UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
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Has amazon devalued the written word?
I thought the Net Book Agreement was rather fine. When the supermarkets challenged it in the courts the publishers successfully used the 'in the public interest' defence on the basis that protecting the selling price kept open thousands of small bookshops and made available to the public a wide range of books. When anti-competition legislation was toughened and the supermarkets began more court action, the publishers gave up, the NBA disappeared and so did thousands of bookshops.But going back to Simon's original point, Amazon is just one company that has taken full advantage of the internet and I think it's the internet that has devalued the written word. A few years ago being a published writer carried a certain status as it meant that a publisher believed that the writing was good enough to justify the costs of publication, whether it be in a book, newspaper or magazine.
All that has gone out of the window. Now we can all 'publish' whatever we choose to write, whether it be a book, a blog or, like me right now, pontificating on a forum.
The virtual world is awash with written material available free, or at very little cost. I can only imagine that the result will be very, very few writers making a significant amount of money from their writing, with the good writers struggling to make their work visible.
That's always been the case, other than instead of being made available as now, manuscripts used to sit on writers' shelves at home gathering dust.The market as ever has spoken. We can criticise that or aspects of it such as the demise of the NBA, but then you could go further and question free market economics and all that palaver. We just have to deal with it as things are now.
The last figures I saw say that the average indie sells 20 copies of their book (which is probably the number of family and friends who have something they can read an ebook on). They never promote and never engageA lot of people seem to be publishing on Kindle so that they can say they're a 'writer'. This sort of 'vanity publishing'(perhaps 'ego flattering' is a better term) will doubtless continue.
but already I think we are getting two levels of writer. I noticed that the media don't take a lot of notice of you until there is a publisher and a dead tree book involved, they've already 'written off' those who just self publish ebooks. The media are still using publishers as gate keepers to see who are worth talking to in a big way.
The internet is producing writing work. I did point out the seamier side in http://jandbvwebster.wordpress.com/20... , paid reviews, recaptioning pictures for porn sites, (apparently now when you set up a porn site you don't even need your own photos, you steal them off other sites and get someone to recaption them for you).
As a mate of mine said when I told him, 'Eat your heart out Hemingway'
But there are a lot of companies pay a freelance to write the company blog. Makes sense, cheaper than having a staffer do it, and if the blog gets bad publicity it's cheaper to get rid of a freelance than 'let go' a member of staff.
A good, flexible writer will doubtless always make ends meet somewhere, but writing will remain part of a portfolio career.
Oh, and Amazon hasn't devalued the written word, remember Samuel Johnson dictionary, Lexicógrapher. n.s. [λεξικὸν and γράφω; lexicographe, French.] A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, I suspect the world has never really shared the writer's view of their own value to society :-)
That's absolutely true, Marc. Both readers and writers just have to make the best of it. From a reader's point of view, gathering dust on writers' shelves was probably the best place for a lot of those manuscripts, but I have found some digital gems written by indy authors. I've paid very little for those gems, so I think it's fair to say that, in purely financial terms, the internet has devalued the written word.
I always kept myself away from paid writing work that superficially exercised the writing muscle but actually rather mocked me with its simulacra of the writing business. It was like being on the outside of the glass looking in but unable to be admitted. But this is purely a reflection of my mental makeup. I agree with you that there's a lot of wanting to tick 'author' off your bucket list abounding, but as you say, such things a career are not made of. I do find it intriguing why so many people choose what is a very old art form of the novel, even if it is updated in delivery systems by technology, as against video or film or music which all have equally cheap and accessible technologies for producing their art statement. I haven't fathomed why this might be.
None of my family own a kindle. I only sell to strangers!
B J wrote: "That's absolutely true, Marc. Both readers and writers just have to make the best of it. From a reader's point of view, gathering dust on writers' shelves was probably the best place for a lot of t..."I don't think it's the internet devaluing writers, I think it's writers devaluing themselves. I posted earlier about the questions I feel strongly that any writer ought ask of themselves why they choose to do what they do and seek to become a writer.
Markets always have 2 potential impacts on artists making art. The basic what sells and what doesn't with all the attendant factors of distribution, price and visibility/marketing. The other factor is when the artist studies the market trying to calculate what will sell and tailors their work accordingly- this is a form of market-led self-censorship.
