[kpwagner]

In the month it will take me to finish reading Storm of Swords, I will watch ~10 movies. Plus, I'm reading Storm of Swords, which needs no additional support from readers to be discovered or validated--though I still want to read it. Plus, I digitally loaned it from my local library.

I own a number of books (~200) and have probably owned x4 that total in my lifetime. Maybe 1/3 of those I paid full price for new. The rest I sourced either cheap on Ebay or about free from second-hand stores. I've spent probably less than $4,000 total on books, not counting textbooks, while being in the minority of people who buy and read books.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but the question that comes to mind is something like this: how many people like me does it take to support one professional writer?

Non-fiction writers are way more likely to have other income sources than fiction writers. For example, I'm reading Marketing Made Simple (Donald Miller), which was free with Amazon Prime. I'm quite sure Donald Miller and his company are not sweating how much money they get from a Prime reader: getting anyone to read their book strengthens their overall sales funnel.

[weeblewobble]

I've been an Audible paid subscriber for 10 years. I have 138 audiobooks in my library. At $10/month, that means I've paid Audible $1200 for ~2000 hours of "reading". Using the 25% royalties mentioned in a child comment (no idea if that's accurate) I've paid authors only $300 for all of that. That seems super low! And I imagine I'm in the top quintile in terms of paying for "books".

[lacker]

how many people like me does it take to support one professional writer?

Back of the envelope, I would estimate authors get 1/4 of book sales as royalties, so you've sent $1000 to authors in your lifetime. I don't know how old you are, maybe that's $100/year since you were at book-buying age. If an author gets by on $30k/year then it takes 300 people like you to support a professional writer.

That's not bad, really. If you watch 120 movies a year then you're probably supporting the movie industry more than the book industry but it sounds like you prefer movies to books anyway so that's fair.

[whimsicalism]

Many problems with this analysis, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to notice what they are.

[FirstLvR]

when i was young and poor i wouldnt mind being a pirate

but now, being a professional i wouldnt mind paying ... i would gladly pay $50 for winds of winter if GRRM could finish the book!

look at the expanse saga on primevideo, the books were selling ok but now is a hit box world wide

[wccrawford]

A lot, but it's not just people like you.

I buy quite a few books. Almost all digital now. I probably buy a book every other month now. It'd be more, except that...

I also subscribe to Amazon Unlimited and read a lot of books on it.

I never buy movies now. If the theatres were open, I'd see 2, maybe 3 movies in a year with my wife. The rest I watch on Netflix/etc when they come out for free. I watch maybe 6 movies a month, and 4 of those are because we have a virtual movie night with a lot of friends every week since Covid started.

We watch a lot of TV, but again, Netflix/etc. We don't even pay for cable. We never buy TV series unless it's something really special.

[ghaff]

While there are some that make meaningful amounts of money, all my experience suggests that writing non-fiction tech books for example, is overwhelmingly reputational.

I certainly still own--though I've gotten rid of a fair number--a lot of books but, no, I don't read a lot any longer. Maybe about 10 a year which is probably 20% of what I once did.

[snet0]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but my assumption is that buying second-hand books gives no money to the author.

I don't know, morally speaking if this should be the case. It does feel wrong for people to get the experience without paying the price of admission. Can this be solved logistically, though? And do publishers factor this into their RRP?

[jrochkind1]

Once you go down that path, it starts getting kind of dystopian. Should it be illegal for me to lend or give a book to a friend without paying a fee, because then they are "getting the experience without paying the price of admission"? I'm reading a book to three kids, should I have to pay more than reading the book to one kid? That's three times as many kids "getting the experience", same "price of admission"! Taking the book to my brothers house to read to his kids -- nope, that's illegal unless you buy another copy?

[snet0]

I absolutely agree, I don't think solving this problem is something that can really be considered. I do think it's a problem, though.

I think you're taking my analogy of tickets too far, though. It was simply to highlight the fact that, by reading the book without paying the author a dime, you are getting permanent access to the materials without the author being paid, which I think is an issue.

I think the only feasible solution is a kind of royalty fee on resales, but I can easily imagine this becoming a logistical nightmare. As I said, I'm not sure this problem has a workable solution.

[jrochkind1]

In fact, I think maybe in Europe second-hand bookstores do pay some kind of royalties? Maybe libraries do too?

In the US, the "first sale doctrine" has legally preserved the right to give, rent, or sell an object legally in your possession, without the permission of the copyright holder.

For 100 years (I believe the first sale doctrine was first established in 1908), it did not imperil the business of writing and selling books.

In 2021, that market does seem imperiled, as the OP is about... but I don't think the 100-year-old first-sale doctrine is to blame, or eliminating it would fundamentally change the market forces. I mean, if it was the issue, then the market for books would be fundamentally different (and better for copyright holders) in Europe than the US, but is it?

