The ethics of "free" e-books

[Geddon]

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1449141' date='Jul 21 2008, 17.22']Considering how decrepit my local library system is here in TN, I highly doubt that'll be an issue as long as I live in the state :P That being said, I buy a lot of limited-edition works, so I don't think my buying would be affected much.[/quote]

Yeah, I buy a lot of limited editions too, but usually not unless I have read the book first and know I like it. At the moment my first opportunity to read a book usually comes from buying a mass-market edition or, very occasionally, from borrowing a copy from my local library. It's usually only after I've read the book that I make the decision on whether or not to splash the cash on a special edition or chase down a rare first print.

If libraries start supplying eBooks (and assuming they are able to supply a decent range of titles in that format) then I can foresee myself borrowing rather than buying, and getting my first read that way. It would mean the end of speculative book purchasing on my part, I'd only spend money on books I had already read and knew wanted to be a permanent part of my collection. I'd move to a [i]read-then-buy[/i] model rather than a [i]buy-then-read[/i] one.

[Joe Abercrombie]

[quote name='aergern' post='1449199' date='Jul 21 2008, 16.57']Well, here is some salve for your hives. I not only bought all three of your books but paid extra to get the hardcovers from amazon.co.uk since your American publisher are such asshats and don't offer them. In fact I bought both the TPB AND hardcovers .. so there. :P[/quote]
Ah, yes, it's starting to go down now.

[quote name='aergern' post='1449199' date='Jul 21 2008, 16.57']But that doesn't mean I will give up the right to trade books with my friends. I make a decent living but I also won't purchase every book recommended to me. You can't tell me you've never loaned books to friends to get them into an author. I know for a fact that the three people I've loaded The Blade Itself to have gone out and bought their own copy along with copies of parts two and three. They'd never heard of you prior to my loaning them book one. :D

But if you'd like to do a Metallica .. I suppose I'd do the same thing I did with them .. stop listening. ;D[/quote]
Of course, in reality people lend and swap books, buy them second hand, try things out at the library and so on. Bitching about that type of thing is pointless since you can't stop it, counter-productive since, as you point out, it hopefully leads to sales anyway, and furthermore makes you look a whining fool. What, me? The music industry have persistently shit the bed on this whole issue by treating it as a threat to be stamped out rather than an opportunity to be embraced. We in publishing must strive not to make the same mistakes.

The only thing that is a cause of some concern, to me at least, is the pirating of e-books, free torrents that are essentially ripped off. Now, it may well be that at the present time such things actually do you no harm, since they could be thought of as just spreading the word to readers who would never look at your stuff if it wasn't free. I daresay there are plenty of readers of e-books who just download wodges of pirated stuff to look at that they'd never pay for, so it's not as if you're necessarily losing sales, you may even be making some later. From that point of view it's not totally unlike the sort of really low cost promotions that might get done in a book store - first books in a series sold at maybe one third cover price, so at cost, basically, on a no royalty basis. That's well worth doing if it widens your readership for later books even though you make no money from it in the short term. However, the idea of widespread ripping off of e-books is slightly concerning. Not a problem now, because it's still a small part of the market, but it may well become one as the market for ebooks inevitably grows and, in the long run, presumably replaces printed media altogether. Especially if the upcoming generations are more and more at home with the idea of ripping stuff off as the norm, which younger folks seem to be with music. Bands can potentially move over to a paradigm where they give recorded music away as promotion for live shows - Prince did it with his latest album, Radiohead have been inviting fans to pay whatever they like for theirs - and still rake it in if they're successful, since the live experience can't be pirated. Not really the same with authors, unfortunately, who are in general working on much tighter margins in the first place. Our appearances don't tend to command £70 a ticket for a 50,000 person stadium...

[Peadar]

Here's an [url="http://bloggasm.com/did-tors-free-ebooks-affect-sales"]interesting article[/url] wherein several authors rejoice in the sales bump that occurred after their publisher made copies of their books available for free download.

I wonder how different the story will look when e-ink becomes more common? That's when I'll start losing sleep over it, but not before.

[Larry.]

Peadar,

I was thinking of that story (I read each of the authors' accounts before the Bloggasm article) when I wrote my blog post on it. It is something of interest.

Joe,

What about those pesky people who get ARCs of your books for free? Do they make you twitch as well? :P

In all seriousness, good points. I like the idea of sampling for free, buying a full work afterward.

