[HN Gopher] No one buys books
___________________________________________________________________
No one buys books
Author : AlbertCory
Score : 598 points
Date : 2024-04-22 20:36 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.elysian.press)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.elysian.press)
| sigio wrote:
| No one buys books, cd's, dvd's, blurays, magazines, comics,
| games, and many other things that were bought a lot 10-30 years
| ago. These days everything is online and (usually) subscription
| based.
|
| Looking at myself, the only things I buy regularly, is food ;)
| constantcrying wrote:
| Surely CDs have become Spotify, tidal. Blu rays have become
| Netflix, Disney, etc. magazines have become websites, etc.
|
| The content is still there just the medium has changed. Has the
| same been true for books though? eBooks do exist of course, but
| did they replace the publishing industry that existed 50 or a
| hundred years ago?
| sigio wrote:
| As I said, subscriptions, not buying
| constantcrying wrote:
| What is the Spotify of books?
| exe34 wrote:
| Amazon/Adobe DRM? They can stop working at any time.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Neither of these provides books as a subscription service
| as far as I am aware.
| skydhash wrote:
| Amazon has Kindle Unlimited and O'Reilly have/had Safari
| vundercind wrote:
| 50 or 100 years ago, people read a hell of a lot more fiction
| than they do now.
| constantcrying wrote:
| I suspect in the past they also read far more nonfiction.
| vundercind wrote:
| I wouldn't bet on it, unless we're counting user-
| generated posts online, and clickbait "articles". Which,
| maybe we should.
|
| [edit] JFC I misread your sense of "read", I think we
| agree.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Updated my post. I don't think I encountered that "bug"
| in the English language before.
| matwood wrote:
| True for fiction books. But if you think about fiction
| generally, as the poster said, the medium has changed.
| People still love fiction, but now it's movies and shows.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| It seems obvious that books lost some market share.
|
| People have a limited amount of time for entertainment and
| have a lot more choice between Netflix, YouTube, Books and
| thousands of other things than they did back then.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Yes, that is what I meant. Books as a medium is just a much
| smaller industry with far fewer customers.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Ebooks and audiobooks.
| constantcrying wrote:
| As far as I can tell eBooks aren't significantly more
| popular than physical books. Surely the publishers cited in
| the article wouldn't have neglected that topic if it was
| actually a major revenue stream.
|
| As far as audiobooks go I don't know. Do you have any
| numbers?
| koito17 wrote:
| n = 1, but I purchase physical books, comics, references, etc.
| under two circumstances:
|
| - cannot find an easy way to de-DRM media available on online
| stores. I want the ability to copy epub files across my devices
| and read offline.
|
| - the digital version is a poor-quality scan. This frequently
| happens with comics.
|
| This is embarrassing to discuss normally, but an additional
| perk of physical comics and light novels is that I can look at
| the obi and get reminded what I was doing in the past, where I
| was in the past, what was happening in the past, etc.
| especially for those which I have finished reading. The subset
| of my friends with similar interests as me tend to discard the
| obi, since it becomes bothersome while reading. I have the
| habit of removing the obi while I am reading something, then
| add it back when finished reading the entire thing. Things like
| this can't really be done with digital media, especially
| subscriptions.
| paulpauper wrote:
| "No one buys ________", except for those who do, which is still
| a lot of people. So tired of these overgeneralizations.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yep. No money in it short of not just getting optioned for TV or
| film, but an actual released production. Even then, a hit or two
| likely won't pay as much as you'd think. Some pretty damn
| successful authors have boring day jobs, or stopped after a
| handful of "successful" books that didn't make them much money
| and went back to a normal corporate career.
|
| The other option is to crank out (ha, ha) short romance novels
| like a machine and market like mad. The money's in hard work at
| writing porn, or in big broad-audience grand slams, probably
| written at a junior high reading level, with a small niche
| supporting a handful of authors in writing based-on-a-true-story
| stuff (bonus if "true crime" connection) aimed directly at
| getting optioned for film or tv (but that one's _very_ hard to
| break into, studios have some go-to authors for that stuff and
| you ain't one of them)
| WolfeReader wrote:
| Haven't libraries already been a "Netflix of books" for millenia
| now?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Some libraries have movie sections, making them the Netflix of
| DVDs, in an odd twist.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Mine doesn't have this book, anyway.
|
| $94 for a _used_ copy /s
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Did you mean to read <insert related book that's not in the
| subscription>?
| paxys wrote:
| How much of the population has access to well stocked
| libraries?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Within the US, virtually any resident of a large city or
| major metropolitan area, which is over 85% of the population:
| <https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/12/us/census-results-
| da...>.
|
| This is also one of the areas in which the Internet has
| actually delivered on early promise (though the success has
| been a long time coming, and remains precarious): the
| Internet Archive offers access to over 20 million records,
| and aims to have a web page for every book ever published.
| Note that this still isn't full access to all material, but
| it's quite good.
|
| <https://openlibrary.org/about>
|
| The US Library of Congress has also been expanding its public
| access, as have other large public libraries (the New York
| Public Library notably). LoC also have specific programmes
| aimed at disabled readers such as its NLS BARD programme for
| the visually- and reading-disabled.
|
| <https://federalnewsnetwork.com/open-
| datatransparency/2022/02...>
|
| <https://www.loc.gov/nls/how-to-enroll/sign-up-for-bard-
| and-b...>
| lolinder wrote:
| Most libraries that people have access to are more like
| "Disney+ for books". They have a limited selection of extremely
| mainstream books. If you're happy to make do with whatever they
| have on offer then you're fine, but if you want something
| specific you'll have to go out and buy it.
|
| Back in the DVD days and before everyone broke ranks and tried
| to start their own service, the thing that made Netflix great
| was that no matter what you wanted _they had it_. Having no
| retail footprint meant they could stock everything without
| having to compromise. Libraries don 't have that advantage.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The Internet Archive has a pretty big lending library.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| We are lucky in CA at least that we have Link+ which gives
| you access to millions of books.
| bombcar wrote:
| The entire book industry rides on the backs of bibles, hobbits,
| and extremely ravenous caterpillars.
|
| Seems almost poetic, somehow.
| jackstraw14 wrote:
| how many years of print dominance?
|
| welcome our overlords.
| vundercind wrote:
| I gotta admit: I rarely make time for any recent fiction. Too
| busy catching up on the last 5,000 years. I don't expect that
| to change before I die.
|
| Film has a similar problem--there are plausibly low-thousands
| existing films worth my time, a whole lot of them 30+ years
| old. I could never watch a film made after 2000 and not run out
| of good entertainment in my lifetime. They're damn lucky the
| Mouse got copyright extended to a century or more.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| read "the sarah book" or "crapalachia" by scott mcclananhan
| if you want to read fiction from a living author that should
| be included in your reading list for the past 5k years of
| language arts.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's also a highly effective sorting algorithm - anything
| still talked about ten years after it came out is probably
| worth some time.
|
| I will say that it seems entirely possible to relatively
| quickly see all US animated kids movies ...
| satvikpendem wrote:
| The Lindy Effect:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
| vundercind wrote:
| > I will say that it seems entirely possible to relatively
| quickly see all US animated kids movies
|
| Decent or better ones... maybe.
|
| There's a deep bench of poor-to-terrible animated kids'
| movies that were straight to VHS/DVD/streaming. For god's
| sake, there are like nine Land Before Time movies alone.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's a surprisingly large number of direct to DVD/VHS
| animated movies you just cannot find ... anywhere. Not on
| streaming, not at the library.
|
| It's hard to even find a list; and some are pretty
| decent, for what they are.
| matwood wrote:
| And if you add in TV shows, there's more great content out
| there than I'll ever have time to watch.
| vundercind wrote:
| Video games, too. I live through the 90s yet my backlog
| includes thousands of hours of reputedly-amazing games from
| that decade that I didn't get to at the time.
| bombcar wrote:
| To be fair the awesomeness of many blockbuster games
| could be condensed way down with little harm to the game
| (e.g., Final Fantasy without all the random battles).
| pests wrote:
| There are gems coming out today that will be considered great
| works by our descendants.
|
| By avoiding current authors or media you miss out on the
| cultural story and critique/commentary that influences all
| our media. Sure, the last 5000 years are interesting, but
| isn't right now pretty amazing too? You might accidently read
| the best book ever written but you won't know until history
| plays out. But I think it's important to see how recent
| history has shaped the narrative of the worlds authors in
| today's world.
|
| Weve lived through a lot of major events. Everyone does. But
| these are our events.
| vundercind wrote:
| I'm not avoiding them, but "rando probably-just-ok new
| thing" versus any of hundreds of major classics I haven't
| made it to yet... it's tough to pick the new thing very
| often.
|
| [edit] or, hell, not even major. Odds that a recommended-
| by-people-online got-some-hype-in-review-rags new book is
| gonna make me happier to have read it than, say, a 2nd-tier
| Maugham or Faulkner or something? Not great.
| gverrilla wrote:
| > There are gems coming out today that will be considered
| great works by our descendants.
|
| Wow. Can't wait for the next Harry Potter / Avatar /
| Celebrity book / Spiderman movie !!!!11!!!1! Great works!
|
| > but isn't right now pretty amazing too?
|
| No.
| pests wrote:
| Why be so negative? Live a little.
| samspot wrote:
| Yeah, if you like sorting garbage. Which of the 1.5 million
| books published this year will you read? People routinely
| hide money in mattresses, so why not head to the landfill
| and start looking?
|
| I sometimes read/watch/play something if a friend
| recommends it. But I've no time/interest in sorting through
| the random deluge of media in the hope of finding diamonds.
| I'll let someone else find the diamond and tell me about
| it.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'm trying to think back over "new releases" that I've
| read, and ... all of them have been by authors that I had
| already enjoyed reading some of their works.
|
| It would have to be a technical book on a subject I'm
| interested in (and even then moderately rare) or
| something that someone I know well personally strongly
| recommended.
| fmajid wrote:
| Maybe Gutenberg was right on his market positioning after all.
| ZhadruOmjar wrote:
| I'm glad my recent bible purchase can fund everyone else's
| hobby books.
| ginko wrote:
| > The entire book industry rides on the backs of bibles,
| hobbits, and extremely ravenous caterpillars.
|
| Have to say I'm kind of surprised about the bibles part. Aren't
| those usually printed by smaller church-associated publishers?
| bombcar wrote:
| There are some dedicated publishers that make bibles (most
| any Christian publishing house will have a bible of some
| sort) but the big names on Amazon or the bookstore are from
| the big houses (often under an imprint, mind you).
| xg15 wrote:
| Well, if there's any comfort: The AI will definitely read your
| book...
| dakiol wrote:
| So, I usually think in terms of longevity. I do own some books,
| because in case computers don't work anymore, well I can still
| read good stuff. I have plenty of PDFs/epubs in my laptop because
| the internet may not work anymore anytime. I do have some stuff
| in the cloud, but just for convenience (I don't care if those
| files disappear).
|
| Same with music, movies and video games. I want to be able to
| "run" stuff offline. Electricity is still a big dependency (i'm
| looking into solar panels)
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I'm the same way, and also: I want to not have to pay a
| subscription fee forever. Once I have what I want, then that's
| it! I'm don't need to spend another dime. But if I use Spotify
| or whatever, I have to keep paying forever. It is a much worse
| deal.
| matwood wrote:
| The difference between music and books is time investment.
| New music comes out all the time, and I'm always discovering
| old music. A subscription works great for music because I can
| listen to so many songs. Books not so much, and I consider
| myself a reader.
| bombcar wrote:
| And even with books it becomes much easier to say "I'll
| reread the lord of the rings on this flight" than it is to
| take a wild risk on an unknown book and author.
| quectophoton wrote:
| > A subscription works great for music because I can listen
| to so many songs. Books not so much, and I consider myself
| a reader.
|
| It can work for books too, kinda. You can check "J-Novel
| Club" for an existing example. Chapters are translated in
| parts, and each part is released ASAP to subscribers,
| before the whole thing is translated (though they're clear
| that it's still a WIP).
|
| It's also extremely common for... uh... "gray-zone indie
| translators" to translate web novels from Japanese into
| English, and release the translations first to Patreon
| supporters, and a week later to everyone else.
|
| Granted, everything I'm saying is very specific to the
| niche of JP novels.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Yeah, if you're frequently getting new music then a
| subscription makes sense. My music library is pretty much
| static. I don't like the vast majority of new music, and
| I've already gotten the vast majority of old music that I
| care about. My music purchases are something like $30 (at
| most, usually much less) per year, which is way cheaper
| than Spotify.
| criddell wrote:
| Do you think of cable/satellite/streaming tv in the same way
| as Spotify?
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I pay for streaming 90% because my wife wants to, and 10%
| because it's the only way I can legally watch things in
| some cases. So I would say yes, in that I would rather
| ditch those too, but no in that they have uses I can't
| replace at this time.
| joshuamcginnis wrote:
| I'm currently writing a book about independent thinking and I
| have zero expectations that it will sell even a single copy.
| However, the net gain I will get from having completed the goal
| of writing the book is invaluable to me personally.
| gizmo wrote:
| I have read a couple of books on that subject and they all
| disappointed. I will gladly buy your book if it's original
| work.
| joshuamcginnis wrote:
| That's encouraging. It's definitely not fluff and original.
| The feedback would be valuable even if you don't end up
| liking it.
| IlliOnato wrote:
| Same here
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| I had this idea for a hard science fiction story that I have
| been thinking about for years. Nobody else is going to write
| it, so I started. 20 000 words in my beta readers say it is
| good, so I think I will continue. And I don't expect to sell
| it, but I want to know what happens and so do the beta readers.
| So on we go.
| mbbbackus wrote:
| Currently in the same boat! When you say beta readers, do you
| mean other friends/writers or like people on twitter
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| A mix of people who are known and good readers and some on
| Reddit /r/hfy
| greenie_beans wrote:
| hell yeah, keep on writing!
| mysteria wrote:
| You really have to write it for yourself if you want to keep
| going - unless you're lucky or have a large following already
| it's hard to get a lot of readers. I've written stories and
| serials and posted them on social media, my personal site,
| etc. (I release them as Creative Commons works) and few
| people read them. Self-published authors who want to make a
| living typically have to do a _lot_ of promotion to get a
| chance.
|
| Also there are times when I decide I want to read my own
| stuff for entertainment instead of a published novel. And the
| joy I get from that keeps me writing.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Many successful artists in any medium say they create
| things for themselves; it's more a compulsion than a
| business activity. Some are lucky that others like it; some
| are even luckier that others like it during the creator's
| lifetime; the luckiest even make money from it!
| mysteria wrote:
| If you want to make money you're often creating for your
| audience rather than for yourself too. For instance I
| know professional artists who don't enjoy their work that
| much since they end up having to please the client rather
| than make what they really want. Even for my own CC
| fiction my themes and language are affected by current
| trends and what I think my readers will like. Of course
| if you're lucky you can create whatever you like and your
| fans will eat it up, but how many people can do that?
|
| As an aside though I feel that the science/engineering
| heavy HN crowd would bring some life to science fiction.
| We have the ability to write things that _make technical
| sense_ and I 'm sure many of you internally roast the
| handwaviness seen in some franchises. I don't know if I'm
| the only one that does this but I plan out the computer
| networks my characters use, draw cutaways and chip
| architecture diagrams for new devices I come up with,
| read scientific papers for research, and so forth.
| Sometimes that's even more fun than the actual writing!
| jimbokun wrote:
| Cixin Liu was a computer engineer working at a power
| plant before writing 3 Body Problem and its sequels. He
| very clearly embeds his love for science into his books.
| bhaney wrote:
| Can I be a beta reader? Always looking for more good hard
| sci-fi.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| I should be easy to find from the profile here on HN.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think the best motivation I've ever gotten for writing was
| finishing another story and being sad about it.
|
| The best part about writing the story yourself is that it
| never ends unless you want it to (or you end, I suppose).
| vidarh wrote:
| Keep at it. I've self-published my first two (and beaten the
| odds - somewhat - judging by this article, while still paying
| substantially below minimum wage for my time, but that's ok),
| and the experience is "interesting". The first time I had
| someone somewhat accusingly message me on twitter to ask when
| I'll get the next one out (I'm way overdue) was exciting.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I love the idea of owning books you can't find anywhere else.
| One of the main reasons I don't bother going to bookstores is
| because I know everything there is just gonna be on Amazon
| anyway, and with reviews.
|
| But the idea of coming across a strange book few people have
| read, and finding unconventional wisdom and writing inside that
| no publisher would ever put out, sounds exciting!
|
| I think more people should write books and publish them in
| small quantities and just give them away for others to discover
| some day. Let the books circulate through the world, growing
| old and more mysterious with time. It'd be better than keeping
| some static blog site that will disappear after a decade.
| keiferski wrote:
| Pretty much all of the physical books I own are like this:
| rare and impossible to find online, in digital format or
| otherwise. People really overestimate how many books have
| been digitized.
| Aeolun wrote:
| What I want is some easy way to print any website as a book.
| Some web serials would be best read as a physical book, but
| it's often hard or impossible.
| datascienced wrote:
| Or in other words you are doing research, a bit like a PhD and
| the book is a byproduct!
|
| Like how HN was recently talking about 8 hours to code the
| first time, but half hour to retype the same code from memory
| the next day. The code is almost an small (but critical)
| artefact.
| vidarh wrote:
| I have two projects at the moment. Both slow-going because of
| other things, but one is the third in a series and I'm hopeful
| it will reach (very) low thousands based on the performance of
| the previous ones (over a period of years, not quickly; it's
| niche SF), the other is fiction, but will have code fragments
| in between chapters and I'd consider myself lucky if I sell a
| dozen. I'm more excited about _writing_ that one...
| munificent wrote:
| Reading someone else's book about how to think independently
| seems like some sort of ironic joke.
|
| I'd love it if the first page was just "Stop reading other
| people's thoughts and go think." And then the rest of the pages
| are blank.
| thyrsus wrote:
| Does this include technical books? O'Reilly and Manning seem to
| have substantial customers. Or is the licensing of PDFs excluded
| from such figures?
| bombcar wrote:
| Technical books are part of it, and O'Reilly can probably do
| much more accurate forecasting on their titles than others do,
| but they still have total reach problems.
|
| If I think of all the technical things I've done, there are
| some I've bought lots of books for, and others I've never
| bought a book at all, including some relatively major
| languages.
| _delirium wrote:
| The article only covers data for the Big Five publishers, who
| are: Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon &
| Schuster, and Macmillan.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Turn it around:
|
| How much new information is there published in book form each
| year which the average person needs to (or wants to) read?
|
| How much leisure time does the average person choose to dedicate
| each year to reading? How do they decide which book(s) will be
| selected for this?
|
| Arguably the problem is that much of the purpose which books
| traditionally take up has been replaced by:
|
| - encyclopedias --- Wikipedia
|
| - magazines/newspapers --- Facebook and social media
|
| - dime store novels --- fan fiction and webcomics
|
| Time was that the way to be successful w/ a self-published book
| was to manage to get it bought by the ~9,000 library systems in
| the U.S. --- how many of these books are being purchased by
| libraries?
| ozim wrote:
| In Poland we publish 9000 new books each year, of course
| initial runs are like 500-1k copies. Not sure how it breaks
| down in detail on types like science publications and else but
| average person reads 1 book a year, avid readers read 7 and
| above but they are 1% of the population.
|
| Just some stats as I watched discussion on this topic. I think
| the question was rhetorical but feels like a nice thing to add.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Yes, that's exactly the sort of thing I was reaching for.
|
| Curious what the distribution is for types of books.
|
| In the U.S., bookstores lose money almost the entire year ---
| only making money for the Christmas holidays.
| roughly wrote:
| > How much new information is there published in book form each
| year which the average person needs to (or wants to) read?
|
| > How much leisure time does the average person choose to
| dedicate each year to reading? How do they decide which book(s)
| will be selected for this?
|
| I mean, the thing is, people aren't reading books, they're
| reading instagram. We haven't substituted one knowledge-
| accumulating method for another, we've replaced books with
| social media. If you want to talk about which one generates or
| propagates more information-as-knowledge, that's an interesting
| conversation, but I think the effective mechanism here is
| someone figured out how to hypercharge the dopamine roller-
| coaster to a degree that books just can't compete.
| jwells89 wrote:
| I believe another factor is frequency of moving, because that'd
| disincline people from buying significant amounts of any kind
| of heavy and/or bulky media, of which books are both. More than
| a small bookshelf's worth is a real pain to haul around.
| eszed wrote:
| This. I donated half a lifetime's collection of physical
| books a few years ago, when I moved into my girlfriend's
| apartment. I kept books which are either a) impossible to get
| electronically (mostly technical or academic works), or b)
| worthless on screen (mostly large-format photography and art
| books, or c) for which I have a sentimental attachment to the
| physical artifact (a couple of first editions; some gifts;
| some that bring back particular memories).
|
| It's so freeing! I read a LOT, and being able to curate a
| massive library in Calibre, and keep >3k books on my Kindle,
| is (for me) entirely superior to lugging around heavy
| physical objects.
|
| I rip DRM off of (most) every ebook I buy, and back up the
| files, so I'm not worried about losing access, either. Even
| if the apocalypse arrives my Kindle + a solar charger fit in
| my bug-out bag better than a box of books.
| Tor3 wrote:
| I've done the DRM ripping in the past, but from what I've
| understood Calibre or other tools are unable to do that for
| the latest DRM variants Amazon is using. Is that correct? I
| would like to back up my entire Kindle collection as it is
| now.
| keyle wrote:
| The same could be said about the game industry and the music
| industry. 1% of the industry thrives while the rest is a sinking
| stone.
|
| That said I bought three books this week, but it's a rare
| occurrence... and I'm pretty sure they're re-printed by Amazon.
| yreg wrote:
| Aren't people buying more indie and early-access games than
| ever?
|
| Or do you mean boardgames? Those seem to be doing alright as
| well though.
| keyle wrote:
| I've made and shipped games. Just look at the 30 games that
| come out on steam every day of the week.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >Aren't people buying more indie and early-access games than
| ever?
|
| Yes, but people also make more games than ever, and this
| "more" is way bigger.
| yreg wrote:
| I recently started buying paper books.
|
| Yes, it's not particularly ecological, but I found that I'm able
| to focus at the text much better this way. My Kindle (despite
| plenty of obvious advantages) just doesn't really work for me.
|
| It took me years to realize this, but I always start to tinker
| with the brightness settings, switch pages back and forth, go
| into the book library and back, play with highlighting words,
| etc. I will do anything instead of reading the text. Meanwhile
| with a paper book I don't have an urge to flip a page back and
| forth and observe how it behaves. I can focus on the text.
|
| Not sure why I am this way.
| acchow wrote:
| These sound like common traits for ADHDers.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Paper books are also just orders of magnitude easier to flip
| through and re-read specific chapters, paragraphs or sections.
|
| I can skim through a shelf full of books in a way that I'm just
| not able to with ebooks, even with stuff like full text search
| available in Calibre.