Everybody thought that critics would be the first to go under, as anybody could have a blog and write a film review, but if anything, the glut of critics that is around has made me appreciate the really good critics even more. It's the same with novels - the cream will find a way to rise to the top. I hope :) edit: then again, 50 shades rose to the top! :(
Now I find we are no longer in agreement (but that's life). I might think that a book I've written is a masterpiece and publish it for Kindle priced at £100. I wouldn't sell any. In the same way that if Ford priced a Focus at £30,000, buyers would go for an Astra instead. Cost-free publishing via the internet has allowed writers to use free, or very low cost, books as a marketing tool to develop a readership, but with thousands of writers adopting the same strategy readers now have a very low perception of the value of a book.
Jim wrote: "Oh, and Amazon hasn't devalued the written word, remember Samuel Johnson dictionary, Lexicógrapher. n.s. [λεξικὸν and γράφω; lexicographe, French.] A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, I ..."
Nice quote, Jim!
Marc wrote: "I always kept myself away from paid writing work that superficially exercised the writing muscle but actually rather mocked me with its simulacra of the writing business. It was like being on the outside of the glass looking in but unable to be admitted. But this is purely a reflection of my mental makeup. I agree with you that there's a lot of wanting to tick 'author' off your bucket list abounding, but as you say, such things a career are not made of. I do find it intriguing why so many people choose what is a very old art form of the novel, even if it is updated in delivery systems by technology, as against video or film or music which all have equally cheap and accessible technologies for producing their art statement. I haven't fathomed why this might be.
None of my family own a kindle. I only sell to strangers! ..."
Having to pay off the over-draft and keep people fed, I've been writing for money since the 1970s. But then it was Dr Johnson who said "only a fool writes for anything but money" :-)
As for the outdated art form, I have little skill with music, and film and video are media I don't particularly engage with. I might not watch a full length film every year :-) So for me there was no contest.
R.M.F wrote: "Everybody thought that critics would be the first to go under, as anybody could have a blog and write a film review, but if anything, the glut of critics that is around has made me appreciate the really good critics even more. It's the same with novels - the cream will find a way to rise to the top. I hope :) edit: then again, 50 shades rose to the top! :( ..."
You have to stir a slurry pit before you empty it because of the thick crust of sh*t which floats to the top. I suspect life is more like a slurry pit than a milk bottle :-)
Jim wrote: "Marc wrote: "I always kept myself away from paid writing work that superficially exercised the writing muscle but actually rather mocked me with its simulacra of the writing business. It was like b..."I suspect you are in a similar age bracket to me. Such video and music technology is readily acessible to the younger generations.
I just choose to make my money manipulating numbers. It leaves the language centres of my brain free for what really interests me.
B J wrote: "Now I find we are no longer in agreement (but that's life). I might think that a book I've written is a masterpiece and publish it for Kindle priced at £100. I wouldn't sell any. In the same way th..."Perhaps books in the old model were overpriced. I know I would never buy a hardback. Plenty of people on Goodreads say they get books from libraries or second hand shops both of which are not terribly conducive to the writer making money. Is it that readers don't know the value of books online, or that authors are finding it difficult to get their books visible to those readers in the first place? I think it's a physical volume thing rather than a price thing.
I now have an image of the internet as a literary muck-spreader.
Jim wrote: "The last figures I saw say that the average indie sells 20 copies of their book (which is probably the number of family and friends who have something they can read an ebook on). They never promote..."I love these figures, they make me feel positively best-selling!
Agree that the internet is producing writing work. I've taken money under a penname to produce articles for TripAdvisor, AOL, some car marketing thing, various entertainment sites... at one blissful stage a couple of years back I was making £1,000 a month on top of my day job salary - it was never quite enough to contemplate giving up my full-time job, but the internet has given professional writers at least as many opportunities to earn as it has taken away.
That's interesting, Andrew. Thinking about it, I'm sure you must be right.I'm a big supporter of our local library service. I give them any books I've finished with (so do a lot of other people) and they hold regular book sales where they sell such donated stock together with old library copies. They spend the funds raised on new books for the library.
Libraries do benefit authors in that they have to buy the books in the first place and every loan produces a handsome further payment of 6.2p for the author.
Andrew wrote: "I love these figures, they make me feel positively best-selling!Agree that the internet is producing writing work. I've taken money under a penname to produce articles for TripAdvisor, AOL, some car marketing thing, various entertainment sites... at one blissful stage a couple of years back I was making £1,000 a month on top of my day job salary - it was never quite enough to contemplate giving up my full-time job, but the internet has given professional writers at least as many opportunities to earn as it has taken away. ..."
Not only new outlets but making it easier for you to collect information needed for articles to sell to outlets that are not internet based. Even something as basic as hunting down the right person to interview is so much easier than it used to be back in 1975.
