Yes, but art doesn't pay the rent. (I get the feeling that you're a troll, but i'm new here, so i'll roll with it...)
Do you program for the sheer sake of programming? Or do X for the sheer sake of X? (Insert your occupation -- something that you are *presently* doing in as X.)
Yeah, sure, sometimes you do. Sometimes you just have to code/write/look at the stars/calculate the national deficit. But if you want to be good at anything, it takes time. And no, you shouldn't earn money while you practice to get good -- but once you are good, and people enjoy your work, you should expect some recompense. If you programmed all day, every day, and no one ever paid you for it...well, you'd starve to death, 'cause love doesn't pay the bills.
If a writer lives to be read, and Amazon stops that writer from making money -- the equivalent of being published at all, because publishers aren't in it for the "art" -- then what are they supposed to do? Scrawl novels in crayon on toilet paper and hand it out in envelopes?
I don't mind used books after a six-month (perhaps even three month) leeway preiod (please see my other thread on the topic) but a book's intial run is its entire chance to make $, and contribute to an authors career. If Amazon nips that in the bud, then people who live to be read, and still write, won't be bought, or published and they'll die anyway:P.
Erin Cashier Denton
http://www.worldcontrol.org/theri
It's no better to be safe than sorry.
Hey, i love used books as much as the next person. But being an author as well, i think that Amazon's marketing tactics in this case are far too agressive. Should they sell used books? Sure. But what's the harm in waiting six months till the book is off the stands? Or until the hardback and paperback have had their chance in a normal store?
I think a lot of you all don't realize how little authors get paid for the effort they put into a book. (Let me say here that i'm not a published pro, just a well educated wannabe, maybe soon-to-be.) I write quickly, and my husband supports me -- writers as fast as Stephen King are not the norm. Even with me going full time (i don't have kids, and i'm obsessive compulsive) it takes me a year to both finish and edit a book to send out. Most writers, who swing work and writing, take longer.
Your typical first genre book gets you an advance of 5000 dollars. That's it. If you break it down into hours spent vs $ per hour, it's something pathetic, like around two bucks an hr.
Past the advance, you usually earn back a small portion (5%? less? barely more?) of the proceeds from book sales.
If your book doesn't sell well, obviously you won't make much $ from the percentage. But beyond that -- and this is the important bit -- bookstores use their sales levels to calculate what they'll buy of your next book.
Let's be honest. Nothing has a 100% sell thru rate. So say you're a fab new author, the publisher's going to market you heavily (you might get a whopping ten grand, if you're lucky, which means you've worked for a year for 4$ an hr) and bookstores order 100,000 copies of your books.
You have an amazing sell thru rate of 75%! You've made $! The publisher wants you to write a sequel!
So you do -- and guess what? Bookstores order 75,000. Exactly the # that they sold last time. And this time again, you have a 75% sell thru rate...so for the 3rd book in your trilogy, bookstores order 50,000 copies.
Soon, you and your name's image are heading down the drain. If you're lucky (note how a lot of these theoreticals depend on luck:( ) a publisher will take a chance on you again with a New Pen Name, and send you back out into the cold world. If not, you've blown your chance, sorry.
If Amazon sells used books in those first crucial six months -- the only chance the bookstores give you, and probably your publishers as well -- not only is the writer losing money, but he's losing a career. (A proto-career, rather. It's hard to make ends meet on a measly 10,000$ a year these days.)
After those six months? The books will be off the shelves, and the author can consider the sales of used books as advertisements for their next.
Yes, i don't have to write. No one is forcing me. But if you want your favorite authors to continue to write (especially if you like esoteric or niche writers) then you really need to support them.
If Amazon's tactics continue, the pool of new writers will shrivel, and the pool of currently famous writers will either become stale and repetative (don't tell me you haven't stopped reading at least one author because all their books are the same now) or age and die off, with no one to replace them.
I'm all for used books, but only in good time. No one is saying (well, i'm not saying;)) that you can't pass around a book that you've bought. Instead of comparing books to cars or other objects, compare them to entertainment -- like movies. In fact, books are much better than movies (for other reasons, but i'm biased.) Your used movie ticket won't get your friends in after you. And if you want to rent it -- you wait until the theaters/production companies/etc have milked their due. And even then you have to wait to buy it.
Books are unique mobile entertainment. Authors don't get paid what actors make. Lend your bought books around, please, oftentimes that's the only advertisments that books get. But don't undercut the writers, especially when they are new ones, trying to get out of the gate in one piece.