| SubmarineClub wrote:
| Another benefit to paper books, in my experience, is it's a
| lot easier to remember the rough location of a particular
| passage (towards the front, middle, near the end, etc.) than
| with digital
|
| A progress bar really doesn't replace the context of the
| stack of pages behind and ahead of your current page.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| It's pretty easy to highlight passages with most e-reader
| software. Some even let you write a note that goes with the
| highlight. You can then look through a list of all
| highlighted passages.
| Tor3 wrote:
| It's when something comes up and you remember that you
| read something relevant in the past. In most of those
| cases it's _not_ about "Ah, this is something I may want
| to check again at a later time, so let's highlight it".
| So, there's no list of highlighted passages to search
| through.
|
| Indeed this is one of those things I miss about paper
| books. When the above happens I have a terrible time
| finding that on my Kindle. Most of the time I'm not able
| to, while with a paper book I didn't have that problem,
| mostly.
| maximilianthe1 wrote:
| While physical "progress bar" is much easier to remeber
| than digital one (on the side of the screen for pdfs),
| because you actually interact with it the whole time, i
| don't find (ha) finding a particular passage hard without
| it. I personally usually can remeber a phrase or just a
| word and search for them in a PDF to find the needed
| passage.
| dhosek wrote:
| My own personal anecdata on this comes from being able to
| find a passage I read in a 500-page book in 1992 for a
| class I was taking in 1998. I could probably even find that
| same passage now if I were to walk across the room to the
| bookcase where I have that book.
|
| Although on the other hand, I was also able to turn up an
| article I'd read online a couple years later when it was
| relevant to a friend's relationship with her newly out
| trans kid, but it was definitely a different sort of recall
| and lookup happening in the latter case.
| skydhash wrote:
| I classify skimming as a "distracting" activity. I always ask
| myself: What information do I need? And then it's very easy
| to get to the relevant passage. And outlines are there for a
| reason (PDF Expert can edit them) so navigating between the
| same file is not that cumbersome for me. I do agree that the
| experience is more pleasant with a paper book, but in a
| focused session, the result is pretty much the same.
|
| Skimming is great for building a mental map, but that is a
| separate activity than reading to learn. And it can be done
| digitally too, just differently.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Paper books are also just orders of magnitude easier to
| flip through and re-read specific chapters, paragraphs or
| sections.
|
| Whatever works for you, of course. PDFs have bookmarks, which
| instantly take me to a specific spot on a specific page.
| Also, I can open multiple instances of the PDF, viewing
| multiple pages of the same book (or some PDF readers allow
| split screens to do the same thing). Edit: And if I don't
| recall where something is, I can search for it.
| Tor3 wrote:
| I prefer PDFs for informative material (various
| documentation), though they're less useful if it's just a
| photocopied old manual (no OCR).
|
| It's when reading books (literature, not documentation)
| that the e-readers have something going for them. I read
| nearly all my books on the Kindle, but I never use it for
| documentation - I've tried, that's just cumbersome. PDFs on
| a PC are fine.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| That's a software choice issue. You can definitely flip
| through digital texts more easily than physical. With a
| decent monitor, you can flip through multiple books at the
| same time which is quite difficult to do with physical books,
| assuming you haven't summoned eldritch appendages to help.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| The older I get the less I trust myself to know how to
| administer or even to care how to work any current or future
| reading e-device.
|
| A printed book requires light as just about it's only
| dependency!
|
| I definitely agree with you about the distractions of digital
| devices. Switching to a book is a focused mode.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| When I'm on vacation, I always read paper books.
|
| Because I want minimal complexity. (Usually in the tropics,
| often with rum and a hammock)
|
| Dead tree books' short term failure modes are water and fire,
| and once failure is confined to emergencies-that-are-already-
| emergencies they impose no additional cognitive burden.
|
| Also, I suspect the physical friction involved in "swiping
| away from" paper books helps reset my dopamine baseline /
| memory, but that's just suspicion from having lived pre-
| smartphone.
|
| PS: Also, re: environmental impact. eBay and Amazon sell tons
| of used books. Sure you're shipping them around, but I really
| buy new these days.
| dripton wrote:
| I'm just the opposite. One of the worst things about
| vacations was having to carry along all those books or take
| a detour to a bookstore (if there were any) to buy more.
| Now I just carry a single small e-reader. It's a great
| savings in terms of cargo space.
|
| I don't consider an e-ink reader very complex. You charge
| it once in a while, download books to it once in a while,
| and otherwise it's basically a book except it remembers
| what page you were on.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| You forgot the third and fourth failure modes: weight and
| bag space. Books take a lot of it. An e-reader is thinner
| than any book and weighs the same no matter how many it's
| holding.
|
| I used to take my e-reader on field expeditions when I was
| an archaeologist. Never had one die or break even after
| months in places like Siberia. The number of notebooks that
| were ruined during those same expeditions is non-zero,
| usually from condensation or the physical trauma of a
| backpack.
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| Considering you're on HN, it's likely a safe bet to say
| you also travel with a laptop. In which case, an e-reader
| is still a waste of space because your laptop can just
| open ebooks too. Or if you don't, then your phone is
| still a better space saver for reading books with. Yet,
| you will likely prefer to take your e-reader with anyway
| (and its charger if it isn't the same as other devices).
|
| This is why I find "saving space during travels" a very
| relative argument to make, because it's clearly down to
| preference.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The ergonomics on any laptop is dogshit compared to a
| dedicated e-ink reader. Just the amount of brightness the
| display beams to your face makes it suboptimal for
| reading in low light.
|
| And the "charger" I need with my ancient Kindle is a
| standard micro-USB cable, not exactly exotic. And as soon
| as this one breaks down, the next one will be USB-C like
| a good 90%+ of my devices I travel with.
| BoringTimesGang wrote:
| My laptop and phone can't last through a long-haul
| flight. My e-reader doesn't need charging until I come
| home, fits in a jeans pocket and is a similar weight to
| my passport.
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| That's kind of my point - your preferences are to the
| advantage of the e-reader. For others, the same might
| apply to physical books instead, despite the disadvantage
| of bulk.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Of course it's a relative argument. Everything is.
|
| I don't personally travel with a laptop unless I plan on
| working remote. Too heavy/bulky and more importantly, you
| need to take them out going through TSA. The e-reader
| doesn't need a charger for the 2-4 weeks I usually
| travel. If I'm traveling longer, I'll bring a single
| additional USB cable (that will go away the next time I
| upgrade).
|
| A phone doesn't take bag space because it's always in my
| pocket, but it's significantly less ergonomic and much
| less power efficient for reading. The value-add of being
| able to read without draining battery on my most
| important travel tool is worth it on its own.
| criddell wrote:
| The older I get, the more I appreciate being able to select a
| larger font with my Kindle. I love books, but the
| accessibility features of a modern ereader are pretty great
| too.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| I've been putting off glasses for as long as I can. I
| suspect I'll return to my Kindle again in the future for
| this reason. It's good to be reminded that both things can
| coexist.
| Tor3 wrote:
| The ability to select a font size I like is one of my main
| three reasons for using a Kindle.
| hollandheese wrote:
| E-readers are often very simple devices. Their main audience
| is older people.
|
| Light being a dependency of reading a printed book is one of
| the biggest plus for e-ink readers. You don't need light,
| they already come with it! It's so much easier reading with a
| Kindle (in dark mode) at bed time than it is a paper book.
| Tor3 wrote:
| Well, yes and no.. I do use the backlight on my Kindle if
| it's dark, but this changes how it looks. I have a
| Paperwhite Kindle. With the backlight on it's more like
| reading on LCD, though not as bad. The Kindle looks much
| nicer if I can use a bedside lamp instead of the backlight,
| just as I would with a paper book.
| nottorp wrote:
| You still can't turn off the light on a Kindle completely
| can you? Always felt like a waste of battery on a
| beach...
| Tor3 wrote:
| There's a tiny amount of light, yes. I don't know why
| Amazon made it that way. It's not really visible.. not to
| me, at least. But it's probably one reason the battery is
| slowly drained, over weeks, even if not in use.
| nottorp wrote:
| It does turn off when you're not using the kindle. But
| you can't turn it completely off while reading.
|
| I suppose the use case is picking up the kindle at night
| in a dark room while you disabled the light when you were
| reading outside during the day.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If you put it in / out of sleep mode juuuust right, you
| can trigger a bug (race condition?) where it doesn't turn
| the backlight on.
| BoringTimesGang wrote:
| And when you read lying on your side, no awkward holding
| for the nearside pages!
| roughly wrote:
| I do the same - I far prefer paper books for reading, and
| mostly because it makes an enormous difference in my ability to
| focus.
|
| Re: the ecological side - I'm not actually convinced that a
| paperback book is markedly more of an ecological burden than an
| e-reader and the rest of the associated infrastructure. I think
| it's possible the e-reader pencils out in the long term, but I
| think a full lifecycle accounting of the energy and resources
| required to create, use, and dispose of an e-reader would be
| markedly higher than one would suspect, and I think people
| replace them more often than necessary.
|
| Books, on the other hand, are trees. Bury 'em in your yard when
| you're done with them and the fungi will know what to do to
| recycle them.
| karmakaze wrote:
| This is not good news. I just got my first eInk reader today
| and first thing I did was go through all the navigation setup
| pages.
|
| I have one professional development book and was going find a
| work of fiction to start. Hope it works out.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| FWIW - This (GP post) is not my experience with eReaders.
| Not sure if they have the eInk one or not (like the Fire or
| tablet ones), but I have the eInk sort.
|
| Anyway, I really like it because it's far lighter weight
| than a paperback, easier to hold, and I can have like the
| entire library on there and take it with me. I don't
| experience the distraction that they are referring to,
| because there's really not anything else to do except read
| my book. How much time can I spend on settings? Browsing my
| library? As far as brightness I leave it alone mostly and
| don't think about it unless it's irritatingly one way or
| the other.
|
| I have no idea what "navigation setup pages" are - I've
| been through several different Kindles and I pretty much
| just take them out of the box and start reading. There's
| nothing to "set up" outside of logging into my Amazon
| account.
|
| Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
| jhbadger wrote:
| Also, while I know the readership of HN skews young, but
| when you reach your 50s, having the ability to make the
| text larger in an ebook is a killer feature.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Yeah my vision is still good but farsighted so need low-
| strength reading glasses, larger fonts, or what I've
| started doing with this eReader is just getting good at
| reading fuzzy letters with a relaxed gaze at less than
| arms length. It's actually less straining than trying to
| force focusing closer than is comfortable.
|
| I tried using landscape mode or larger fonts but didn't
| like the extra page scrolling/turning. Eventually I
| suppose we'll get lightweight and normal looking AR
| glasses for reading eBooks.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Thanks (everyone) for the replies and different
| viewpoints.
|
| I already went through all the setup menus, including
| messing with fonts, layouts, making some
| collection/folders, and downloading some samples to
| preview.
|
| So far it all seems pretty good. I don't think I'll be
| too distracted by it. The 7" screen is a tad small, but I
| really do like the size and weight so will keep it.
| Anything larger/heavier will likely not be kept on my
| person so loses a lot of use.
|
| Another great use I just discovered is loading it with
| pdf's of all my device/appliance/toys manuals in a User
| Manuals collection.
| WolfeReader wrote:
| A lot of the posts here are just individuals' opinions, not
| universal experiences. Yours may well be different!
|
| Personally, I carry an e-ink reader everywhere and read it
| every time I get a spare minute or so. It's done wonders
| for my reading habits. And unlike this topic's creator, I
| basically set the font and formatting once and almost never
| mess with them again.
| roughly wrote:
| Everybody's different! I prefer to read on paper, I know
| many other people who prefer to read on their kindle.
| Whatever works for you is the right answer for you!
|
| I still use ebooks when I travel - I'll usually have one or
| two actual physical books with me, but I'll also have a few
| loaded up on my iPad in case I get bored or finish them
| early.
| antonyt wrote:
| Chiming in with the others to say that my experience with
| e-readers has been great. Physical books can grow to be a
| huge burden over the years.
|
| For me personally, e-readers have not caused any loss of
| focus. In fact, the integrated dictionaries often keep me
| MORE focused than the interruption represented by pulling
| out a dictionary or googling a word.
|
| I'll acknowledge there is a tactile joy to physical paper
| that is lost when using an e-reader, but for me it's well
| worth the trade-off for the the portability and space
| saved.
|
| Also consider that often, people who are expressing
| skepticism of digital reading have only ever tried it on
| laptops and iPads, which is a very different (more
| distracting) experience from an e-ink reader.
| maximilianthe1 wrote:
| Another massive advantage to using Kindle estead of iPad
| - enourmous battery life. My like 6-8 year old Kindle
| survives what feels like a month without recharge with
| active use. This enables you to just drop it in your
| backpack and be sure that it works the next time you feel
| like reading.
| sien wrote:
| FWIW I got a Kindle in 2010 for a trip and found that I
| really liked it.
|
| I also wound up inadvertently encouraging other people to
| get them.
|
| Only one person out of about 6 who got them after I got
| them didn't use them. She didn't actually read much.
| johnloeber wrote:
| Worrying about the environmental impact of books is
| misguided. You use far more paper products in the course of
| your everyday life: paper bags, cardboard packaging, paper
| towels, etc. etc. Even for an avid reader, the impact is
| negligible.
| LargeWu wrote:
| With paper books I'm more concerned with having to have
| space to put it when I'm done. But, I find it more
| enjoyable to read a physical book, and am more likely to
| re-read it.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| Another nice thing about paper books is that you can lend
| them out to your friends when you're finished reading
| them. This saves a bit of space, plus your friends can
| just pick them up and read them without worrying about a
| bunch of BS like whether it's compatible with their
| e-reader, if the DRM will work, if the publisher will
| revoke the rights for some reason, etc.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Or give them away, or leave them in a little free library
| for someone else to enjoy. In my old neighborhood
| somebody else had similar taste in scifi and (as far as I
| could tell) we traded Asimov books back and forth through
| the book box in the park!
|
| I'd love to keep them all forever but (a) I think my
| house is about maxed out on shelves and (b) a book's
| potential is wasted on the shelf.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Get the ebook for archival purpose and ditch the paper
| book when you're done with your first read through.
|
| If you later find out you want the paper book as home
| ornament, then spend a little extra to decorate your
| home.
|
| The two major mistakes we make about books is:
|
| 1) we think we have to finish it. No, drop it if it's
| boring.
|
| 2) we think we have to keep it around. No. Take a picture
| and write a few notes for your personal blog if you need
| to keep track. You don't need it in your room or house.
| gr8r wrote:
| If I cannot/need not re-read a book, I could get rid of
| it and have more space. Tho the gain feel very tiny
| compared to the rest of the hoarded stuff.
| throwaway598 wrote:
| Sell them 2nd hand. I mainly buy 2nd hand and sell 2nd
| hand.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| That has always been a pain point for me. I read a lot,
| so having physical copies can turn into a storage
| problem, especially since I keep a good backlog of books.
| I may not need a new book now, but I found one at the
| store that looks really good, so I buy it, place it on
| the shelf and it enters the queue. Although I did get
| myself used to using a kindle. Especially when I was in
| the Navy and needed enough to read for a 7 month
| deployment.
|
| My current strategy is this. If its a book I know that
| will have re-read value that I really enjoy. I get a
| physical copy (such as LOTR). If its an interesting book
| that I want to read, but I don't see it as having high
| re-read value, I buy it on my kindle. May not be logical,
| but its a system that works for me so far.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| The undeniable minus of a Kindle e-reader is: the
| illustrations suck. They're just too small. Half the time, my
| "library" has book covers that I can't even make out.
| WalterBright wrote:
| That's why a retina display ipad is now my preferred
| reader.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Yeah, I have a nice Galaxy tab for a mix of art and ebook
| reading.
|
| I slightly prefer physical books and still collect them,
| but a tablet lets carry dozens on the road
| randcraw wrote:
| Yeah, I've owned a e-paper Kindle for a decade but
| probably never finished reading a book on it. Instead I
| use a iPad 11 or mini, which are superior in every way
| (that I care about) except reading in sunshine. I love
| how lightweight the Kindle is, but not its small reading
| area or lack of color or weak illumination. Or its
| inability to serve any task other than reading ebooks.
| skydhash wrote:
| I use my iPad and my Kobo for digital reading. I have paper
| version of "important" books (stuff I'd like to read if I don't
| have power), but some are unwieldy (Algorithms by Cormen et
| Al).
|
| I prefer e-ink for reading, but it's too slow for my learning
| workflow. I highlight and mark interesting stuff, that I export
| later to condense and reflect upon. And that is cumbersome on
| an e-reader. There's also the matter of size. I generally like
| the PDF version of technical books as they're typeset well, but
| my e-reader is too small for them. So I use my iPad for those
| (Distraction is handled by the fact that I read those in short
| focused sessions).
|
| But for fiction books, the e-reader is perfect. I don't
| highlight text in those books, I just read. Any other operation
| is slow enough that I just can't fiddle with it. And it's
| perfect for long sessions of reading as it does not project
| light in my eyes. It's light, so I just bring it with me
| everywhere.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| I recommend the Fujitsu Quaderno. Great for marking up
| textbooks on A4 size pages, and _far_ lighter than a book
| itself.
| Koshkin wrote:
| An Apple-esque expensive stuff. (A pen sheath, $32.)
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Will you be able to read those textbooks and markups in 10
| or 20 years, if Fujitsu stops making Quadernos?
| duderific wrote:
| I have a slightly different problem. What I miss about the
| physical book is its context - that is to say, the cover art,
| its particular weight, the font face, how the chapter numbers
| are printed, etc., which give a book its certain "feel." With
| an e-book, you don't get any of that, so all books have a kind
| of sameness.
| hollandheese wrote:
| Well you can get the cover art, but yeah. I mean you can get
| the differing font faces and etc. if the publisher built that
| into the file, but most don't go to that amount of effort on
| their e-books.
| beautron wrote:
| I feel this strongly. Physical books make a deeper impression
| in my memory. There are all sorts of particularities of how
| the book was bound: it's size, it's smell, the texture of the
| paper, etc. It's like the book exists in its own unique space
| (vs all digital books existing in the single shared space of
| my computer/reader). I think a book's reading environment
| loses some richness when all these subtle little details are
| homogenized.
| m463 wrote:
| I found that I change the font size/lighting depending on time
| of day, which is harder to do with a paper book :)
| nate wrote:
| Same. I recently got one of these wirecutter book lights:
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/glocusent-reading...
| Does an amber color for bedtime reading, and now I' tearing
| through books again. It's so much easier to skim, skip, re-find
| something (yes, even without fancy search) and I just find
| myself reading faster with real books again. It's rekindled :)
| a love of books again I feel like I lost somehow only doing it
| on e-readers.
| endgame wrote:
| On top of all of that, nobody's going to revise the book out
| from under me while I'm reading it, or prevent me from loaning
| it to a friend, or even yanking it entirely from my device.
| Tor3 wrote:
| As far as I know (in the sense that I've never experienced
| anything like it in a decade of using a Kindle) that the
| book's getting revised from under me while I'm reading it.
| There's an occasional update for some books, but I have to
| actively choose to download the updated version, otherwise my
| original stays the same. I think I've only downloaded an
| updated version a single time.
| BoringTimesGang wrote:
| Reading ebooks doesn't mean submitting to Amazon's ecosystem.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Let me introduce you to two of my best friends: Airplane Mode
| and USB cable.
| hintymad wrote:
| Same here. I'm not sure if it's psychological. When reading my
| Kindle, I have to constantly fight my urge to do something
| else, maybe except for reading a page-turner novel.
| jprete wrote:
| That's exactly why I get paper books. An e-reader is too much
| like a smartphone and I start circling the UI looking for
| distractions.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| This was my opinion until I got the Kindle Scribe, turns out
| the Kindle was too damn small
| zem wrote:
| exact opposite for me - the more i got into ebooks, the harder
| i found it to handle the ergonomics of paper books, and today
| my reading is pretty much 100% on my phone or kindle.
| Tor3 wrote:
| I prefer to read paper books, but there are three reasons I
| generally don't. a) Font size is getting too small for me.
| Years ago I changed to large hardcover (sometimes large but
| softcover) versions instead of the smaller-sized books I used
| to buy, simply because the fonts are larger then. With the
| Kindle I can set the font size to what I want. b) Weight and
| size. I read on airplanes, in hotels etc. I read a lot and I
| read fast, so I bring more than one book (and even that is too
| big and heavy, see a). The Kindle is king here. c) Storage. I
| don't have enough room for more books at home. I've sadly had
| to dump lots and lots and lots of books, even though I like to
| read the same books again (and again). Tried to sort out those
| most unlikely to get re-read, but.. I can't even give them
| away. Used-book stores have more than they can handle.
|
| As to the Kindle - I've never felt any urge to tinker with
| anything, except when I'm forced to: I set the font size,
| that's one single operation, forget it (at least for that
| book). If I occasionally read at night I have to add some
| backlight. And that's about it. I just read.
|
| What I miss about paper books is the nice cover (color..), how
| easy it is to "see" the book (bookmarks, flip it open somewhere
| else and so on). In addition to actually reading it. But the
| Kindle is actually very nice to read (unlike phones, PC
| monitors, tablets, all of that. I can't ready more than a
| couple of paragraphs on LCD displays)
| maxerickson wrote:
| Paper is probably not the place you are going to be able to
| make your most significant marginal impact.
| wenc wrote:
| I read paper books because I can flip back and forth without
| friction, and I can underline and scribble.
|
| I don't know why eReader interfaces make these two functions --
| critical for deep reading -- so difficult.
|
| Kindle is optimized for linear reading only. So beach reading
| and long romances.
|
| But if you do the kind of reading that Mortimer Adler's "How to
| Read a Book" proposes (skimming, inspectional reading, writing
| notes), you pretty much can't with Kindles.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I truly don't mean to be pedantic, but there's a giant
| implicit "for me" in there. I do not want or need to scribble
| or write in my books for "deep reading". It's totally fine if
| you want to, but that's your preference and not a general
| requirement everyone has.
|
| I just finished "Moby Dick" on a Kobo. It's no "Ulysses",
| thank heavens, but I've never heard anyone describe it as a
| long romance or a beach read.
| wenc wrote:
| I think Moby Dick is a romance. I guess the term is
| confusing in English because people think "love story" but
| an older use of the word just means a novel with adventure,
| chivalric elements.
|
| There is also a giant implicit "for me" in your preference.
| It just happens that your preference happens to be one that
| is mainstream. A lot of types of reading are not linear ---
| for instance, if you have to read to write a book report,
| you have to go back, make notes, flip back and forth. A
| straight through reading will not produce a good book
| report.
|
| I read non-fiction and also great books (of the western
| canon) and in order to really read to understand, I need to
| flip back and forth and take notes and engage with the
| text. My reading instructor always tells me, "good reading
| is re-reading." Single pass reading works for entertainment
| reading, but not for deep reading. (By deep reading, I mean
| the kind of reading that is taught in Mortimer Adler's book
| referenced above)
|
| For deep reading you have to interact with the text, most
| commonly by debating with it in the margins. This is pretty
| standard for academic reading (say when taking a humanities
| or literature class). It's a pretty common use case that
| eReaders don't support.
