[HN Gopher] State of the Sanderson 2022
___________________________________________________________________
State of the Sanderson 2022
Author : say_it_as_it_is
Score : 258 points
Date : 2022-12-23 10:23 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.brandonsanderson.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.brandonsanderson.com)
| taeric wrote:
| I'm curious how comparable some of that data is. Specifically,
| Audible may pay half what a bookstore does per sale, but are they
| also charging less than half of what the same bookstore charges.
| Such that you really need to compare revenue generated for the
| artists, not just margin per sale.
|
| That said, I am in favor of trying market forces to see what sort
| of change one can make. I... question anything out of the
| publishing world, though. If Audible is a good company doing bad
| things, most publishing houses are likely to be at best described
| in the same way. And, spotify is a hilariously cursed example to
| use as a "for the artists" system.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| First I've heard of the "m4b" file format. Looks like a variation
| of m4a with stanardized metadata for (B)ooks, hence the b.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4_file_format#Filename_exten...
| LesZedCB wrote:
| pro-tip, you can convert your audible aax files to m4b with
| ffmpeg! you need to determine your key which is like a 6
| character key, and fairly easy to figure out how to find.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Fun fact, it's exactly the same as the m4a format, but with a
| different file extension. (Which macOS uses to add some UI
| sugar on top; but the data is the same.)
| jmull wrote:
| Wow... Sanderson is trying to back down Audible and their
| monopoly on audio books.
|
| Looks like I'll be getting his books from Speechify from now on.
| meristohm wrote:
| Reacting to "Audible monopoly", and while it may technically be
| so, it needn't-
|
| Most of what I read and listen to is provided by my tax-
| supported public library. If I find something I think will make
| a welcome gift, I buy it from bookshop dot org or a local
| bookstore (Minneapolis is rich with them). If I had the
| discretionary income I'd give more money to the Library
| foundation, continue lobbying for strengthening the public
| library system, and continue checking out books; it's a model
| that lowers the barrier to accessing art, information, and
| wisdom.
| aniforprez wrote:
| Do Audible published audiobooks end up in public libraries?
| I'm assuming the exclusivity implies never leaving their
| platform but I'm not knowledgable enough about this space
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Libraries have to pay a premiums for them, so it depends on
| the budget of your library. (Some may only buy if someone
| puts in a request for purchase & some may not have the
| budget to buy at all.)
| birken wrote:
| I've listened to 10+ Sanderson books and all of them have
| have been through my local library (via Libby app). The
| only downside is that some have decently long wait times so
| you have to plan in advance.
| counttheforks wrote:
| How can there be a wait time for an audiobook, a digital
| file that can be reproduced infinitely?
| counttheforks wrote:
| > Looks like I'll be getting his books from Speechify from now
| on.
|
| Some competition for Audible would be nice, but Speechify don't
| even have an Android or Web app. So on top of not owning the
| mp3 files they also lock you into the apple ecosystem.
| taude wrote:
| I find it pretty amazing their company has 60 employees. Also
| worth the read to learn about Audible pricing. I didn't know. I'm
| pretty addicted to audio books, but now will have to seek out
| other alternatives when I can.
| plandis wrote:
| 60 employees didn't seem that wild when you consider they took
| on the role of publisher for his secret projects kickstarter.
| 186k backers of which a decent portion are getting 4 physical
| books over the next year.
| LegitShady wrote:
| shipping 600k books to individual backers is a massive
| undertaking without writing, editing, publishing, and other
| merchandise.
| Jemaclus wrote:
| AFAIK, most of them are actually warehouse employees at entry-
| level wages that ship his books/swag from his online store and
| other endeavors, and also handle the kickstarter fulfillment
| process, versus white-collar jobs like editors and artists and
| so on. It's still impressive to have 60 employees, though,
| especially as an author (Robert Jordan only had four, to my
| knowledge).
| Kiro wrote:
| [flagged]
| selykg wrote:
| There is a lot of overhead for books like he is selling.
| They're premium. He could maybe order a lot, but he'd be tying
| up a lot of his own money with no idea of actual demand. Maybe
| he under purchased? In which case what is available gets out on
| eBay at high markup because the books are hard to get. Or he
| over orders and loses his ass.
|
| By doing the Kickstarter he got a great idea of what the demand
| was, and then had the money to make it happen without putting
| his money at risk as well. He delivered superbly with his first
| Kickstarter. He'll do the same with this one.
| Kiro wrote:
| > Defending a company is just weird.
|
| So why are you defending this company?
| rk06 wrote:
| Its because Kickstarter is not a charity platform. It is a
| business platform.
|
| People are not fine with him collecting money. They are fine
| purchasing some premium books written by him.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Scam or not is determined by whether or not you deliver what
| was promised, not by how much you raise. I'm not sure why you
| bring it up at all.
|
| A project that raises $100 can be a scam if it doesn't deliver.
| A project that raises $42 million can not be a scam, if it does
| deliver.
|
| If Sanderson provides products that many people value at a
| collective $42 million+, why should I not be fine with those
| people giving him that much money? It's their money, they can
| spend it how they like.
| Kiro wrote:
| The point is that he doesn't need the money. He's one of the
| most successful authors in the world and the delivery is just
| writing four books. I just don't understand why he made a
| Kickstarter to begin with. The previous record holder
| (Pebble) made sense because of R&D and hardware.
|
| The scam part is everyone always putting new Kickstarters
| under extreme scrutiny regarding the money they're trying to
| raise and if they really need it. Meanwhile this project has
| no upfront costs, nothing, that defends asking people to
| pledge money to it.
| fabian2k wrote:
| As far as I understand the books are essentially self-
| published in this case, so there is certainly some
| investment needed to make all of this happen.
| Kiro wrote:
| Kickstarter should be for financing things you can't get
| out on the market without the investment. You're
| basically saying "I need X money for Y to happen" and
| instead of a regular investor you rely on the hopes of
| future customers. Like a pre-order but without the
| obligation to deliver because of the moonshot.
|
| In Sanderson's case it's just a pre-order where you milk
| your fans for some extra bucks. He doesn't need this
| money to make these four books happen.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| wlesieutre wrote:
| The other advantage of a pre-order is you know roughly
| how many copies to print. If you're publishing your own
| book you may not be able to predict that, and if you
| estimate wrong you're out a bunch of your own money.
|
| Large publishers have some expertise in guessing that,
| and probably still plan to eat some costs for the times
| when they get it wrong. But on a smaller scale, "Oops I
| have piles of extra copies of every single book I
| printed" would be a big problem for someone self
| publishing a couple of books.
|
| If your fans trust you to follow through on a
| kickstarter, there's not really a downside.