[Joe Abercrombie]

[quote name='Peadar' post='1449325' date='Jul 21 2008, 18.08']I wonder how different the story will look when e-ink becomes more common? That's when I'll start losing sleep over it, but not before.[/quote]
But isn't that right about now? I'm starting to get a fair few emails from folks asking me about ebooks and it seems to be being discussed a fair bit more widely. Certainly I think we're turning the corner to a point where it's a significant subsidiary market, even if the death of print media is still a long way off. Problem is that these things can happen with alarming suddeness when the right bit of technology comes along. Like it did with the i-pod, I guess. Important to have the right approach in place when that happens, I'd have thought.

[Joe Abercrombie]

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1449337' date='Jul 21 2008, 18.13']What about those pesky people who get ARCs of your books for free? Do they make you twitch as well? :P[/quote]
Yes, but for different reasons.

Seriously, though, I wonder what the future holds if ebooks become the basic format and it's impossible to really control the spread of free material. Will it all become free, but full of advertising, sponsored links, and product placement?

The First Law is brought to you by Worthington Bitter and Topps Tiles?

Ooooh, it's like that science-fiction what they have these days...

[Larry.]

I suspect it'll be 10-20 years before e-books have the same cache that MP3s have. And even then, there'll be differences, since there's much more value placed on the physical heft of a book that'll make for a longer staying power for printed books. As for ads...Adblock better save me!

That being said, when shall the twitching over the ARCs for your next book begin? :P

[Peadar]

[quote name='Mister Manticore' post='1449360' date='Jul 21 2008, 19.29']If you like this book, and don't want the author to have to spend 12 hours a day at a low-end job, kindly send X$ so the next book comes out that much faster.[/quote]

Or maybe, if you like this book, some fan will write the sequel, also for free, because the original author had to go back to his day job...

I don't agree that e-books are now, but they are very, very, very soon. There'll be widely read novels by famous authors that will never see print. Some people will continue to collect books in the same way that a few still cling to vinyl records. But they'll grey quickly.

Three years until a glorious or dreadful future, IMHO. See you there :)

[aergern]

[quote name='Joe Abercrombie' post='1449269' date='Jul 21 2008, 10.33']The only thing that is a cause of some concern, to me at least, is the pirating of e-books, free torrents that are essentially ripped off. Now, it may well be that at the present time such things actually do you no harm, since they could be thought of as just spreading the word to readers who would never look at your stuff if it wasn't free. I daresay there are plenty of readers of e-books who just download wodges of pirated stuff to look at that they'd never pay for, so it's not as if you're necessarily losing sales, you may even be making some later. From that point of view it's not totally unlike the sort of really low cost promotions that might get done in a book store - first books in a series sold at maybe one third cover price, so at cost, basically, on a no royalty basis. That's well worth doing if it widens your readership for later books even though you make no money from it in the short term. However, the idea of widespread ripping off of e-books is slightly concerning. Not a problem now, because it's still a small part of the market, but it may well become one as the market for ebooks inevitably grows and, in the long run, presumably replaces printed media altogether.[/quote]

I get you and I do understand. I just don't want the "Writers Guild" doing what the RIAA has done. I don't believe I'm renting .. I believe I've purchased.

[quote]Especially if the upcoming generations are more and more at home with the idea of ripping stuff off as the norm, which younger folks seem to be with music. Bands can potentially move over to a paradigm where they give recorded music away as promotion for live shows - Prince did it with his latest album, Radiohead have been inviting fans to pay whatever they like for theirs - and still rake it in if they're successful, since the live experience can't be pirated. Not really the same with authors, unfortunately, who are in general working on much tighter margins in the first place. Our appearances don't tend to command £70 a ticket for a 50,000 person stadium...[/quote]

No, but with the exchange rate being shite .. if I want your next book in HC and TPB .. I may well be paying £70 for that shipment. ;D Samething .. less smell. *laugh*

[aergern]

[quote name='Joe Abercrombie' post='1449339' date='Jul 21 2008, 11.15']But isn't that right about now? I'm starting to get a fair few emails from folks asking me about ebooks and it seems to be being discussed a fair bit more widely. Certainly I think we're turning the corner to a point where it's a significant subsidiary market, even if the death of print media is still a long way off. Problem is that these things can happen with alarming suddeness when the right bit of technology comes along. Like it did with the i-pod, I guess. Important to have the right approach in place when that happens, I'd have thought.[/quote]

Napster, Usenet and ftp sites full of mp3's were an issue in 1999/2000 ie. Metalligreed's issue.