Marc wrote: "I suspect you are in a similar age bracket to me. Such video and music technology is readily acessible to the younger generations.I just choose to make my money manipulating numbers. It leaves the language centres of my brain free for what really interests me. ..."
To an extent we have to remember it's producing for the market. The older generation still appreciates the written word. One problem of writing for the younger generation is that not only are they more film and video 'centric' but they're far more hooked on the free download. It's awfully difficult to make a living selling stuff to people who don't see why they should have to pay for it (I've had a lifetime in agriculture trying to make a living producing food for the population of the UK so I know all about this :-( )
Jim wrote: "Marc wrote: "I suspect you are in a similar age bracket to me. Such video and music technology is readily acessible to the younger generations.I just choose to make my money manipulating numbers...."
I wasn't really talking about the consumers, more asking why producers had opted for novels rather than video/music
I wonder if you're asking this question on a forum where the participants are self selected to books. For some it's their generation, for some it'll just be that they prefer the written word to the visual media.In my case I've never even considered working with film or video. I've never owned any of the hardware, software or skills. Indeed I've never been interested enough in these two arts to even contemplate acquiring them.
This isn't me denigrating them, or saying they worth more,or less than what I'm doing, it's just saying that I'm not fussed about them.
Mind you, I'm not big on interpretive dance either :-)
Jim wrote: "I wonder if you're asking this question on a forum where the participants are self selected to books. For some it's their generation, for some it'll just be that they prefer the written word to the..."It's a question I've asked on many forums book related and otherwise. I wish I could fathom it as to me it feeds back into why we tell the stories we do in the ways that we do. And that involves film, music, poetry etc. It also feeds back into the pertinacity of the novel, an art form which has remained basically unchanged for 250 years, unlike say visual arts or dance or music which have =evolved and mutated quite violently.
Hey, I use tools that have remained unchanged in form, function or materials for over a thousand years, don't get worried about a mere 250 :-)Oh yes, and this is your fault because you got me thinking of how to use interpretive dance :-)
https://www.facebook.com/TsarinaSecto...
Don't be knocking the interpretative dance, I've written both a long and a short play for dance in my remote past.
I'm afraid I'm the person who would rather buy the CD of a ballet rather than the DVD. Dance of any sort leaves me cold. But again, that's me,not dance.
But one thing you've prodded me into thinking about, I might be hooked on the written word, but I've learned enough to realise than with https://www.facebook.com/TsarinaSector to get anywhere I have to use pictures to hook people into the word. I have not doubt I would as cheerfully prostitute a video for the same purpose :-)
David wrote: "Although, as Stephen Leather once said (paraphrase), isn't it better to sell several thousand at 99p, then to sell a few hundred at £6.99, or whatever?"No.
At 99p, the author gets 34p per copy sold.
At £6.99, the author gets £4.89 per copy sold.
For every 100 books sold at £6.99, the author would need to sell 1440 books at 99p before it's better. That's FOURTEEN times more!
Plus, people buying books at 99p have a tendency not to read them for several years, then leave a 1* review because they've forgotten what it was about.
Jim wrote: "The last figures I saw say that the average indie sells 20 copies of their book (which is probably the number of family and friends who have something they can read an ebook on). They never promote..."Oh good, I'm not 'average' then :)
Tim wrote: "Jim wrote: "The last figures I saw say that the average indie sells 20 copies of their book (which is probably the number of family and friends who have something they can read an ebook on). They n..."Damn. 20 copies? My family and friends better get on it!
Point out that they can read them on their smart phone, not owning a kindle is no excuse :-)
On the other hand, 10 sales at 99p is better than bugger-all at £2.49 (the state of my month so far...)
Tim wrote: "On the other hand, 10 sales at 99p is better than bugger-all at £2.49 (the state of my month so far...)"Yes, that'd be the point, I believe.
I think the problem is that 'price resistance' sets in at some level, and the level may even be dropping.
Jim wrote: "I think the problem is that 'price resistance' sets in at some level, and the level may even be dropping."I feel sure that's right. I've read reports saying that Amazon makes very little, if any, profit on its Kindle reader sales. If that's so, then I can't see how it will allow free books to continue much longer - giving away product doesn't seem to me to be a sustainable business model. My gut feeling is that it won't be long before it introduces a new scale of charges for books (and commissions for authors). I fear that by the time that happens price resistance will have become entrenched and it will be very difficult to sell ebooks at more than £1.
