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Free Books: Under the Radar
bcrowell writes "Remember e-books, anti-books, and print-on-demand books? They didn't pan out. The surprise success story is free books." Of course, this defines "success" as number of readers, not in terms of monetary profits. E-books and their ilk were concentrating on the latter definition, rather than the former. Still, it's good to see free books preferred in some circles based on their merit, and not just the cost.
Part of the problem with digital books wasn't just the price, but the format on-screen. Most people (i.e. the general public) won't sit and read from a computer screen for the length of time to read a book. Now, surfing for pron or killin' aliens is a different matter...
LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
It's great that with the Internet, it's gotten easier to self-publish your own works. Just like web pages, free books are a way for anybody to get the point out to the general public. However, now that anybody is allowed to do this, now the general public has figure out the difference between the good and the bad.
As far as e-books go, they've been promising that we'll have everything on microfiche since the 60's, and that the book is dead. Until I can read a book online and be able to find a subject quickly by "thumbing" though the book, there will always be room for paper books.
ebooks will work as soon as there are viable, usable devices for everyone to read them on.
Pdas at $500 with tiny screens to read on won't do. Sure there are pluses to them, reading in total darkness is cool, it makes you more "attuned" to what you are reading (less distractions around for your eyes to wander). But they are not for everyone. And reading them on your large computer screen sucks for various reasons, posture is not inteneded for reading for one. ITs ok for manuals and on line help, beacuse you are using the program at the same time, but -at lest for me- ebooks? nah.
Free ebooks are another thing altogether. You download them cos they're free, and to "build up" an elibrary, it doesn't mean you actually read them all. Eg: I d/l all Verne's books and only reread 2000 leagues, and Journey, I have a jornada i use almost solely as a contacts and ebook reader.
'Piracy' is in reality free advertising. Why don't the record companies and movie studios get it?
Probably because there is nothing to be gained by buying a copy of movie or a song after pirating it, whereas for software you buy it for upgrades or tech support and for books you buy it so that you can hold it in your hands instead of reading on the computer screen. If the record and movie companies provided free low quality copies of their works, they might be able to use this to get people to buy them in high quality formats. But, as it stands now, the quality of a downloaded song or movie is good enough that people don't seem to think its worth buying it for the quality increase.
When I pick up a book, it is to escape from staring at the monitor all day. I like to kick back with a nice hot cup of tea and one of my cats in my lap & relax, which somehow isn't possible even with my comfy computer setup.
While I have never depended on a "publisher to make an editorial decision," I do depend on my friends & get most of my recommendations from folks who only turn on a PC to check e-mail. This resulted in my dropping over $100 yesterday, alone on stuff such as Dylan Thomas, Bukowski, Pratchett, Le Guin, Naipail, and Hardy. Many of these are copyrighted classics that won't be available online for another 75+ years and all are well worth paying $7-35 for a lifetime of enjoyment. Yes, they'll sit on my shelf and represent killed trees, but the electricity required to power my PC long enough was probably generated with coal that will shorten the lives of even more trees and people as well. My library, on the other hand, is passed around to all my interested friends and family, a warm, physical, and comforting way to share enjoyment of the greatest poetry and prose. As with all great electronic innovations, "free" online books bypass the enjoyable interpersonal element, be it of sharing a story or chatting with the librarian.
Yes, there could be some great literature online & maybe someday I'll find something work getting a headache to read. For now, however, I'm content with a system that ain't broke; the bookstore when I've got the money and the library when I don't.
For all the open-source software movement's successes, I'm not aware of any case in which an entrenched proprietary program was pushed out of first place in the market by open-source software.
Linux was in 1999 (I don't know how it is today) the most widely used server operating system on the internet.
Apache is the top web server.
PHP has surpassed ASP in terms of number of users and is now the most widely used server side scripting language.
Sendmail is the leading email server (over, for example, Microsoft Exchange).
OpenSSH is the Internet's most widely used implementation of SSH.
Granted, some of these may never have pushed anything other than other OSS/FS products out of first place (such as Apache, whose predecessor was the NCSA web server), but aren't there a gazillion other examples anyway? I have a hard time taking anyone who makes such bold assertions, without even trying to first evaluate them, seriously.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
People always seem to be at their best when in small groups. The internet has the positive affect of cutting out the middleman and in some cases, perhaps slows down globalization (sometimes a good thing, but usually not - globalization tends to hurt people in developing countries who have the least).
It is a great feeling to publish a real physical book, but I have found that I have had to make at least two compromises with the traditional publishing process, mainly:
- constrained to write about popular subjects
- books that get out of date technologically are still sold (for many of my published books, I really liked them when they were fresh, but 4 or 5 years later, they seemed really dated, but were still being sold)
Anyway, when writing free web books, an author (like me!) can choose topics that are interesting but niche. I beg for small donations for my free web books, and I am pleasantly surprised at the amount of donations that I receive (currently, I get 3 or 4 cents per download, on the average, in donations).I am working on a third free web book (The Software Design Book), so I do believe in this process.
