I would forget CD Baby - just run the math for their own numbers - $65 million for 150,000 artists, works out to an average of $433 per artist. $35 intial fee + 9% of $433 ($38.97) really works out to 20%. Given that their figures are based on 9 years, its doubtful you'll even see your initial outlay the first year or two. Even worse if they keep $4/physical cd.
In other words, most of their sales are from people who signed up with them, then told other people "you can buy my stuff online -check it out." They could have made the same revenue selling it to those same people directly.
The stores have to BUY it one-way from the distributor if they want to sell it. (This is IMPORTANT for you to understand!)
The distributor will not be accepting returns, which means stores will consider this a special-order item.
In other words : your fans won't just find it sitting in the bins at any of these stores. Your fan will have to talk to the person at the counter, and place a special-order for it.
Being available in a database won't make hundreds of stores order it. Usually the store will only order your CD from Super D if someone has already come into their store and paid for a special-order of your CD in advance. Unless you are doing a special promotion with a store to get them to buy a few copies then send your fans to that store to purchase it.
Keep at it - you might not find something that works, but if you don't continue to look, you dfinitely won't.
Maybe because hundreds of millions of people listen to AM radio every day -- and those of us driving 1991 cars can't just switch to digital radio (too expensive).
If getting rid of the AM band gets rid of all those fundie talk shows, I say nuke it NOW! From orbit! With sharks with frigging lazers stapped to their heads!
You still have FM in a 1991 car, last time I looked.
Why the hell would you destroy RAM? Hard drives I can understand but any data in RAM is going to be gone after a few seconds of power being off.
This is the *Canadian* Department of National Defense. You can consider the pine cones and pebbles used as RAM in their "older computers" to be the equivalent of today's static ram.
Okay - the real reason? The contractor who was supposed to destroy the ram probably just "recycled" it. Remember - this is back when a 16 meg chip would cost hundreds of dollars - stripping off the labels and selling it at a discount would be VERY profitable - I know one guy who was an employee of Nortel who was doing the same thing with boards that were supposed to be sent to the crusher. He stripped the ram off first, then crushed the boards.
If that only leaves Option 2 and there are no others, and Option 2 entails forced ads in or about the text itself... Is also a non-starter. Plus, they could only ensure the ads were there if the format is DRM based in the first place.
Option 2 in no way implies that - its not like we're talking about turning eBooks into the equivalent of crappy web pages. An acknowledment of sponsorship on the frontispiece along the lines of:
"The author(s) wishes to thank XYZ for their kind sponsorship of his/her/their work."
... and maybe their logo and web site, and a paragraph of what they do that is congruent to the topic of the book, and that might interest readers...
... should be enough, if the eBook content is actually of good enough quality. Advertisers understand that too many ads dilute both the quality of the ad and the quality of the product.
The author gets the gelt/sheckels/euros/bux, the sponsor gets both advertising and, with any luck, some buzz and goodwill, the environment gets less pollution from 4-colour printing, paper, distribution chain, etc., and the consumer gets a free eBook that has zero DRM, and a license to copy and distribute far and wide.
The eBooks that have higher-quality content, the fewest ads possible, ad the least restrictive licenses, will displace the "eBook as Web Page full of AdSense" or "eBook as the new proprietary locked-in licenseware" crapware quickly enough, because:
people are more likely, and more able, to redistribute the higher quality/least intrusive sponsorship version
people who write the higher quality eBooks will benefit from higher visibility, and ultimately higher revenue, since their subsequent eBooks will have a proven track record of high quality and don't need to be jam-packed with ads to make the sponsor a profit.
I have met or interacted with roughly 40 mac users in my last two years of work. I provide contracted IT services to companies. Each and every single one of those 40 mac users were pretentious twats. Every single one of them acted like the whole problem was my fault--even when they were coming to me because their mac was having issues.
... please tell us how this is different from Windows users... or any user of any product that doesn't take the time to learn how to use it properly?
Reminds me of the time I saw the neighbour's daughter stalled in traffic. She had "borrowed" the car without asking, and had to get it home before her mother found out, but it was stalled. Turns out she was using the choke to hold her purse. The hardest part was to get her to NOT keep on pumping the gas pedal when trying to staft a flooded engine.