| amluto wrote:
| Again, the ebooks were a minor part of the total. If you
| write a book, sell $5 million of physical copies and
| associated swag, I guarantee you either need to outsource
| the whole operation to a competent publisher or you need
| money to make it happen.
|
| Brandon Sanderson appears to be running most of this
| operation in house, and he would have pulled it off
| entirely on schedule if it weren't for a massive storm
| introducing a (short!) delay.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _Kickstarter should be..._
|
| According to _you_. If you don 't like it, your gripe is
| with KS, not Sanderson. And it's pretty common for things
| to launch their v2, v3 etc on KS even if strictly not
| needed. It's a hype channel, not an investment channel.
|
| > _In Sanderson 's case it's just a pre-order where you
| milk your fans for some extra bucks._
|
| Why so loaded language? It's not milking, it's fan
| service. People specifically want these extra things.
| Hence the success of the KS.....
| Kiro wrote:
| It's not about whether I like it or not. It's about
| people being hypocritical and giving him a pass while
| criticizing others for doing the same thing. For some
| reason Sanderson is untouchable.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| It's not hypocritical at all to support some kickstarters
| and not others, irrespective of how much money they
| raise. Sanderson has an established history of delivering
| books, and people trust him to deliver the promised
| books. Some random guy without an established reputation
| is going to encounter much more skepticism.
|
| Reputations matter. It's a fact of being human.
| matsemann wrote:
| Who are being hypocritical? Are you sure it's not
| different people having different opinions?
| fmorel wrote:
| No upfront costs?
|
| They have to get the books recorded and printed without
| overproducing and losing money while also not getting a
| worse deal with a smaller print + miss out on sales. Same
| thing for merchandise. All of it needs to be warehoused
| until it's ready for delivery. Plus probably other things
| I'm unaware of.
|
| A major publisher already has all this infrastructure to
| take a gamble on new books while paying with current sales.
| Dragonsteel is still very small.
| amluto wrote:
| The bulk of the kickstarter campaign was selling actual
| objects. These objects need to be produced, they have lead
| times, they have scaling issues both ways (there are
| economies of scale, but scaling up also involved a bunch of
| hiring -- one can't just snap one's fingers). And Brandon
| Sanderson apparently wanted to sell however many people
| wanted to buy at a a preset price.
|
| So what exactly is wrong with using kickstarter for this?
| It's essentially a platform for placing orders for things
| that won't be delivered for a while, which is _exactly_
| what happened here.
|
| (Note that Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel have spent or
| committed a lot of the money already despite having
| delivered nothing yet. Those employees aren't working for
| just equity without money or benefits!)
| plandis wrote:
| They did the Kickstarter to crowdfund money to _publish_ the
| books under his own company Dragonsteel instead of likely using
| Macmillan /Tor. They didn't set out to collect so much money,
| the initial goal was to raise $1M.
|
| Fwiw, Sanderson took some of that money and backed every single
| publishing Kickstarter that wasn't against the TOS or NSFW.
| epage wrote:
| He didn't expect to rake in that much and iirc kickstarter
| doesn't let you pass on economy of scale to your backers (hence
| stretch goals in a lot of campaigns).
|
| Like with his Audible comments, this also served as another way
| for him to use his clout to help other authors. I think he has
| said that he was trying to pull in people who don't normally
| back projects so they'd be more comfortable doing it with other
| authors. They even highlighted some other projects and
| redirected some of them money to them
| (https://youtu.be/TVdZ018gsRw)
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| From most people's perspectives it's just a preorder (Sanderson
| is so consistent in output there's essentially zero doubt he'll
| deliver), so nothing to get outraged about.
|
| Some people complain that he doesn't 'need' the kickstarter --
| which is true, sure -- but he's not hurting or tricking anyone,
| so why would anyone be incensed?
| kace91 wrote:
| I already commented it on reddit, but I was very surprised by the
| fact (mentioned in passing) that 75% of pre-buyers for
| Sanderson's last book were audiobooks.
|
| For each person reading the book there are 3 people hearing it.
| Those are wild numbers for me.
| kneebonian wrote:
| I'm one of those people. Simply because sitting down to read
| requires a complete devotion and time out which is hard with 4
| small children and a wife.
|
| But listening allows me to do chores around the house, and
| enjoy at the same time.
| taeric wrote:
| This is probably skewed heavily by the credits system that
| Audible uses. Combined with the bundle where the Audible and
| Kindle versions are discounted together, it is often very low
| friction to get the audio version.
|
| Of course, this is where my question of this view comes in. If
| you cut out Audible, how certain is Sanderson that the same
| number of audio books would be purchased? If it cuts over half
| of the sales, than that more than justifies the lower cut in
| profit, no?
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| With these books specifically, he already made money from his
| core fan base via a Kickstarter campaign. So the sales
| through Audible would have already been lower than a regular
| release.
| taeric wrote:
| Well, yeah. But that isn't helping his stance here. Doesn't
| necessarily hurt, but is a distraction.
|
| He is claiming that audible gives a raw cut of profit,
| particularly to the smaller artists. But is there evidence
| that they give a smaller net payout to the same audience?
| pugio wrote:
| It's worth noting that the narrator - Michael Kramer - is
| exceptional. One of the characters in this particular series is
| known for his ability with accents, so listening to the
| audiobook with a good narrator is an extra amount of fun.
|
| I've read most of Sanderson's books in print, but for this one
| I also bought the audiobook specifically for that kind of
| narration.
| kneebonian wrote:
| The other narrator commonly used Kate Reading is also
| exceptional and is Michaels wife.
| nindalf wrote:
| Not surprised Kate Reading narrates audiobooks.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| I know I'm in the minority but I stopped reading Sanderson
| because I dislike Kramer so much. His inflection makes
| everything sound so corny.
| kace91 wrote:
| Dumb question: is "reading" also used as a verb for
| audiobooks? (English is my second language).
| stock_toaster wrote:
| No, in the dictionary sense, being told a story is not
| the same as reading. As with many words these days,
| certain liberties are taken.
| hejaodbsidndbd wrote:
| [dead]
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes. It's not without controversy, but it's widely
| accepted.
| hejaodbsidndbd wrote:
| GraphicAudio provides an alternative audio production for
| most of them.
| erinnh wrote:
| Im confused by it. I cannot listen to audiobooks without either
| fully focusing on it or forgetting half of it when Im listening
| to it while doing something else.
|
| Even with podcasts I have the same issue, but there I dont
| really need to listen to every second and fully remember all of
| it.
|
| How do you guys listen to audiobooks? Are you just so much
| better than me in focusing on multiple things at the same time
| or are you _just_ listening to audiobooks and not doing
| anything at the same time?
| Arrath wrote:
| I moved somewhere for work, that doesn't have NPR on the
| radio dial, and the app just isn't that great. So instead of
| listening to the radio, I play audiobooks during my commute.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Some people can do it. I'm with you, I cannot. My mom likes
| to listen while driving, but if I try to do that I lose the
| story really fast because I pay too much attention to
| driving.
