The Society of Authors, the UK Association representing professional book authors, has called chicken little on the book industry by suggesting that internet piracy will cause authors to stop writing.
Tracy Chevalier, Chair of the Society of Authors and the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring told The Times that the current payment model for authors was dead and even suggested that content should be made available for free:
“It is a dam that’s cracking…We are trying to plug the holes with legislation and litigation but we need to think radically. We have to evolve and create a very different pay system, possibly by making the content available free to all and finding a way to get paid separately….
It’s hitting hardest the writers who write books that you dip in and out of: poetry, cookbooks, travel guides, short stories – books where you don’t have to read the whole thing….Cookbook authors are really struggling. I do it myself – if I want a recipe I go online and get it for free….For a while it will be great for readers because they will pay less and less but in the long run it’s going to ruin the information. People will stop writing. There’s a lot of ‘wait and see what the technology brings’ but the trouble is if you wait and see too long then it’s gone. That’s what happened to the music industry.”
That music industry where musicians have stopped publishing music and are begging in the streets….
On a positive note they are at least talking about alternative models and recognize that there is a need for change, but does anyone really believe that books are doomed? that writers will stop writing because pirated copies of their works may appear on the internet? While online content and E-Book readers are changing the book game, there will always be a market for books; literature is not modern music, it can’t be created on a whim by 9 year olds using Garage Band.
Even if the writers that don’t get it “stop writing”, it will just open up opportunities for writers that get it.
E-book never would replace the traditional book.
i think long tail books (special interest) will not be affected by book piracy. and via print on demand the print titles will increase in millions. in Germany there’s already http://www.grin.com on the market (and plans to push to the English market) who published over 20.000 books in one year…
Well I think the cook-book example was not entirely unreasonable. I expect the net may kill off a few genres of book, eg I dont know how many printed map books will be around in 20 years.
I dont understand the point about 9 year olds making modern music, people appreciate well-crafted music just as they appreciate well written literature. And neither industry is doomed just so long as they maintain the massive promotional machinery, they still have the edge there.
Good music very likely also can’t be created by a 9 year old on GarageBand. There will always be exceptions – a tiny, very bright, very talented minority- and that goes for writing as well. Chevalier is correct to compare the two businesses.
Similarly, while people won’t stop writing (just as they won’t stop making music), people need to be paid for their efforts. You’re right, there will always be a market for books, just as there will be a market for music – but we’ve seen that latter market change and evolve. The same will most certainly happen for the publishing industry; the Kindle and print on demand vending machines are just hints of what’s to come.
The two models are equivalent: in both cases, a small set of gatekeepers decide what gets mainstream exposure. In both, we’re going to see a movement towards democratic media. That isn’t to say that we’re going to succumb to a kind of cult of the amateur; it means that the good stuff, wherever it may come from, will rise to the top and be distributed directly.
Because of that competition – suddenly between millions of authors, rather than a handful of publishing companies – prices will be driven through the floor until they hit free. Chevalier is totally correct in saying that another funding model is required. The question is, what will it be?
… That said, in music the gatekeepers have basically become companies like Apple rather than companies like EMI. Will Amazon do the same?
Evolve or die… that is the motto of succeeding and failing on this planet… authors are no different (of which I am one). This has been a LONG TIME COMING, the music industry decided to ignore innovation and it’s costing them their entire business, this is a call to arms… absolutely… TO CREATE COMPELLING REASONS TO MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO BUY BOOKS! Alternatively, using book as a tool to monetize a website is also smart… give the books for free, send the traffic to your site and make back your money that way.
Jon
http://woodmarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
Will the stars of today be the buskers of tomorrow?
Maybe the book metaphor for short work writers (poems, recipes, etc) is no longer appropriate. Usually its just one or two good poems/recipes then a bunch of trash to fill out a book so a publisher can print it. Kinda like… albums… hey!
And I won’t even read product specifications on screen anymore, much less a novel. (even that amazon one, great as it is, is certainly a few generations from being a widespread alternative)
this is such a load of crap. i consider myself a writer (with a full time job in tech) and having my stuff pirated would be my last concern. actually, i kinda wish my stuff (although not published yet) was pirated because i want the recognition. the only concern i have is true intellectual theft…that is, someone stealing my script or novels and calling it their own then selling it for their own gain. i already give out my stuff to my friends because i enjoy people reading my stuff and providing me feedback. this includes my blogs and whatnot.
these so-called writers must be the wannabe commercial writers who never had a true original idea in their life. i mean, if you want to write, you write. the money isn’t as important (to me at least) as getting recognition that you’ve created something that can potentially educate or change the opinions or others. also, you write because it’s fulfilling and i think that’s the key part about *GOOD* writing.
i mean, if they’re so concerned about money, they should just work at Starbucks or get a part time PHP programming job. or go work in securities where they can steal others’ money.
They won’t stop writing – its all in the game theory…..
http://www.broa...t-Creation.html
I never bought the argument “We’ll stop writing.” Someone is always willing to give away the information for free, even if they don’t get paid. Just look at open source.
@Peter – I believe http://www.lulu.com already cater for long-tail type specialist books in the UK, with a reported 1,000 titles added daily.
Jon also has an interesting point about using books to monetize websites. We’ve already seen people like 37signals using a book to raise awareness of their own software & processes (http://www.lulu.../content/383343). There are also a whole host of professional authors & bloggers (Joel Spolsky, Seth Godin, etc) who have very effectively given the content of their books away for free on their sites. In the end, people prefer to have tangible paper in their hands.
