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Will Once - somewhere and back again
So I was making a sandwich the other day (as you do) and I started to read the back of the carton of sandwich filler (also as you do). And I noticed the phrase "May contain fragments of shell". And that got me thinking ... just what does that mean?
https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
Jim - I thought of you as I was writing it. Food labelling must look very different from your perspective compared to mine as just a consumer!
I suspect that everyone's ideal for their walking chops and assorted side cuts, is that they roam free about the countryside, rooting lustily for goodies. I'll be reading the label more closely next time!
Wild boar bacon and eggs gathered from nests in the hedges?
Will wrote: "Jim - I thought of you as I was writing it. Food labelling must look very different from your perspective compared to mine as just a consumer!"There is a big disconnect between our end and the consumer end. For example there has been so much legislation put in place that it's horrendously expensive for farmers to sell to the consumer. How much of this legislation is for public protection and how much is to stop farmers undercutting the supermarkets is an interesting question.
But government has over the years ensured that farmers no longer sell food. They merely produce raw materials that other,more profitable companies take and manufacture.
JimI hear you! Meanwhile we consumers are being fed meaningless words like "airy" and "values". I read an article on the BBC news website the other day which said that politicians no longer use argument or rhetoric. Instead they just come out with buzzwords that the public connect to. It doesn't matter whether it make sense. It is all about whether it sounds good.
Which is killing your profits on the hard work and effort you've put in Jim. Someone else is stealing all your glory here and leaving you in the cold. The problem is, that consumers either don't really know about it, or don't care, and that needs to change.
Gaff (hope you don't mind me calling you that!) - I think it's a general problem that goes far wider than food. We like to buy stuff cheaply, but that is a kick in the teeth for our producers.My local sainbugs sells T-shirts for £6. How the hell can they make them for that price, ship them half way round the world and pay for the handling and store overheads? Because at the other end of the production line is some poor sod being paid peanuts to work in a sweatshop.
But we have got to be prepared to pay more to get better products and support local producers. With the rise of Aldi and Lidl, I can't see that happening any time soon.
It's not just food and clothing. People regard the price of a coffee as expensive for an ebook.same attitude
Will wrote: "Gaff (hope you don't mind me calling you that!) - I think it's a general problem that goes far wider than food. We like to buy stuff cheaply, but that is a kick in the teeth for our producers.My ..."
Will, I have no objection to gaining a friend :-) I teach in an area rich in agriculture and I have to admit that before I did, I was blind to it too. My feeling is, that we've been playing fast and loose with consumerism and it can only go for so long. Personally, I'd support any 'industrial' action taken by producers in this country, because some of them are my friends.
I do try to make a conscious effort to understand where my goods come from, but from a financial standpoint it's not always possible to be ethical. It's a sad indictment on our society, but true.
Jim, that's why I refuse to drop my ebook below £4.00. It's not even minimum wage for the time I put into it.
My chances of earning the minimum wage for the time I spend writing are somewhat less than are the chances of my Lady wife becoming the next Pope
Well, yes, but I don't think ebooks work in quite the same way as a physical product like a T short or a pig. A T shirt or pig can only be sold once, but we can sell an ebooks an infinite number of times without it costing us anything.Say that you are selling an ebook for £4 and you are getting a certain number of sales. If you dropped the price, say to £1, you might get ten times more sales than before.
Your profit is the total amount that you take in, not the amount you make per unit. That's why many successful authors have some of their books free or very cheap, particularly the first book in a series. Like a drug dealer they reel you in with a free sample in the hope of getting you hooked later on.
As it stands I'm giving it away for free at the moment and I'm fully expecting to have to revise my strategy, but at the same time, I don't think that this culture of expectation that we should give it away is healthy. How many times have you paid to see a movie at the cinema that was mediocre at best? Isn't it the same sort of expectation when you buy a book? I suppose what I'm trying to say is, shouldn't books be more like the movie industry and less like coffee culture? The idea of physicality died with the birth or the digital age. A good example would be a specialist software house. The product isn't physical, but they are still a producer and I think we risk yet another 'sweatshop' culture if we don't acknowledge that.