| rufusroflpunch wrote:
| The simple answer to this is to pay less attention to
| driving!
| [deleted]
| burkaman wrote:
| Commuting, washing dishes, walking or driving to do an
| errand, that kind of thing. Sometimes I pause if I'm in a
| particularly complex driving situation or something, but
| usually I am able to focus and retain a normal amount.
| romanhn wrote:
| I listen to audiobooks in fits and starts - when driving,
| when cleaning or washing dishes, when brushing teeth.
| Basically whenever I can do something else essentially on
| autopilot.
| Volundr wrote:
| FWIW you described the exact reason I listen to so many
| audiobooks. I struggle with insomnia, and one thing that
| helped quite a bit was taking a walk before bed while
| listening to an audiobook. If I listened to music I could
| just tune it out and my brain would just continue cycling on
| whatever track it was on. Audiobooks forced me to actually
| pay attention and stop thinking about whatever was in my
| head. Breaking that thought cycle really helped with getting
| to sleep after.
| swyx wrote:
| you might be underestimating the number of people with long
| drives and mundane chores that use their eyes and hands but
| not their full attention
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I listen to audiobooks that I've already read while working
| on task that aren't mentally challenging. Sanderson's books
| are actually great for this as they're all interconnected and
| that makes for a good reason to "reread" then.
| romanhn wrote:
| I love reading, but there's too much going on in my life to be
| able to devote an uninterrupted chunk of time to reading. So
| audiobooks are a compromise that fills in the gaps that I do
| have, even if a few minutes long. These add up throughout the
| day, and I've covered quite a significant amount of fiction and
| non-fiction in the 15-ish years I've been doing this.
| yreg wrote:
| As a customer I'd like to see a Netflix/Spotify-like audiobook
| service, where I pay a subscription and can listen whatever they
| have in catalogue, whenever.
|
| Sadly, it wouldn't probably be great for small authors either,
| just the same as Spotify isn't great for unknown musicians. OTOH,
| like Netflix, they could fund authors to write books or at least
| produce the audiobooks for them. Of course the service would want
| exclusivity, but perhaps it might work out.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| It's not quite what you're asking for, but Audible records a
| lot of Audible Originals which are all freely accessible to
| members without having to use any credits. Unfortunately most
| Audible Originals aren't very good.
|
| I think Audible also offers an unlimited subscription for
| romance novels, although it's been a few years since I checked.
| yreg wrote:
| Didn't knew about this, thanks
| freedomben wrote:
| Audible is somewhat like this. They have some "included" stuff
| that is all-you-can-eat with your subscription. Just like
| Netflix, the big titles aren't there, but if you search within
| the included content you'll find good stuff to consume.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| If you are in the US try your public library. Pretty much every
| one has one of two eLibrary applications with audiobooks
| included.
|
| They may not have everything, but there's been plenty for me.
| It has drastically cut my use of audible to the point that I've
| been canceled for two years.
| irowe wrote:
| Apparently publishers have seriously been turning the screws
| on libraries wrt to license fees for ebooks and audiobooks,
| so the current golden age of getting them from the library
| may be ending.
|
| [0]: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-
| publishe...
| CobaltFire wrote:
| Of course they would do that. It's one of the last places
| where you don't have to pay to exist, and where you can be
| educated and entertained without paying those companies.
| plorg wrote:
| I am glad Sanderson can make this deal with Spotify. I wonder if
| this same structure will be extended to the many other services
| that license audiobooks from (what used to be) Findaway (until
| they bought it). While it's good to have an opposing weight to
| Audible, it will amount to very little if this is all just a play
| that accrues power to a second oligopolist in the industry.
| Gatsky wrote:
| So... are the books any good? Or is that irrelevant now?
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Assuming your question isn't snark, you could try reading The
| Emperor's Soul. It's a short novella, so you can finish it in a
| 2-3 hour reading session. And it will give you a taste of his
| writing style as well as a metaphysical primer to his Cosmere
| universe.
| Gatsky wrote:
| My question was genuine. Thank you for the suggestion.
| mcv wrote:
| Sanderson sounds like an awesome guy. And I've heard great things
| about his books too. I should probably read some.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| The Mistborn series is a great one to start with. His magic
| systems are really well done.
| coltonweaver wrote:
| Mistborn is definitely a great intro to the cosmere books.
| I'd almost definitely start there, see if you like it, and
| then get into the rest because it can be pretty overwhelming
| with how much there is.
| freedomben wrote:
| Mistborn (Era 1) is the best book(s) I think I have ever
| read. Truly remarkable.
| Jemaclus wrote:
| Read more! ;)
|
| All seriousness aside, Mistborn (Era 1) is fantastic,
| especially as an introduction into Sanderson's world.
| Part of the reason it's great is because he was able to
| write all three books at once -- book 1 went to print as
| book 2 was in editing stages and as he was wrapping up
| the first draft of book 3. That means he was able to keep
| it tight and put proper foreshadowing and have everything
| kind of work out really well. You can see in his other
| books that it hasn't worked out quite as well. They're
| all good books, but Mistborn stands out to me as
| fantastic because of that.
|
| But back to my serious joke, read more! Sanderson's a
| great author, but he's far from the only good one, and
| there are some truly brilliant folks out there that just
| aren't as good at marketing themselves as Sanderson is,
| and they deserve recognition and more for their good work
| too!
| astrange wrote:
| His completion of WoT was fine, and my favorite part was
| original to him, but it was pretty clear he's the squarest man
| alive and has never been in the same room as the concept of
| sex. And one or two of the added characters were clearly there
| just to have extremely plot-convenient special magic talents.
| But that did lead to some very efficient KPI-meeting books. So
| if you're a systematizing turbonerd, go wild.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| "Someone has different taste than me, I must insult them" -
| parent comment
| dagw wrote:
| Sanderson is by far my favourite author whose books I just
| cannot read.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Sanderson fan chiming in to promote The Emperor's Soul over
| Mistborn as a primer.
|
| From another comment: "It's a short novella, so you can finish
| it in a 2-3 hour reading session. And it will give you a taste
| of his writing style as well as a metaphysical primer to his
| Cosmere universe."