| kstrauser wrote:
| All of that is perfectly fine, of course, so long as you
| recognize that it's not the correct or better way to
| study literature. It's the way you were taught and I'm
| guessing most of us have learned different methods for
| learning the canon.
|
| For example, I take notes in a separate book. The thing
| crucial to your preferred method is not at all needed for
| mine. In other words, most ereaders are not optimal for
| your process but just fine for most of us.
|
| And yes, even for classic great books and not just
| amusement. I suspect you'll find a higher than average
| portion of readers here are familiar with the books
| you're talking about. We're a reasonably erudite group.
| chrismcb wrote:
| While you can scribble, you can easily highlight and comment
| on books. Going back and forth is maybe slightly harder than
| a book, but it isn't "so difficult." I'm not saying reading
| on a Kindle is better than a paper book. But I didn't think
| it is as bad s you claim it is. I personally like it because
| I can read anywhere. I don't need to carry a large heavy book
| around.
| astura wrote:
| WTF is "deep reading?"
| WolfeReader wrote:
| This link will help you understand:
| https://lmddgtfy.net/?q=deep%20reading
|
| You can take a similar approach for other words and phrases
| you don't know, too!
| vunderba wrote:
| It's likely some arbitrary jargon that someone made up. I
| have my own method of reading, which since we're throwing
| out pretentious flowery prose, I'm going to call
| "predictive perusal".
|
| For each chapter or titled section, I read the first
| sentence or title and then mentally position myself as the
| writer of that section and attempt to predict the contents.
| For convergence I attempt to traverse further plies. For
| divergence, I attempt to figure out the root of the
| difference.
|
| _EDIT: For the record, I have never felt the need to
| scribble in the margins of a book. It 's far better to take
| notes on separate media to prevent "preloading" your
| existing thoughts at the time should you choose to re-read
| the book years later._
| steve1977 wrote:
| This is interesting, I'm pretty much the opposite. I only
| read paper books if there are no electronic versions
| available.
|
| Fiction I read on a Kindle.
|
| My deep reading all happens on a PC actually. Not even a
| tablet. I find it much easier to highlight and annotate
| reading material with mouse and keyboard and look up
| references with a proper multi-window screen.
|
| Also, while you certainly can underline and write notes on
| paper, this information then stays on paper and in this book.
| No way to index it easily, no way to cross-reference etc.
| nottorp wrote:
| Looks like you don't read books for entertainment?
|
| I believe the original article wasn't about technical/self
| improvement etc books.
| wenc wrote:
| I do read for entertainment, but I'm talking about reading
| to learn (very common use case) rather than reading
| fiction.
|
| I don't take notes when I'm reading fiction like "A Man
| Called Ove". But I do take notes and flip back and forth
| when I'm reading say Girard.
| jszymborski wrote:
| I've been buying used books from local booksellers and
| betterworldbooks.com when I can't find them locally.
|
| Seems like a fair compromise to me re: ecological impact.
| petre wrote:
| > Yes, it's not particularly ecological
|
| As if food packaging is particulary ecological, but we continue
| to order food, eat takeaway and processed food reliant on
| packaging.
|
| I also buy paper books. Cheap paperback ones.
|
| Books can easily be recycled as opposed to food packaging which
| mostly ends up in landfills or litters the environment.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Another nice benefit of paper is that the company that sold it
| can't just bust down your door, steal the book, drop off a few
| bucks, and then go back along their merry way. Amazon did
| exactly this with, amongst other books, 1984. Such a perfectly
| appropriate book.
| kstrauser wrote:
| None of my ebooks are infected with DRM. Lots of online
| stores will sell you ebooks without that nonsense.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| And if they won't, there are ways to pay for a copy (in
| whatever way most benefits the author), and then then get
| your DRM-free copy.
| fragmede wrote:
| You've got to wonder what the hapless Amazon employee asked
| to implement this felt, and how much leeway they had in which
| book for that to happen to first.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I expect it's all on George Orwell. Numbers sort before
| letters.
| lannisterstark wrote:
| I don't think they can do that with my calibre, and calibre-
| web collection lol.
| lithiumii wrote:
| But if you accidentally exposed your calibre-web online,
| they may be able to DMCA you?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| If someone a) finds my calibre-web installation on the
| public internet b) manages to crack my username and
| password to log in c) scan the contents d) notify the
| correct rights holders e) send a subpoena for pirating
| content
|
| ...they can get my money.
| lannisterstark wrote:
| Accidentally? My calibre-web is actually exposed online
| :P
|
| It doesn't list any books that I have publicly though.
| All you'll see is a login prompt. Books? what books? You
| can't DMCA me because I only have gutenberg collections
| in there ;)
| antod wrote:
| _> Yes, it 's not particularly ecological_
|
| If it makes you feel better, just think of your bookshelf as a
| carbon sequestration facility.
| zymhan wrote:
| Who cares about the ecological impact of buying a book?
|
| You have missed the forest for the trees.
| tombert wrote:
| I am kind of the opposite; I have found it much easier to read
| on Kindle simply because I can make the text as big as I want.
|
| In high school, I remembered that I really struggled to read
| The Once and Future King, and I never finished it. I eventually
| assumed I was too dumb to understand it, and that it's just not
| for me.
|
| Fast forward about 13 years, and I decide to give the book a
| try again, this time on the Kindle, and I surprisingly was able
| to get through it really quickly and didn't have any issues
| understanding it.
|
| I don't think that I've gotten appreciably smarter than I was
| in high school, and I realized that the only really different
| variable is the font size. As a teenager I was reading my dad's
| hand me down copy, which had tiny text on fairly small pages.
| With the Kindle I make the font gigantic. I have to turn the
| page more often, but that doesn't really bother me.
|
| Overwhelmingly I find it easier to read stuff if the text is
| really big; I am not sure why. My eyesight is fine, and I am
| not dyslexic (I was tested as a teenager), but tiny text is
| just really hard for me to read, while big text isn't.
| kaashif wrote:
| > I realized that the only really different variable is the
| font size.
|
| Didn't you say you're 13 years older than last time?
| tombert wrote:
| From a "ability to comprehend it" level, I don't think that
| that matters all that much. 16 year old me could read just
| fine.
| avar wrote:
| Yes, surely the only reason you'd dislike something at 14-18
| years old and like it at 27-31 is the font size.
|
| I take it your tastes have otherwise been immutable in that
| time period, and that you listen to the same music, follow
| the same fashion trends etc. as you did back then?
| tombert wrote:
| I didn't say that they were immutable, but from a
| _comprehension_ level I don't think that things have
| changed substantially. Is it really controversial that
| bigger fonts are easier for me to read?
|
| I thought I made that pretty clear, that it was that I was
| having trouble parsing and understanding the small text.
|
| ETA:
|
| Also, lol, my tastes in music really hasn't changed either.
| Looking at my YouTube music history, the last 40 songs I
| listened to were ones I listened to in high school. I also
| wear more or less the style clothes; I still have of the
| shirts I wore back then actually.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| > I am kind of the opposite; I have found it much easier to
| read on Kindle simply because I can make the text as big as I
| want.
|
| This and the fact that the kindle is _exactly_ where I left
| it, no need for physical bookmarks.
| tiptup300 wrote:
| Note that only having a certain chunk of text on the screen
| at one time may be a variable as well as the age/life-place
| difference as others have so politely hinted at.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I haven't had much trouble focusing on reading on computers, my
| only expectation is for the device to be touch screen and a
| pressure sensitive pen. The touch screen makes moving through
| pages trivial (for casual reading on say, my kindle, I have the
| habit of laying back and just tapping with my nose to flip
| pages lol) and the pen makes it trivial to mark up more serious
| reading material. With paper books I tend to not be near them
| right when I need them, and tend to be too wary of just marking
| them up. With digital stuff, and all the syncing we have
| between devices these days, I pretty much always have multiple
| devices at hand where the material is accessible.
|
| I do still prefer physical books for things like art, I find it
| easier to study it and understand how it's put together that
| way (maybe because a physical copy forces me to look at the
| piece as a whole, rather than getting distracted by and
| overfocusing on minute details that turn out to not matter
| until I grasp the whole structure). However, even there, once I
| do understand how to look at the art, I can go with the digital
| version just fine.
| datascienced wrote:
| Yes plus the emotion of sitting on a couch with a paper book
| vs. a device is very different. The feeling of flicking pages
| is better than the UI of book readers or smart phones.
| bhhaskin wrote:
| Honestly it is likely more ecological than ebooks after you
| factor in everything. Think about how many e-readers are
| sitting in the bottom of a landfill somewhere. Screens,
| batteries, plastic shells. The energy to not only power the
| device but all of the infrastructure for transmitting and
| storing the book.
| 127 wrote:
| Paper is a carbon sink. As long as you don't burn them, the
| carbon will stay in the book.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I'm the opposite. I stopped reading books because I was
| accumulating too many and it was difficult to find the ones I
| like without paying full price for new copies (which I'd
| eventually just discard). Also I find them cumbersome. Now I
| have a Kobo I read _a lot_. I can read on my side in bed. It 's
| great.
|
| However, paper is still the best format by far for text books
| and references. I can't stand having to use a screen for that.
| If I'm using a reference sheet I always print it out.
| hoseja wrote:
| What goes on in your head that you even consider the
| "ecologicity" of a book. It has no impact. Nada. Zilch. Zero.
| Stop feeling guilty about meaningless things.
| mrweasel wrote:
| It's also more ... social perhaps. I'm reading a book that an
| uncle bought, but never really got around to reading. I would
| have never picked up that book myself, but he brought it over
| an I stuck it in the bookshelf.
|
| Similarly my dad has a bunch of books I bought years ago. It's
| not books that I'd want to re-read, but interesting enough.
| With ebooks that just not possible, unless you do some
| cumbersome DRM removal.
|
| There's a lot of good things about ebooks, but the usability
| just isn't there yet. It is a nice alternative for long out of
| print books though.
|
| I'd buy and read move, I think, if more stuff was translated to
| Danish, but most of the books you can get in Danish easily is
| repetitive crime novels. It's all variations of someone got
| brutally murdered and now some alcoholic Scandinavia cop / ex-
| cop with a broken love life has to solve the case for some
| reason.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| Last Saturday I went to the bookstore, bought a paperback
| novel, and then went home and started reading it right away. It
| felt great and it reminded me of doing this in the past as I
| used to do this a lot in the past, but for some reason I had
| stopped.
|
| I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts now, and that
| really cuts into my book reading. But nothing beats sitting
| down in the sun and reading a good paperback.
| jxramos wrote:
| Yes, there's a strange habit with things we can twiddle and the
| surface area for twiddling physical books is much more limited
| and less engaging than with electronic devices.
|
| There's something to dedicated physical entities being single
| purpose and dead end that allows them to serve you in a very
| focused manner. Things with more bells and whistles, knobs and
| pulls will simply draw you into their twiddling even when it
| serves no purpose. It's like working with these things creates
| an itch that we need to scratch and it is distracting even if
| the recovery for focus for those things is minimal, it all adds
| up and gets you out of the focus state.
| grecy wrote:
| I've published a few self-published books on Amazon about my
| global adventures. While sales are not making me rich, they
| certainly do sell month after month.
| bombcar wrote:
| Self-publishing avoids the biggest single cost, the advance!
|
| It can actually be moderately successful for the right type of
| author.
|
| I've always thought the "book collection of webcomics/blogs"
| has to be moderately predictable as to sales.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Anecdotally I'm buying and reading more books now than at any
| other point in my life.
|
| Reading gets me away from a computer screen, which I would
| otherwise stare at from sunrise to sundown.
|
| I tend to be a late adopter. Once things are close to obsolete I
| usually get involved!
|
| Although books have the disadvantage of being a similar focal
| distance as a screen and for this reason is still bad for my
| eyesight!
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| I buy paper books with cash to prevent tracking of my reading
| habits.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Calvin and Hobbes, 1993 -
| https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/12/07
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I've asked a number of agents online for two numbers:
|
| 1) How many unsolicited queries have you received, in whatever
| time period you like: month, quarter, year, forever?
|
| 2) How many turned into published books?
|
| None will provide that data, but I strongly suspect that the
| answer to #2 is "zero."
|
| They'll happily quote you BS quantities, like "a bunch" or "a
| handful."
|
| So as this article says, they spend their time chasing
| celebrities, online influencers, and friends of friends. And not
| making a whole lot of money anyway.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| You used to pitch your book to publishers. Now you pitch your
| audience.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I think that's true, actually.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| this is true for non-fiction for sure
| x0x0 wrote:
| That's always been the case; it's merely a proxy for likely
| sales. It used to be that audience was demonstrated by
| previous sales; now it can be proved by being a celebrity,
| twitch/twitter/instagram/whatever followers, etc.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't think this is what the article says at all. It says
| that publishers make all their money celebrities and the
| backlist, and that those titles pay for all the midlist titles,
| most of which don't recoup their advances.
|
| It's not like publishers can simply decide to focus on new and
| midlist authors. The books that sell, sell. The top line of
| this article is well described by its title.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| No, you're quite mistaken. The agents try to divine what the
| publishers want, which is, as you said, "celebrities [and the
| backlist], and that those titles pay for all the midlist
| titles, most of which don't recoup their advances."
|
| > It's not like publishers can simply decide to focus on new
| and midlist authors
|
| who said anything about what they should or shouldn't do?
|
| But since you brought it up: the same applies to the music
| business, as Ted Gioia (my original source). At one time in
| history, everyone in the music business was focused on
| selling more music, so nurturing and promoting new artists
| was good business. They didn't simply look at "what are
| people buying now?"
| tptacek wrote:
| I have what the article says to go on, and the article
| contradicts you. But I know a bit more about the music
| industry, and it is absolutely the case that midlist music
| acts don't --- and never did --- generate enough record
| sales to cover their nut. There's a famous Steve Albini
| zine article that indicts the recording industry for never
| recouping an advance, and a less famous David Lowery
| article that explains why nobody could reasonably expect
| any of these titles to recoup.
|
| It may be that we don't disagree at all, and are just
| talking past each other? At any rate: my only point here
| is, like startup investing and the music industry, we're
| talking about a hits business. And they aren't hits
| businesses because a cabal of cigar-chomping executives
| wants them to be that; they're that way because the median
| investment never recoups, and so the winners have to pay
| for the losers.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| We're done here. Trolls get one answer, and you've had
| yours.
| tptacek wrote:
| Just in case it's helpful: I think you're going to find
| this approach to dealing with disagreements on HN isn't
| going to work out to your benefit, or to the benefit of
| whatever point you're trying to make.
|
| _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead
| of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3"
| can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| bluedays wrote:
| Just going to drop this here:
| https://countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-books-dont-sell-...
|
| This comes up constantly and it's just wrong.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The 50% being under 12 copies is too implausibly low to
| believe. Wouldn't your friends and family alone exceed that?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| On the flipside, it's nice that there's a thriving small and fine
| press community out there with lots of news press' appearing over
| the last few years and some really beautiful books being
| published.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| >> Obviously, given the number of people searching on Amazon for
| products, that gives them a huge advantage because when people go
| onto Amazon, they--if the book isn't there for what they are
| searching for, they could create that book.
|
| This is a really weird thing to say. It seems to assume that
| people are indifferent to the quality of the writing in the books
| they read.
| eszed wrote:
| Looking at the best-selling Amazon-published titles leaves the
| impression that this is the case.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| The observation in the essay that "the romance category has
| already gone independent" also leaves that impression - for
| the romance category.
|
| But the fact that one of two profitable genres is "franchise
| authors" suggests the opposite. Franchise authors become
| franchise authors by producing high-quality writing.
| eszed wrote:
| What does "franchise author" mean? I'm not familiar with
| the term.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It means an author whose books do well. Examples given in
| the essay include Tom Clancy and Stephen King.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Yeah. I'm a member of the Furry Writer's Guild and in a few
| anthologies. This is a discussion that comes up occasionally. The
| sad fact is a lot of people don't read and furry fandom is pretty
| niche market to start with. Art and music are a lot easier to
| consume.
|
| It's really easy to get disillusioned and give up.
| lrvick wrote:
| Most books today are sold with DRM and when the DRM servers are
| deactivated the books stop working.
|
| This happened with the Microsoft ebooks store and has happened
| with countless other DRM media.
|
| Sometimes books are automatically revised, or censored. Sometimes
| accounts holding DRM licenses are deleted or deactivated by
| mistake.
|
| The only way to actually own a book these days is to buy it on
| paper, or from one of the rare few publishers that do not use
| DRM.
|
| If you want a DRM free e-book collection you will need a book
| scanner or send it to a scanning service.
| doug_durham wrote:
| The books sold through Apple Books are all sold without DRM.
| That's pretty standard now.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| That's not at all standard.
|
| Most books Apple sells come with DRM.
|
| This section of the Apple documentation explains how a
| publisher can control whether DRM is used for their book:
|
| https://itunespartner.apple.com/books/support/30-manage-
| book...
|
| All of the major eBook stores sell books with and without DRM
| (including Amazon Kindle, Rakuten Kobo, Apple Books, Google
| Play Books).
|
| Whether an individual book includes DRM on all of these
| stores is down to the publisher, and you won't typically see
| books from the major publishers offered without DRM.
| II2II wrote:
| I am fairly certain that most, if not all, mass market ebooks
| use DRM tied to the software. If the servers go, the books will
| be fine for as long as the software continues to work.
|
| There are also authors and publishers who offer books without
| DRM.
|
| Please note: I do not like DRM. I simply view disinformation as
| a good way to loose good will from those who would otherwise
| support a cause.
| lrvick wrote:
| There exist select few major publishers that sell without
| DRM, particularly when looking at fiction.
|
| Microsoft is a noteworthy example of a major ebook seller
| shutting down ebook accs:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/3k3wkk/microsoft-ebooks-
| will...
|
| DRM being tied to the software is effectively still the same
| end result. Software maker for any number of reasons stops
| publishing new versions of the app and they become unlisted
| from appstores eventually for failing to use recent SDKs or
| patching security flaws and users still cannot read their
| books.
|
| So you depend on a company paying someone to run a DRM server
| or you depend on them paying someone to maintain an app and a
| CI/CD system. Sooner or later when the DRM content supplier
| stops paying for the infrastructure, your book stops working
| one way or the other.
| npilk wrote:
| > If you want a DRM free e-book collection you will need a book
| scanner or send it to a scanning service.
|
| Well, technically there's a third option...
| tmtvl wrote:
| Yeah, but if I _could_ write my own, I wouldn't be in the
| market to buy one, right?
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| I think the post is talking about sailing the high seas...
| WolfeReader wrote:
| I don't think breaking DRM is inherently the same thing
| as piracy.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Fourth option, then.
| WolfeReader wrote:
| Kobo and Google Play both tell you up-front if a book has DRM
| or not. And very often - not "rare"-ly as you claim - buying
| directly from the publisher results in a DRM-free ebook.
| stubish wrote:
| Most Kindle books are _not_ sold with DRM, for many years now.
| I don 't know about other platforms. Readers yelled at
| publishers until they stopped enabling it, and turned out it
| didn't make enough difference to keep annoying their core
| customer base.
| lrvick wrote:
| Never seen a "download DRM-free ePub" option for any Amazon
| book url but if they have that, the Internet seems to not
| know about it on a cursory search.
|
| If you mean it downloads the book exclusively to the Kindle
| app in a proprietary format only that app can read, then it
| is just a different form of DRM a user has to hack around.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| >> _Q. And Penguin Random House pays Amazon to improve its search
| results?_
|
| >> _A. There is something that is available to our publishers,
| it's called Amazon Marketing Services, AMS, and all publishers
| can spend money and give it to Amazon to have hopefully better
| search results._
|
| >> _-- Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House_
|
| Wait, "hopefully better"?
|
| What the hell is Amazon selling, magic publishing advertising
| snake oil?
|
| If I'm paying for placement, I'd expect something more than hope.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| It's a protection racket.
|
| Here's how it works: The big companies that pay for AMS get
| listed ahead of companies that don't in the search results.
| Since they _all_ pay, it means that the top results are
| basically ranked the same as if none of them paid. But if you
| _don 't_ pay, your books will appear in the "organic" results -
| after all the marketed ones - essentially destroying any chance
| of being seen.
|
| This way Amazon can claim that their search results are fair
| and algorithmic, protecting them from accusations of
| monopolistic practices. AMS is a simple paid marketing service,
| not at all like a tax or protection money, right?
|
| But what's really happening is companies are paying just to
| make sure they're included somewhere in the top results rather
| than the organic ones, which no one bothers to look at.
|
| They do the same for their App Store search on Fire TVs. No rev
| share? Good luck finding that app - even if you search for it
| by name.
|
| So "hopefully better" is all the publishers are paying for.
| paxys wrote:
| Can't help but feel for the publishing industry considering how
| shafted they got by tech.
|
| You distribute books all over the country? Amazon can do it
| better and cheaper.
|
| You print books? Well we have e-books now.
|
| You have a massive back catalog? Google just scanned all of it.
|
| You do marketing? Authors now have their own followings on social
| media and can reach them directly.
|
| You give cash advances? Fans on Kickstarter give 10x more.
|
| What's sad though is that publishers have historically had one
| power that would have been unassailable - editorial judgement.
| They could have sustained their brands on quality. Imagine a
| world where you wanted something good to read, and among all the
| garbage out there saw a title and went "this one is by Simon &
| Schuster, it _has_ to be good ". Instead they went all in on pulp
| bestsellers and celebrity memoirs at the expense of actual good
| authors, and here we are.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Can't help but feel for the publishing industry considering
| how shafted they got by tech.
|
| Publishers have been shafting authors for centuries. I'll shed
| no tears on their behalf.
| Spivak wrote:
| Prior to the digital age where it's possible for the author
| to self-publish the publisher was handling 99% of the actual
| business of selling books and giving authors 15%.
|
| So while I think it's been hard to make a living as an author
| I don't think it's necessarily the publisher's fault. Better
| to be the one's selling shovels than the ones mining for
| gold.
| thfuran wrote:
| >the publisher was handling 99% of the actual business of
| selling books
|
| It seems to me that you're rather underestimating the
| importance of having something to put in the book.
| vidarh wrote:
| Having written two novels, I will tell you it's far less
| work for a lot of writers to write the thing than getting
| decent sales. It varies - some do slave over their
| manuscripts for years, while others churn them out in a
| week, but selling books is _hard work_.
| mcphage wrote:
| > You distribute books all over the country? Amazon can do it
| better and cheaper.
|
| That just makes it Easter for publishers. The major problem
| with Amazon is monopsony, not easier distribution.
|
| > You print books? Well we have e-books now.
|
| Which have to be purchased ultimately from the publishers, so
| again, they're still there making money, they just don't need
| to bother printing books anymore. You'll note they're not any
| cheaper.