iPod release date .. late 2001. The issue got worse with the iPod and the RIAA made it even more of an issue splashing " free music mp3's site shut down " so people went looking for it. If the iTunes store existed in 1999 and people could buy tracks for 0.50 or a 1.00 .. the problem would have been about as bad as it was prior the internet when we all traded mixed tapes and whatnot. OMFG! We traded music with our friends prior to the intarwebs. And it was just as bad then as it is now. If one person makes a tape for 5 or 10 people .. it gets out exponentially. The issue arises that I won't pay for DRM'ed content. My household has 3 Macs, 5 iPods and an AppleTV in it .. but Jobs can kiss my butt if he thinks he can limit what devices I use. I've started purchasing non-DRM'ed mp3's from Amazon. They're watermarked most likely but they don't stop working when transferred to a device exceeding the arbitrary number some joker thought was a good number of devices.

I hope they find a happy medium with eBooks before we are all digital. I really do. I would hate it if you had to go back to washing mules or holding the underwear basket in the men's shower room. ;D

/me ducks.

[Joe Abercrombie]

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1449352' date='Jul 21 2008, 18.24']I suspect it'll be 10-20 years before e-books have the same cache that MP3s have. And even then, there'll be differences, since there's much more value placed on the physical heft of a book that'll make for a longer staying power for printed books. As for ads...Adblock better save me!

That being said, when shall the twitching over the ARCs for your next book begin? :P[/quote]
Oh yeah, print media won't disappear overnight. Apart from anything else it usually takes new generations to develop new ways of doing things, and folks who've been reading books for forty years aren't likely to suddenly take up new technology. Plus the experience of reading a physical book is different to reading from the screen of an ebook. The pages, the feel, the smell. People will be reluctant to move over entirely. An MP3 sounds very much the same through the speakers as does a vinyl record, when it comes down to it, it's just a lot easier to store and handle, so it can completely replace it quite swiftly.

But it may well be less than 10 years before ebooks are a very significant market. Especially with better and better screens becoming more and more portable. You could probably read a book on an i-phone now without too much discomfort. In the UK most everyone has a mobile phone. As their screens get better and better, solid state storage becomes smaller and smaller, battery power improves. Phones have merged with mp3 players, why not acquire the function of a reader too? That'll happen almost incidentally as phone-makers strive to get internet pages onto phones more and more easily and completely. If you can get google maps on your phone then something as lo-tech as a book should be simple. Then you won't even have the effort of chucking your kindle in your bag, you'll always have your books to hand via your mobile.

[Geddon]

I believe that people are generally honest and are happy to pay for things as long as the following conditions are met:
[list]
[*]The product they are buying is as good or better than the free version they can find
[*]They feel the price is fair
[*]They believe the money they are spending is ending up with the right people (i.e. the creative talent rather than the corporate suits)
[/list]The music industry has a long history of not meeting those criteria, which means that there is also an element of revenge, for want of a better word, behind the unauthorised copying. Unfortunately it seems the publishing industry is making many of the same mistakes with eBooks - incompatible DRM systems, charging the same price for eBooks as paper copies - it all seems very familiar. If those policies don't change then the future may well be bleak.

On the other hand eBooks offer new opportunities too, with eBooks your work need never go out of print and distribution becomes easier - anybody with a net connection and a reading device becomes a potential customer. Without the costs of producing, storing and moving a physical item it should be possible to sell the eBook for less while still generating the same amount of end profit. You have the potential to expand the market for your product and reduce prices, that's usually a good thing.

Going back to my earlier post about eBook libraries, I think people would be quite happy to pay small rental fees to read books in this manner, so a [i]pay-per-read[/i] model might be viable for eBooks. As long as the fee is reasonable and the rental process convenient I can see people happily choosing that route in preference to dealing with the hassle of tracking down a p2p copy.

[Wyatt]

I think a major difference between e-books and music pirating is that music is extremely, far and away, something that is consumed more than books, movies, etc. Sad, but yes. I don't think e-book pirating will ever get as big as music pirating. I don't think the readers out there who now go out and buy books will ever become like the people who now pirate loads and loads of music, and I don't think future generations of readers will become like this as well. I don't know – maybe I'm delusional or idealistic (I'd like to become an author as well) but I don't believe any signifcant amount of the reading public will take this to the extremes music pirating has gone.

[arya_underfoot]

i find ebooks too stressful on my eyes to read. i've never gone beyond about 10 pages...

