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Is Salacious Content Driving E-Book Sales?
narramissic writes "Having already abandoned ebooks once, Barnes & Noble is jumping back into ebooks with the purchase this week of ebook seller Fictionwise. Why is the format suddenly hot? Look no further than the top 10 Fictionwise bestsellers, says blogger Peter Smith. Once again it seems like 'porn is blazing a path to a new media format. Of the top 10 bestsellers under the 'Multiformat' category, nine are tagged 'erotica' and the last is 'dark fantasy.' Need more proof that folks (let's take a leap and call them women) who read 'bodice rippers' like the privacy of ebooks? Author Samantha Lucas (who writes for publishers like Cobblestone Press and Siren Publishing) tells Smith that she sells almost all of her novels in ebook format."
The ability to turn pages one-handed is touted as one of the big improvements of the Kindle 2.
Draw your own conclusions.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
And that it's much easier to wipe off a kindle. Ever cleaned a keyboard?
... this is clearly a privacy issue, not a pornography issue. If it were common for me to read in public places, like at work on my lunch break, a e-book would be far better than a typical paperback. Why, because then no one could learn what I am reading unless I tell them.
I don't read anything to be embarrassed about, but I can imagine it is awkward for women into those trash romance novels to hold a lewd covered book when sitting across the aisle from their boss.
Or what about people reading the Bible, Koran, or other religious manuscript. I have seen the way people look at folks reading such material on subways.
E-Books are great for everyone concerned about others judging them by what they read. Hell, in some cities you can be judged by which news paper you read... god forbid your conservative boss sees you reading the New York Times. I know I would hate to have a perfectly good working relationship ruined because I think homosexuals should be allowed to marry and raise children.
I am all for personal privacy in all things personal. I am not a conspiracy theorist that thinks the government or big business is spying and gonna use information against me... but I don't want my reading material, music tastes, or social/political beliefs to be an issue with those I wouldn't readily discuss such things with. A good ebook reader and some head phones allow me to consume media privately, if for no other reason than that.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Does this mean that porn will eventually adapt to open source as innovation? That's open source I can't wait to contribute to!
I used to read alt.stories.erotica way back in the 9600 baud days. The only thing new here is that people are paying for it.
I read erotic stories augmented with 16-color ANSI art from a BBS over a 2400 baud modem. /waits for someone to come in and talk about how they used to write their mainframe code so that it made dirty pictures on the punch cards, or how if they squinted their eyes at ENIAC the vacuum tubes looked kinda like boobs.
The enemies of Democracy are
That's because porn doesn't have to be good in order to sell. It will sell on novelty alone, at least for a little while. So it is an ideal early adopter for new media.
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Obsidian is better. Anyone using flint is an idiot.
"No one thinks women should be discriminated against but I do think that as a group that working women take more hours off than working men. Period."
If you don't count time off die to child birth, that discrepancy almost completely vanishes. If you also take into account that men generally make more money for the same work, the notion that women take more time off starts looking like a self fulfilling prophecy (ie. given the choice between a family losing $x when a woman takes the day off or losing $1.5x whena man takes the day off, the most rational choice is clearly for the woman to take the day off), not to mention that there is a cultural norm that mothers are expected to take time off to deal with children (meaning that schools are more likely to call mothers in an emergency than fathers, and that employers are far more likely to permit time off to deal with children for mothers than fathers). Even assuming that your statement of "fact" really is, there are some very clear factors making it far more likely than the alternative which, frankly, have almost nothing to do with the quality or quantity of work done by women and everything to do with social norms and economic conditions.
"So that means they work less hours. Less on the production side. Also as a group women make more of the buying decisions in a family than the men do. More on the consuming side."
I doubt this very much. I work in retail, and while I certainly see women buying more items, I also men buying more expensive items... VASTLY more expensive.
"Sounds like the post is just factually true."
No, it sounds like the post is stating a common and highly controversial assumption that is factually ambiguous but reinforces what many people already believe subconsciously and is possibly a major factor in making or keeping it true. It is rationalization for sexism, not a valid explanation in its own right.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.