If I was the book industry i think id be more concerned with sites like http://www.swaptree.com that allow users to essentially get a book, an ACTUAL PHYSICAL book, for free. Sites like these are here now…not in the distant future.
@Kevin
Yes, Lulu is taking care now but our offer at http://grin.com is a win win offer for authors, just wait a bit
Cookbooks, poetry, travel? These seem like pretty questionable examples of doom and gloom.
Let’s start with poetry. When has deciding to be a poet ever been a viable full time career choice? At least with the internet its relatively easy for a talented poet to get their work out there.
How about cookbooks? If recipes are your thing, why not start a blog? If your good, it’ll get popular, and you’ll make money off ads. At that point a book deal is a real possibility, as is writing for a magazine/newspaper. Also, aren’t a lot of cookbooks still going to be written by, you know, cooks?
What about travel? At least this takes a little creativity. While it’s true that more and more cities have online ratings available for restaurants, hotels, museums, etc…, so what? There are still plenty of restaurant/hotel/museum reviews being written by professionals. The value of a travel book comes from collecting and organizing this information.
If folks are worried there’s not as big a market for standalone books, why not supplement books with location specific webpages. If I’m walking around a foreign city, I could use my iPhone to get location specific information about what I’m seeing. The potential to sell ads would be enormous.
Presumably some people have managed to make a profitable living out of collecting recipes and other snippets, adding a bit of commentary and some pictures, and publishing it as a book. Bad luck, those days are coming to an end. Did farriers get compensation when cars replaced horses for transport? The successful ones either continued to make a living because they were good (there are still horses needing shoes, just not as many) or retrained as car mechanics…
http://www.join...or-naivety.html
In the future, more and more commerce/business is going to be more or less directly consumer to consumer with businesses acting as facilitator or simply providing the environment/infrastructure that connects people. Ebay is example of this.
For authors and other creative writers StoryMash.com and other services like it are the future. Controllers and monopolizers of distribution/information like music industry and publishers days are numbered.
While they argue, the clear distinction between writing personal diaries and writing computer apps is fading away. I hope they see that.
“…I go online and get it for free….For a while it will be great for readers because they will pay less and less but in the long run it’s going to ruin the information. People will stop writing. There’s a lot of ‘wait and see what the technology brings’ but the trouble is if you wait and see too long then it’s gone. That’s what happened to the music industry….”
Perfectly put, that is what is going to happen to music industry in the long term too, w/o a fix. The talented people are going to go elsewhere.
David Byrne, David Bowie, Trent Reznor, Dr. Dre, Quiny Jones even the Radiohead boys; do you really think music was the only option for these highly creative, artistic, capable, and driven people? Def not.
Well, they could give the books for free…and put ‘contextual’ ads between the paragraphs. >_> Would you pick (and read) that kind of books?
Even in posts that are only marginally related to the music industry you still manage to throw in a smug, uninformed comment, as if you guys are somehow “experts”:
“While online content and E-Book readers are changing the book game, there will always be a market for books; literature is not modern music, it can’t be created on a whim by 9 year olds using Garage Band.”
Really? A 9 year old can’t open up Word on a whim and type something up? How is that any different than what a 9 year old would likely produce with Garage Band? Even a professional musician would have a hard time producing a quality album using only Garage Band.
Creating music isn’t as easy as you seem to think. It’s certainly gotten a lot cheaper in recent years, to the point where you can actually do something
amazing without spending a dime. But you have to have the talent first. Comparing a talented author to a 9 year old “musician” is kind of ridiculous.
Dan, you are right.
I agree with the first part of #4–the web will certainly eliminate some demand for cookbooks and the like. Maybe enough to change the dynamic of the market. It’s an issue that’s worth addressing and shouldn’t be dismissed because of how the music industry handled changes (or didn’t) in their market.
with no cookbooks we will have no recipes. No recipes and people will stop cooking. This is the start of the end people.
@Kevin, “paper” is a tangible asset whose value is quickly fading… the new generation coming up of which I am at the tail end of (at least in my mind), is even more comfortable with thing in a digital medium then the physical one. For me, I prefer reading on a screen then holding a book!
@ Jose E., this seems like a mighty interesting concept… Amazon does this sort of stuff already with its book preview (for a fee) and Google is doing this at a far larger scale already. All I see is more opportunity for authors, not less… so I consider this the old guard fearing change more then anything else.
Regardless, you can’t stop change, books are like CDs… quickly becoming a thing of the past with little perceived value. Just take a look at the newspaper industry if you want a hint of what’s coming
Jon
http://woodmarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
By day I’m an independent writer and illustrator of children’s adventure books; by night: I pushback airplanes and throw air cargo around. When I do appearances at elementary schools the kids always ask me if I’m rich. Ha! I give them a lecture (a pleasant lecture, but a lecture nonetheless) about writing for the love of it and putting all your money back into your book projects. My latest book broke even in 3 weeks, and with no help from bookstores or the media – just the kids who already know of me. There is no risk in self-publishing if you tell a good story. If you’re a crappy writer, then you deserve obscurity and the breadline. Damn you for writing crap and wasting everyone’s time!
I’ve always said, “Take the multi-million-dollar payoff out of books, music and movies; remove the glitz and glamor, and let’s see who keeps it up. Those are the real artists and storytellers.”
Well, maybe this is it. Maybe it’s time for that. Writers can write their stories by day and work another job at night. Is that so damned bad?
The artists who have been in the entertainment industry for the money and glamor have ruined things as much as the publishers, producers and label execs.
As for cookbooks? I hardly have an opinion there. I pretty much live off of oatmeal. Maybe sharing recipies with other people should be free. Perhaps it never was a legitimate living in the first place.