I think it's a bit of both. The marketing of the biggest movies generally hinges on familiarity and reputation. I'll go and see a movie by Tarantino because I enjoyed Pulp Fiction. I'll watch something with Benedict Cumberbatch in it because of Sherlock. I'll watch the next Star Wars because ... well, it's Star Wars, isn't it?The movie industry has always been about star actors and star directors. Now we've also added sequels to the list of tactics to reel in the punters.
It's the same when it comes to books. Stephen King and JK Rowling don't need to give their books away. I see their name on the cover and I know what I am getting.
But when a new writer asks me to buy their book, I don't have that same feeling of trust. They haven't yet built up a reputation. I need another reason to risk my hard-earned cash on an unknown writer.
The coffee culture is for when we have made it. Starbucks and Costa Coffee sell a product that costs pennies to make. They can charge a premium because of perceived quality and reputation - just like a star actor or director commanding a premium fee to work on a particular film. Or an established writer charging full price for their latest book.
I appreciate what you're saying, but a coffee lasts 10 minutes and however much you liked it, you can never have it again. You'll buy 2 or 3 on a good day. Your work is your considered opinion and a part of you that you have chosen to share. Once bought, digitally or otherwise, it can be kept indefinitely (ish) and revisited. How can you possibly compare that to a cup of coffee?In the same breath, a livestock producer spends a great deal of time raising a quality product just for someone to tell them that all their hard work is worth a tenth of it's actual value. People might want cheap, but they also like free. I guess I have this dystopian view that free is where we're heading unless producers make a stand and impress on the market that their work has value.
Depends on how you look at it. If you think about long term asset value then no-one would ever buy a coffee. Or a bottle of champagne. Or go to the movies, theatre, a concert, a football match. Or do anything that doesn't last.If we are talking about assets then the ebook has more value. Unless it is so awful that i give up after a few pages.
The definition of value changes if we think about the marginal cost of producing the thing. A cup of coffee needs beans, hot water, the skill of the barista, the cost of running the coffee shop. And those costs apply ever time you buy a cup of coffee.
An ebook has a different cost structure. The big cost is your and my time as authors. But the marginal cost of each book is as near as damnit zero. There are mo beans to buy, no electricity to pay for, no raw materials, no staff to pay. It costs me the same to sell 100 books as it does to sell a million.
So if we are talking marginal cost then the coffee has more value. Someone had to pay for each one.
But frankly none of that matters. Customers will pay what they think something is worth, or as cheaply as they think they can get it. It's a free market
I think we're reaching a parting of the ways. With physical things I think we've seen it already. You can buy a cheap burger and it'll be 'produce of more than one species' and mechanically recovered at that. We saw it with the Tesco horse-burgers. People got what they paid for. The best meat will just go abroad, food is traded on the world market. Same with other things. If people don't value them, they won't get them.
With the digital stuff then you'll still get writers. But when you look back a lot of writers supported themselves with other work. Trollop in the post office, Dickens with serialisation and readings. To survive the best writers will do more of the writing that pays.
A mate of mine already offers a 'commission your own erotic short story' service. He's got a reputation as a writer within the genre and people have contacted him and asked if they could commission stuff.
The rest will be written by people who've no money for proper editing, no money for professional proofreading and the good, the bad and the mediocre will form one seething cauldron and those who stick their bread in will pull out all sorts of stuff.
And there'll be those who point out they can get Emily Bronte or John Buchan free on e-book so why should they pay for inferior substitutes?
Maybe, maybe.What I think we are seeing is that customers want a range of products - both premium and value. Supermarkets will sell their finest range and their essentials ranges. There are some films I'll pay to see at the cinema, some that I'll buy on DVD and some I'll wait until they are on the telly.