I sense a comparison between Apple tribe members and Nazis coming soon
That would imply that the article is correct about Apple fans being the worst. Apple at least has some products that you can get excited about. Microsoft fans are MUCH worse - only a copraphiliac would swallow that shit. And for the Godwin bonus - Microsoft really does see itself as the 4th Reich - "Microsoft Uber Alles" and all that rot.
Option 1: A proprietary format eBook that you can't copy, share, pass around to others, back up to other media, etc., even after you paid for it?
Option 2: A free eBook that you can copy, share, pass around to others, back up to other media, etc., and that didn't cost you a cent?
Having a business act as your books' sponsor doesn't mean turning it into the eBook equivalent of an ad-jammed web page. That would be counter-productive. A notice that "this book is sponsored by xyz corp" on the front page, and an ad on one the inside cover pages for the same sponsor, with no other advertising by the sponsor or anyone else (so as not to dilute the ads' value) should be sufficient if the eBook is any good.
Now which of the two above options appeals more to advertisers? An eBook that has only limited distribution rights, and that they can't give away... or one that, if it's any good, will be passed around all over the place? And which of the two will they be more likely to promote?
Free (as in freedom) wins every time, if done right.
Content isn't king in any advertise-subsidized medium, it's the advertiser's revenue streams. They'll censor what they fear will alienate their viewers, they won't subsidize what they think won't sell. Advertising is horrible for content, unless the power that the sponsorship dollar holds over creators and audiences can be limited.
... and that's why we can't trash advertisers like Microsoft on slashdot... except we can, and do. Content is still king - otherwise, Microsoft wouldn't feel compelled to spend advertising dollars on sites with a large anti-Microsoft readership.
"the power that the sponsorship dollar holds over creators and audiences can be limited" is a given. You're not forced to choose any particular sponsor or sponsorship format. For example, say you write an ebook on Java... and Sun likes it enough to decide they want to sponsor it, with a "sponsored by Sun" on the frontispiece, and a link inside to their site, in return for $10k and 1 year exclusivity (that you can't release another edition for one year - exclusivity wouldn't apply to distribution. Since the idea is to make it free for the end user, you, and anyone else, can distribute as many copies as you like of that edition).
Why not take the deal? The average advance on non-fiction books is less than $5k - and most of the time, that's all the money the author sees. This puts more money in the writer's hands, gets much broader distribution, recognition, etc., and doesn't limit the reader's rights to copy, pass along to others, etc. (unlike that Piece of Shit amazon kindle reader, that only lets you "rent" your ebook, even though you paid for it!!!).
I've written a couple of product/technical manuals for companies - when you do the math, the pay per hour is MUCH better than what you'll find in the publishing industry, but the exposure is severely limited - only their own customers see it, since only they are interested. I certainly didn't care that they could make as many copies as they wanted... it was sponsored work, it paid the bills, and everyone was happy.
Which sort of ebook are you more likely to pass along - one that's full of useful content and enjoyable, with only one or 2 discrete ads, or one that's chock-a-block with link spam?
The market will sort it out, just like it always does. When you come across one of those "link farm landing pages", do you click on the links, or do you just close the tab?
What is so bad about having, for example, a mention in the acknowledgments or preface "this book sponsored by so-and-so"?
Just because web advertisers overdo advertising to the point that we're all pretty much "ad-blind" doesn't mean that, properly done, an ebook won't be effective.
So, rather than having a seriously limited run, why not make it so that it's free for people to pass around, etc? The books that are little more than ad-paks will be displaced by the higher-quality books with only one or two ads, since people are more likely to find the latter more useful and more likely to pass a copy or 5 along to friends and coworkers.
"Free is good" - free as in cost, free as in the right to make copies and pass them along, free as in the author can choose who and how the sponsor is presented in his or her work.
I was thinkng more along the lines of the author soliciting one or more sponsors for their books, and the books then being distributed for free.
Lets face it - most books don't earn their advance, so
the author isn't losing any money
the author can either accept or reject individual sponsors, and also decide what formats of sponsorship/advertising are acceptable
broader distribution, since its free to the reader
since the advertiser has a fixed cost for the book, its in their best interest to promote it as much as possible, to reap the largest incremental return
It doesn't have to be pdfs with click-thrus - it can be something as simple as a preface acknowledging "this book sponsored by [insert name here]".
