Ebooks: Scarcity, abundance and economy

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

All of the trends you listed are good indications of technological advances that will change the paradigm in one way or another. They are similar to the abundance model in that way, but they are all still limited to physical objects that must be built at some cost, and take up space. The trends you listed would fit these models:

Trends 1 and 2: Decentralized production (of power and goods)

Trends 3 and 4: Personalized physical automation (to go with the personalized electronic automation we already have)

In decentralized production, companies will still be able to sell consumers the equipment and materials needed to produce. It should save consumers money, unless some government/organization enacts some draconian controls over the equipment or materials access. Personalized physical automation will hopefully save time and lives.

Abundance has the potential to save consumers money... or it could become a money sink, taking your money in tiny bits for each thing you buy. Hard to tell which way that will go, and it depends on how products are paid for (an advertising model over abundance could make digital products essentially free, and encourage buying of other products, like the ad model of television).

They both lead away from the industrial mass production model, (of which books were the first product) which led the vast majority of people away from the agrarian model. I expect this new model (whatever it will be called later) will provide another quantum leap in abundance.

[Penforhire]

I'm not convinced about trend 1. Its worldwide uptake is currently due mostly to government sponsorship. Long term it has a shot but we're more likely to see nuclear power long term. Why? Because solar only works while the sun shines. We'd need an efficient low-cost energy storage method to power your house from solar at night or on cloudy days.

Or are you thinking of a true world-wide grid, where we get solar energy from around the globe? That'd be a possibility if we continue improving high-temperature superconductors. But we wouldn't be off the grid then. Same for orbital generators transmitting via microwave energy (and I'd hate to be in the beam path if it wobbles, lol).

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

I'm not convinced about trend 1. Its worldwide uptake is currently due mostly to government sponsorship. Long term it has a shot but we're more likely to see nuclear power long term. Why? Because solar only works while the sun shines. We'd need an efficient low-cost energy storage method to power your house from solar at night or on cloudy days.

Or are you thinking of a true world-wide grid, where we get solar energy from around the globe? That'd be a possibility if we continue improving high-temperature superconductors. But we wouldn't be off the grid then. Same for orbital generators transmitting via microwave energy (and I'd hate to be in the beam path if it wobbles, lol).

The cost per watt in 1974 was $1,000 watt. today it's around $1 in quantity. No one big drop, just steady price erosion. Following that curve has the price per watt in 10 years at 25-50 cents a watt. Generated power runs a watt equivalent of $.75 to $1 a watt. The problem of energy storage and release is a limiting factor, but not insurmountable. It's low effeciency, but worst case, you could split water and later burn the hydrogen in an infernal combustion engine. It's solveable...

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

This pressure will continue downwards towards a new equilibrium. That price point will likely be so low that it discourages new agents (authors in this case) to enter the market, hence no new books until the lack of supply will begin to put an upward pressure on prices.

Incredibly unlikely. No one reasonable is asking for ebook prices to plummet - just for publishers to stop pricing them comparable to physical books and keeping the difference in costs of manufacturing (everything after conversion to a format the printer can use; replaced by conversion to epub/mobi/whatever), transportation (reduced to like 1/10th of a cent per megabyte, if that, per transmission to the storefront that will be selling it - probably once per edition per storefront, no matter how many copies sell), and warehousing as profit. Remove those three factors (physical manufacture, transportation, storage) and thus $2-3 off of each ebook (compared to the mass-market paperback price - screw hardcovers and trade paperbacks, which are both ripoffs anyways, IMHO).

Authors and publishers would both get the same amount as they do for the physical product.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

What you say is a perfect example on the downward pressure to a price line of zero. You are satisified with the existent abundance and not concerned with future entries into the market, hence your stand is entirely rational and it will be the primary reason we will have very little new literature in 50 - 70 years.

Garbage, the amount of literature available has been ever increasing since the invention of literature. No reason to expect it will decline.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

No one reasonable is asking for ebook prices to plummet...

Actually, ebooks (like digital music) have been the subject of micropayment concepts for years. In an abundance economy, the possibility of reducing the cost of a book to a few cents, thereby increasing sales by a presumed factor of 1000 or more, has been debated often. So far, no one has been able to make it work. But I'm not positive that it wouldn't, given an easy-to-use micropayment transaction infrastructure.

(Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if some segment of the porn industry has been able to make it work, but lack of "legitimacy" has kept it from moving beyond porn. Porn is like that.)

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

This could change if authors somehow become more "respectable" as creators in society, worthy of everyone's support, instead of the prevailing attitude that they all but sponge off of society, and at the very least, produce a value-less product in entertainment media. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I keep coming back to this statement. It stunned me. It's so hard for me to believe that any true book-lover considers authors as people not deserving respect or as dead-beat "sponges". The ability to entertain well is a wonderful gift.

To wish for a "better" (cheaper) price is pretty universal for many things. It doesn't mean the consumer doesn't value to creator, to a degree. But it's not just books that never seem to earn what they're worth (for most authors).

My mother used to embroider...by hand. Then she bought a sewing machine to do it and thought she might be able to make some money from her hobby. She found that - if she tried to apply a living wage to it - no one was willing to pay for what it was "worth" (measured in terms of her supplies, her time, her expertise and care). So she still does it, but for family and for fun. I don't think she tries to sell anything any more.