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| Sanderson's books appeal to a certain reader who is extremely
| invested in world building and "hard" magic systems. I would
| say his plots and characters usually play second fiddle to
| those things, and he infamously has his writing tics. I think
| the majority of his books would be vastly improved with a
| better editor, frankly (especially the last Stormlight one,
| jesus). But I'm generally in the minority in that respect. He
| has extremely devoted fans. I would set your expectations for
| the books at about Avengers movie quality, which for some
| people sounds amazing and that's exactly what they are looking
| for. Personally, I enjoyed the core Malazan books far more as
| fantasy with very intense world building sensibilities and a
| more mature edge. But I don't go to Sanderson looking for
| fantasy with literary sensibilities.
| knighthack wrote:
| I've always noticed that Audible has been a bit of a scam
| (despite that I use it, because there are few other usable market
| alternatives). I love Graphic Audio but there's too little choice
| in comparsion.
|
| So I'm glad that Sanderson's going to take on Audible -
| especially to help out the little guys, since he's now a force on
| his own as an author to be reckoned with.
|
| That said, I still remember when Sanderson was a small author. I
| was beaming about a book he had written on Reddit; yet he
| personally wrote back to me, when he could have just been quiet.
| That spoke volumes.
|
| All this while Sanderson's personality remains just as humble,
| despite how big he's become. So I wish for Brandon all the best,
| and hope that his noble campaign to take on Audible and bring
| down the Goliath succeeds, for the betterment of all authors.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| >I've always noticed that Audible has been a bit of a scam
|
| You and I have had very different experiences. Someone has been
| dying to juice the subscriber stats and every year or two,
| Audible throws me a sweetheart deal too good to refuse.
|
| This year, they offered me three free months to rejoin. Took my
| three books and canceled, not paying anything. A month or two
| later, they offered me a $20 credit + three months at a reduced
| rate of $5(? Maybe it was $10). Fully intend to cancel
| subscription when that completes end of January. Netting me ~7
| books for maybe a one month of out of pocket subscription.
| lfowles wrote:
| A while back I realized I bought a series I didn't really
| like after the first book, but forgot about. Audible
| exchanged each book for a credit no questions asked (even the
| first one that I did listen to!) That plus the constant
| credit deals and audiobooks for $5 or less... I don't see how
| they do it.
| Volundr wrote:
| I had to look up GraphicAudio, but FWIW Downpour.com seems to
| have a pretty good collection of books published by them
| (including Sanderson titles). I've been using them for years
| because (almost) all of their stuff is DRM free.
| Uvix wrote:
| Downpour is my vendor of choice for most books, but
| GraphicAudio also sells the titles DRM-free directly, with
| the option of lossless format. (And in Sanderson's case it
| doesn't look like Downpour has all of their titles.)
| asicsp wrote:
| > _I found two companies only--in all of the deals I investigated
| --who are willing to take on Audible. Spotify and Speechify._
|
| I wonder if they looked into general digital products companies
| like Gumroad as well.
|
| > _So I'm not putting these books on Audible. Not for a year at
| least. Maybe longer._
|
| I hope there will be other authors who can make such statements
| in the coming months.
|
| > _The Lost Metal preorders were 75% audio--almost all through
| Audible._
|
| I wouldn't have expected audio to be such a high percentage. I
| would've guessed about 20-30%.
|
| ---
|
| Stormlight Archive 5 title revealed. Okayish, but cool to see
| they are committed to ketek.
| plandis wrote:
| Wayne's character is done really well by the audiobook
| narrator, Michael Kramer.
| lefstathiou wrote:
| Michael Kramer, who reads many of his books on audible, is
| incredible. I enjoyed listening to several more than reading
| them because of him.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| >I wouldn't have expected audio to be such a high percentage. I
| would've guessed about 20-30%.
|
| i follow a couple of authors that basically write their books
| with audiobooks in mind, because most of their orders come from
| audible.
|
| i, myself, switched exclusively to audiobooks[0], and i
| couldn't be happier.
|
| [0] https://imgur.com/a/DJgSfdX
| swsieber wrote:
| Does gumroad actually have good audio book management? Is it
| intending to take on position itself as an audible competitor?
| I'm not very familiar with Gumroad but it strikes me as a
| glorified shop and not a good media manager.
| burkaman wrote:
| Libro.fm is another good one, I use it exclusively instead of
| Audible and they give some (undisclosed and probably very
| small) portion of profits to your local bookstore. Sanderson's
| books are available there.
| plorg wrote:
| Speculation, but I read Spotify here as Findaway, who were the
| largest non-Audible audiobook platform (underlying services
| like Scribd and other stores) before getting bought by Spotify
| earlier this year. He had to have been talking to them before
| the acquisition. It is disappointing that the only option
| outside Audible was (swallowed by) another monopolist, rent-
| seeking behemoth.
| christophilus wrote:
| Scribd should be on that list, I'd think.
| fragen wrote:
| I'm waiting for You-Know-Who's novel to come out so Paul Graham
| can flip the remote activate switch (I still don't know what that
| feels like) and I can spam Twitter with hate for a book I've
| never read.
|
| Admit it, you're curious too if we can beat that guy.
| InTheArena wrote:
| It's interesting to see a few dynamics here. 1) Sanderson already
| delivered a huge shot across the bow with the secret novel
| kickstarter. TOR had to have been livid with the kickstarter -
| it's 41 million of revenue from their top line, but more
| importantly It kick started a whole ton of other authors. The
| kickstarters started because a loophole in their contract, and
| Brandon has very successfully exploited it as much as his
| characters exploit magic systems. 2) Dragonsteel is basically
| growing to the point that it is a publishing house. Others should
| keep this in mind - Brandon knows how to scale a business. I
| think of other creative battles - think comic Bill Waterson who
| won creative rights to Calvin and Hobbes, only to stop publishing
| a few years later because of how difficult the format changes he
| insisted on were. This path is not sustainable for a ton of
| people. 3) TOR has also got to be livid in that they basically
| handed the keys to the kingdom w/ Brandon by asking him to finish
| WoT (technically Harriet, Jordan's wife did) 4) Now he is trying
| to do the same thing to Audible.
|
| Having met Sanderson before he started on WoT - Ut's incredible
| how far he's gone... but somehow he keeps going.
| defen wrote:
| > The kickstarters started because a loophole in their
| contract, and Brandon has very successfully exploited it as
| much as his characters exploit magic systems
|
| Can you go into more detail on that? I know what you mean about
| exploiting magic systems, but I don't know anything about
| Sanderson's contract with Tor or what he did.
| legobmw99 wrote:
| I don't remember the details, someone asked about Right of
| First Refusal from Tor during the Q&A live stream following
| the kickstarter announcement and he said something like a
| polite version of "we can sort of do what we want as long as
| we keep giving them the big series"
| swsieber wrote:
| Except it's not 41 million from their top line. I expect a lot
| of that is in ebook, audio book and swag items.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I hope Sanderson can become something akin to a Rick Riordan,
| where "Rick Riordan presents" has become a huge household name
| launching new careers in childrens lit.
| ncann wrote:
| Anyone knows why Audible's pay is that low? Is it because of the
| cost to them to produce the audio?