I've read articles from both authors and platforms that advocate free books. But, they all seem to say they work better if you have a lot of books available, and work best if you have a series, with the first one being free.
Yeah, if I ever manage to get a second book out, Something Nice - 10 Stories will go into Select so I can do the odd free promotion, and then on the release of book 3, it will almost certainly go free.And B J, Amazon don't make a profit. At all. At some point, that will have to change, but I doubt it will be a problem solved by messing with free books. Quite apart from the piffling amounts of money involved at the bottom end of the market, Amazon use free e-books to get people hooked into the Kindle ecosystem and maintain market share.
David wrote: "I've read articles from both authors and platforms that advocate free books. But, they all seem to say they work better if you have a lot of books available, and work best if you have a series, with the first one being free. ..."The crack dealers gambit :-)
Yes, that's the only model I can see working, but like BJ I think that Amazon has perhaps broken the old model and is going to have trouble getting people paying much more than £1 per ebook.
The problem is that for publishers this isn't an economically viable price, even with paperbacks cross-subsidising.
I have 7 books out. Only 1 was enrolled in KDP and made free for 2 days as part of a National Flash Fiction Day a couple of years ago. That title was hoovered up in numbers I have never experienced before or since. Not one review or rating emerged from it.The rational consumer hoovers up free titles and ends up discarding most of them. They may try a paragraph, decide it doesn't grab them and move on to try the next, because it doesn't cost them anything to do so. And so on and so forth. And like I say, this is the ultimate rational consumer behaviour. Like trying all the chocolates in a selection box and putting them back in the box with a bite taken out and no one can object!.
I think it could settle down eventually. Most of us on here went mad with all the freebies when we first got our Kindles. Now very few of us still do that. I'm also beginning to realise that paying £2.49 (or whatever) for a good book by one of our authors is a lot better value than paying £0.99 for 3 books that I got because they were only 99p but that I might not enjoy or not even be all that interested in. Plus I get a warm feeling inside to think that I've paid for 1ml of the milk you put in your tea this morning :o)Of course this could be limited to people involved in our group which isn't even large enough to call a minority of the ereading population
Andrew wrote: "Yeah, if I ever manage to get a second book out, Something Nice - 10 Stories will go into Select so I can do the odd free promotion, and then on the release of book 3, it will almost certainly go f..."Yes, I was trying to make the point that giving away millions of free books to hook people into the Kindle system isn't a good business model if Amazon makes no money on the Kindle readers. It means that it only makes money on the ebooks sold at a reasonable price, but it is shooting itself in the foot by generating price resistance and reducing the price that readers are prepared to pay for ebooks.
David wrote: "How about this:http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/..."
so the structuralist literary theorists were right. Sort of
Oh, yes. Will I think about it. Wasn't the Net Book Agreement a perfect example of what Adam Smith called a conspiracy against the consumer?
I guess the freemium model was an unitended consequence, where the author looking for a competitive advantage(give out free books) dovetailed with Amazon looking to dominate market share and we end up with price sensitive consumers. Everybody seems to be trying to play everyone else.
David wrote: "How about this:http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/..."
I wouldn't disagree with any of that - but he's just another writer trying to promote his book via his blog.
David wrote: "Oh, yes. Will I think about it. Wasn't the Net Book Agreement a perfect example of what Adam Smith called a conspiracy against the consumer?"I don't think so. Publishers still competed between each other on cover price and product range. The courts agreed that the NBA worked in the consumer's interest in that it ensured that the public would have access to bookshops carrying a very wide range of books. From the moment the NBA disappeared it was accepted that the consequence would be that most bookshops would close and the public would end up faced with a very limited range of highly-discounted books by famous authors sold in supermarkets.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Tim wrote: "On the other hand, 10 sales at 99p is better than bugger-all at £2.49 (the state of my month so far...)"Yes, that'd be the point, I believe."
Trouble is, those 10 sales (value £3.40) cost over £30 in terms of advertising, promoted posts etc, not to mention time. Frankly, trying to sell books at the moment really isn't worth the effort. I'm certainly not doing any more 99p promos.
It is awfully difficult to justify paid promotion in some genre. We had an excellent thread where our Dark Lord went through the numbers and the sales he was starting from were considerably higher than many seem to get.
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
Wool Omnibus (other topics)Pyramids (other topics)
Something Nice - 10 Stories (other topics)
The Cartographer's Apprentice: Leave Them Wanting More (other topics)
Yours is probably higher than mine.
But anyway, now I'm more intereste..."
I doubt it :-)