It depends on the lamp. a 75 watt halogen desk lamp can easily start a fire if tipped over, or papers get pushed against it.
That being said, how likely is anyone on slashdot to have a desk lamp actually on their desk... I've got 5 in here, and they're all sitting on top of bookcases, to give mor even light. With the monitors, keyboard, printer, papers, etc., there's no ROOM for a lamp on my desk.
Plus, I found that desk lamps actually sitting on the desk give the worst possible lighting.
An incandescent bulb can cause a fire too. What's your point?
My point was that the GP was trying to intimate that halogen bulbs aren't a real fire hazard. Having seen a halogen bulb start a fire within seconds, I know that's not true... same as even regular incandescents can, under the right circumstances, cause fires.
Not to mention that halogen bulbs get up to 3000K or more. Why is 6000K too dangerous but 3000K just fine for something you put on your desk?
Psst... halogens can cause fires. Try putting a towel on one of those 300 vatt bulbs for floor lamps and watch how, within seconds, you have a "problem".
If you think you need a $40k/year education to engage in critical thinking, you're not engaging in anything of the sort.
That's because he's bought into the PHB mindset - he'll outsource all that "critical thinking stuff".
One thing nobody's mentioned yet is that people with a BS in CS are FUBAR'd if they're just coming onto the job market in a declining economy. Between outsourcing, contracting, and plain old cutbacks/layoffs, doesn't matter what "name" university you went to... but the debt associated with that "name" university makes your monthly nut that much harder to crack.
It may also make you less, not more, employable, since employers will figure that you'll either want more $$$ to start with, or will quickly jump ship for more $$$ once you have a year's "real world experience" under your belt. Both of these are negatives, which is why you see people with a couple of decades experience "dumbing down" their resumes when they get tired of what they're doing and want to change their speciation.
Some of the basic premises stated in the article are just plain wrong. For example:
'Outside our homes, we have always lived in a public space where our open acts are no longer private. Anonymity has not changed that, but has provided an illusion of privacy and security.... In public space, we engage in open acts where we have no expectation of privacy
We have always enjoyed "the anonymity of the crowd." Walking down the street, minding your own business, with nobody having the right to interfere with your peacable enjoyment of your own "private space", and others, equally strangers, just doing the same.
I used both Win2k and linux at one jobe - guess which one crashed ore often, and refused to install on new hardware - Win2k. Getting a new network card to work under linux was a matter of copying a few lines of code, editing 1 identifier, and recompiling. Getting Win2k to run for more than a few minutes involved having to look for the latest service pack, and installing it, then moving the hard drive back to the original machine.
And you are touting Linux as better, as you "only" have to edit lines of code, as opposed to downloading an update? See, this is why Linux will not be ready for the desktop. It might be fine for people who love Linux, and there's nothing wrong with that - but even computer geeks like myself have no time to learn what lines of code I need to edit to run the operating system - my computer interests lie elsewhere, such as coding and actually using the damn computer. A computer newbie has no chance.
What you fail to note is that linux users have the option of doing their own fixes instead of waiting (possibly forever) for Microsoft to release a fix. changing an identifier string and recompiling is trivial.
XP? A friend showed me his XP box and bragged about how much more stable it would be than Win9x - I opened up explorer and within 10 seconds the machine blue-screened.
What were you doing?
Just clicked rapidly on 2 different files - bang - BSoD. It was the same way I crashed the original release of Win95 years before. Looks like they have a bug that they fix, then "unfix," with each new version...
Things have really changed in the last 2 years, so your complaints are sriously dated. Heck, even IE7 now runs fine under linux...
Windows doesn't accept moving the hard drive to a new machine
Sure it does... you just need the right utility to prevent it from bitching on startup. Even on XP/NT, reset5.exe works fine.
In fact Even Linux can choke hard, and break if the 2 computers don't have Exactly The Same Graphic card/chip-set.
I've done it plenty of times - just avoid any exotic video cards that require soecial drivers - though even that still gives you a half-dozen consoles, so you can fix it.
Slashdot Mirror
I would forget CD Baby - just run the math for their own numbers - $65 million for 150,000 artists, works out to an average of $433 per artist. $35 intial fee + 9% of $433 ($38.97) really works out to 20%. Given that their figures are based on 9 years, its doubtful you'll even see your initial outlay the first year or two. Even worse if they keep $4/physical cd.