| ben_w wrote:
| Based on what cstross and others say about book sales in
| general, I suspect that even at such low rates Audible loses
| money on the median book, and only bother with most of the
| audiobooks so they can advertise how many audiobooks they have.
| swsieber wrote:
| You explain a little? I'm having trouble understanding why
| hosting an audio book is going to lose audible money.
|
| Do they also produce said books?
| ben_w wrote:
| They produce some at least, but even when they're just a
| shopfront they almost certainly pay another fraction of the
| sales to whoever did make it.
|
| Big thing though is how few copies the median book actually
| sells. From what I can tell, the actual sales for a median
| book across all media are only the low thousands. Audible's
| mean (not median) gross revenue per book is
| ($200e6/y)/(200k titles) = $1k/title/year.
|
| I tried looking up Audible's financial info, but the only
| financial report I saw was from 2007, which said their
| revenue and expenses for years ending 2006 and 2007 were
| about equal to each other, and at about half what people
| say are their current revenue levels:
| https://last10k.com/sec-filings/1077926
| EEBio wrote:
| Most likely because they are de-facto monopoly, so they will
| take as much as they can.
| christophilus wrote:
| They have to cover those S3 egress fees somehow, amirite?
|
| In all honesty, Audible is a practical monopoly, so it can get
| away with monopolistic behavior.
| asicsp wrote:
| > _Is it because of the cost to them to produce the audio?_
|
| The rates being talked about in the article is just for
| distribution, doesn't include creating the audiobook. Audible
| is a publisher as well, but those probably have different
| deals.
| taeric wrote:
| My gut response is because their prices are lower. They offer
| half the cut, and are usually selling well below half the cost
| elsewhere. More, most of their sales are almost certainly
| credit system based, which super complicates how much they sold
| for. (That and bundled with ebook purchases.)
|
| If anyone has data in how much they pay out and how elastic the
| demand is to increased prices, I'd be interested. As it is,
| this feels misguided, though.
| montenegrohugo wrote:
| This is the stuff I love. Sanderson doesn't _have_ to take a
| stand against Audible , and yet he does. Of course he is in a
| position of privilege to be able to do it, but so many other
| people are too and act very differently.
|
| Audible giving creators only a 25% cut (or 40% if they sign an
| exclusive deal) is absolutely exploitative. For a DIGITAL
| product! That's insane.
|
| Props to Sanderson, and props to all the other people with
| integrity.
| wcarss wrote:
| > I've made enough on this Kickstarter. I don't need to squeeze
| people for every penny--but what I do want to do is find a way
| to provide options for authors.
|
| This is a kind of sentiment I wish was not exceptional. People
| often talk about how one day they may have enough, and _then_
| they'll help others -- but it's rare to see someone (especially
| with less than a billion dollars) say out loud that they did
| it, and in the same breath they start helping. (At a certain
| time, Kaladin wouldn't believe this kind of guy exists!)
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| I think it's important to realize just how rare a position
| Brandon Sanderson is in, really. Publishing and the literary
| scene outside of the major publishers has always been people
| using the little money they make to try and keep it alive
| outside of the dominant system that's creeping towards a
| monopoly in NA. Most stuff just doesn't have the huge
| marketing capability that Sanderson does and usually fails.
| Frankly, most authors are barely able to make a living doing
| it. Sanderson is far from the only person trying to help
| authors in publishing, but his 0.1% level financial success
| in publishing likely means he can accept much more risk than
| even more well known authors.
|
| That said, I do find it kind of ironic that he made a secret
| deal with Spotify, which has its own pitiful history of
| payouts to artists. But atleast free accounts get access to
| the books as well.
| ffssffss wrote:
| Not only is it rare for someone to experience success like
| Sanderson, it's even rarer for an author to so consistently
| put out high quality work. The man practically writes a
| 1,000 page novel a year. He's lucked (and hard-worked) into
| a lot of leverage here.
| Kalium wrote:
| If anything, I think you're overselling it. Most authors
| make at best a very small amount of money from their work
| and are nowhere near being able to make a living from it.
| Most books simply don't sell much at all (200-300 for an
| average author), to the point where even 100% of sticker
| price wouldn't pay for a person's living expenses.
|
| A _generous_ assumption is hardbacks at $25 a pop. That
| would put an average author at 5k to 7.5k in a year...
| under the very improbable assumption of 100% of sticker
| price going to the author.
|
| Spotify and the music world has a distinctly different
| problem. Last I read, the vast majority of their revenue is
| going to their licensing deals. The license-holders then
| don't pay much to the artists. You can blame Spotify for
| this if you choose, and many artists like to publicly, but
| as with many things in music it comes back to the labels.
| [deleted]
| pirate787 wrote:
| Important to consider that most books range from barely
| readable to trash. I think the book distribution of
| quality is more concentrated among elite authors, whereas
| music is a lot more linear -- the average musician is a
| lot closer to elite musicians.
| nwiswell wrote:
| > whereas music is a lot more linear -- the average
| musician is a lot closer to elite musicians.
|
| Gosh, I don't know. This is quite a claim.
|
| First off is the obvious question: who is a musician?
| High school band? Play Friday nights at the local pub? Or
| are we talking "survives exclusively on record sales" /
| "is a member of a symphony"? That's a lot of selection
| bias. Almost nobody publishing rubbish is surviving off
| that income.
|
| Second, "musician" is actually conflating two things:
| songwriting/composition and _performance_. Composition is
| the thing that really bears direct comparison, and I 'd
| venture a guess you've not even heard all the awful songs
| out there because nobody with any talent is interested in
| performing them (unlike the ease with which anyone can
| publish total rubbish).
|
| Finally, if you consider the size of the corpus -- all
| songs vs all English text -- it's pretty clear which one
| is easier to curate (covers in music are super common,
| which is probably not an accident).
|
| Just anecdotally, I saw a video on reddit the other day
| of an African dictator casually wetting himself. But what
| was really striking to me was how _absolutely awful_ the
| state band was.
|
| I found the link:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/znsk
| e2/...
| ProAm wrote:
| > Audible giving creators only a 25% cut (or 40% if they sign
| an exclusive deal) is absolutely exploitative. For a DIGITAL
| product! That's insane.
|
| It's Amazon, what do you expect? They can't make an Amazon
| Basics of a book you wrote and steal all your profit so they
| have to do it this way.
| kace91 wrote:
| >Audible giving creators only a 25% cut (or 40% if they sign an
| exclusive deal) is absolutely exploitative.
|
| Also, who are the creators? I mean, does the author of the book
| have to share that piece of the cake with the narrator as well?
| that makes the cut even lower.
| LegitShady wrote:
| why would anyone give a % of income to a narrator? That's a
| service you pay for once and thats it. They don't have to
| read it again for each customer. They just get hired to read
| and record it the first time.
