, and generally break everything that is good and wonderful about the internet. Which, of course, no one (here) actually wants. But until I see a working alternative, hand-wringing about it seems entirely pointless. Yes, it would be nice if people could get paid for their work. It would be nice if I could make a living blacksmithing, but no one is distorting the legal system to guarantee *that*.
no subject
...I totally missed that PDF had become an open standard.
Publisher didn't support PDF for years because Adobe wanted to charge us $100/box for it.
no subject
no subject
(by which I mean my comment was not sarcasm, it was surprise.)
no subject
no subject