|
| > You do marketing? Authors now have their own followings on
| social media and can reach them directly.
|
| I think this is confusing cause and effect. Authors turned to
| social media because publishers weren't doing a great job
| marketing, not because it makes publishers unnecessary.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| IMO there are still quality publishers, but they are small and
| tend to focus on specific topics. Two that I'm aware of,
| although I'm sure there are more out there:
|
| - https://lostartpress.com
|
| - https://tinhouse.com
| vram22 wrote:
| Another one is Other India Press.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_India_Press
|
| https://www.otherindiabookstore.com/about
|
| I got to know about them through coming across the book
| Tending the Earth, by Winin Pereira.
|
| https://www.banyantreebookstore.com/product-page/tending-
| the...
|
| I have some background in organic gardening, and think it is
| a very good book.
|
| It is about more than just organic gardening, though.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I would add Stripe Press to this list.
|
| https://press.stripe.com/
| tazu wrote:
| https://www.foliosociety.com/ is one of my favorites, the
| books are works of art.
| Anon4Now wrote:
| Businesses that remain stagnant don't get shafted so much as
| outmaneuvered. Instead of investing and pivoting, they cling to
| the old business model. Short term, their decisions make
| financial sense, but long term, it's a death sentence.
|
| Meanwhile, Amazon is looked at as the behemoth in the industry,
| yet it probably isn't thought of as an online book store /
| publisher by most people. I think of so many things before I
| get to, "Oh yeah, they also sell books."
|
| The one piece of information that I wish the article had
| mentioned is the age demographics of avid book readers. My gut
| tells me the market has dropped significantly in the last ~25
| years, but I'd like to see the data.
| bigthymer wrote:
| The best survey data I've found for this information is
| linked here [1]. It breaks data down by age range for those
| who read at least one book in the prior year. It defines avid
| readers as having read 50 books/year but doesn't do an age
| breakdown for this subset.
|
| 1 - National Endowment for the Arts - "U.S. Patterns of Arts
| Participation: A Full Report from the 2017 Survey of Public
| Participation in the Arts" - <https://www.arts.gov/sites/defa
| ult/files/US_Patterns_of_Arts...>, page 44
| treflop wrote:
| I don't think a company that publishes books is going to be
| able to pivot to building an online book selling platform
| that easily. They just don't have anyone with the knowledge
| nor the capital to hire the people who then know who else to
| hire.
|
| Just like I don't see someone working in construction picking
| up programming or some software engineer picking up
| construction. It happens, but generally both are just not
| built the same.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >They just don't have anyone with the knowledge nor the
| capital to hire the people who then know who else to hire.
| Doesn't seem to be true. They pay celebrities (for their
| boring bs books that no one read) enough to build a dozen
| online platforms
| mike_hearn wrote:
| Well, Amazon started out with almost no capital, so
| apparently they could have built an online book platform
| pretty easily. And the capital requirements of selling
| books online only fell over time as the tech got more
| widespread.
|
| Businesses like that are everywhere, but the root cause is
| always the same: they're run by people who do not like or
| have any interest in technology. And they hire people just
| like themselves.
| youngtaff wrote:
| In the early days Amazon relied on huge amounts of trade
| credit from the publishers / distributors
|
| Seem to remember that if the publishers hadn't been lax
| about Amazon's delinquent debt the publishers could have
| forced Amazon into bankruptcy
|
| (Worked for a major US technical / educational publishing
| house in the late 90s / early 00s)
| huijzer wrote:
| > The one piece of information that I wish the article had
| mentioned is the age demographics of avid book readers. My
| gut tells me the market has dropped significantly in the last
| ~25 years, but I'd like to see the data.
|
| I read a lot of non-fiction books and don't think much has
| changed over time. For non-fiction you always had groups of
| people, typically academics and successful business people
| and politicians, who read tons and tons of books. Winston
| Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower, for example, both read many
| books when they were young in around 1900 to 1930. How many
| people who worked in factories at the time would have read
| books? Not many I think. Today it's more or less the same.
| You have a few people like David Senra or Stephen Kotkin, who
| read 100-200 books per year, and you have the average person
| who reads maybe one. Just like book sales, it's a power law.
| leoedin wrote:
| I suspect I'd read a lot more non-fiction books if I
| couldn't access the short form equivalent on my phone
| readily. But instead I read articles shared on HN or
| Reddit, with a sprinkling of non fiction books mixed in.
| Compared to my dad, who devoured non fiction books in the
| 80s and 90s, my lifetime spend is going to be far lower.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of non-fiction books--especially in the business
| realm--have always been a long-form (or short-form)
| article padded out to book length for publishing
| economics reasons. And, if you look at the programming
| realm specifically, a lot of reference books are
| essentially available online.
| vram22 wrote:
| I saw the second part of your comment coming, while reading the
| first part - in my mind's eye :)
|
| Uncanny valley, or maybe I just read the signals and
| interpreted them right.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| When you say "publishing industry" you're really saying "paper
| book industry", right ?
|
| Nothing stops a publisher from being an ebook publisher, and
| that's a tried and true successful model adopted all around the
| world.
|
| You'd have made the same argument for vinyl record publishers
| saying they're cornered into a niche, but no, as you point put
| artists will still want editorial power and support, so digital
| music is thrieving.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| > Nothing stops a publisher from being an ebook publisher
|
| Except that the biggest platform for ebooks (by a big
| stretch, they own ~70% of the market) is a company that you
| have a direct adversarial relationship with in most other
| parts of your business.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Business is business. If a publisher is refraining from
| going into ebooks altogether because of Amazon, when they
| get the option to direct sell and also access the other
| ebook platforms as well, I feel they're not long for this
| world either way.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Im not suggesting they are refraining from going into
| ebooks due to Amazon I'm suggesting it's not a tried and
| true business model the world over.
|
| It's mostly not a going business model outside of the
| profits Amazon brings in from it.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It's difficult to prove a negative. Ebooks are a growing
| market in the US, the EU and SEA (though TBH I have no
| idea about China amd India) It's been more than a decade
| that it's mainstream and takes about 10~20% of book sales
| depending on the country.
|
| Amwzon's profits are still split with the publishers and
| publishers have their own venues + competitors (in
| particular outside of the US) so I'm not sure why
| Amazon's presence is a blow against the industry as a
| whole.
|
| What more would be needed to see it as a validated
| business area?
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Ebook sales have trended down in the US since 2013[0].
| They got a pandemic bump in 2020 which didn't put them
| over the peak years in 2013/14 and like many things had a
| correction downwards afterwards[1].
|
| Amazon maintains 70% of the US ebook marketplace and
| keeps a much bigger portion of the money from books
| published through their publishing arm than they do book
| published through the traditional publishers. They also
| have less high standards for publishing. This makes it
| harder to find traditional published books on the biggest
| platform for selling them.
|
| [0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/426799/e-book-
| unit-sales...
|
| [1]https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/us-ebooks-
| sales-dec...
| tallanvor wrote:
| The adversarial relationship was basically the publishers'
| choice.
|
| Remember that Amazon was willing to basically treat eBooks
| like normal books - negotiate the price they pay with the
| publishers and then sell the books at whatever price they
| want. The publishers are the ones who forced the agency
| model where retailers are forced to sell at a set price.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| That's one way to describe it. The other way is to say
| Amazon used their outsized power in the book world,
| including disallowing pre sales and delaying shipments of
| regular books, to demand a price from the publishers.
|
| It took a bunch of public pressure to change that
| arrangement.
|
| I think you can easily say the publishers have bad ebook
| pricing strategy but Amazon certainly wasn't using normal
| market practices for setting prices.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/13/amazon-
| hachett...
| joe5150 wrote:
| I can't think of any publishers that are also in the business
| of printing and distribution. Those are entirely separate
| industries. There is almost no way for publishers to lose money
| because of tech that makes it cheaper and easier than ever to
| get books to consumers while retaining unprecedented control
| over pricing (fixed, never discounted or remaindered), resale
| (prohibited), and lending (also prohibited). Publishers sell
| eBooks for the same price as print books but pay almost nothing
| to produce them. That's a big bump in profits.
|
| I don't see how any publisher is losing money on their back
| catalog due to scanning by Google, either. Google doesn't sell
| or even offer access to the full text of most books they scan,
| certainly not any that are under copyright and still being sold
| by publishers. Out of print books are by definition not earning
| money for publishers, so it wouldn't make any difference there.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| If you think that publishers spend almost nothing on
| producing ebooks, then you clearly understand nothing about
| the publishing industry.
| joe5150 wrote:
| Notwithstanding what I understand about the publishing
| industry, I'm talking about the marginal cost of
| distributing a .mobi or whatever versus manufacturing a
| printed book, not the entire cost of publishing an eBook.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| That's only a dollar or two of difference per unit in
| costs to the publisher. The majority of their costs are
| exactly the same for ebooks and printed books.
| joe5150 wrote:
| Sure, I never said they weren't.
| kaedroho wrote:
| > I can't think of any publishers that are also in the
| business of printing and distribution
|
| You're right that publishers don't handle printing, but they
| do need to handle distribution. Amazon won't help if you want
| to get books on shelves of retailers, and printers don't
| distribute. Smaller publishers will usually use the
| distribution network of a larger publisher. For example,
| HarperCollins and PRH both handle distribution in the UK for
| themselves and others.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Copyright law is ridiculous and abusive (thank you supreme
| court).
|
| There is some role for domain knowledge, curation, and editing,
| but the article shows that's not what they make bucjs on:
| celebrity drivel, bibles, sat prep, and the copyright monopoly.
|
| It's just a cartel, just like the music labels are.
| tryptophan wrote:
| Man can we just kill these industries?
|
| Copyright law is so annoying and its supposed to promote
| quality...which we get none of. Free youtube tutorials are
| the best learning resource these days.
|
| The GDP hit would be insignificant too, like <.1%.
| avar wrote:
| Are you under the impression that those YouTube tutorials
| aren't copyrighted?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Aren't print books still the vast majority of sales?
| paxys wrote:
| Ebooks are touching or have crossed 50% of sales in certain
| combinations of markets and genres. Overall they make up
| 30-50% of all book sales. So no, print books aren't still the
| vast majority.
| nottorp wrote:
| I remember reading on Charles Stross' blog that the
| paperback is kind of dead in the US. At least for his
| niche. I think his last book only went out in hard cover.
| nottorp wrote:
| > I think his last book only went out in hard cover.
|
| And ebook instead of paperback, of course.
| kaedroho wrote:
| Also worth mentioning that there are some genres that will
| never make sense as ebooks.
|
| When was the last time someone bought you an ebook as a
| gift? This is is the main market for cookbooks, for
| example.
| huytersd wrote:
| There are very few people go this is by Simon and Schuster etc.
| Most Americans don't read and the ones that do read a bunch of
| junk.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > Most Americans
|
| I would suggest an edit: Most humans
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Well, animals, plants, LLMs and the rest of known matter of
| the Universe also aren't very picky readers.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| > You print books? Well we have e-books now.
|
| It's often the same publishers publishing the e-books. They did
| successfully make that transition.
|
| > Instead they went all in on pulp bestsellers and celebrity
| memoirs at the expense of actual good authors
|
| If they're best sellers, as you note, that was clearly a good
| choice. They were selling what people actually wanted.
| fragmede wrote:
| Are they? Mark Dawson was caught buying 400 copies of his own
| book in 2020, but he's not the first or last author to have
| done that.
| paxys wrote:
| Yes people are buying John Grisham and JK Rowling and the
| latest celebrity memoir, but eventually (1) interest will run
| out and people will want the next new thing and (2) these big
| brands will realize that they don't need the publishers to
| market for them (and this is already happening, as the
| article says). What then?
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Regardless of them struggling in the future, publishing
| books that sell is clearly superior to publishing one's
| that don't.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't think it would have been possible for publishers to
| deal with the absolutely massive amount of books they'd have to
| vet to do what you're saying.
|
| That works if the absolute number of books written is very
| small, so everyone interested in books pulls from that pool.
|
| The publishers could try to find a bunch of good books and get
| absolutely nothing.
| yunohn wrote:
| Curation is a multi-stage filtering pipeline. Such brands do
| not look at a firehose of content - they rely on existing
| networks and markers of quality before even considering
| content.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| > Imagine a world where you wanted something good to read, and
| among all the garbage out there saw a title and went "this one
| is by Simon & Schuster, it has to be good".
|
| this still exists, but the presses are harder to find and
| mostly independent. FSG books are always good.
|
| also, books these indie presses are always good: - tyrant (rip)
| - graywolf - new directions - NYRB
|
| and some more, but idk your taste so not gonna recommend them.
| devjab wrote:
| I can. Book publishers are terrible and they always have been.
| At least that is the case here in Denmark.
|
| They game our library system, so that books they know won't
| sell well but will be lent a lot at the libraries, like a lot
| of children books are priced ridiculously. These books are
| never actually put in stores, because why bother? But our
| libraries, have, to buy them and then pay fees to the
| publishing houses based on the individual book prices. I guess
| part of the blame goes to our politicians though.
|
| The worst part is how they pay artists. Authors are paid poorly
| as touched upon in this article. But illustrators are paid
| criminally low rates. A children book with 50 pages of
| breathtaking art can earn you as little as $500 for months for
| work. Publishers pay your royalties by the size of your printed
| name on the front of the book. If your name isn't there you get
| 0 royalties. If your name is smaller than the other names you
| get significantly less royalties. If your name is smaller, and,
| italic, you get almost no royalties and so on.
|
| In general the model has never really worked for anyone except
| a few authors. There are the famous ones who sell a lot of
| books and then there are the ones who write a billion
| children's books who actually don't get the majority of their
| money from publishers but from the government compensation
| programs. But for the most part publishers have always run a
| business model akin to music streaming services where only a
| handful of Danish authors can actually make a living just by
| selling books. Mean while our publishing houses have been able
| to employ thousands and keep investors happy.
|
| What a lot of artists and authors have done instead is to form
| smaller independent publishers. Which means you get 0
| advertising and 0 product placement and so on, but ironically
| often will make you far more money than using the big
| publishers. These smaller indie publishers, and other creative
| ways of publishing like the article mentions, aren't doing
| poorly. The big publishers are suffering. Thanks to the digital
| age. But I won't miss them when they are gone.
| yunohn wrote:
| > I guess part of the blame goes to our politicians though.
|
| There is no universe in which public funds are leeched
| without political complicity and corruption. Most likely the
| publishers benefitted are either related to or provided
| kickbacks to the influential parties.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Sorry, is publishing a book which gets a lot of readers
| through the public libraries now "leeching" and
| "corruption"?
| serial_dev wrote:
| What a strawman!
|
| Depending on how they got the deal with the library, and
| how much they get compensated for that, yes it is.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| What do you mean "the deal with the library"? What deal
| are you referring to? Libraries does not make individual
| deals with publishers or authors. They buy the books at
| market price and pay authors some additional royalties
| determined by objective criteria according to an
| agreement with the organization for authors and
| illustrators. It is all public information.
|
| If you want to make an accusation of corruption you need
| to be more specific.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| > books they know won't sell well but will be lent a lot at
| the libraries
|
| This sounds weird. Wouldn't the books which are lent more
| also sell more? Childrens books are a big market for book
| stores and of course they want to sell the most popular
| books. Are you referring to some particular book which cannot
| be purchased?
|
| Also libriaries does not _have_ to buy any book.
| devjab wrote:
| It may sound weird, but there is not a link between lending
| from libraries and book sales. Some children's books sell
| well, but if you go to the sections of them in book stores
| you'll rarely find more than a handful of Danish authors
| represented. The ones which the bookstores know will sell
| well.
|
| Our Libraries have to make all Danish published material
| available. Some of this is indeed not bought, but because
| children's books are often on the high end of popularity at
| libraries they generally by every children's book which
| gets published buy one of our major publishers. Also,
| publishers often lobby the municipality politicians who set
| the overall guidelines for their local libraries to make
| sure their books are represented.
| brabel wrote:
| So, can I publish a book in Denmark, say it costs 1,000
| dollars, and your libraries will be forced to buy it just
| because they have to make "all Danish published material
| available."?? There must be some sort of guidelines
| (though seeing how Swedish law works I wouldn't be
| surprised you guys just "trust" people to price things
| correctly).
| bazoom42 wrote:
| All publishers are required to supply one copy of any
| published book to the royal library (for free).
|
| Individual libraries are not required to buy any
| particular book. They have a fixed budget for buying
| material and will decid based on quality and expected
| demand.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, can you provide some examples of these
| books which are artificially expensive, popular in
| libraries, but not for sale commercially?
|
| > Also, publishers often lobby the municipality
| politicians who set the overall guidelines for their
| local libraries to make sure their books are represented.
|
| Politicians are supposed to set the overall guidelines
| but not to decide what individial books libraries
| purchase. Do you have examples where politicians pressure
| or force libraries to buy specific books?
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| Are you referring to
| https://www.retsinformation.dk/eli/lta/2004/1439 ?
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > Publishers pay your royalties by the size of your printed
| name on the front of the book. If your name isn't there you
| get 0 royalties. If your name is smaller than the other names
| you get significantly less royalties. If your name is
| smaller, and, italic, you get almost no royalties and so on.
|
| Who makes decisions for font cover design? Are they in a
| position to help out their friends with larger typefaces?
|
| > They game our library system, so that books they know won't
| sell well but will be lent a lot at the libraries, like a lot
| of children books are priced ridiculously. These books are
| never actually put in stores, because why bother? But our
| libraries, have, to buy them and then pay fees to the
| publishing houses based on the individual book prices.
|
| This is also true of academic presses. Their market are
| university research libraries who will pay $400 for a two-
| volume tome on the spread of printing presses in the New
| World colonies.
| elorant wrote:
| Penguin is that publisher for me. Pretty much everything I've
| read from them is rock solid.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| > there saw a title and went "this one is by Simon & Schuster,
| it has to be good"
|
| Meet Fitzcarraldo, the publisher house with four Nobels so far:
| https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/10/four-nobels-an...
| cafard wrote:
| That strikes me as cheating a bit, counting translations.
| Still, good for Fitzcarraldo.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Rather than feeling for the publishing industry, you should ask
| yourself what has gone wrong with the web as a medium for self-
| publishing.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| Sorry, but no.
|
| Authors have been complaining about publishers for ever.
| Publishers treated authors like crap when they controlled the
| market. No sympathy for them at all.
|
| If they had any integrity they'd move to be the Spotify of
| books and serve their customers better. Instead (as the article
| says) they're spending their efforts trying to bail the sinking
| boat and resist any such move.
|
| The world will be a better place without them.
| vidarh wrote:
| > You print books? Well we have e-books now.
|
| The vast majority of sales is still paper books.
|
| > You do marketing? Authors now have their own followings on
| social media and can reach them directly.
|
| Some do. Most don't. Especially new authors. Publishers are
| playing a risky game of trying to figure out the tradeoff of
| how much to invest in developing an authors brand in the hope
| that future books will cost less to sell. Too much, and you
| have a cashflow problem today. Too little, and lose out on
| future returns.
|
| > You give cash advances? Fans on Kickstarter give 10x more.
|
| Most authors have no fans yet, and most never will - most
| authors write only a few books in their lifetime.
|
| From what I see, most authors (myself included) would rather
| not deal with most of what publishers do. If anything, most
| authors would prefer it if publishers did more of the sales
| effort, but it's not economically viable in most cases.
| munificent wrote:
| _> The vast majority of sales is still paper books._
|
| Do you have numbers for this? I wouldn't be entirely
| surprised if paper book _revenue_ dwarfed ebook sales, but
| given that the latter has no marginal cost, I expect that
| _profit_ from ebooks is still a very large slice of the pie.
|
| Anecdotally, with my two self-published books, ebook and PDFs
| make up a pretty large slice of the pie even though my books
| are known for prioritizing the print experience (careful
| layout, lots of illustrations, etc.).
|
| _> Some do. Most don 't. Especially new authors. Publishers
| are playing a risky game of trying to figure out the tradeoff
| of how much to invest in developing an authors brand in the
| hope that future books will cost less to sell._
|
| A new author with no established celebrity or audience is
| basically dead in the water. There was a world where a new
| author could:
|
| 1. Write a book that was good on its own merits.
|
| 2. Convince an agent to represent them based on that book's
| merits.
|
| 3. The agent convinces an editor at a well-known publisher to
| take it.
|
| 4. The publisher prints it and gets it on bookshelves in
| stores everywhere.
|
| 5. People looking for books stumble onto it and buy it.
|
| That world existed when people had a lot of spare time and
| attention and relatively few things vying for it. That world
| no longer exists. You can consume media 24/7 and never come
| close to running out, all without spending a penny.
|
| The days of just having to write a great book and get in
| front of two people to be successful are dead and gone.
|
| _> From what I see, most authors (myself included) would
| rather not deal with most of what publishers do. If anything,
| most authors would prefer it if publishers did more of the
| sales effort, but it 's not economically viable in most
| cases. _
|
| There's a lot of stuff most people would rather not do, but
| unfortunately, sometimes the economic systems don't enable
| that.
| vidarh wrote:
| To sales numbers, you're right that revenue skews it
| somewhat, but see [1] and [2]. Per 2022, print books added
| up 788 million sold, while e-books did did 191 million in
| 2020.
|
| 2020 was also a _big jump up_ - in 2019 it was 170, after
| years of _decline_ for e-book sales from a peak of 242
| million in 2014. A large part of that is likely explained
| by the price gap narrowing, as publisher realised they were
| leaving money on the table.
|
| > Anecdotally, with my two self-published books, ebook and
| PDFs make up a pretty large slice of the pie even though my
| books are known for prioritizing the print experience
| (careful layout, lots of illustrations, etc.).
|
| This is true for almost all self-published books, because
| realistically your books are not going to be in many - if
| any - book stores. But most of the best-selling trad
| published books are. So for self-published authors,
| focusing on e-books is certainly the way that is most
| likely to drive actual sales. Sure, you can get some copies
| into local book stores, and encourage fans to request them
| elsewhere, but you need pretty decent numbers already to
| shift that balance without an established publisher behind
| you.
|
| > The days of just having to write a great book and get in
| front of two people to be successful are dead and gone.
|
| That's true, but somewhat less true for trad published
| authors where you at least has the shot at getting it into
| reasonable numbers of book stores. But of course the odds
| against getting through to a trad published have gotten far
| worse.
|
| > There's a lot of stuff most people would rather not do,
| but unfortunately, sometimes the economic systems don't
| enable that.
|
| That's true, but when it comes to writing the reality is
| most of us can't hope to live off it anyway, and that
| creates freedoms we don't otherwise have. E.g. I am not
| bothering trying to sell individual copies and do book
| signings or talk to book stores, because I don't need the
| sales bump it might bring, and so it's all about a balance
| between keeping it enjoyable and the fun of at least a
| little bit of recognition and feedback on occasion.