| taeric wrote:
| This is silly. You could use the same argument for the
| writer.
|
| And, indeed, this is done. If I'm remembering correctly,
| Hardy Boys and such were done this way, with the actual
| writer paid in a different way.
| LegitShady wrote:
| when the writer is not the primary owner of the property
| it would make sense. When the writer is the primary owner
| and creator it does not.
| taeric wrote:
| This feels contrived. And is in the face of, for example,
| how Disney tried to not pay a Star Wars writer.
|
| I agree it feels like this could be easy to argue one way
| or another. I am willing to assert it is often not simple
| and many of the complications are from pushing simple
| solutions.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >This feels contrived
|
| How so?
|
| >how Disney tried to not pay a Star Wars writer.
|
| the star wars writer is just a contract worker. He
| doesn't own star wars etc. But he should still get paid
| according to the agreement disney inherited.
| matsemann wrote:
| What about the writer that "only writes it once"? Or a
| singer on an album that only sings it once?
| LegitShady wrote:
| They are the primary creator of the work. The narrator is
| not.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Is the songwriter or lead vocalist the primary creator of
| a piece of music?
| plorg wrote:
| The narrator is similarly inseparable from the
| performative work (as, say, an orchestral recording of a
| symphony), the only difference seems to rest in who has
| the power and incentive to claim royalties.
|
| None of this explicitly follows from first principles,
| it's all just negotiation for what, through the vehicle
| of contract law, will get enforced by social convention
| and the fist of the government.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >None of this explicitly follows from first principles,
| it's all just negotiation for what, through the vehicle
| of contract law, will get enforced by social convention
| and the fist of the government.
|
| Absolutely. But there are many more people who can voice
| audiobooks than there are high quality writers, and the
| writer's work is being the primary author of the work. It
| doesn't make any sense for the owner to give % of the
| profit unless the narrator would attract business on
| their own.
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| If you release of a cover (ie a performance) of a song
| someone else wrote you own the copyright on the recording
| of that performance and are entitled to compensation for
| use of that recording.
|
| There's not real any intrinsic difference between a
| recorded performance of a song someone else wrote and
| recorded narration of a book someone else wrote. The
| audiobook recording has its own copyright, which _can_ be
| owned by the narrator. It 's usually not though, being
| recorded for hire with the narrator ceding all rights.
| LegitShady wrote:
| > If you release of a cover (ie a performance) of a song
| someone else wrote you own the copyright on the recording
| of that performance and are entitled to compensation for
| use of that recording.
|
| negative. if you're covering a song in copyright you need
| a license agreement from the owner if you intend to
| monotize it. You own a copyright to your version but you
| can't make money from it.
| Uvix wrote:
| Depends on the deal the author negotiated with the narrator
| (i.e. were they paid up front or in royalties). That money
| comes out of the author's 40%.
| O__________O wrote:
| Worth noting that Audible has been a subsidiary of Amazon since
| 2008, so it's basically just Amazon exploiting creators:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audible_(service)
| taeric wrote:
| If the 25% cut is over three times the sales... I don't know
| that I agree it is bad. :(
|
| I'd feel much more comfortable talking about net profits for
| everyone involved here. Audible got me hooked, specifically, by
| not expecting me to pay 40+ for a book.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| In another genre, photography, istockphoto (Getty) pays
| exclusive photographers 30%. I think this is common (not saying
| this is good).
| hooloovoo_zoo wrote:
| Hard to believe audible is taking a 75% cut and still has so
| many syncing glitches on iPhone. What are they doing with the
| money?
| wardedVibe wrote:
| What else do you do with an unregulated quasi-monopoly? Pay
| out to shareholders
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| For years now, the "Explore Spanish language titles on
| Audible Latino" button on the main iOS screen doesn't even do
| anything.
| optymizer wrote:
| I worked for a few years at Audible as a dev. Based on my
| experience, I'd say the culture at the company was good, in
| that we were not trying to exploit people, neither externally
| nor internally.
|
| One thing that was pretty clear was that our audiobooks were at
| the mercy of publishing houses / content owners, and a lot of
| restrictions came from licensing deals (geographic
| reastrictions, time-based, formats, etc), so I'm inclined to
| assume that the low cut for authors may be due to publishers
| wanting a big cut of the sales.
|
| That said, there was a floor which we were not allowed on, and
| I believe that was the sales floor, so there could have been a
| whole other side to this company that I was not exposed to.
| epage wrote:
| > That said, there was a floor which we were not allowed on,
| and I believe that was the sales floor
|
| Is it just me or is this nuts? The only time I've seen
| restricted access is when there are security concerns
| (national security, special equipment, etc).
| zdragnar wrote:
| I've often wished it were the other way around. Engineering
| was a floor that sales weren't allowed into without special
| invite. I've had two good experiences with open floor
| plans, but the open floor was spacious and dedicated to
| development. The one bad experience we shared the open
| floor with sales and they were... _loud_.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I once worked in an open office shared with sales. At
| some point the decision was made to put up a wall to
| segregate the engineers from sales.
|
| I was sad about that; listening to sales had reminded me
| of my grandmother.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I liked my grandparents as well. I wouldn't want them
| chatting loudly, cheering or taking phone calls next to
| my desk while I'm working, though.
| LegitShady wrote:
| What does that have to do with indie authors not attached to
| big publishers, though?
|
| And why would big publishers be able to dictate payment terms
| to unaffiliated indie authors? sounds like illegal price
| fixing if true.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I still remember when the kindle first came out, it would
| read to you. Before publishers threatened to sue. With modern
| text to speech getting so good, there really is no reason an
| inference model couldn't run on every device to read to us. I
| guess book readers were the first to have their jobs replaced
| by AI, but contracts didn't let it happen.
| TylerE wrote:
| Really not nearly as close as you're implying.
|
| Human narrators do things like use different inflection
| depending on who's speaking.
| atorodius wrote:
| That is probably easily possible with a bit of
| engineering.. Can't be too hard to figure out who's
| speaking with some NLP?
| r00fus wrote:
| In 2007 the state of playback was pitiful. Of course the
| authors guild saw the trend lines, but even in 2022, we
| know Siri/Alexa don't sound human at all (my pre-teens
| make fun of them).
|
| It's all possible but I doubt it'll be here in 10 years.
| TylerE wrote:
| There's also a huge difference between acceptable for a
| few sentences (Alexa) and acceptable for hours and hours.
| drc500free wrote:
| My worry is that you could do something 60% as good for
| 1% of the cost, at which point a well-narrated audiobook
| becomes an extreme luxury good. Most people will pay
| $5-$10 for the "good enough" algorithmic version, and
| there aren't enough people who care to pay the fixed cost
| of Michael Kramer doing a version.
| savanaly wrote:
| Chat gpt can already parrot back some idea to you in the
| written "voice" of any famous historical figure you care
| to name, and remembers context from earlier in your
| session to inform its written inflection as well.
| Presumably this implies we have "line of sight" to doing
| something analogous in the audio space, at least in this
| generation. Certainly if you fed a whole book into chat
| gpt that it had never read before and asked it to
| describe the intonation of a character's voice it would
| have some level of accuracy (e.g. "husky" vs "meek") so I
| think we would want to do something similar for the AI
| reading. It could also probably pick up on context in
| what it's reading and read it with emotion.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| The kindles made in the last 5 years or so have this
| feature again, called voiceview
| mindvirus wrote:
| It wasn't publishers, it was the Author's Guild, the union
| representing voice talent for audiobooks. https://www.googl
| e.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/...