In other words, most of their sales are from people who signed up with them, then told other people "you can buy my stuff online -check it out." They could have made the same revenue selling it to those same people directly.
Checking the "important details page" confirms this:
Keep at it - you might not find something that works, but if you don't continue to look, you dfinitely won't.
You mean this? What does a business that specializes in "tuning your computer" have to do with WiMax?
If getting rid of the AM band gets rid of all those fundie talk shows, I say nuke it NOW! From orbit! With sharks with frigging lazers stapped to their heads!
You still have FM in a 1991 car, last time I looked.
This is the *Canadian* Department of National Defense. You can consider the pine cones and pebbles used as RAM in their "older computers" to be the equivalent of today's static ram.
Okay - the real reason? The contractor who was supposed to destroy the ram probably just "recycled" it. Remember - this is back when a 16 meg chip would cost hundreds of dollars - stripping off the labels and selling it at a discount would be VERY profitable - I know one guy who was an employee of Nortel who was doing the same thing with boards that were supposed to be sent to the crusher. He stripped the ram off first, then crushed the boards.
Option 2 in no way implies that - its not like we're talking about turning eBooks into the equivalent of crappy web pages. An acknowledment of sponsorship on the frontispiece along the lines of:
"The author(s) wishes to thank XYZ for their kind sponsorship of his/her/their work."
... and maybe their logo and web site, and a paragraph of what they do that is congruent to the topic of the book, and that might interest readers ...
The author gets the gelt/sheckels/euros/bux, the sponsor gets both advertising and, with any luck, some buzz and goodwill, the environment gets less pollution from 4-colour printing, paper, distribution chain, etc., and the consumer gets a free eBook that has zero DRM, and a license to copy and distribute far and wide.
The eBooks that have higher-quality content, the fewest ads possible, ad the least restrictive licenses, will displace the "eBook as Web Page full of AdSense" or "eBook as the new proprietary locked-in licenseware" crapware quickly enough, because:
Reminds me of the time I saw the neighbour's daughter stalled in traffic. She had "borrowed" the car without asking, and had to get it home before her mother found out, but it was stalled. Turns out she was using the choke to hold her purse. The hardest part was to get her to NOT keep on pumping the gas pedal when trying to staft a flooded engine.
That would imply that the article is correct about Apple fans being the worst. Apple at least has some products that you can get excited about. Microsoft fans are MUCH worse - only a copraphiliac would swallow that shit. And for the Godwin bonus - Microsoft really does see itself as the 4th Reich - "Microsoft Uber Alles" and all that rot.
Which would you rather have?
Having a business act as your books' sponsor doesn't mean turning it into the eBook equivalent of an ad-jammed web page. That would be counter-productive. A notice that "this book is sponsored by xyz corp" on the front page, and an ad on one the inside cover pages for the same sponsor, with no other advertising by the sponsor or anyone else (so as not to dilute the ads' value) should be sufficient if the eBook is any good.
Now which of the two above options appeals more to advertisers? An eBook that has only limited distribution rights, and that they can't give away ... or one that, if it's any good, will be passed around all over the place? And which of the two will they be more likely to promote?
Free (as in freedom) wins every time, if done right.
"the power that the sponsorship dollar holds over creators and audiences can be limited" is a given. You're not forced to choose any particular sponsor or sponsorship format. For example, say you write an ebook on Java ... and Sun likes it enough to decide they want to sponsor it, with a "sponsored by Sun" on the frontispiece, and a link inside to their site, in return for $10k and 1 year exclusivity (that you can't release another edition for one year - exclusivity wouldn't apply to distribution. Since the idea is to make it free for the end user, you, and anyone else, can distribute as many copies as you like of that edition).
Why not take the deal? The average advance on non-fiction books is less than $5k - and most of the time, that's all the money the author sees. This puts more money in the writer's hands, gets much broader distribution, recognition, etc., and doesn't limit the reader's rights to copy, pass along to others, etc. (unlike that Piece of Shit amazon kindle reader, that only lets you "rent" your ebook, even though you paid for it!!!).