|
| [1] https://wordsrated.com/book-sales-statistics/
|
| [2] https://wordsrated.com/ebooks-sales-statistics/
|
| (they don't cite sources, but a quick checks makes it quite
| clear the numbers come from Statista - some of it behind
| their paywall)
| munificent wrote:
| This is a really good reply, thank you.
| DrBazza wrote:
| In the UK many years ago, there was the Net Book Agreement,
| which was price fixing and Amazon, BooksOnline/StreetsOnline
| comprehensively broke that. Unfortunately, book shops didn't
| really learn, and we are where we are.
|
| Back to the title. I still buy books. I've stopped buying them
| from Amazon, and just buy them from my LBS.
|
| Though one thing still makes me irrationally angry - "SciFi +
| Fantasy" as "a genre" in bookshops. No. It. Isn't. It's two
| separate. Two loved-up vampires, isn't sci-fi. At least on
| Amazon I can filter that. Browse on Amazon, buy in the LBS.
| Which is the reverse of what I did a decade ago.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement
| pm215 wrote:
| The Wikipedia article suggests that it was not Amazon and
| online bookselling that broke the Net Book Agreement, but big
| high street chain bookstores like Dillons. One of the
| references links to a newspaper article from December 1994
| saying the agreement is "on its last legs", and Amazon was
| only founded in July 1994, so seems unlikely to have been
| very influential in its demise.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > You do marketing? Authors now have their own followings on
| social media and can reach them directly.
|
| > You give cash advances? Fans on Kickstarter give 10x more.
|
| Both of those seem very positive to me.
| boringg wrote:
| And you didn't even bring in LLMs into the equation having
| hoovered up most books ever written
| ornornor wrote:
| > Imagine a world where you wanted something good to read, and
| among all the garbage out there saw a title and went "this one
| is by Simon & Schuster, it has to be good".
|
| I feel this way about DK books although they don't really do
| fiction but practical titles.
| alok-g wrote:
| +1 for DK.
| pookha wrote:
| Publishers are going nowhere. Who else is going to pay
| politicians millions for their ghost-written "memoirs"?
| beezle wrote:
| Hard to feel sympathy for industry that left to its own devices
| requires a 50% discount to sell in store, near 40% to get to
| Amazon/BN etc, and for bricks and mortar, requires you to
| accept returns that end up as a loss.
| araes wrote:
| There are responses to every single one of these. Similar to
| Radioshack (3D printers, drones, Arduino, Raspberry PI), and
| Intel's (mobile, GPUs, foundries, AI) bankruptcies or "lost
| decades".
|
| Distribute Books - They could have built a competitive
| distribution system by responding to what was an obvious
| aggressive threat. Amazon founded in 94', public by 97', buying
| book sellers by 98'. Four years, and Amazon was going
| International and buying book sellers.
|
| e-books - Great. Sell e-books yourselves. Sell better e-books
| with Publisher extras.
|
| Scanned catalog - Multiple responses. Legally inclined,
| lawsuits before it was all irreparably scraped (or afterward).
| Tech inclined, scrape your own stuff and make it available.
| Culturally or historically inclined, donate the texts to
| Gutenberg or a museum so the scraping doesn't get them much.
|
| Authors have their own followings - Interact. "Hi, this is so-
| and-so from PRH, that's a neat idea for the author's work, and
| we'll discuss trying to work it into the next book launch."
| There's probably authors who follow authors, "Any of you wanna
| write a book?"
|
| Cash advances - The cash advances are broke anyways. One of
| main points of the article. 70% of spending goes to 1% of
| authors. Try a slightly less power-law distribution. Maybe
| something a little less than x^60... PRH alone gave 55% of all
| advances in $1,000,000+ land. Have your own Kickstarters, or
| crowdfunding site. Arrange crowdfunding campaigns with marginal
| authors (for better author %). Work with fans directly so fans
| can put up the advance with pre-orders. Lots of alternatives to
| wringing their hands. (If Bates White Economic Consulting is
| correct, then 95% of money likely goes to 5% of authors).
|
| What this article told me was the publishing industry has a bad
| case of "try to spend zero work, while making infinite $". 'if
| the platform is there for the advertising, then the spend might
| be lower.' 'Does the best selling author have the best
| marketing budget? No. Why? She's the queen of TikTok.' (she
| does her own marketing)
|
| Ideally, the authors get their own loans from the bank, print
| their own materials, arrange their own distribution, put out
| their own marketing, and then we collect a vague value-add for
| putting our logo somewhere.
| hinkley wrote:
| Martha Wells had a Patreon for a while before Murderbot Diaries
| blew up. If I have the story right, the short stories she
| published there are rolled up in a collected short stories book
| now.
|
| My kid likes to remind me that Naomi Novik was one of the
| founders of a fanfic site called AO3.
|
| A number of the books we call classics today started out in
| serialized form in magazines. Atwood, Capote, Christie,
| Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Doyle, Dumas, Hemingway, Joyce, Sinclair,
| Verne, Wells, have all done serials that are now bound. And if
| memory serves Asimov and Clarke as well.
|
| The medium may be different but the process is old.
| ergonaught wrote:
| It's me. I'm No One.
|
| Because I buy them every week. So does my wife. I guess we are No
| One.
| tolciho wrote:
| Being no one might help you escape that cyclops.
| mr90210 wrote:
| I ordered 3 books yesterday, so I was a bit surprised by the
| headline. Amazon might disagree with that headline.
| stubish wrote:
| How does it feel to be part of the 1%? You are the publishing
| industry equivalent of a whale.
| devbent wrote:
| Books are too expensive to buy every week in any quantity
| greater than 1.
|
| I read 7-12 new books a week to my son, I'd go bankrupt if it
| wasn't for libraries.
|
| (We typically read 5-10 books a day, ur the 12 books we get
| from the library each week have an uneven distribution of what
| gets read again and again).
|
| Presumably as my son gets older we'll move to books that take
| longer to read and the absolute # will go down.
|
| Back when I was single and didn't have a kid, I'd go through 2
| or 3 long form fiction books a week. At that point in life,
| Half Priced Books (the book store chain with that name) was my
| financial savior.
|
| Books are _expensive_. A kids picture book is easily $15-$20,
| with outliers costing even more. Whenever I do go book shopping
| with my son we end up spending almost $200.
| jaberwooky wrote:
| Books are like the wayback machine. You can reread authors as
| they actually wrote their oeuvres without editing from modern day
| overzealous publishers who censor or otherwise alter the
| originals.
| zilti wrote:
| At least as long as you manage to find an old, not-yet-
| mutilated version...
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| I'm in a very heavy library family; we are checking out and
| reading a few hundred books per year between all of us.
|
| Yet we still buy a few books, and I bet that if we made an
| inventory of the books we currently own that are in the house, it
| would number in the hundreds. But... most were purchased
| secondhand. I take my daughter to the bookstore every few months;
| it is always busy. While she is browsing, I also look around. I'd
| buy half a dozen or more books on each visit if it weren't for
| the price. At retail price, books aren't a good deal. Even buying
| a paper copy of a public domain book will run $15-20. Why?
| HenryBemis wrote:
| > book will run $15-20
|
| Everybody needs to get paid, and everybody needs to make a
| profit.
|
| The folks that store the books (think Wholesale), the
| movers/couriers, the retail that has to pay rent/employees/etc
| _and_ make a profit.
|
| The consider that (depending on the country) there is a VAT on
| that book. It slowly adds up.
|
| I remember in Brighton back in the 90s I had found a second
| hand bookstore, that had 5x the books per sqm comparing to the
| Barnes & Noble in the center of London. B&N had wide corridors,
| the shelves on the perimeter were all the way to the ceiling,
| but the non-walled ones were 1.5m high. And considering that
| they wanted the books to look cool, they were nicely spaced.
|
| Now when you compare this to the second hand bookstore, where
| presentation is not 'a thing'.. you got many-many more books
| per sqm, and the authors/publishers don't need to get paid
| again. But still.. a second hand book will always been 1/3 to
| 1/4 of a new book (from own experience).
|
| EDIT: I sometimes think that if my life takes a very dark turn,
| and for whatever reason I end up poor and alone, I will find
| the smallest/cheapest possible village that has a public
| library back to my country of origin, and I will be spending
| max amount of hours in that library.. free wifi, free
| heating/cooling, and ALL the books I can read(hey, my name is
| Henry Bemis after all!!)
| eszed wrote:
| Off-topic, but wow there were some good used bookstores in
| Brighton. I think I know the one you mean, but the quirkiest
| was the one with a _massive_ pile (literally a pile) of
| unshelved, uncategorized books in the basement. Hardbacks
| were PS1, paperbacks 50p. It smelled faintly of mould down
| there, and there were some chairs and beanbags (the beanbags
| were too dodgy for me to sit in, lol) around the edges, so we
| 'd sneak in cans of beer and spend the afternoon going
| through the pile and reading what we found. Once or twice the
| owner shouted down the stairs that he was going to the pub
| and to turn off the lights and make sure the door was locked
| when we left.
|
| Sometimes I miss being young and poor. I'm not sure I'd enjoy
| spending a day like that anymore, and I'm not sure why.
| omoikane wrote:
| > $15-20
|
| US book prices seem weirdly expensive. I just sampled the
| prices from the best sellers here:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/
|
| https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/bestsellers/books/
|
| The US prices averages out to ~$15, while the Japanese prices
| average out to $10. You might say most of that is due to the
| current exchange rate (1 USD = 154 JPY), but then most books
| listed on Amazon Japan's "novels" best sellers seemed to be
| priced around ~$6 USD (~900 JPY), compared to the $18-22 in
| Amazon.com's "literature and fiction" list.
|
| We can try the same exercise with
|
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/books/
|
| and the average comes out to ~$11 USD (~PS9 GBP)
| Ray20 wrote:
| Aren't in Japan average selled fiction book is way smaller?
| omoikane wrote:
| Did you mean page count? For the novels I read, 200-300 per
| volume seems common. This seems comparable to the English
| novels I have, so it feels like less money for roughly same
| amount of content.
|
| Because many light novels come in series that are spread
| over several volumes, it's arguable that it costs more
| money to finish a story because you have to read all these
| volumes instead of one monolithic tome. I buy the volumes
| one by one as they are released and don't feel that the
| individual books are that expensive, but someone catching
| up on an old series might feel different.
|
| If you mean physical size, the average English books does
| seem physically larger than the average Japanese book.
| mlsu wrote:
| Books are a vestigial organ. Nobody uses books as their primary
| mode of accessing information about the world anymore.
|
| What is interesting is that the cultural mores around this
| vestigial organ have persisted to such a great degree. Harry
| Potter Books are a psycho-social mechanism of self-construction
| more than an actual work of fiction. The _phenomenon_ of "I am a
| bookish person who reads Harry Potter" as a psychological _thing
| that people do_ is larger and more significant than the actual
| story of Harry the young wizard. Likewise, the _phenomenon_ of
| "I am a successful luminary who has written a book" is more
| important than the actual content of the book itself. Celebrities
| paying ghostwriters to write books and going to book signings to
| sign a book for people who will never actually read the book. A
| perfectly airtight simulacra.
| zilti wrote:
| Most Harry Potter fans have never even read the books, but just
| seen the films, further supporting your argument
| sandspar wrote:
| You're talking about midwits or whatever. Millions of very
| intelligent people still get most of their knowledge from
| books. Books remain the highest octane fuel.
| Spivak wrote:
| It's always fun to see "parent's point immediately proven in
| the replies" happen in the wild.
| sandspar wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're talking about.
| WolfeReader wrote:
| I think I can rewrite this post using simpler language:
|
| "I don't read books, and I assume nobody else does too.
|
| People who read fun stories have ulterior motives besides
| enjoying the stories. (As opposed to the honest motives of
| people who enjoy movies or music, or other media)
|
| People who write books have ulterior, egotistical motives to do
| so.
|
| Celebrities sometimes write memoirs. See, this proves
| something!
|
| The above points show that books are a "vestigial organ" and a
| "simulacra." "
|
| Did I miss anything?
| mikl wrote:
| Hello, I'm no-one.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| The only major reading I do these days is via audiobooks, I
| simply read them faster than via visually looking at the page. It
| might be my attention span, but somehow audio is just faster to
| literally cram words into the mind at high speed than consciously
| moving your eyes over a page.
| Tor3 wrote:
| I'm the opposite - I read many times faster than audio, so I
| have big problems with using e.g. Youtube to get information.
| It feels agonizingly slow to get the information over. I feel
| like I could get that in two minutes of reading versus
| listening for half an hour. When I read novels I take a few
| pages - depending on what I read - to get my mind into the
| story, and from then on what's written isn't text on paper (or
| e-reader) anymore, it's just a story unfolding in my mind. I
| don't "see" the text.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I know what you mean with the last sentence, it feels the
| same for me when reading text too in that it disappears if
| I'm engrossed in the story. However, for audio, I listen at 3
| to 5x speed so audio can be magnitudes faster than text. You
| should probably try increasing the speed of your YouTube
| videos, that's also what I do, plus I use add-ons like
| SponsorBlock which provide a "skip to video highlight" button
| as well as cutting out all of the filler content in a video.
| simonblack wrote:
| Paper Books for random-access Technical Reference.
|
| Electronic Books for General 'Beginning-to-End', or 'Story-
| Telling' reading.
|
| In general, though most books can be either paper or electronic
| depending on personal convenience at the time. It's not a 'Black
| and White', 'One Thing or the Other' choice. Both formats are as
| good as the other if need be.
|
| I use both. "Works for Me."
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Weird, I have the exact opposite preference. I do like looking
| things up in paper reference books, but a lot of the time I
| remember context well enough that I can type a key phrase and
| have it instantly. I prefer _learning_ from paper, so if it 's
| a scientific paper that's too complex/deep to just skim and
| longer than 10-15 pages I'll often print it.
|
| Reading for pleasure on the other hand, I will _only_ do on
| paper. The physicality of the book, down to the wrinkles and
| texture of the paper, are part of the enjoyment.
| tstrimple wrote:
| I wish my daughters would stop reading books (not really) so I
| could stop buying them all the time (happy to pay this expense).
| I was worried for a while because my wife and I are both
| voracious readers, but none of our children seemed to be
| developing a similar love for literature. That changed
| practically overnight. They went from Anime to Manga to YA lit to
| full blown novels in less than a year. Their tastes are still
| very particular, so we can't reliably go to a used book store to
| find things they are willing to try. But each time we go to buy
| them books, their selections get a little more varied than
| before.
|
| The latest game is "How many books can I get?". I think they know
| perfectly well that I'll buy them as many books as they want
| because I've never told them I wouldn't buy them a book. So in a
| way it's them exploring their own impulsiveness and desire to
| consume versus what they consider to be reasonable. I always make
| them set their own limit. But I'm also fortunate to be a tech
| worker who doesn't have to even think about budgeting for books.
| Telling them no has never been a practical consideration here.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Since years back I already can't help but keep thinking of paper
| books as nothing but printouts of text files. (And I no longer
| want or need printouts.)
| bodantogat wrote:
| To add to the woes of the publishing industry, a lot of sales are
| lost due to piracy. $300MM a year for the US alone (per a 2019
| article).
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2019/07/28/us-publish...
| paxys wrote:
| > according to data from the Authors Guild
|
| Despite the narrative that copyright holders in every industry
| like to push, a pirated copy is not equal to a lost sale. Their
| actual losses are likely a small fraction of that number.
| owlninja wrote:
| Is the thinking that the person who pirated it was never
| going to buy it anyways?
| paxys wrote:
| They may or may not have bought it, but the calculations of
| "lost sales" assume that 100% of them would have bought it
| at full price, which is absurd. I'd wager it is closer to
| 10%.
| eszed wrote:
| In my lifetime I've easily bought 100x more books used
| than new, which (from their perspective) is economically
| indistinguishable from piracy. Any of those "lost sales"
| estimates strike me as entirely bogus.
| stacktraceyo wrote:
| I like paper books. I get alot of enjoyment from giving them to
| friends to read. To me it's like the difference between when I
| used to make a mix tape or mix cd and give to someone vs sharing
| a Spotify playlist.
|
| Also I find that it adds character. Like if someone comes into my
| house they can see what type of stuff I'm into via my "analog"
| music movies and books.
| bachmeier wrote:
| The headline isn't accurate. "No One Buys Most Books" maybe, but
| the article talks about books that sell more than 300,000 copies
| in a year. 90% of books sell fewer than 2000 copies in a year,
| but 2000 is actually a decent number, especially considering it
| will be a lot more than 2000 over the lifetime of the book.
|
| There's more to this as well. You have to factor in that a lot of
| people write books because they want to say they wrote a book,
| and others do it because it supports their professional brand, so
| there was never an intention or expectation of selling a thousand
| copies.
| tptacek wrote:
| The article doesn't say these books sell 2000 copies a year; it
| says they sell 2000 copies, period. Generously assume a $30 new
| release hardcover cost ("The City Is Up For Grabs", the most
| recent book I bought, cost $25) and a 20% gross margin for the
| publisher, and you're talking $35k total to split between the
| publisher and the author.
|
| It does talk about celebrity books selling some low number of
| copies within the year of publication. Presumably those books
| do keep selling at some level for some long tail of the book
| being in print. But unless books are utterly unlike all other
| media, 80-90% of the proceeds from selling the book will come
| during the new release window.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Also, the author conflates fiction with non-fiction. No
| kidding, if you include science books , guides, how-to books,
| etc. most books do not sell many copies, but they are not
| expected or intended to. It's not like the market for calculus
| books is that big. Fiction books by major publishing houses for
| a general audience still sell a lot.
| stubish wrote:
| Fiction only sells a lot _if you hit the best seller lists_.
| Most books do not, and it has been this way since at least
| 2000. For most fiction authors, you would make more money at
| a minimum wage job. You know, all the ones you haven 't heard
| off because they didn't hit the best seller lists.
| ilamont wrote:
| _A big audience means publishing houses don't have to spend money
| on marketing_
|
| Only blockbuster authors get serious marketing support. For
| everyone else, big publishers want authors to shoulder marketing
| and publicity costs and responsibilities. Many lower tier authors
| are shocked to find they get zero marketing support:
|
| _I'd hate for readers to think this happens to every author who
| signs with a traditional publisher. I have worked with several
| "Big 5" publishers, and never got even a hint of marketing._
|
| https://janefriedman.com/marketing-support-big-5/#comment-24...
|
| Further, most authors are not experts in publicity or promotion,
| or have the expertise to run paid marketing campaigns.
|
| This goes a long way to explaining why many books published by
| the Big 5 sell so poorly.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Counterpoint: after taking a big hit during the pandemic years of
| 2020-2022, global book sales are climbing again. Sales are down
| compared to the years before 2019, but the trend recently has
| been positive, especially for audio and e-books.
|
| https://wordsrated.com/global-book-sales-statistics/
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Almost everything this post describes is not new, not even 21st
| century new. E-books market share seems to be stuck at about 20%
| of the total market, where it's been since the early teens. The
| decline of the print book is more or less like the decline of
| vinyl albums, except that it never actually declined that much.
|
| However, a lot more people want to be a best-selling author, than
| there are spots available, so most books don't sell much, and
| there are lots more authors who cannot get any advance at all. It
| was ever thus.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Also: publishers aren't needed anymore
|
| They basically make money scumming celebrity crap on the market
| and riding the 150 years (and counting) copyright window.
|
| With AI floods the editors and reviewers do become more
| important. But like music labels, one of the biggest exploiters
| of art and talent, the technical aspects of media delivery and
| production aren't held by labels or publishing houses.
|
| They are just middlemen.
| chrsw wrote:
| I buy books. I might buy more if more publishers offered titles
| with lay-flat binding. Computer/technical books especially.
| Tr4kt wrote:
| I have too many books. I physically can't find more places for
| more books.
| pm90 wrote:
| Theres something rather magical about reading books. Or perhaps
| Im just an old fart that grew up without the internet.
|
| The article is fascinating but worrying. I do hope the industry
| survives in some form. I love the experience of reading books. It
| would be a shame if everything was digital although it seems like
| an inescapable conclusion after looking at the data in the
| article...
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Reading, if you're good at it, is the most sophisticated and
| powerful form of storytelling, allowing detail and scope far
| beyond movies or games. And writing is far more accessible and
| cheaper than any other form of media creation. I think thats
| the magic.
|
| But it has such a high requirement of education and practice,
| and demands such a high price in focus and attention. Its no
| wonder that it doesnt fit most people's lives.
| stubish wrote:
| Nothing is going to go all digital, except maybe sales. Print-
| on-demand means that every ebook can also be a physical trade
| paperback, if the publisher chooses. Amazon even have a button
| you can click to give a free copy of the ebook to everyone who
| buys the printed version (not sure if this encourages printed
| sales, or more to expose people to the dark side).