Thanks for your time,
Erin Cashier Denton
Erin Cashier Denton
http://www.worldcontrol.org/theri
It's no better to be safe than sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but art doesn't pay the rent. (I get the feeling that you're a troll, but i'm new here, so i'll roll with it...) Do you program for the sheer sake of programming? Or do X for the sheer sake of X? (Insert your occupation -- something that you are *presently* doing in as X.) Yeah, sure, sometimes you do. Sometimes you just have to code/write/look at the stars/calculate the national deficit. But if you want to be good at anything, it takes time. And no, you shouldn't earn money while you practice to get good -- but once you are good, and people enjoy your work, you should expect some recompense. If you programmed all day, every day, and no one ever paid you for it...well, you'd starve to death, 'cause love doesn't pay the bills. If a writer lives to be read, and Amazon stops that writer from making money -- the equivalent of being published at all, because publishers aren't in it for the "art" -- then what are they supposed to do? Scrawl novels in crayon on toilet paper and hand it out in envelopes? I don't mind used books after a six-month (perhaps even three month) leeway preiod (please see my other thread on the topic) but a book's intial run is its entire chance to make $, and contribute to an authors career. If Amazon nips that in the bud, then people who live to be read, and still write, won't be bought, or published and they'll die anyway :P.
Erin Cashier Denton
http://www.worldcontrol.org/theri
It's no better to be safe than sorry.
I think a lot of you all don't realize how little authors get paid for the effort they put into a book. (Let me say here that i'm not a published pro, just a well educated wannabe, maybe soon-to-be.) I write quickly, and my husband supports me -- writers as fast as Stephen King are not the norm. Even with me going full time (i don't have kids, and i'm obsessive compulsive) it takes me a year to both finish and edit a book to send out. Most writers, who swing work and writing, take longer.
Your typical first genre book gets you an advance of 5000 dollars. That's it. If you break it down into hours spent vs $ per hour, it's something pathetic, like around two bucks an hr.
Past the advance, you usually earn back a small portion (5%? less? barely more?) of the proceeds from book sales.
If your book doesn't sell well, obviously you won't make much $ from the percentage. But beyond that -- and this is the important bit -- bookstores use their sales levels to calculate what they'll buy of your next book.
Let's be honest. Nothing has a 100% sell thru rate. So say you're a fab new author, the publisher's going to market you heavily (you might get a whopping ten grand, if you're lucky, which means you've worked for a year for 4$ an hr) and bookstores order 100,000 copies of your books.
You have an amazing sell thru rate of 75%! You've made $! The publisher wants you to write a sequel!
So you do -- and guess what? Bookstores order 75,000. Exactly the # that they sold last time. And this time again, you have a 75% sell thru rate...so for the 3rd book in your trilogy, bookstores order 50,000 copies.
Soon, you and your name's image are heading down the drain. If you're lucky (note how a lot of these theoreticals depend on luck :( ) a publisher will take a chance on you again with a New Pen Name, and send you back out into the cold world. If not, you've blown your chance, sorry.
If Amazon sells used books in those first crucial six months -- the only chance the bookstores give you, and probably your publishers as well -- not only is the writer losing money, but he's losing a career. (A proto-career, rather. It's hard to make ends meet on a measly 10,000$ a year these days.)
After those six months? The books will be off the shelves, and the author can consider the sales of used books as advertisements for their next.
Yes, i don't have to write. No one is forcing me. But if you want your favorite authors to continue to write (especially if you like esoteric or niche writers) then you really need to support them.
If Amazon's tactics continue, the pool of new writers will shrivel, and the pool of currently famous writers will either become stale and repetative (don't tell me you haven't stopped reading at least one author because all their books are the same now) or age and die off, with no one to replace them.
I'm all for used books, but only in good time. No one is saying (well, i'm not saying ;)) that you can't pass around a book that you've bought. Instead of comparing books to cars or other objects, compare them to entertainment -- like movies. In fact, books are much better than movies (for other reasons, but i'm biased.) Your used movie ticket won't get your friends in after you. And if you want to rent it -- you wait until the theaters/production companies/etc have milked their due. And even then you have to wait to buy it.
Books are unique mobile entertainment. Authors don't get paid what actors make. Lend your bought books around, please, oftentimes that's the only advertisments that books get. But don't undercut the writers, especially when they are new ones, trying to get out of the gate in one piece.
Thanks for your time, Erin Cashier Denton
Erin Cashier Denton
http://www.worldcontrol.org/theri
It's no better to be safe than sorry.