I think it's the same with ebooks. The market will settle into varying ranges of quality and corresponding prices. People will pay to read the authors they like.
Or put it this way ... when they release the sequel to "to kill a mockingbird" I'll be prepared to pay a premium to get it. But I am much more price sensitive when it comes to writers I don't know.
I appreciate your point Jim and as an author I'm a glint in Buchans' gigantic eye. However .... We might not write with pen and ink anymore, but wear and tear on machines costs. Your broadband costs. Your digital presence costs. To you, it's a necessary evil and you use it for more than tapping out some well structured sentences. But the intrinsic value of what you produce is of profound value to somebody.The difference between Brad Pitt nd Michael Sheen is a million dollars (don't quote me on that) but I know who I'd prefer. If you under value yourself, what impression does that leave those who don't know better? Heck, when a mechanic services your car, you don't know if he's fresh out of training, or has 15 years experience. My point is, you still pay for the service. As a writer, you are providing a service, an entertainment. You may not be Brad Pitt, but your work still commands value.
Okay, so I'm as green as grass in summer, but if my work has no value, where are we going with writing?
Gaff - you produce something that you can sell a million times with no extra cost to you. As long as you can find a million people who want to buy it.
Will wrote: "Gaff - you produce something that you can sell a million times with no extra cost to you. As long as you can find a million people who want to buy it."You know, I'm going to have to concede to that. It's not to say I agree, but it's the reality of it.
It's finding them that's the clever trick
If you find the secret Jim, pass it on to someone worthy!
Don't worry, I won't let incredible riches spoil me
Just invite me to one of the parties is you have pig on the menu!
Will, thanks for a really intelligent discussion. When you teach 13 year olds all day, you forget what it's like to be an adult sometimes. I really enjoyed that!
I'm sorry I was asleep and wasn't here to lower the tone. :(I must try harder.
The great British argument about whether we should have election debates ... and why they are all missing the point.https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
Responding to Jim's excellent blog on "We are not the men our grandfathers were" ...https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
Jeremy Clarkson's cleavage - why Clarkson is in trouble, what the appeal of Top Gear is, what the BBC should do about it ...Oh, and some slightly fruity pictures of both men and women in varying stages of undress.
https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
I wasn't going to blog today. I have a pile of things to write ... boring reports, more interesting novels, that sort of thing.But this two kitchens thing has got my goat.
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But what is much more interesting to me, have you got a goat in your kitchen?
Gingerlily - Elephant Philosopher wrote: "But what is much more interesting to me, have you got a goat in your kitchen?"probably for sacrificial purposes :-)
No goat, I'm afraid, sacrificial or otherwise. To be perfectly honest, I've never really seen the point of goats. They mostly seem to be second-rate sheep.
You've obviously never attended a good goat race.
They race? Heck, I didn't know that. Being a Surrey resident, I've enjoyed goat cheese as a light canapé. I've even had the occasional goat curry. But beyond that they seem to be mostly in the "aw, isn't it cute?" department of wildlife with limited practical use.Didn't Gordon Brown have the idea of GOAT - Government Of All the Talents. That went down as well as his creepy attempts to smile ;-)
We went to the goat race in Kampala three years running in the early 2000s.Great fun.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_r...
Not blogged for a while. I had a huge amount of my consultancy work to do, which bit into evenings and weekends. And I've been working on the next book - more on that later.In the meantime, I've been getting hot under the collar about "how to" books...
https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
I have an itch to buy a new watch. I know I shouldn't. I don't need a new watch. But that doesn't stop the itching.https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
Humans are very good at spotting patterns. Including patterns that aren't really there.https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
Gotta get Dave a pair of those frilly shorts.
I'm sure he'll look stunning in them :)
Every happy home needs a dressing up box!
Do you mean a tickle trunk?I agree!
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https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...