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've been buying scifi books from thrift stores for a decade or
| more.
|
| But in the last couple years, there's been a near complete
| collapse in it. The racks of scifi have abruptly dwindled to a
| handful of lonely books. The entire book section has dramatically
| shrunk as well. This is across thrift stores, not just one.
|
| Is it:
|
| 1. nobody buys physical books anymore
|
| 2. nobody donates physical books anymore
|
| 3. donations seem to be driven by estate sales. Maybe the book
| lovers have already all died out and their estates are liquidated
|
| I don't know. But I'm glad I bought the books when I could.
| techsupporter wrote:
| > nobody donates physical books anymore
|
| It's partially number one but definitely this for me, insofar
| as thrift stores go. The two thrift stores around me that take
| books are Goodwill and the Salvation Army and I won't donate
| anything to them any more.
|
| My book donations go to the neighborhood independent bookstore
| for them to price and resell and keep their employees paid.
|
| The large chain bookstore near me still has several shelves of
| science fiction, new release and perennial favorites, so I
| think at least some are still being made and sold. Hopefully
| you can find what you seek.
| breezeTrowel wrote:
| I think there's a fourth option - those little kiosks (like the
| Little Free Library ones) have started to spring up everywhere
| so it's a lot easier to just leave one's read books there.
| paulpauper wrote:
| _In my essay "Writing books isn't a good idea" I wrote that, in
| 2020, only 268 titles sold more than 100,000 copies, and 96
| percent of books sold less than 1,000 copies. That's still the
| vibe._
|
| yaawn..this useless stat again? The author erroneously mixes
| fiction with non-fiction. Of course, non-fiction from a boutique
| or niche publishing house will have smaller sales and thus
| depress the average. This includes such books as "trail guides in
| California" and so on, or science books. These non-fiction books
| are never expected to sell many copies and are marketed for a
| small or specific audience in mind, and there is minimal or no
| marketing push. So if you include these non-fiction books by tiny
| publishing houses, of course, most books sell few copies.
|
| Fiction books by major publishing houses marketed to a general
| audience and with a significant marketing push are expected to
| sell a lot of copies, and do. Hence the large advances commonly
| seen for authors who write these type of books.
| fsckboy wrote:
| the stat is also leaving out an important part of the market,
| 10,000 books. (I think that's the size of a run of books; the
| actual number is not important, the vast range between 1000 and
| 100,000 is)
| sporadicallyjoe wrote:
| eBay is hands down the best place to buy books.
|
| They're not new, but that's a feature not a bug. The books are
| more affordable, you're consuming sustainably, and who really
| cares if a book has been read before?
| NeilSmith2048 wrote:
| I love reading paper books, I rarely read e-books for the reason
| that paper books give me more focus!
| ryyr wrote:
| why should they? libraries, public domain e-books, great online
| second-hand book selection ...
| daly wrote:
| I have about 6000 books, about 1000 of these are on Kindle.
|
| Of the 6000, most have bookmarks. I read at least the first 50
| pages of most of them. I've finished a couple hundred so far. I
| found my old business cards make perfect bookmarks.
|
| I guess "No one buys books" isn't strictly true.
|
| I tried to write 4 books. I was told that I'd likely sell less
| that 1000. Beyond that would be considered a major win. I
| finished one, published it, and have made about $500. It took me
| months to write.
|
| I love books. I have a copy of "I, Robot" signed by Asimov. I
| really like books signed by authors.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| My book took a year and a half to write and has made about $400
| in direct royalties.
|
| I can't precisely quantify the return on investment, but I
| believe that having the ISBN on my resume has resulted in me
| getting more work opportunities and/or salary, so it's a pretty
| good investment. Also people think you're smart for having the
| stupidity to start writing a book without having the good sense
| to abandon the project halfway through.
| Tor3 wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the "I read at least the first 50
| pages of most of them". Did you somehow receive 6000 books in
| one huge batch and you're just checking them out, one by one?
|
| I mean, I've thousands of books in my collection (though I've
| had to dump a ton of them lately due to space restrictions..
| that's sad), and I've read all of them end-to-end. If a book is
| so bad that I can't finish it.. it does happen with "free"
| Kindle books, but for my paper book collection I think there
| are maybe two or three I didn't read all through.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I used to buy and read a lot of physical books. Around 2013-204,
| I started moving to eBooks, and Amazon Kindle played a
| significant role in my journey. But a couple of years later, I
| had an epiphany while discussing books with my daughter, "I never
| see you read books. You are just reading on your computer
| (kindle) or the phone and are not reading."
|
| Since then, I have returned to reading physical books with an
| approximate ratio of 1:5 against digital ones. I have kinda
| rule/understanding with my daughters -- you have unlimited access
| to books that you can read, and you also get extra pocket money
| for reading them. Of course, it is OK not to finish a book, but
| in that case, a few cool-down days before buying another one.
|
| Yes, buy and read physical books. I believe, the return is a
| magnitude higher for everyone than the loss it does to anything.
| If you have kids, read more physical books in front of them.
| Encourage them to read physical books. They are less distracting
| and help the kids focus.
|
| Five years ago, I wrote a story about it.
| https://story.oinam.com/2018/why-physical-books-matter/
| kstrauser wrote:
| > They are less distracting and help the kids focus.
|
| That's such an incredibly personal preference though. It's far
| easier for me to read with an ereader when I don't have to have
| 2 hands holding a heavier hunk of paper wants to close itself
| if I let go for a moment. I have a huge book collection but
| I've switched almost entirely to ebooks because I find the
| ergonomics so much better. Physically fighting with dead tree
| media is more distracting than my ereader.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| It happened to me multiple times that I bought a real paper
| book, but the ergonomics was so bad, I've pirated the book
| and read it on my kindle instead (since I bought it I feel
| entitled to get the e-variant). Especially paperbacks are bad
| - tiny letters, yellow low-contrast paper, difficult to hold
| open.
|
| Reading good night stories to children is even more
| challenging, since it's usually dark. Bringing some extra
| light is annoying and distracting for the child.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > If you have kids, read more physical books in front of them.
|
| I think this part is so important. I want to show my kids that
| reading is fun, but instead what they see is me looking at my
| phone all the time. There's nothing differentiating reading on
| my phone from watching youtube videos from their perspective.
| Ereaders help to some extend, but only a bit.
| twelvedogs wrote:
| i used to read a lot but buying paper books was a real pain for
| me, i read hundreds of books on the kindle but figured out i
| could just slap a video on my phone and actually sleep.
|
| since then i've read maybe 15 books in the last couple years
| and my kids never see me reading, however we've read to them
| and had them read to us for their whole life and they now both
| read independently for fun. i don't think leading by example is
| anywhere near as important as reading with your kids
| hwbunny wrote:
| Fucking books are like museums. 100 year disadvantage.
| anileated wrote:
| When you say "no one buys books" in the title, and then proceed
| to describe how big publishers don't make a lot of money from
| books, you are engaging in disingenuous clickbait.
|
| There are small publishers. There are also print shops. You can
| design and sell a book yourself. I buy physical books. I bought
| Greg Egan's self-published books.
|
| There does exist a real threat to the book market, and that's
| LLMs, but as of 2024 the market is far from dead.
| hdivider wrote:
| Main value prop of physical books for me: guaranteed zero
| interruptions from the book itself. Worst case, the pages stick
| together, or pages are missing, or damaged, or other very
| infrequent causes of distraction.
|
| All modern digital systems are by comparison, distraction
| machines. You never know when the next interruption
| ('notification') gets surfaced, the next update, the next forced
| restart, the next bug, the next battery problem, the next broken
| or lost charger cable.
|
| Physical books require light, the book, and your mind. All else
| fades away, and your mind is given free reign to ponder, to
| consider, to deliberate. No wonder civilization flourished
| whenever the physical written form was embraced at sustained
| scale.
| richrichie wrote:
| > The DOJ's lawyer collected data on 58,000 titles published in a
| year and discovered that 90 percent of them sold fewer than 2,000
| copies and 50 percent sold less than a dozen copies.
|
| This distribution is pretty common in artistic professions and
| professional sport. A tiny fraction takes most of the pot.
|
| As they say around here, that's a feature and not a bug. In art,
| people tend to do stuff not because they are looking to earn an
| income, but they have something to prove or say or show.
| citizen_friend wrote:
| I think at least half of the top level comments didn't read the
| article, and mistook it for an article about reading habits. It's
| actually about the number of books that sell well, not the number
| of readers.
| cm2012 wrote:
| 319 comments and I don't see the simple fact that the article
| title is dead wrong.
|
| We are going through a massive book boom right now:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLSGuGOWoAArd-K.jpg:large.
|
| Book sales are the highest they've been in 20 years lol. So all
| the comments mourning books can relax.
| shkkmo wrote:
| The title is provocative clickbait, but the actual point is
| this:
|
| > These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat
| bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the
| publishing industry and even fund their vanity project:
| publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we
| think about book publishing (which make no money at all and
| typically sell less than 1,000 copies).
|
| Given that spending per capita, adjusted for intlation is only
| a couple of percent higher than they were 20 years ago, the
| "boom" isn't particularly impressive.
| ar_lan wrote:
| > The title is provocative clickbait, but the actual point is
| this.
|
| It's an aside, but this is just so frustrating we have
| succumbed to this level. In principle I don't even want to
| read the article because the title is ridiculous, but on the
| other hand, they wouldn't generate any traffic if they don't
| because our brains are too fixated on "drama" and
| "controversy" that clickbait titles generate.
| CaptainFever wrote:
| We need DeArrow but for the Internet.
| outop wrote:
| But there are more books published than ever before.
|
| Most of the books that sell hundreds of copies wouldn't have
| been published in the past. If you write a niche book about
| something and a few hundred people read it, that seems great.
| If you're (stochastically) subsidized by a few huge hits and
| bestsellers, that also seems great. People are reading the
| Bible, Harry Potter and celebrity memoirs? Great too, I'm
| sure they are enjoying them. Possibly many of those people
| have not chosen those books in preference to other more
| "worthy" books but in preference to other pastimes.
|
| The only problem I can see is if you wrote a book and had it
| published hoping it would be this year's runaway success, and
| it wasn't. Fine, but someone's book was. By its nature not
| everyone can achieve this.
| jampekka wrote:
| It's a bit weird that those niche books are sold - as
| opposed to just published free with maybe print-on-demand
| for those who want hard copies.
|
| The authors don't make (practically) any money out of those
| books. Even the publisher probably doesn't. Vast majority
| of books aren't written to get any significant money (from
| sales at least), unless the author is delusional.
|
| It's probably a kind of status thing and cultural lag. To
| get a publishing deal is a "stamp of approval" that it's a
| "real book" from a "real author" that has passed the
| gatekeeper. And that a copy of it costs something means
| it's not worthless, unlike e.g. the Linux kernel.
| vidarh wrote:
| It's a combination of status and an attempt at an
| investment, and I guess somewhat of a lottery ticket.
|
| There are also costs involved in a quality release even
| of a self-published novel. You want a cover. It's not
| expensive, but unless you're a talented artist it will
| show if you do it yourself. You _can_ avoid paying for an
| editor, but it _will_ generally be noticeable (you might
| have _near_ perfect grammar and orthography, but you
| _will_ miss things). If a publisher is going to put their
| name on it, those things will be at least a bit more
| expensive, and people tend to want to at least try to
| recoup some or all of costs even if they don 't expect a
| significant return.
|
| And if you want to turn writing into something more, you
| want to build an audience, and you want at least some
| signal of how large a portion of that audience are
| actually people prepared to pay, so that maybe next time
| your publisher is willing to put a little bit of money
| into marketing.
|
| But yes, a lot of books could just as well be free. But
| vast quantities of writing - including fiction - _is_
| also released for free. Turns out there 's signalling the
| other way too. It's hard to get people to read _anything_
| , but for at least some parts of the market, it's harder
| to convince them something free is worth their time.
| samspot wrote:
| I also read the article and felt that the tone was weird.
| Much of what's described is unsurprising in a for-profit
| business. The fact that these big companies are willing to
| publish so many unprofitable books seems like a good thing
| to me. And if you don't want to work with big publishing
| there are many avenues.
|
| I'm not sure what the author wants from the big publishers.
| Should they stop publishing hits, spend more money
| marketing books that won't sell, and then declare
| bankruptcy?
|
| I do appreciate the opportunity to learn more about what a
| bad deal traditional publishing can be for authors. Seems
| like valuable information for anyone who wants to start
| writing professionally.
| nottorp wrote:
| Nobody cries about the poor movie industry only making money
| from superhero movies, do they?
| grepLeigh wrote:
| From the article:
|
| >>> "Wouldn't it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read
| all of the books you want?"
|
| I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my
| lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public
| library in the state and get a free library card with access to
| physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops,
| hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local branch
| even has a Makerspace with 3D printers, laser cutters, sewing
| machines, and other misc tools.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| It's funny seeing this comment and the article about Seattle
| libraries reducing digital copies both on HNews front page at
| the same time.
|
| I love libraries.
|
| It also feels like all our public institutions in the US are
| crumbling under assault from all sides.
| j45 wrote:
| Limiting or undermining literacy remains important to those
| who benefit from it.
| nox101 wrote:
| what logic leads to this conclusion? I tend to lean to the
| rising tide lifts all boats. who benefits from illiteracy?
| Root_Denied wrote:
| > who benefits from illiteracy?
|
| Those already on top.
|
| They can afford to educate their own line and hoard
| resources across generations doing so. They can fail as
| many times as it takes before they finally succeed
| because of this. They throw the bodies of the world at
| their problems until they are solved, which necessitates
| an uneducated populace that doesn't realize they're
| chattel and canon fodder to this purpose. A populace that
| fear collective power, that fears community beyond
| immediate family, that shies away from actions that would
| better the world in favor of actions that are less risky
| personally.
| grepLeigh wrote:
| UNESCO published a report on the beneficiaries of
| illiteracy at global, national, and regional levels
| (1989):
|
| https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000085962
| yunohn wrote:
| Elites are always worried about the labor crisis -
| "nobody wants to work". Usually this is about blue collar
| work, and their desire to underpay and overwork
| service/laborers.
|
| Globally, this class of people definitely wants to reduce
| literacy to keep a stream of manual labor inflowing.
| bumby wrote:
| This is a strong claim that needs some data to back it
| up.
| animex wrote:
| People who want to control the illiterate and subjugate
| their voting power to their own ends.
| Karellen wrote:
| The number of vastly unequal societies throughout history
| who have banned the lower classes from learning how to
| read, or from any kind of education at all - beyond
| whatever narrow training will make them better perform
| their specific duties for those on top.
|
| ...and not just historically. Some societies where
| significant minority groups are banned from getting an
| education, in order to further perpetuate their
| marginalisation, still exist today.
| boringg wrote:
| The response to your comment thread here is some pretty
| high flying conspiracies. The thought that those in power
| would try and make the country illiterate is straight up
| ridiculous. That would completely undermine the
| competitiveness of the country AND the time line to get
| any benefit for the "elites or whomever is behind it"
| would be significantly long.
|
| Now if you are talking about a country like India - sure
| I could see Modi doing that. In that case it would be
| more about restricting growth and investment into
| education then dismantling an economy built on knowledge.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| No one is suggesting billionaires are rational.
| j45 wrote:
| I don't think I said anything about making people
| illiterate.
|
| Undermining literacy means so they are not as literate as
| they could be to improve their lives.
|
| For example, there are more than a few studies on
| literacy and education levels of the political spectrum
| for better and worse.
|
| India is a different world. The crime against humanity
| that is the caste system all but forbade 1-3% of the
| population to be permitted to learn how to read. 95-98%
| of Indians were not permitted to learn how to read, and
| had to rely on the interpretations of the less populous
| castes.
|
| Ironically it is a minority that largely broke this
| logjam and helped push literacy for the many forward.
|
| I'll gladly take the downvotes for speaking the truth
| about caste being a divider between people and society.
| no_exit wrote:
| > what logic leads to this conclusion?
|
| Any decent book about Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
| cafard wrote:
| The advocates of "whole-language" learning as against
| "phonics" seem to do a fair job of limiting or undermining
| literacy. Yet how it benefits them I don't see. And what is
| the reference of "it" in the last sentence? Literacy, or
| limited or undermined literacy?
| j45 wrote:
| I should have said and, instead of for.
|
| Undermining is a form of limiting, and limiting is a form
| of undermining.
| creole_wither wrote:
| A literate population that reads what you want them to read
| is even better.
| ddingus wrote:
| They are. Every single public resource is seen as a potential
| market opportunity being squandered away, or as competition
| other players do not want to see in play.
| atoav wrote:
| Well a library is a place where a population can spend the
| day getting smarter while not spending money.
|
| If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are
| two things you definitely do not want.
|
| Sadly many people seem to think they are _really showing
| the folks up there_ by retreating from any form of self-
| education once they are out of school. The opposite couldn
| 't be more true.
| vik0 wrote:
| >If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those
| are two things you definitely do not want.
|
| This smells like a half-baked conspiracy theory. It's not
| like the overwhelming majority of people want to get
| smarter in their free time. I'm not sure how it is in the
| rest of the world, but in American and all (individual)
| European cultures, most people don't pursue self-
| education. I would not be surprised if this applies to
| most other cultures as well
|
| You might say that's how a lot of people on this website
| got their knowledge, but this website is statistically
| insignificant compared to the world population. Plus,
| it's not like every single member here pursues self-
| education. I'm willing to wager most people come on here
| just to be entertained
| atoav wrote:
| I didn't say rich, powerful and unethical people
| _actively_ need to work against public libraries. They
| just don 't need to support them, which is enough, given
| the fact that they often land in or near places of
| political power.
|
| Just don't increase the funding while inflation increases
| and you're basically cutting funding. And then when
| things eventually start to look like shit tear them down.
| And these are not even things a rich, powerful and
| unethical person needs to do willingly or on purpose. It
| is just a thing that _happens_ , because it isn't high on
| the priority list. And it isn't high on the priority list
| because it doesn't make them direct money.
|
| Now if you're a politician that profits from your
| constituents being not too critical why should you
| actively support a thing that has the potential to make
| them more critical? Not that you _actively_ have to be
| against it, it just isn 't that high on your list of
| priorities..
|
| This is how incentives work. And while there are people
| who will support measures which won't directly profit
| them short term, it seems to me they are an endangered
| species, at least in the US.
| ghaff wrote:
| Public libraries are largely funded/supported locally. In
| my town, that mostly means out of a vote at town meeting,
| volunteer organizations, and an annual book sale. There
| is occasionally local political drama but it's mostly
| around people who earn some nominal salary that wouldn't
| persuade a lot of people on this site to get out of bed
| in the morning.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Conservatives in the US are constantly trying to ban
| books [0] and defund education [1].
|
| It's not surprising that this push comes amid the
| understanding that the less educated one is, the more
| likely they are to vote R [2]. Conservative governments
| placing restrictions on education to cling to power has
| historical precedent. Iran comes to mind as a recent
| example. It's not a "half-baked conspiracy theory", it's
| a political strategy. Hell, the Texas GOP's 2012 platform
| was specifically against teaching critical thinking
| skills [3] because these skills could undermine
| authority.
|
| 0 - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/09
| /republ...
|
| 1 - https://www.americanprogress.org/article/house-
| republican-bu...
|
| 2 - https://news.gallup.com/poll/609776/democrats-lose-
| ground-bl...
|
| 3 - https://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original
| /2012Pl...
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. You speak the
| truth.
|
| We're experiencing this very same thing now in Alabama.
| Or one could simply look at Florida. Things aren't
| getting better here. The current GOP leadership is trying
| their best to be as regressive as possible.
|
| I feel like I am doing my son an incredible disservice by
| raising him in Alabama, but my wife refuses to leave
| while her mother is still living here.
| ddingus wrote:
| Show him some alternatives. I grew up in a backward place
| too.
|
| The single most valuable thing I learned is what is
| really possible to do. I got to see that because I ended
| up helping people of means who took me aside and showed
| me a look outside the place I was living.
|
| For many, and this is true of my peer group, just knowing
| what is possible really mattered.
|
| Of course I left town, found work and married someone I
| thought highly of and got to work building a better life.
|
| Your son can do that too. Make sure he knows it.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I plan on showing him alternatives so he doesn't have to
| learn about them they way that I did.
|
| I moved out of my mother's home when I was 16 and I
| managed to graduate high school. But I left town two days
| after graduation and I've only been back three times in
| 24 years.
|
| Had I not left Alabama, and the US, I would have likely
| ended up just as bigoted and close minded as most of my
| family. The ten years I spent outside of the US allowed
| me to learn a completely different perspective and
| finally made me realize that my mother and my other
| family were wrong about so many things.
|
| My boy just turned five a few weeks ago and he's already
| travelled more than I did by the time I turned 21.
| docmars wrote:
| While there are a few fringe pockets where GOP influence
| isn't helping anyone, by and large, the "conspiracy
| theorists" and MAGA folks are attacking major news
| outlets, scientific journals, etc. strictly because they
| have been corrupted and influenced by highly partisan
| partnerships from the left, to bend narratives or
| outright lie about controversial issues and current
| events in their favor.
|
| When citizen journalists on X (and other places) are
| putting corporate media to shame because they're willing
| to faithfully report what the corporates aren't, that's a
| clear sign there's something amiss. Breaking free of this
| one-sided media conglomerate is essential for critical
| thinking, because journalists have no place in thinking
| _for_ people, which is unfortunately true on all sides,
| in practice.
|
| Worse, corporate media sources use their powerful
| positions not just as a beacon of authority, but as a way
| to enforce false narratives through their close
| partnerships with their preferred political partners, who
| are working to manipulate those narratives in their favor
| for political gain, like winning elections at nearly any
| cost. Additionally, shaming and declaring citizen &
| independent journalists as "misinformants" for
| questioning mainstream narratives that have been
| identified as patently false/twisted, either by lying or
| by omission, evidenced by whistleblowers calling out
| these issues in interviews with independent sources,
| knowing their stories won't be edited for political
| purposes.
|
| Similarly on X, now that it isn't captured by a political
| side that _openly_ believes censorship is acceptable to
| elevate their own preferred narratives, information can
| flow freely and users on X can think for themselves
| (scary, I know... imagine if YOU could think freely and
| post your own convictions! How will humanity survive?).
| Since the previous "community guidelines" enforcers at
| Twitter have been fired, faithful counter-reporting is no
| longer being policed (the "now" true Hunter Biden report
| comes to mind conveniently after the 2020 election was
| over). Now Conservatives can have an equal and prominent
| voice there, given that Twitter/X has always been a
| premier source of real-time news and reporting.
|
| If something cannot be questioned, speculating on the
| motives around it is essential. The 20th century saw too
| many tyrants dictating the flow of information for us to
| conveniently forget its devastating impacts on their
| respective societies. Not a single politician, media
| outlet, scientist, or "expert" is above being questioned,
| for any reason whatsoever. It is the only path to
| healthy, inclusive dialogue.
| CalRobert wrote:
| It doesn't need to be most people though. It just needs
| to be the smart ones.
| Zenzero wrote:
| > Well a library is a place where a population can spend
| the day getting smarter while not spending money. If
| you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are
| two things you definitely do not want.
|
| This is conspiracy level thinking. Nobody wealthy is
| sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and
| subdued.
|
| The assault on public institutions like libraries comes
| from 2 places: 1) Stop wasting my tax dollars on stuff I
| don't use or care about. Or 2) I bet there is an untapped
| commercial market that can be built, and people will love
| my solution more than public libraries.
| teitoklien wrote:
| > Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep
| the proles dumb and subdued.
|
| They dont sit around scheming, they work, walk around
| doing it in action.
|
| Company executives keep adding ingredients to processed
| food to make them addictive knowing it'll hurt health
| outcomes and lead to more death.
|
| Company executives continue to sell medicine that they
| sell for $20 or $10 in Europe or India, but charge
| americans $5000 or higher for the same medicine in the
| same package.
|
| They shut down any research paper that outs them, by
| suppressing the findings, like Facebook or Junk food
| companies do whenever a research is conducted on their
| products.
|
| We should celebrate our pioneers and innovators, but we
| shouldn't ignore it blindly when MBA execs and
| Beancounters actively sabotage and hurt their own
| customers and the masses. Businesses are awesome, but it
| shouldnt be used to give a no questions asked green flag
| to anyone who runs businesses.
|
| There are people actively lobbying for policies that lead
| to more american deaths, bankruptcies, families breaking
| into shambles, and the government watching from the
| sidelines and even sometimes helping to make it all
| happen.
|
| Yes, there are people who do want to subdue the masses
| and keep them dumb, just as long as it helps them buy 1
| more yacht or few more 0s in their bank balance.
|
| I say it as a free market capitalist who is ardently
| anti-communist.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > > _[Rich & powerful assholes often maintain their
| status by unethical means.]_
|
| > _This is conspiracy level thinking._
|
| The prevalence of assholes is a documented thing (latest
| numbers I've heard was over 6% of clinical narcissists,
| reportedly a very conservative lower bound), and who
| would ever be surprised that high-status people like
| being high-status?
|
| I don't know about libraries _specifically_ , but the
| idea that rich assholes would like to keep the education
| level of the general population below a threatening
| threshold is not conspiracy thinking to me, it's just
| obvious.