Maybe you meant the comment differently than I read it. If the only way for a favorite author of mine to write was if every books sold for $35, I suspect I'd find another favorite author. Doesn't mean I don't value the author, but it means I have to weigh that value against what I earn, how many books I'd like to read in a month, and how quickly I go through them. I can't afford to read as much as I do at that price.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Big caveat that last one.

Not a business to be in if you're looking for steady employment.
Not right now.

Never has been, probably never will be. Writing for a living is limited to a small cluster of overly talented people with the tenacity to carry on even in times of initial inertia, doesen't matter if it is books or scripts.
All I stated was that in a publishing economy of abundance, script writing is still one of scarcity.

[latepaul]

Until relatively recently I used to follow a screenwriters newsgroup and my impression is that there's anything but a scarcity of wannabe script writers. What there is is still gatekeepers.

[crossi]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Maybe you meant the comment differently than I read it. If the only way for a favorite author of mine to write was if every books sold for $35, I suspect I'd find another favorite author. Doesn't mean I don't value the author, but it means I have to weigh that value against what I earn, how many books I'd like to read in a month, and how quickly I go through them. I can't afford to read as much as I do at that price.

I agree with this. It doesn't mean that I don't value authors but reading a book a day I simply can't afford to pay $20 per book. It's fine for those who read only 5 books a year. I wouldn't care either if I only bought that many. I give much more to authors than that croud even if they always paid full hardback prices because I buy many more books. I more than make up in volume what I won't/can't pay in price.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Until relatively recently I used to follow a screenwriters newsgroup and my impression is that there's anything but a scarcity of wannabe script writers. What there is is still gatekeepers.

It's an industry that puts out about 600 products a year and three-quarters are low-budget Indie productions.
Compared to even traditional publshing that puts out on the order of 40,000 titles a year in the US and the UK each.

You probably have better odds of winning a lottery than getting a script filmed and distributed. Unless you do it yourself.
Joss Whedon comes to mind. Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog. And those were industry *insiders*.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I keep coming back to this statement. It stunned me. It's so hard for me to believe that any true book-lover considers authors as people not deserving respect or as dead-beat "sponges". The ability to entertain well is a wonderful gift.

Yes, I realize how strange it sounds to say such a thing. I didn't mean to suggest that no one thought highly of authors; but the impression I get from most people is that they feel authors, like other artists, are trying to dodge "real work"... the "Money for Nothing" attitude; we are wanna-be celebrities and A-listers. We are the "Who is this guy, and why don't they interview Brad Pitt?" guys on The Daily Show and Oprah. (Somehow, the authors who actually become celebrities and A-listers, the Kings and Rowlings and Clancys, are mostly removed from this attitude. Don't ask me how that works.)

And of the lesser population that actually reads, even some "book lovers" think nothing of pulling books off of a pirate site, leaving the author receiving nothing for their work... what kind of respect is that?

Americans respect books they love. Authors are simply attached to those books, and get recognition based on popularity of their books. Book isn't popular? You're nobody, the work you put into that book was wasted. I've written a dozen books. My friends who know I've written but haven't read my books couldn't give a $#!+ about the effort and accomplishment of my being an author.

I should say that this is an attitude I read in the United States in general, it is my subjective impression (I may just hang out in the wrong places), and I don't assume that other countries are like this.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

My mother used to embroider...by hand. Then she bought a sewing machine to do it and thought she might be able to make some money from her hobby. She found that - if she tried to apply a living wage to it - no one was willing to pay for what it was "worth" (measured in terms of her supplies, her time, her expertise and care). So she still does it, but for family and for fun. I don't think she tries to sell anything any more.

And jewelry is so expensive these days.

The living wage problem is a huge problem, partly because as a society we just don't pay people enough so that they can then turn around and pay artists enough. Even if we went to a system where all books were $35 by law, it wouldn't help the artists because the consumers (who are still underpaid) would have to consume fewer books.

We need to pay people enough that they can then turn around and pay artists a fair, living wage. Since I'm currently employed as an engineer with pretty decent pay, I try to engage in "trickle down" as much as possibly by buying indie books and all my accessories on Etsy, but it's not easy. (And it scares my husband, who wants to know what I intend to do with 400 new books per year and why the $50 scarf on Etsy was necessary when one can get a scarf at Walmart for $5. "I'm helping the economy, honey," I say.)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

It's too late to add a poll to this thread, but... how many believe that a micropayment system, say, 5 cents for a book, would create such an increased level of sales that it would ultimately bring in more to the author (sales increase by a few hundred to a thousandfold) than a $3-4 book price? Could that create a living wage for an average author? Could it overcome the initial obscurity of an average author?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

It's too late to add a poll to this thread, but... how many believe that a micropayment system, say, 5 cents for a book, would create such an increased level of sales that it would ultimately bring in more to the author (sales increase by a few hundred to a thousandfold) than a $3-4 book price? Could that create a living wage for an average author? Could it overcome the initial obscurity of an average author?

Micropayment could work *if it were actually possible.* But online, there's no "throw a nickel or a quarter in the hat" option. Micropayments through the internet require
(1) both author & payer/reader having an account with the same payment processor (whether that's MasterCard, PayPal, or the author's own site);
(2) giving a cut to the processor;
(3) keeping accounting records--more overhead gone to administration;
(4) often, minimum donation levels.

The closest thing we have to micropayments is advertising hitcounts.