-Mark
I understand tech books, but for the types of books you read once...novels, fiction, that sort of thing, the paperback book is a thing of beauty.
It fits comfortably in hand, requires no power, can be stored in a large pocket or small backpack, and its cheap enough that if it gets lots, you don't care, I can loan it to my friends if I want, I can throw it away, I can store it on a shelf, virtually indestructable, theft resistant and it requires no electricity to use. I can even use it in the hot tub or swimming pool, and it if gets wet, well, when you dry it out, it usually pretty usable. Its perfect packaging for the human animal.
So if I have a reader for my ebook, I'm getting a fragile device that will have DRM built into it, will require electricity, and will be difficult to read.
Rather than try to improve one of the perfect human inventions (the paperback book), why not work on something useful like a good, cheap DVD player for linux?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
For a similar set of reasons as to why the public rejected the divx "loaning scheme" for movies, they'll reject e-books as they currently stand.
People would always rather get something for free than have to pay for it; and they'd always rather have the rights laid out according to the FSF than not have those rights.
But people will pay for books. We've been doing that forever, since the beginning of this nation. But when people pay for books, they expect certain rights; the right to read as often as they like, to loan, to mark-up, to give away, to take quotes from, to put in a library, etc. Until e-books give people all the same rights they have with regular paper-back books, they will not catch on.
Asking people to buy e-books as they currently exist is like saying "why don't you pay me 30,000 dollars for the same Ford except that you can't loan it to anyone, modify it, etc etc". People aren't going to buy into this bullshit.
What should happen is that when we buy a paper-back book, we should get access to an e-book automatically, and have the same rights to utilize the e-book as we would the paper-back book.
The reason why free-books online are catching on is because they offer the consumers all the same rights they'd have with paper-back books.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
In recent years, I've fed my kids through the work I attract via my contributions to open source and the publication of free software on my web site. It is possible to make a living from free software.
I hope to use a similar model for a fantasy novel I'm writing.
The novel in question was first completed some years back, tentatively sold to a big name publisher, and then "lost" in a series of mergers. Quite discouraging. Writing is a damned tough business; I know, because I made a living for twelve years with magazine columns and programming books.
I write fiction for two reasons -- because I enjoy it, and to entertain people. But getting into the fiction market (as in making money) is very, very hard. The publishing industry is terribly conservative and biased in the most incredible ways.
Success as a writer -- especially as a fiction writer -- is elusive. Lost in a sea of lousy over-the-transom manuscripts, agents, and myopic publishers, how does an author stand out and make themselves known?
Well, I'm told that John Grisham started his career by self-publishing his first books, and selling them from the trunk of his car at fairs and flea markets. Self-promotion is the root of all success...
And perhaps people will pay me directly, if they believe my book worthy.
So I'm publishing a book in a few weeks via my website, complete with full-color plates (artwork by my talented wife), and a story written exactly the way I want it, without the interference (or grammatical safety net!) of an editor. The complete book will be available under exactly the same terms as a paper book -- you can give it away, make copies for your friends, or print it out, all without paying me a dime.
BUT, I'll also have a honor-based online payment system; for less than the cost of a typical paperback, people who enjoy the book can pay for it. They are not required to pay me -- it is a matter of honor and ethics.
I don't expect most people to pay for what they download; if they simply enjoy the book, pass it on to friends, read it to their kids -- that will be victory (in a different sense.) What I'm giving people is an honest chance to compensate me, the author, for my work, if they deem it worthy.
How many times have you bought a paperback, found it unreadable, and put it on the shelf unfinished or dissatisfied? How often does a pretty cover conceal a lousy book? It happens often enough for me, especially when buying a new science fiction or fantasy book. Wouldn't it be better if you could read the book first, and then only pay the authors whose work you considered worthy?
Perhaps I'm too optimistic about people; if nothing else, this will be an interesting experiment in publishing and human relations.
All about me
Three chapters might be enough for Orson Scott Card, who already has a fairly large following, but it certainly isn't enough for authors that are less well known. Besides, why be stingy? If you aren't going to put the whole book up on the Internet what does it hurt to put nearly all of the book on the Internet? You still have to buy the book to find out how it ends, and no one is likely to read 80% of a book and then not finish it.
The folks at Baen aren't stupid. Most sci-fi/fantasy novels nowadays are actually part of a series, and Baen isn't giving away any series in its entirety. I have bought several books from them from authors I had never heard of because I liked the books I was able to read for free.
I actually prefer reading on my Visor, and I refuse to buy encrypted ebooks, and that means that baen.com and fictionwise.com are getting the lion's share of my book dollars.