|
| I am of course not denying the existence of _nice_ rich
| people. Though I 'm afraid they tend to be selected out
| of ludicrous wealth. In fact, I fully expect to find many
| more assholes among super-rich people than I would among
| the general population. (But I'm not sure either: the
| strife we find among some of the poorest people also tend
| to generate assholes...)
| bumby wrote:
| The irony is that one of the largest contributions to the
| public library system was one of the richest guys ever.
| Carnegie funded over 2500.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| You do realise you're not contradicting anything I've
| just said, right?
|
| Quoting myself, _" I am of course not denying the
| existence of nice rich people"_.
| bumby wrote:
| But then you go on to say,
|
| > _Though I 'm afraid they tend to be selected out of
| ludicrous wealth._
|
| The irony is that one of the most ludicrously wealthy
| people in history was also probably the single largest
| contributor to public libraries. Whether or not he was
| simply an outlier, I think that's an important thing to
| point out.
|
| Further, some data suggests that as much as 5% of the
| general population are narcissists. So collectively, your
| point seems to be that rich people are pretty much like
| the rest of us, just with more money.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _But then you go on to say,_
|
| I said _" tend to"_. A tendency does not make an absolute
| and complete genocide. I also said _" I'm afraid"_, which
| is supposed to convey some level of uncertainty.
| Carnegie's donation doesn't invalidate my point, _even if
| he wasn 't an outlier_.
|
| > _The irony is that one of the most ludicrously wealthy
| people in history was also probably the single largest
| contributor to public libraries._
|
| Where you see irony, I see expected statistics: the
| largest contributor to pretty much anything _has_ to be
| ludicrously rich. Because the only way to give that much,
| is to own even more.
|
| And I will add that one incentive for rich people to
| donate is their public image. And in many cases their
| "donations" are largely neutered by tax cuts or by
| increasing the return on some of their other investments
| (basically their donations causing other of their
| investments to increase their returns). Donations by rich
| people aren't always genuinely generous.
| bumby wrote:
| What evidence would it take to change your mind? Because
| it seems like you'll rationalize any outcome to fit your
| mental model.
|
| If the wealthy don't fund something, it's because they're
| narcissists. If they do, it's because of statistics. At
| the same time, you ignore the statistics about
| narcissism.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _If the wealthy don 't fund something, it's because
| they're narcissists. If they do, it's because of
| statistics._
|
| I said no such strawman, and it's not my main point
| anyway.
|
| My main point is: the idea that rich & powerful people
| will generally do what it takes to stay rich & powerful
| is not conspiracy thinking, it's common sense. The idea
| that a sizeable proportion of them will resort to
| unethical (even lethal) means to do so is not conspiracy
| thinking, it's common sense.
|
| That's it, and I don't think Mr Carnegie here provides
| any significant evidence to the contrary. I mean, the
| same guy reportedly had strikers shot and killed, didn't
| he? It's hard to believe such a guy donated large amounts
| of money out of the goodness of his heart.
| bumby wrote:
| You did say they want to remain high status, likely due
| to their over indexing in narcissism. Even if that's not
| your main point, the logical leap that we seem to
| disagree on is that promoting illiteracy is the means to
| that end. Carnegie does provide evidence against that, as
| does all the libraries and educational buildings that are
| named for wealthy donors.
|
| There's a philosophical argument that all altruism is
| actually selfish in nature, so I don't think your premise
| holds that the wealthy are unique in this regard. What
| you seem to be saying is that they are complicated just
| the same as everyone else, just with more resources. If
| your only point is that wealthy people are status-minded,
| I don't disagree. I disagree that they are _uniquely_
| status-minded. As William Storr 's work attests, we are
| all status-driven apes, whether wealthy or not.
|
| You also didn't answer the question about what it would
| take to change your mind, which is usually indicative of
| a dogmatic, rather than reasoned, position.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _You did say they want to remain high status, likely
| due to their over indexing in narcissism._
|
| Quote me, or I didn't.
| bumby wrote:
| > _The prevalence of assholes is a documented
| thing...latest numbers I 've heard was over 6% of
| clinical narcissists...who would ever be surprised that
| high-status people like being high-status?...the idea
| that rich assholes would like to keep the education level
| of the general population below a threatening
| threshold...it's just obvious."_
|
| Feel free to clarify, but to me, this reads as, _" Rich
| people, being narcissists, will try to maintain their
| high status by keeping the education level of the general
| populace low."_
|
| It also reads as a narrative talking point without good
| evidence to support it. I.e., "I can't prove it, I just
| know it's true."
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| Wrong reading. I never intended to make a generalisation
| out of 6% or even triple that amount. I just wanted to
| establish that rich assholes are a thing.
| bumby wrote:
| You seem to imply they are a higher rate of rich
| assholes, no? The most cited research on this (Piff et
| al.) is highly flawed IMO and hasn't been able to be
| replicated.
|
| Or is your point that people are assholes in general? If
| the latter, I'm failing to see how that gets connected to
| rich people actively suppressing education, especially
| when, as you say, they are the most likely to donate
| money to those causes.
| kiba wrote:
| Why would that be obvious? It seems more likely that they
| don't care about libraries.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| Can you precise what "that" is referring to?
| stetrain wrote:
| > This is conspiracy level thinking. Nobody wealthy is
| sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and
| subdued.
|
| Of course not. They're scheming about how to monetize
| education, knowledge, and research.
|
| > 1) Stop wasting my tax dollars on stuff I don't use or
| care about. Or 2) I bet there is an untapped commercial
| market that can be built, and people will love my
| solution more than public libraries.
|
| (2) Gets a lot easier if you first advocate for (1) to
| make the public libraries worse.
| ogurechny wrote:
| > Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep
| the proles dumb and subdued.
|
| There are corporate divisions doing A/B tests, etc. to
| find out what works for the lowest common denominator,
| and how to profit more from someone's ignorance. Many
| people here are directly involved in making it happen.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Ah yes, just last week me and my fellow billionaires at
| our secret biannual conference in Geneva were discussing
| how we can prevent people from reading books at the
| library. See, people reading is a threat to our power,
| one which we take very seriously. It is not going to be
| easy, especially seeing how many of us have donated
| millions of dollars to libraries and a few even have
| wings of libraries named after us, but the threat is too
| severe now, drastic measures must be taken.
|
| Now seeing how people are on to our plot, the urgency is
| clear. I am proposing that over the next few decades we
| work secretly behind the scenes to gradually reduce
| funding for various local libraries which have seen
| visitors decline since the rise of the Internet.
| jacobyoder wrote:
| > few even have wings of libraries named after us
|
| Public libraries? With easy access?
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| I don't know if you have ever been to a public library,
| but basically all of them are prominently adorned with
| the names of their largest donors.
| cafard wrote:
| Thank goodness then that socialists got a jump on
| building libraries back in the day:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library
| yardie wrote:
| Carnegie: "I'd like to avoid being remembered for having
| a bunch of labor strikers shot and killed. How can I
| launder my reputation?"
|
| PR: "sir, with enough money you can make the public
| believe whatever you want."
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewashing_(censorship)
| cafard wrote:
| Quite.
|
| Do you refuse, on principle, to visit the Frick when in
| New York City? For that matter do you avoid the
| Rockefeller Center?
| ddingus wrote:
| Yes, I see it playing out the same undesirable and
| unfortunate way. Great comment.
| grepLeigh wrote:
| OverDrive (and Libby) were acquired by KKR, the behemoth PE
| firm responsible for bankrupting Toys R Us. KKR also acquired
| one of the Big Five publishing houses last year. I'm worried
| about public library funds being squeezed by an extractive PE
| playbook.
|
| I wonder what kind of negotiating power a regional library
| has in that situation. Do state library agencies have more
| leverage than regional libraries? Do large states like
| California have more leverage in negotiating digital licenses
| than smaller states? Would a national library system have
| even more leverage? I'll ask a librarian tomorrow and report
| back.
| lstamour wrote:
| OverDrive is a strong player but they're still a commodity.
| Publishers and libraries can use other lending platforms if
| and when they emerge as stronger competitors. This article
| serves as a good overview:
| https://openeducationalberta.ca/ciicm/chapter/public-
| library...
|
| The problem is the publishers - they don't always sign on
| to provide books to every new platform and don't always
| release to every platform. But other platforms do exist:
| https://bookriot.com/comparing-public-library-ebook-
| platform...
| r0ks0n wrote:
| kkr is kanker in dutch
| runamok wrote:
| Oh no, worst news I have heard in a while. My wife and I
| LOVE Libby.
| ar_lan wrote:
| If anything did, it's Libby, except that directly just worked
| alongside libraries instead of disrupting them.
| lannisterstark wrote:
| I sincerely hope one day they get off their asses and
| implement casting that their predecessor, overdrive, had.
|
| speaking of, btw, your library likely has 'partner' libraries
| where you can borrow stuff too using overdrive/libby. You can
| often see a list on top right of the overdrive page of your
| respective library.
| initplus wrote:
| It's not disruption to make me wait 5 weeks to read a digital
| file through my local library's Libby service. It's an outdated
| business model using artificial scarcity that isn't effective
| at getting books onto readers devices. Spotify doesn't make me
| take out a hold on the artist I want to listen to. Netflix
| doesn't make me queue to watch the latest release.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to compare Netflix and Spotify to
| libraries; you pay for the first two.
|
| I agree that it's artificial scarcity and it's hard to feel
| bad for the publishing companies
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| We pay for libraries through taxes, it's just that they're
| considered a public good so important that everyone has to
| contribute to pay for them.
| thayne wrote:
| I do pay for my library card, because my city doesn't have
| a library (unless you count bookmobile), and the nearby
| cities that do have libraries charge you to get a library
| card if you aren't a resident. And it is approx. $9.99/mo.
| jacobyoder wrote:
| Wow... mine is $25/year. I live in a rural county, but
| work across the border in a less rural county, with a
| much bigger library system. For $25/year I get access to
| probably 10x as much stuff through them. I expect it
| might go to $30 this year.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Public libraries are paid for through public taxation.
|
| Which suggests a possible solution the the greater problem.
| eythian wrote:
| Depends completely where you are. My library would cost
| EUR60/year.
|
| https://www.oba.nl/service/word-lid.html
| grepLeigh wrote:
| Netflix has licensing restrictions too, but the limitation is
| time/exclusivity (rather than number of copies). You can only
| watch whatever Netflix owns distribution rights to. Although
| Netflix does charge more per device, so that's a bit like
| charging per "copy" of their service on top of the limited
| distribution.
|
| I'm wondering if you'd really prefer a library system where
| you could get some titles instantly, but the majority of
| content is unavailable because some other digital service
| provider owns distribution in your region for the next 12-16
| months. I'd hate that, personally.
| tasuki wrote:
| > It's not disruption to make me wait 5 weeks to read a
| digital file
|
| That seems very much like a disruption to me. In the
| "interruption to the regular flow or sequence of something"
| meaning of the word.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Every time I want to try a book I open up Libby and then get
| angry about this stupidity.
|
| So I just go to the better library - genesis, which is free
| and unlimited.
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| > outdated business model
|
| It's NOT a business!
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| The reason Spotify and Netflix don't make you wait is because
| they give the copyright owners money for views. A library
| does not, nor do I think they should.
|
| The current business model of selling libraries ebooks that
| can only be viewed a max number of times before needing to be
| repurchased, or only for a limited amount of time, is a money
| grab pure and simple.
| coding123 wrote:
| It would be the most expensive megabyte.
| rfarley04 wrote:
| This! I'm from Oregon but live in Thailand, where there are
| ZERO libraries. My absolute favorite thing about going home is
| just maxxing out my library card and seeing how much I can get
| through before heading home (I can do ebooks and audiobooks
| while abroad with Libby but I'm one of those obnoxious people
| that always prefers physical)
| closetkantian wrote:
| This is an exaggeration. I also live in Thailand, and I just
| got a library card at the very stately Neilson Hayes library
| last week. A bit pricey (3000 THB/year) but amazing ambience
| since the library was built in 1860.
| wrp wrote:
| I haven't been to Thailand, but I assume there are also
| libraries at the universities. The parent appears to be
| referring to a tradition of public libraries, so these are
| not really counterexamples.
|
| I've used private English libraries in various countries of
| the Middle East and East Asia. For the expat community,
| they were really a treasure before the internet.
| ghaff wrote:
| University libraries are sort of a mixed bag. They're not
| really advertised but they're fairly open to public
| browsing in some cases, however pretty locked-down in
| others.
| rfarley04 wrote:
| Yea $100 bucks a year for a small historical library with a
| very limited selection of English books (that's 45 minutes
| away from me) doesn't really compare to a free library
| that's in every city in the US (or many libraries in bigger
| cities)
| cacois wrote:
| To the above posters credit, it sounds like their claim
| of exaggeration was spot on (he didn't say it was a lie).
| You didn't say their libraries don't compare to US ones,
| you said they don't exist.
| rfarley04 wrote:
| I did even capitalize ZERO so that's on me. But also no
| one has pointed out any public libraries in this thread
| to my knowledge. Just private ones
| machomaster wrote:
| You are still in the wrong. "Zero libraries" is different
| from "zero public libraries".
| closetkantian wrote:
| I mean there are actually quite a few public libraries
| here, but of course the selection is primarily in Thai. I
| don't know why anyone would expect otherwise.
| rfarley04 wrote:
| Which ones? Genuinely curious because I'm only aware TK
| Park (paid membership sponsored by... True? Or someone
| like that)
| closetkantian wrote:
| Bangkok City Library, Bangkok Public Library
| muyuu wrote:
| it's odd to me that you'd expect a large stock of English
| books in any regular Thai library
|
| even in Japan, with perhaps the very strongest reading
| culture in the world, you're going to find a relatively
| limited selection of books in library outside of their
| own language
|
| you'll likely have less success finding a varied stock of
| Thai books in Oregon, to the surprise of nobody
| sleepycatgirl wrote:
| Yeah... Libraries are very much lovely places. Truly bliss how
| they can exist...
|
| And about books themselves, I _hate_ subscriptions, and all the
| DRM garbage, and if I can 't own the epub without DRM, then I
| won't buy it. To be honest, the silver lining is that DeDRM
| exists, so I can actually obtain Japanese novels for my cute
| e-ink devices, but.. bleh.
| eeskildsen wrote:
| Since going full-time on my startup, I often work remotely at
| my local library. Over my time there, my eyes have been opened
| to what an absolute treasure public libraries are.
|
| Besides the physical books everyone knows about, which are a
| treasure by themselves, there are many other valuable
| resources, as you mentioned, including:
|
| - The Adobe suite, even including Character Animator
|
| - Udemy
|
| - Digital access to The New York Times, The Wall Street
| Journal, and others
|
| - Free notary services
|
| - Print magazines and newspapers
|
| - Puzzles
|
| - Music and films
|
| - eBooks and audiobooks
|
| ...not to mention community activities like classes, groups,
| and concerts.
|
| Just being physically present in the library has benefited me.
| When I take breaks, I sometimes pick up a book at random. It
| may be about sales, health, politics, history. I sometimes come
| away with new ideas for my business, sometimes am just inspired
| or informed or amused in general.
|
| I encourage anyone reading to stop by a library if you haven't
| been in a while. See what they offer. You might be surprised.
| And please, do what you can to support them in whatever way you
| can, even if that's just to use them, demonstrating the need
| for them by your patronage. We need these institutions, and
| they won't be around forever without our support.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Sure but why would I pay for something I can get for free from
| the library - either a physical one or genesis?
| al_borland wrote:
| I'm continually shocked by the number of people who forget that
| libraries exist, and what they are.
| linuxftw wrote:
| It's almost like it's a totally unnecessary public
| expenditure at this point, and those funds could be used for,
| IDK, feeding the homeless?
| machomaster wrote:
| If you think that libraries are totally unnecessary public
| expenditure, then it really tells more about you than about
| the libraries.
|
| The same type of revelation of the person, who says that
| foodstamps are totally unnecessary expenditure.
| thefaux wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that wasteful library budgets is not a
| significant factor causing hunger or homelessness.
| veunes wrote:
| You're absolutely right. Library budgets are typically a
| small fraction of government spending I think
| al_borland wrote:
| Libraries can be a useful place for homeless, or low
| income, people to get access to a computer to write up a
| resume, apply for jobs, etc.
|
| The people who forget about libraries are likely well off.
| Shutting down libraries to feed the homeless doesn't make
| sense, as libraries are a tool that can allow them to
| eventually feed themselves, if well used.
| helpfulmandrill wrote:
| If they get rid of the libraries the savings will be used
| for tax cuts. Guarantee it.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| You mentioning helping the homeless in this convo has the
| same kind of vibe to me as conservatives only mentioning
| mental health when talking about gun control. They only
| ever mention mental health as a distraction from issues
| they do actually care about (like gun control), and have no
| interest in actually solving mental health issues. It's a
| typical way of bad faith arguing. That's just vibes though;
| there's a good chance you'd actually in earnest like to
| divert library funds toward helping the homeless. It's an
| issue that's very close to my heart too, so I get the
| sentiment.
|
| Still, I disagree. Just because one of two problems is
| worse (e.g. literacy and homelessness, or murder and
| burglary) doesn't mean we can just ignore one problem in
| favor of another. Just because murder is worse than
| burglary doesn't mean we should divert all police attention
| and money currently being spent on burglary to solving
| murders. Just because women's rights in the US by far
| surpass those in Saudi Arabia doesn't mean we should take
| the efforts we put into women's rights issues in the US and
| divert them to solving women's right's issues in SA. Just
| because homelessness is in some sense worse than illiteracy
| and low education doesn't mean we should divert funds from
| libraries to solving homelessness.
|
| Having written all this out, it feels far too obvious for
| you to not know this. Maybe it's not just vibes.
| linuxftw wrote:
| I volunteer at my local food bank to help feed to
| homeless. I understand just how dire the need is.
| Libraries are a luxury we cannot afford right now, and
| frankly nobody uses them. Any 'feel good' purpose like
| 'literacy' is already met by public schools. There's
| already federal subsidies for internet and telephone for
| the needy, and the people that live too far away to get
| internet definitely don't have the money or means to
| drive into town to use the library.
|
| I would be willing to compromise on small buildings that
| function as internet cafes that are free to use for the
| public, we can get rid of all the excess staff and books,
| though.
| LVB wrote:
| >and frankly nobody uses them
|
| Random stat from my Oregon county (pop. 600k) library
| collective of 16 local libraries: 2023 saw 10.8M items
| checked out, up 4% from 2022
| shkkmo wrote:
| > I volunteer at my local food bank to help feed to
| homeless. I understand just how dire the need is.
|
| If you spent much deal actually dealing with the homeless
| themselves, you'd know how crucial a resource a library
| is for homeless people. For something you see as "dire",
| you don't seem to have even done anything as simple as
| google "libraries help homeless."
|
| > Libraries are a luxury we cannot afford right now,
|
| Completely false. Libraries are one of the areas of
| public spending where the return per dollar spent is
| highest. Libraries are social institutions we cannot
| afford not to fund.
|
| > and frankly nobody uses them
|
| Again, you seem to have failed to do basic research as
| libraries get a ton of use and genetally suffer from a
| lack of funding relative to their usage rates.
|
| > There's already federal subsidies for internet and
| telephone for the needy, and the people that live too far
| away to get internet definitely don't have the money or
| means to drive into town to use the library.
|
| Most poor people are urban and in dense enough areas to
| that easily access libraries could be (and often are)
| available.
|
| > I would be willing to compromise on small buildings
| that function as internet cafes that are free to use for
| the public, we can get rid of all the excess staff and
| books, though.
|
| Oh, how generous of you. Why don't you go meet some
| librarians and learn about what they actually do before
| you write off their usefulness.
| linuxftw wrote:
| What do you think you've done to sway my opinion on the
| matter? There's a finite amount of money, and more
| pressing needs than letting people checkout paper books.
|
| Let's look at it like this: Current budget: $100; $90
| going to library, $10 going to feeding the needy. We can
| assume that even the entire library's budget won't
| overcome the shortfall in feeding the needy.
|
| You're choosing to let more people be unfed in order that
| a handful of people can read Harry Potter or whatever is
| popular these days. Bad trade off.
| al_borland wrote:
| Libraries have more than Harry Potter books. They have
| books that allow people to learn skills that would be
| valuable in getting a job. There are meeting rooms and
| events. My local library has a ESL program to help people
| with their English skills, which can help make them more
| employable. During the heatwaves last summer they were
| telling people who couldn't afford AC to come to the
| library to escape the heat, which may have saved some
| lives.
|
| Libraries can help get people to the point where fewer
| people need the food bank. Maybe you should see what the
| library actually has to offer before you try to cut it
| from the budget.
|
| There are so many other areas to find room in the budget
| without cutting libraries.
| greedo wrote:
| You do realize that library budget cuts wouldn't
| automatically go to housing and feeding the homeless,
| right? And considering most municipalities seem to treat
| homeless people as cockroaches, the money would probably
| go to fund a new sports stadium or as a tax break for
| some new business.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > What do you think you've done to sway my opinion on the
| matter?
|
| I thought correcting your facts would have that effect.
| If your opinion isn't fact based, I doubt there's
| anything I can do to change your opinion. All I can do is
| callout the misinformation you are spreading.
|
| > Let's look at it like this: Current budget: $100; $90
| going to library, $10 going to feeding the needy. We can
| assume that even the entire library's budget won't
| overcome the shortfall in feeding the needy.
|
| Or... set tax rates sufficient to do both? Neither
| actually costs that much. Lack of funding for either has
| to do with politics, not practicality.
| veunes wrote:
| libraries remain valuable. They provide access to a wide
| range of resources to people who are not able to get it
| grepLeigh wrote:
| Maybe this isn't as common in your region, but just about
| every library I've visited provides social services for the
| homeless.
|
| If you search /r/libraries you'll find first-hand accounts
| from librarians who are committed to serving homeless
| patrons, even though they didn't sign up for a social
| worker role. Honestly, I wish I could allocate MORE funds
| to those kind of people instead of the grifters who profit
| from the "homeless industrial complex."