[ghaff]

That same logic presumably applies to libraries. Books are physical objects at the end of the day just like a piece of pottery someone made. First sale doctrine explicitly allows the owner to lend or resell it to someone else.

[ellegriffin]

Yes! Exactly! Right now the ebook library model is based off the physical book library model where the library purchases a certain number of ebooks (say 10) and the author only gets a portion of the royalties on those ten copies, and then the library loans those copies out to an unlimited number of people.

It should be managed more like Spotify- where books can be read unlimitedly, but the author gets paid royalties every time someone reads their book. (Similar to how an artist gets paid everytime their song is streamed). I might actually write about this for a future post.

[snet0]

This is what I think the best course looks like. I know there are issues with Spotify's model (at least, I have heard people make this claim), but given that music had to transition to a streaming-based model (and considering that written text looks to be slowly going this way, too) the per-consumption royalty looks good to me.

Of course, instantiating this in the real world is another question. For ebook libraries, it certainly seems plausible, but for regular libraries?

[ellegriffin]

Right, exactly. And we could learn from spotify (pay the creators more). But the ebook library is huge now and could easily be transformed. The only problem is that they aren't charging a monthly subscription fee (like Spotify) and so they would have to use donation dollars to fund that. And yet, I have to wait 15 weeks to get a book on my kindle because other people are reading it first, which seems very outdated.

[paxys]

> Books are physical objects at the end of the day

Disagree with this. There has been a very short period in human history (roughly from the invention of the printing press till the rise of ebooks/audiobooks) where books were primarily physical objects. Stories were told and preserved orally for thousands of years, and who knows where the future of the medium is.

[f1refly]

Stories aren't books though, there's a reason we differentiate between the two. It's like saying a vinyl equals a song; it's merely the container that holds a song in a static form. It's not the song itself.

[elcapitan]

It's actually fairly normal in many countries that libraries compensate authors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Lending_Right

The amount is probably not very large though, the German Wikipedia page says ~11 Mio Euro for 2010.

[Ekaros]

Some countries solve this by paying the authors for each lend. Ofc, not nearly similar amount, but over long term it's not unreasonable.

[nly]

Interestingly enough, this is something some NFT systems are actually addressing...

[jogjayr]

Buying a house from a homeowner gives no money to the original builder, or the first human being to inhabit that piece of land. Do you feel guilty about getting shelter without paying the price of admission?

[snet0]

I think this is a disingenuous comparison. Builders get paid to build houses. Authors, to my knowledge, do not frequently get paid to write books, they get paid when they sell books.

When you resell a house, you are not denying the builders anything. When you resell a book, you are (possibly) denying the author a sale.

[jogjayr]

> When you resell a house, you are not denying the builders anything

You're denying the builder a sale of a new house.

Re-selling books is already legal. You bought a physical item, not the right to use the item. Ownership implies the right to dispose of the item as one wishes. You asked whether it was morally correct. I was showing you that many other things are frequently resold with no moral implications.

[nly]

Builders don't necessarily get a dime until the house sells either. Lots of property development is fueled by credit

[ellegriffin]

NFTs are trying to solve for this, but I'm not sure how mainstream that will become.

For instance: https://emily.mirror.xyz/0AFENlMKv9amUC1OJIZY26udpISw_raXkoE...

In this case, Emily crowdfunded her novel using the cryptocurrency ETH. People "invested" in her book buy purchasing the NFT, so that they can later sell their investment again (and the writer will get royalties if they do).

I think this might be a little too out there to become mainstream. HOWEVER, I do think the library model could be tweaked to favor the author.

Right now the ebook library model is based off the physical book library model where the library purchases a certain number of ebooks (say 10) and the author only gets a portion of the royalties on those ten copies, and then the library loans those copies out to an unlimited number of people.

It should be managed more like Spotify- where books can be read unlimitedly, but the author gets paid royalties every time someone reads their book. (Similar to how an artist gets paid everytime their song is streamed). I might actually write about this for a future post.

[matsemann]

But things I cannot resell I would pay less for. For certain items the amount I'm willing to pay is a function also including what I can sell it for when I'm done with it.

[snet0]

Yes, I absolutely agree. When you buy something you imagine yourself reselling, you can factor the resale price into the total cost.

I don't think this is a counter to my argument, though. I'm not saying it is wrong to be able to resell books, I am just pointing out that reselling books without the author receiving any money strikes me as morally improper. As I mentioned in another comment, I'm not convinced that there exists a decent solution to this problem, and I imagine that it's at least in part factored into RRPs, but I just thought it was something to consider.

[spoonjim]

Well technology is solving this problem, e-books are not transferable so there is no secondhand market. Problem solved! (but don't expect to ever inherit a book collection that has titles you'd never heard of, that opens your eyes to different things).

[whimsicalism]

No, because second hand markets influence the first hand price.