I've written a couple of product/technical manuals for companies - when you do the math, the pay per hour is MUCH better than what you'll find in the publishing industry, but the exposure is severely limited - only their own customers see it, since only they are interested. I certainly didn't care that they could make as many copies as they wanted ... it was sponsored work, it paid the bills, and everyone was happy.
Which sort of ebook are you more likely to pass along - one that's full of useful content and enjoyable, with only one or 2 discrete ads, or one that's chock-a-block with link spam?
The market will sort it out, just like it always does. When you come across one of those "link farm landing pages", do you click on the links, or do you just close the tab?
What is so bad about having, for example, a mention in the acknowledgments or preface "this book sponsored by so-and-so"?
Just because web advertisers overdo advertising to the point that we're all pretty much "ad-blind" doesn't mean that, properly done, an ebook won't be effective.
Most books don't even earn thair advance money - which is typically less than $5,000 http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2005/10/05/author-advance-survey-version-20/ - note the comments about self-selection that would tend to bias the reported amount upward.
So, rather than having a seriously limited run, why not make it so that it's free for people to pass around, etc? The books that are little more than ad-paks will be displaced by the higher-quality books with only one or two ads, since people are more likely to find the latter more useful and more likely to pass a copy or 5 along to friends and coworkers.
"Free is good" - free as in cost, free as in the right to make copies and pass them along, free as in the author can choose who and how the sponsor is presented in his or her work.
I was thinkng more along the lines of the author soliciting one or more sponsors for their books, and the books then being distributed for free.
Lets face it - most books don't earn their advance, so
It doesn't have to be pdfs with click-thrus - it can be something as simple as a preface acknowledging "this book sponsored by [insert name here]".
Last part of url: http%3A//members.on.nimp.org/
Embed advertising in ebooks, the same as in magazines and newspapers, and give the ebooks away.
Advantages
It depends on the lamp. a 75 watt halogen desk lamp can easily start a fire if tipped over, or papers get pushed against it.
That being said, how likely is anyone on slashdot to have a desk lamp actually on their desk ... I've got 5 in here, and they're all sitting on top of bookcases, to give mor even light. With the monitors, keyboard, printer, papers, etc., there's no ROOM for a lamp on my desk.
Plus, I found that desk lamps actually sitting on the desk give the worst possible lighting.
Psst ... halogens can cause fires. Try putting a towel on one of those 300 vatt bulbs for floor lamps and watch how, within seconds, you have a "problem".
The only "Dark Side of the Moon" I know of is from Pink Floyd. How do you plan to fit a huge observatory on a cd?
That's because he's bought into the PHB mindset - he'll outsource all that "critical thinking stuff".
One thing nobody's mentioned yet is that people with a BS in CS are FUBAR'd if they're just coming onto the job market in a declining economy. Between outsourcing, contracting, and plain old cutbacks/layoffs, doesn't matter what "name" university you went to ... but the debt associated with that "name" university makes your monthly nut that much harder to crack.
It may also make you less, not more, employable, since employers will figure that you'll either want more $$$ to start with, or will quickly jump ship for more $$$ once you have a year's "real world experience" under your belt. Both of these are negatives, which is why you see people with a couple of decades experience "dumbing down" their resumes when they get tired of what they're doing and want to change their speciation.
Yep, Dick Cheney with a few drinks in him and a shotgun in his hand will certainly wipe that smile (and a layer of skin) off your face real quick.
Some of the basic premises stated in the article are just plain wrong. For example:
We have always enjoyed "the anonymity of the crowd." Walking down the street, minding your own business, with nobody having the right to interfere with your peacable enjoyment of your own "private space", and others, equally strangers, just doing the same.
Just clicked rapidly on 2 different files - bang - BSoD. It was the same way I crashed the original release of Win95 years before. Looks like they have a bug that they fix, then "unfix," with each new version ...
Things have really changed in the last 2 years, so your complaints are sriously dated. Heck, even IE7 now runs fine under linux ...
Sure it does ... you just need the right utility to prevent it from bitching on startup. Even on XP/NT, reset5.exe works fine.
I've done it plenty of times - just avoid any exotic video cards that require soecial drivers - though even that still gives you a half-dozen consoles, so you can fix it.
Better option: Tape the laser pointer to the Roomba, and have it drive your cat nuts.