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/us-
| libraries...
| veunes wrote:
| Me too, and it's today's digital age, where information is
| readily available online
| jhwhite wrote:
| I was in the local library yesterday for the first time in a
| while and they had a 3d printer AND THEY WERE HATCHING BABY
| CHICKS! How awesome is that!
| randcraw wrote:
| In contrast, public libraries around the Philly area are
| essentially dead. Town libraries are so underfunded that their
| mortar presences are open only until 7 PM M-Th, close at 5 F &
| Sa, and are closed Sundays. They have greatly reduced their
| paper book holdings and now rely almost entirely on ebooks,
| which number fewer than 2000, and interlibrary loans of any
| kind do not exist.
|
| In contrast, public libraries in Michigan are thriving (another
| place I know well). I have no idea why the difference is so
| stark.
|
| In my over 60 years, I've never lived anywhere so illiterate as
| Philly.
| vl wrote:
| Libraries are funded from local taxes, this is why there is a
| difference.
| bumby wrote:
| Are you implying the OP was over-sampling on wealthier
| Michigan neighborhoods? Because I read their quote as
| applying to Michigan as a whole, and there are certainly
| parts of Michigan that are poor enough to have strained
| local taxes.
| vl wrote:
| Not at all. I literally mean that libraries are funded by
| communities (i.e. private groups, towns, counties,
| states), and some communities chose to fund them lavishly
| and some not to fund them at all.
| chrisBob wrote:
| Where in Michigan? I regularly visit libraries in Ann Arbor,
| and Whitmore Lake. Both have libraries that are a wonderful
| resource for the community, but the difference in funding is
| obvious.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > public libraries in Michigan are thriving (another place I
| know well). I have no idea why the difference is so stark.
|
| I can't speak for Philly, but Michiganders have a _long_
| long-standing community tradition of fighting to defend our
| public libraries from an onslaught of various attacks. And
| while the quality of the library system can vary (based on
| location and local funding authority), Michiganders generally
| have majority support for public libraries as an institution,
| and pass successful votes for them regularly.
|
| (historic Library voting records) https://www.michigan.gov/li
| braryofmichigan/-/media/Project/W... (be careful reading
| this, not every red/failing vote is bad -- for example, May
| 2023's red line is a _success_ for that public library, that
| something bad did _not_ pass)
| treflop wrote:
| Haven't lived in Philly but I've been.
|
| It's one of those somewhat rare livable working class cities,
| no? With a pretty big DIY scene.
| vl wrote:
| But you realize that you paid for all of this with your local
| taxes? It's not like there is a magical place where laser
| cutters chose to spawn for free.
| gavin_gee wrote:
| The licensing costs for Ebooks are unsustainable for library's.
| The publishers don't want any sharing and so the cost per ebook
| vs physical is totally out of sync with Ebooks considerably
| higher. One could argue that publishers are the ones who are
| strangling the viability of libraries to exist.
| appplication wrote:
| This feels like something that could/should be legislated.
| Libraries should not be subject to the same restrictions on
| content sharing that consumers are.
|
| Or maybe one better: eliminate restrictions on content
| sharing.
| winternett wrote:
| In my city certain people are often using them and leaving...
| uh... errant trace elements of themselves on said resources,
| especially the public-use computers... :/
|
| I'm not really a germaphobe, but in the age of the pandemic, I
| think public resources like libraries are under serious threat,
| just like busses and public transit. It would be nice if there
| was some sort of reassurance that cleaning and disinfecting was
| taking place between each use.
| greedo wrote:
| Lots of libraries let you volunteer if you're so inclined.
| Also, you can lobby for better library funding so that they
| can be staffed better. While you're at it, you need to find a
| better euphemism for homeless/unhomed people...
| p1dda wrote:
| Our brains our overloaded with text these days with all the
| scrolling of news, email, texts and at work which mostly involves
| even more text.
|
| Reading a great book has great value, I think most people would
| agree, but to even get to the cognitive state where we could even
| consider doing this, we have to reduce our enormous load of text
| that is not work-related. I started doing this a few years back
| and I got back into reading in my spare time and I will never
| regret it.
| dsign wrote:
| > 35 books out of 100 are profitable
|
| I don't think that's right. It's just too good. Imagine that you
| are an author and maybe you pay one line editor and get beta-
| readers for free, maybe you do your own cover, and you don't
| print a large batch of your book and because you are the author,
| you can't pay yourself an advance. That kind of resourcefulness
| that a trad publisher can't afford would allow that same 35/100,
| maybe a little higher, or maybe a little lower, depending on how
| you do with self-promotion. Still, it means that if you are not a
| terrible writer, or one who consistently writes stuff nobody
| wants to read, you will make money with one book out of three.
| Which I think is _too_ good.
| stubish wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that means 35% of books covered their advance
| (ie. authors actually started getting paid royalties). I think
| it is still about $1 per full price paperback (physical or
| ebook).
| r0s wrote:
| > Is anyone else alarmed that the top tier is book sales of
| 75,000 units and up? One post on Substack could get more views
| than that.....
|
| I guarantee any book-length post on substack will get
| substantially LESS views than that.
|
| This person discovered what any aspiring writer who cares already
| knows: Publishing like music runs on proven revenue generating
| content and gambles on the next big hit. Same as it ever was, and
| Amazon changes nothing about that fact.
|
| Maybe publishing consolidates and changes, companies boom or bust
| but the business itself has always been like this.
| fifticon wrote:
| isnt there a logical twist in all this.. The problem is that
| there are so many _different_ books. I have a house not exactly
| filled, but certainly loaded with books. So people certainly buy
| books. But of each book, I seldomly have more than one or two.
| It's a bit like random numbers filling the interval 0-1. each
| number has 0 probability, but they fill out the infinite space
| 0-1 fully. But how horrible it would be to only have the 10 best
| selling books. The bible, anyone..
| emodendroket wrote:
| Is there? Lots of people read books digitally. I am sure more
| than 50 musical artists reached more than half a million
| people.
| emodendroket wrote:
| > I think I can sum up what I've learned like this: The Big Five
| publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for
| big celebrities like Brittany Spears and franchise authors like
| James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business. They also
| sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like Lord of the Rings,
| and children's books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. These two
| market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from
| the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and
| even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the
| books we think about when we think about book publishing (which
| make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).
|
| I know this is in some way an irritating thing to say, but this
| is exactly what I would have guessed before I read the article.
| It's cool to see numbers put to it but I don't think this was a
| secret.
|
| I am struck by the coda where the antitrust intervention did
| nothing to preserve a healthy market. Kind of a common story.
| outop wrote:
| How is this an unhealthy market?
|
| Everyone can easily access the books they want. People choose
| to read the Bible and Harry Potter because that's what they
| want to read.
|
| Of course, it might be a shame that we all coordinate on
| reading a few hits that everyone else is reading rather than
| check out some underappreciated books. But is the market really
| to blame for that? Amazon makes it easier than ever to find all
| the books. Publishers, as pointed out in the quote, are
| publishing tons of books that don't make it, in part because of
| a belief that it's a good thing to do. It's easier to self
| publish than ever before. And social media is often playing a
| big role in discovering the huge hits that everyone else is
| reading - many are not the books pushed by the marketing
| machine, but word-of-mouth successes that get discovered and
| shared by a huge group of dedicated, articulate readers.
|
| If there were hardly any books selling 3-digit numbers, that to
| me would suggest an unhealthy market. The presence of lots and
| lots selling that many seems very positive.
| dingaling wrote:
| > Everyone can easily access the books they want.
|
| Not particularly. New niche-interest non-fiction books are
| expensive ( $60+ ) and tend to have short print runs, after
| which their price on the second-hand market quickly
| escalates. And few are available as ebooks.
|
| I've had to let a lot of books pass me by, even before
| they've been printed, simply because I couldn't afford them.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Their idea of the problem with the proposed merger, making it
| unhealthy, was that it would reduce the number of players in
| the market. How is one of the players getting picked apart by
| private equity instead of merging with a different player a
| better outcome, then?
| kilburn wrote:
| Incidentally, today is the day of the books and roses [1] in
| Catalonia.
|
| If you are ever planning on visiting Barcelona I promise you
| won't regret it if you can arrange it so you are there on Apr
| 23rd.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_Books_and_Roses
| Aeolun wrote:
| > Penguin Random House owns Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar
| intellectual property. The book has been on Publisher Weekly's
| bestseller list every week for 19 years.
|
| This is insane. To be fair, it's a fun book. But _19 years_?!
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| I love reading books, and I write: I've had essays published in
| various internet corners, and I'm working on a humble little book
| of my own. Few who write do so for the money, and like most
| things, the Pareto Principle applies. That being said, another
| commenter has pointed out that book sales data suggests we are
| actually in a book boom.
|
| Also, publishers are absolutely in it for the money. But the
| quotes and analysis of this article suggest that publishing
| houses are too big and a victim of their own size. It seems like
| they can't "run lean" and are big enough that they are trying to
| find books that can sell millions of copies.
|
| Other questions I had while reading the article: - Is there any
| Hollywood accounting in the book industry?
|
| - Do writer's advances still make sense? What if advances were
| smaller but royalties are bigger?
|
| - These companies are looking for books that can sell millions of
| copies, but they could also a) raise the price, or b) have
| supplemental products + content for avid readers and fans.
| vunderba wrote:
| From the article: _" The Big Five publishing houses spend most of
| their money on book advances for big celebrities like Brittany
| Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the
| bulk of their business. They also sell a lot of Bibles"_
|
| Well that was a depressing read (no pun intended).
| peter_d_sherman wrote:
| This is by far the best article that I've ever read about the
| _business aspects_ of _the book publishing industry_...
| keiferski wrote:
| Books are functionally a type of merch (low end) or art object
| (high end) at this point. The companies that sell the most
| understand this, whereas those that adhere to the old model of
| focusing on the words/information inside are struggling.
|
| For example: celebrity books like David Goggins' sell extremely
| well at a lower price point. At the other end, Taschen, who makes
| expensive art books and partners with celebrities often, also
| does well.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Here in Germany it seems like people buy a lot of books. Actually
| people make fun of me for having an ebook reader
| ddingus wrote:
| I buy books of all kinds. Paperback, hard cover, audio (rarely),
| e-book prefer non DRM. In fact, the number of books I buy has not
| really changed much. I just end up reading more books!
|
| People trade or loan me books. I get electronic ones via many
| means too.
|
| Many people I know buy books.
|
| Who does not buy books?
| Maro wrote:
| I buy tons of print books on Amazon, probably around 20-30 per
| year.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Fake news, I bought a book just last week
| watersb wrote:
| I have started to buy some technical books again, because the
| ebook version requires some insane locked down proprietary
| application to read, or causes the book to self destruct after a
| few months...
|
| No.
|
| I prefer ebooks for many reasons, and I have purchased thousands
| of them over the past two decades.
|
| Sometimes a printed book is better for dense technical material.
| But I'm starting to see textbooks that seem to have been designed
| as web pages: large x-height, clumsy justification and
| hyphenation.
|
| No proprietary apps to read a book, please.
| chromanoid wrote:
| I would assume that the lack of sales publishers see is directly
| related to self-publishing and web novels success.
|
| Nice numbers from a self-published LitRPG success:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/1c2a3x4...
|
| Other authors and people on Kindle Unlimited:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/15o4f5d/ku_payouts_...
| TOMDM wrote:
| My favourite web novel author is currently making around half a
| million a year on Patreon.
|
| https://www.patreon.com/Sleyca
|
| Really happy for them, the story is great.
| vidarh wrote:
| I would not. There's not much indication that this curve and
| the dominance of a small number of top sellers is a new thing.
| chromanoid wrote:
| I think most cultural goods compete in hit-driven markets.
| That is a given. But as far as I understood the article
| claims the downfall of books in general. And that is not
| true, in my opinion at least. Books are bought as web novel
| or viewed on Kindle Unlimited or in general as self-published
| endeavors. And as the link in my post states, KU pays good,
| Patreon works as well. There also emerge more and more paid
| and sponsored newsletters etc. All completely independent to
| classical publishing channels.
| vidarh wrote:
| > Books are bought as web novel or viewed on Kindle
| Unlimited or in general as self-published endeavors.
|
| I've seen no data to suggest this is true at least in the
| sense it's some sort of major revenue shift. "Traditional"
| - so non-web novel - type e-books make up about 20% of
| sales of traditional books, and this has been very slow to
| change in recent years.
|
| As far as I can tell - and this might well be way off, so
| I'm happy to see better numbers, the web novel market might
| _maybe_ be somewhere between 3%-5% of the size of the
| traditional book market. Both likely can make up
| substantially more of _indie_ authors earnings - it 's
| certainly far easier for me to sell to Kindle users than
| getting my books into bookstores, and so paper sales
| largely come from Amazon too.
|
| The webnovel market is _really_ hard to justify spending
| time on unless you write in a very specific set of genres,
| and is prepared to death-march until you get traction. That
| 's fine - some people want to do that.
|
| But KU etc. does not pay well either for most. They pay
| well for a similarly minuscule fraction of writers, and
| next to nothing for most. For my part, I'm considering
| pulling my stuff from there, as it prevents you from
| putting up your ebooks elsewhere.
|
| This isn't really surprising, sure - it's a market where
| it's now trivial to enter but still hard to get both _good_
| and find a product market fit. So you have a flood of
| people churning out vast volumes, most of which isn 't very
| good, some of which is good but just up against a deluge of
| _amazing_ work.
|
| I don't know about the US, but I know there was a survey in
| the UK a couple of years back that showed that in the UK
| the average _full-time_ writer, irrespective of platform,
| earns well below minimum wage, and the vast majority of
| writers are not full-time. Most full-time writers in the UK
| at least depend on the income of a partner to be able to
| afford to write full-time. And that average is _pulled
| significantly up_ by the top end of the market.
|
| Some people do better on KU or serialized venues than
| traditional books, sure.
|
| With respect to the click-bait headline, it's not so much
| that all that much has _changed_ , but that this is the
| most we've seen the publishing industry numbers _laid
| bare_.
|
| And "no one" really do buy books in the sense that reading
| "books" be they traditional, or webnovel.com or other
| serial formats, is something most people just don't do very
| often.
| chromanoid wrote:
| Regarding KU, what is your opinion about the numbers
| here? https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/15o4f5d/ku
| _payouts_...
|
| I think web novel and similar channel revenue is hard to
| estimate, since Patreon revenue and so on flies below the
| radar.
|
| It is of course still a niche, but I don't think it will
| stay that way. And I assume publishers see the effects
| already in consumer behavior. Just look at the Chinese
| web novel market.
| vidarh wrote:
| You _can not_ assume you can guess read-throughs based on
| reviews, is my first problem.
|
| It's against their terms to buy reviews, but you still
| trivially can (and risk getting banned if Amazon suddenly
| decides to enforce their rules - it's not worth the
| risk), and plenty of "grey hat" review services exist
| that costs money and where the provider will "gift" the
| readers copies bought off Amazon, but where the _readers_
| aren 't paid, and are at least in theory given
| instructions that somewhat tries to comply (or pretend to
| comply) with Amazon's rules. Wouldn't use that either.
|
| If the reviews aren't verified, then ARC (advance reader
| copies) are also common and accepted by Amazon w/caveats
| (you need to be _very_ careful about wording, and for KU
| it 's against the terms for you to send the book out
| while it's exclusive to KU, but you can do it before, or
| pause KU), and a fairly large percentage who receive ARCs
| will leave reviews. ARCs is _the norm_ in the publishing
| industry, and so anyone remotely decently prepared will
| line up reviewers that have no direct link to sales, and
| someone with a following somewhere can sometime line up
| fairly chunky numbers of reviews right off the bat.
|
| But this means the ratio can be _far_ lower. It 's likely
| a lot of the early reviews will have come from free
| giveaways and early efforts that did not earn the author
| a single cent and might even have had a net cost.
|
| Without knowing how the author in question promoted their
| book, it's a guess that could easily be off by a factor
| of ten. But it could also be better.
|
| $200k is certainly _possible_. Just rare.
|
| To do well on KU, people also usually focus on maximising
| page count. That means writing series, and pushing out
| "box sets" to encourage. It's a very different game from
| writing standalone novels, and one probably better suited
| to people already used to the webnovel/serials on Patreon
| game.
|
| With respect to the Chinese web novel market, my son
| spends a fortune on it, but it's still a tiny sliver of
| overall publishing. I suspect it's likely to outpace the
| growth in the rest of the e-book market though.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I read this and think about Sanglard's book:
|
| https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/
|
| He has 0.77 dollar profit on an 51 dollar book. A minimal
| campaign with some organisational backing on HN alone should be
| able to get 1000 books sold, no? Every programmer who lived
| trough the doom craze is interested. It would place him above the
| average number of books sold.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Just to refute the title: I've sold a dozen of my textbooks in
| the last two weeks. I bought them almost fifty years ago for my
| applied physics degree. So some people are buying some books.
|
| But yes of course no one buys most of the books that are
| published, I don't suppose that Lorrain and Corson sold more than
| a few thousand copies of Electromagnetic fields and waves (one of
| the books I sold) and I doubt that they made enough money to pay
| for the work it must have cost them.
|
| It must be even worse for academic textbook authors nor that many
| university courses don't even use textbooks any more because they
| have switched to modular online instruction.
| tomgp wrote:
| OK, I haven't read the whole thing yet but this bit raised an
| eyebrow...
|
| >These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat
| bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the
| publishing industry and even fund their vanity project:
| _publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we
| think about book publishing (which make no money at all and
| typically sell less than 1,000 copies)._
|
| Why do we view this as a vanity project and not the purpose of
| the whole endeavour? The celebrity books are just to raw material
| that allow them to dot heir real job; to make books those
| fragments of human connection widely available to the people who
| might need them, a service to readers and to future generations
| that isn't just about making money.
| bzhang255 wrote:
| I read that line as sardonic. The author is pointing out how
| the economics of publishing are contrary to what we would
| expect, or perhaps would like.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| I buy books but I don't read them anymore....
| theshrike79 wrote:
| For "linear fiction"[0] I use an e-ink reader exclusively. I also
| re-read books pretty much never. There are way too many excellent
| books I haven't read yet, so why would I spend time redoing
| something I have already experienced? I can easily hi-light stuff
| on the Kindle and check them out from Goodreads if I need to
| later.
|
| For books I read for work and other knowledge stuff it's either
| PDF on an iPad or a web page. In some rare cases a physical book,
| but stuff tends to move so fast paper reference books expire too
| fast to have any advantage compared to asking a large language
| model.
|
| If I get the urge to make any notes from this category, they go
| into Obsidian.
|
| [0] Books that are read from beginning to end with no need to
| jump around to check stuff you read before. Could be a biography
| too, which isn't fiction per se.
| nikolayasdf123 wrote:
| I do
| janandonly wrote:
| I'm currently writing a book about the What? How? & Why? of
| Bitcoin.
|
| For me, the gain and street cred I will receive from having
| completed a book is invaluable to me personally.
|
| I'm writing this book in Dutch, so I really don't expect any
| sales. Okay, maybe a few if there was another bull-run and
| frenzy, but that's not why I am writing this book.
| ulfw wrote:
| So where is that "Street cred" going to come from when no one
| knows you have a book because no one bought it?
| gverrilla wrote:
| > So where is that "Street cred" going to come from
|
| I suppose it is constituted by the same substance found in
| books that people buy, never read, and proudly display
| nevertheless.
| cafard wrote:
| No one bought books. If one can believe Edward Dahberg, the first
| run of _Thus Spake Zarathusra_ sold ten copies, the first run of
| Stendhal 's _On Love_ , seventeen copies. That considered,
| Thoreau selling just more than 200 of the first printing of _A
| Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_ appears as a raging
| success--but he had many literate friends.
|
| Simon Leys, in the essay "Readers' Rewards and Writers' Rewards",
| quotes the French writer, and sometime publisher, Jacques
| Chardonne as saying that "Any good book will find 3,000 readers,
| no more no less." Leys goes on to say the number hasn't varied
| significantly in last 400 years. (Collected in _The Hall of
| Uselessness_ )
| bradley13 wrote:
| Writing is art, just like painting, acting, playing an
| instrument, etc.. Great hobby. Don't expect to make it a
| profession. There's a truth behind the phrase "starving artist".
|
| Lottery winners are famous. It's easy to forget that most lottery
| tickets don't win.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| There is a steady stream of tech books being published. Does
| anyone know what sort of advance a tech author can get, if we
| leave out the biggest author.
| imetatroll wrote:
| I just am old school because I will ALWAYS prefer printed
| material over digital. I dread the day that physical goods
| finally vanish.
| ahussain wrote:
| One advantage of published books is that they have been through
| an editorial process, and so are guaranteed to be good (on some
| dimensions).
|
| Once publishing dies, who will set the quality bar? University
| presses? Stripe press?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Books are, in many cases anyways, an outdated medium. Or at best,
| a medium that has fierce competition from many other mediums that
| did not exist for the majority of time the printing press has
| been around. There's just so many ways to consume fiction today
| and the barrier to entry is essentially 0. Literature still has
| its place but that has always been a very small place for the
| highly intellectual - a limiting factor on its own. Similarly for
| non-fiction, there's just so much competition from other mediums
| that frankly, people tend to prefer over books.
|
| People who love reading (I count myself here) will continue to
| and books will be viable to them. But the vast majority of people
| only ever read because there wasn't an alternative.
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| If the title is the conclusion you're reaching after reading all
| the testimony (or whatever it is) then you're probably the kind
| of person who never buys books. Other than the heavy hitters and
| back catalogs, there are too many other books for there not to be
| a long, sparse tail of sales.
| Deforest7551 wrote:
| Because of libraries?
| beezle wrote:
| Interesting article. I have a book still in print, very niche
| subject. First released in 2013, Amazon mysteriously stoppped
| stocking it last May, even with recent annual sales of
| 150-250/yr. Life time print sales are over 1,300 with close to an
| additional 500 in digital copies.
|
| Hardly a life changer but I've managed to keep the bottom line
| compensation to $6 per copy, give or take, the entire time so
| dinner money ;)
| EchoReflection wrote:
| I buy used books all the time, sometimes several per month. And I
| pre-ordered a new book for which I am pretty excited.
| "Speaking"in universals (the irony of this statement is not lost
| on me) is unwise.
| HPsquared wrote:
| And most books that are bought, aren't read.
| veunes wrote:
| I can't imagine how I would write essays for university without
| our library
| beryilma wrote:
| Being mostly into technical books and textbooks, I WOULD BUY
| BOOKS if the publishers didn't goddamn charge $300 for an
| undergrad textbook.
|
| I have no love for textbook publishers AND authors. They could
| all crash and burn for all I care.
|
| The best real analysis textbook I've seen recently by Jay
| Cummings sells on Amazon for $16. So it is possible to
| (self)publish books that people can and would buy. Granted that
| the author probably doesn't live on this book's income, it points
| out that more affordable solutions can at least exist.
| noashavit wrote:
| In SF libraries are mostly used for clean air during the fire
| season. Sad but true
| yunwal wrote:
| I think novels also suffer from a lack of independent
| tastemakers. Book stores all went out of business, and none of
| the publishing houses have an identity beyond publishing what
| sells. I can't think of any book review blogs that have loyal
| followings, so you end up with the only exposure being pay-for-
| play. It's really difficult to discover new authors that I like
| with the current systems.
| lolive wrote:
| I consume a LOT of comics on bittorrent, read them then buy
| expensive physical editions of the ones i like. That is VERY bad
| for my wallet (:i consume comics a lot), but it is always a sure
| shot when going to the comics store.
|
| I consider that to be a win-win situation.
| whyage wrote:
| Interesting analysis, but it misses one group of authors: those
| who write books for fun, not profit.
|
| Writing is an effective way to convey your thoughts and ideas.
| Writing a book has the added benefit of forcing you to plan,
| prioritize, and edit at a much larger scale. With it comes a
| greater feeling of achievement. Selling a few copies is a nice
| cherry on top.
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