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I like Neil Gaiman's quote in there, and I agree if you
| record someone reading a book you can copyright that, but
| that copyright has no bearing on the copyright status of
| the recording of a another person or machine reading the
| book. If I own the content, I can format shift, that is
| actually in law in the US. Audio is a format.
|
| I think what actually happened is that they convinced
| Amazon that there was more money in audiobooks than they
| thought, and it wasn't worth using it as a feature to
| sell kindles. Now Amazon knows how much money is in
| audiobooks and they aren't sharing. Are they surprised?
|
| Copilot and chatgpt are going to replace me, so I say
| this with all humility, don't protect jobs from AI. They
| are saving us effort we can spend on other things. This
| is just industrialization taken another step.
| irrational wrote:
| I don't know. I've been listening to an unabridged
| audiobook of the Count of Monte Cristo. The single narrator
| has done a fantastic job of giving a different voice to
| every single character. Even if a particular character
| hasn't appeared for tens of hours, when they do reappear, I
| remember who they are from their unique voice.
|
| Plus, the narrator does a great job of pronouncing names
| with a french accent (at least, it sounds legit to me, a
| non-french speaking person). I wonder how a computer voice
| would do with speaking English with a distinct French
| accent. Would it understand when to go more heavily English
| vs French?
| brolumir wrote:
| Absolutely. There's a world of difference between a
| professional voice actor narrating an audiobook, and
| AI/amateur. Personally I can't listen to anything
| narrated by anyone other than (good) pro voice actors, it
| just kills the enjoyment.
|
| On a similar note, Sanderson's own books in "graphic
| audio" format (multiple voice actors, sound effects,
| music, etc) are a wonderful piece of art and is my
| preferred way to consume audiobooks when possible. I
| don't see that being replaced with AI any time soon.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I wonder how a computer voice would do with speaking
| English with a distinct French accent. Would it
| understand when to go more heavily English vs French?
|
| If you can get a synthesized voice to speak French in a
| French accent, you can also get it to speak English in a
| French accent. That part's easy.
|
| > Would it understand when to go more heavily English vs
| French?
|
| For this, I assume you'd just annotate each word.
| hoten wrote:
| This is my favorite book, I'm due for a reread(listen).
| Who's the narrator?
| irrational wrote:
| Bill Homewood
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| cdash wrote:
| Well in this case, these are self-published audio-books so it
| can't be the publisher.
| SergeAx wrote:
| (not sarcasm, geniunely interested)
|
| What prevents anyone from building a company that gives authors
| 50% or even 75% cut? From the technical standpoint, an app to
| download/listen for audio is not a big feat. One may host and
| serve audio files via any Bandwidth Alliance[1] CDN and keep
| the bill quite low, it is just audio, in the end. I'd say, a
| viable prototype is just a couple of months of work for a team
| of two-three people with day jobs.
|
| [1]https://www.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-alliance/
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| What prevents most of these kinds of ideas from happening is
| something super mundane; a person to see it through.
|
| That's it. You could definitely create this service, but
| you'd have to be very good at building a company in a market
| with big incumbents.
|
| Maybe "pay creators more" is enough, or maybe consumers don't
| really care where their money goes. You'd have to figure that
| out!
|
| But are you willing to dedicate the next 3-5+ years of your
| life to this problem? Is anyone?
| Shorel wrote:
| > From the technical standpoint, an app to download/listen
| for audio is not a big feat.
|
| With adequate DRM? It definitely is a big feat.
|
| Just distributing the files, without any type of encryption,
| is far from trivial. The fact you link to Cloudflare
| demonstrates you know you can't host the servers yourself =)
|
| Almost anything for ten users is trivial, doing it at scale
| is hard work.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I link to Bandwidth Alliance to emphasize that there is a
| way to lower a CDN bill. On my previous job we served video
| via AWS CloudFront and even negotiated a special price for
| that and S3.
|
| Any CDN with their own object storage will hanlde heavy
| lifting of audio, it is not a big deal and not that
| expensive to the point of making a garden variety CDN on
| Digital Ocean or other cloud provider nonsensical.
|
| I have to research about DRM, but isn't it goes out of the
| box on Android and iOS?
| quesera wrote:
| I would assert that network transfer costs for audiobook
| sales are a vanishingly insignificant part of the total
| cost of running an audiobook publishing business. Rounds
| to zero, I suspect.
|
| This is based on a good knowledge of the size of
| audiobooks, good knowledge of the price of network
| transfer, and a reasonable guess on the number of books
| sold.
| SergeAx wrote:
| What is a major cost then, in your opinion?
| quesera wrote:
| I'm guessing, but:
|
| Marketing, payroll, royalties, and operations. In that
| order.
|
| Network transfer fees would come out of operations, and
| are probably less than 10% of same.
| lolinder wrote:
| I wonder about DRM. With Audible taking _such_ a big cut,
| it would be interesting to see a platform that gives
| creators an 80-90% cut of DRM-free sales. Does piracy
| represent such a large threat to sales that making >2x
| more per sale wouldn't be worth it?
|
| Sanderson is distributing raw audio to all backers, so he
| clearly doesn't think so.
| plorg wrote:
| There are a lot of providers who sell DRM-free
| audiobooks. Until Spotify bought them Findaway was the
| biggest "distributor" for a lot of these companies. I
| don't personally look forward to yet another industry
| locking away content behind a proprietary, subscription
| streaming service.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Most of Amazon ebooks are easily available via Z-Library,
| so I thing that DRM is not very helpful in fending off
| piracy.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Edit: I big brained and wrote this whole thing while thinking
| Spotify. I believe my thoughts on the matter stand, though. So
| I'll just correct the wording. P.S. I don't hold this opinion
| strongly. I'm eager to hear other thoughts on the matter.