[Gigei]

[quote name='Joe Abercrombie' post='1449269' date='Jul 21 2008, 12.33']Especially if the upcoming generations are more and more at home with the idea of ripping stuff off as the norm, which younger folks seem to be with music. Bands can potentially move over to a paradigm where they give recorded music away as promotion for live shows - Prince did it with his latest album, Radiohead have been inviting fans to pay whatever they like for theirs - and still rake it in if they're successful, since the live experience can't be pirated. Not really the same with authors, unfortunately, who are in general working on much tighter margins in the first place. Our appearances don't tend to command £70 a ticket for a 50,000 person stadium...[/quote]

Yeeees but Prince isn't your average guy he is a superstar. Now if J.K. Rowling gave away her books for free, she would still make a mint off licensing toys, films, tv series and stuff like that.

Like I said in another thread, I just wish ebooks were priced better and that publishers would offer their *entire* archive of previously published books in their ebook department. As it is, it's impossible for me to buy certain out of print books and give the writer something off my purchase. I have to buy them secondhand (or get a pirated ebook) simply because there is no ebook available to buy.

That is for the future though...as it is now I wouldn't buy an ebook. The price is ridiculous and the formats still hurt my eyes (I read it off my pc).

[Joe Abercrombie]

Prince may be a surperstar, but he's in no way an exceptional case in the way that JK Rowling is. An awful lot of bands make more money now from their live appearances than from record sales. In fact a lot of them have been for years. That just isn't true of writers. At all. Most career musicians can make money from playing live. Very, very, very few writers make a penny from sales of toys, films or tv series - that's only for the most successful few.

[Happy Ent]

I see no hope.

I can see how a small section of professional culture will survive by simply making internet access [i]expensive[/i]. (To some extent, this is how data-via-phone is already paid for in many plans.) Essentially, downloading the massive data that is a movie or a piece of music would be a costly affair and then the money (instead of lining AT&T or Vodaphone's pockets) could be routed back to the content provider. This merely needs some kind of governmental action, the EU or the US could decide this tomorrow to “save culture” or “fight child pornography” or some other rhetoric.

But this solution cannot work for books, because books are very little data. The time for transmission is much shorter than the time for consumption.

So I assume that writing will (again) be a hobby for the rich. It's been that way before, and there is no outside reason for assuming that culture won't revert back to that model. More and more stuff will be provided by amateurs or dilettantes (in the non-derogatory sense of the word), who do it for passion rather than money. For a concrete example, look at how [i]encyclopaedias[/i] are written today, or who wrote the code for your web browser.

[Geddon]

[quote name='arya_underfoot' post='1450221' date='Jul 22 2008, 07.11']i find ebooks too stressful on my eyes to read. i've never gone beyond about 10 pages...[/quote]

Is that due to reading from a CRT monitor or LCD screen? My eyes get tired reading from those too.

Have you tried reading a book on one of the new dedicated readers out there, such as the Amazon Kindle or the Sony Reader? They use a completely different type of display technology called e-Ink that is much, much easier on the eyes.

To be honest I don't think the eye-strain argument against eBooks is valid any more. The manufacturers solved the problem and electronic reading devices are now available that can be used for hours and hours without causing any more eye-strain than reading a printed book.

[Gigei]

[quote name='Joe Abercrombie' post='1450332' date='Jul 22 2008, 06.15']Prince may be a surperstar, but he's in no way an exceptional case in the way that JK Rowling is. An awful lot of bands make more money now from their live appearances than from record sales. In fact a lot of them have been for years. That just isn't true of writers. At all. Most career musicians can make money from playing live. Very, very, very few writers make a penny from sales of toys, films or tv series - that's only for the most successful few.[/quote]

Indeed. I wasn't referring to your average writer. Just pointing out that writers do, in fact, have other sources of income which in the future could possibly be their main source if their fans would like to support them. I think is a certainty for the "big name" writers.

Even if everyone starts expecting free ebooks (I'm not saying it will happen but *if* it does) fans will still buy T-shirts and stuff. Webcomic artists, IIRC, get their income from this and they give their work away for free. ;) That is an internet model for creative work.

Fans will always support their favorite authors/artists/singers/what have you.

[The Pita]

I don't like reading from a screen.
There's a feeling in a book. When you read a heavy book, you know you're going to enjoy it. You can also brag about how large your book is, and how smart that makes you for reading it (but only if you're surrounded by idiots). There's that joy of knowing exactly how far along you are in the book by looking at the bookmark. Reader saying "Page 324 out of 683" means nothing, even if I knew math better. It's a number, not something you can look at and say "I'm halfway through the book!"
Also, you can't read a computer while you're on the toilet.
I just see no point in downloading the books for free. For the extra 60 NIS it costs me, I'll own the book, thank you verra much.