|
| I'm not a fan of this perspective because it can sound like
| people believe it's the company who is behaving wrongly, and
| they want a form of charity from it. They want Audible to give
| up profit because they don't l feel it's fair. If Audible isn't
| worth 60-75%, don't use it to distribute your media. Which is
| probably not a viable option. I think this leads to the real
| complaint candidates:
|
| "Audible has a monopoly over audiobook creation/distribution by
| breaking laws, and should be dealt with by the government."
|
| "Audible has a monopoly without breaking laws but I think there
| should be laws."
|
| "I don't like how capitalism works."
|
| "Capitalism isn't working in my favour this time."
|
| Audible isn't the right audience for any of these complaints.
|
| If Audible's service isn't worth anywhere near that much, they
| either are acting in a way where government should intervene,
| or there's a deliciously ripe opportunity for another business
| to thrive if they can overcome the inertia of the incumbent.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I think the creators should take home the
| bulk, and I bet, on intuition alone, that there's plenty of
| money to run a music service at a fraction of the take.
| vageli wrote:
| Audible is not a music service but an audiobook and podcast
| service.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Omg I'm thinking Spotify. Thank you. Let me correct my
| comment.
| Calavar wrote:
| Critcizing and/or boycotting Audible is probably the strategy
| that's most likely to effect change.
|
| Yes, I do think the government should intervene, but is that
| realistic? How often does the US file antitrust suits against
| big tech companies or their subsidiaries? I've seen lawsuits
| to block mergers/acquisitions, but the last time I remember
| actually breaking up an existing monopoly as an option on the
| table was Microsoft over 20 years ago.
|
| I dont see any deliciously ripe business opportunity here. If
| you want to compete with Audible, you need to attract authors
| to your platform. Yes, you can try luring them with a more
| generous share of the profits. But you will run into a brick
| wall because the sheer size of Audible's user base means that
| authors have bigger potential earnings there even though
| Audible takes an extortionate cut. And you won't be able to
| match Audible's user base until you have a similarly
| large/diverse selection of authors and works to choose from.
|
| The only way to break the chicken and egg problem is to come
| with a huge amount of capital that allows you bribe
| authors/users onto your platform by selling at a loss while
| you build up volume. Which, of course, is exactly how Audible
| built its monopoly in the first place. But back then it was
| an emerging market and the competitors were smaller and less
| entrenched. Audible feels comfortable taking an extortionate
| cut now precisely because it knows that no one else has both
| the capital and the will to compete with them. This is not
| something that I would bin under "the free market working as
| it should."
|
| I'm surpised that some people still don't recognize the
| playbook. This is 20th century tech strategy. Amazon was
| already doing this with physical books in the 90s - it
| shouldn't be the least bit surprising that they are doing it
| again with digital audiobooks.
| lenzm wrote:
| This strikes me as market absolutism - if you are
| participating in a market then you have to believe that the
| market will solve all of your problems or else they aren't
| valid. People can believe a company is behaving "wrongly"
| even if it profitable and successful.
|
| But there are almost always other social dynamics at play,
| true free markets are rare. You can generally "like how
| capitalism works" and not believe that markets will optimally
| solve every problem all the time.
|
| Also, "the market" is an abstraction. What actually kills
| companies? People stop using their product.
| Criticism/boycotting is a market force. Capitalism requires
| informed consumers and this is consumers sharing information.
|
| Markets also take time. Even if you believe the market will
| solve a problem, it will take time for the "bad" company to
| die and other firms to take it's place.
| mcv wrote:
| "Capitalism only works well if there is sufficient
| competition"
|
| That's the valid complaint here. There's not enough
| competition for Audible, so they can afford to charge
| extortionate prices. More competition is good, so that's what
| Sanderson invests in. Sounds like an awesome move to me.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That really feels like a great solution.
|
| Perhaps I'm muddied in semantics, but I don't think the
| complaint can be "Audible exploits people." I think it is,
| "someone needs to exploit the opportunity Audible has
| presented by charging so much."
| safety1st wrote:
| That's the option I like too, but it's easier said than
| done. We have these quasi-monopolies popping up around
| digital intellectual property of nearly every sort:
| charge a lot. Everybody uses Microsoft Office. There's
| only a handful of Hollywood studios. Etc. Etc.
|
| It seems that for some combination of legal and technical
| reasons it's very hard to beat an incumbent in these
| industries. Maybe it's just that the economies of scale
| are so good, I don't know. but when you think about it,
| _everything involved is man-made,_ the very concept of
| intellectual property itself is a human invention.
| Patents, copyrights etc. all just stuff we cooked up. If
| we have defined it to be a self-reinforcing monopoly-
| generating thing, maybe we should redefine it.
| [deleted]
| mcv wrote:
| I think "Audible exploits people" is a perfectly valid
| complaint. But it's important to understand that it's the
| natural inclination of corporations to exploit people
| whenever they can, and if you want them to stop, you need
| to make it harder for them to do so.
|
| There's a lot of ways you can do that. By introducing
| regulation, competition, empowering people, or even
| banning corporations. The first two seem to be the most
| popular in our society.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Wait, his kickstarter averaged over $200 per backer?? That's
| crazy. A $41 million kickstarter - my head is exploding.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _That 's crazy. A $41 million kickstarter - my head is
| exploding._
|
| After which he turned around and used some of that money to
| fund other people's crowdfunding projects:
|
| * https://www.tubefilter.com/2022/03/25/brandon-sanderson-
| back...
|
| * https://winteriscoming.net/2022/03/29/brandon-sanderson-
| back...
| bitexploder wrote:
| I bought a $200 version of Way of Kings [1]. It is actually two
| books. It is nicest book I own, and I have some pretty nice
| books. I only did $60 for the kickstarter campaign. That gets
| you all the books and audio books.
|
| Brandon does stuff for his fans. Sure he is probably quite
| wealthy at this point, but he is just writing books for /us/
| still. He actually finishes stories and is a good guy. I freely
| support him with $. I know many fans feel the same way. He
| writes books for everyone and has some really fun stories.
| Reading his blog post about Audible just affirms my long
| support for him.
|
| [1] https://www.dragonsteelbooks.com/products/the-way-of-
| kings-l...
| wiredfool wrote:
| And just recently, commenters here were saying that no one
| reads complicated books any more.
|
| (My kids read Sanderson. In volume. One of them is responsible
| for an average chunk of that kickstarter)
| providedotemacs wrote:
| Sanderson's fans are very loyal, and he has proven that he will
| deliver.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| There's really not much people I have so high opinion of as
| him, and practically no one with such differing personal
| beliefs.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| I'm not sure what I can add to this comment to make it
| substantial. I just support every word of it.
|
| He really is the kind of person everyone should aspire to
| be, in both work-ethic and ethic-ethic.
| VHRanger wrote:
| Right, he's the polar opposite of Rothfuss
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Ouch. Right in the feels. Evidently Name of the Wind came
| out in 2007.
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