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> Ok, but you didn't address my point about concert tickets et al. Fair enough. A concert doesn't work like a book -- the concert venue must know who is coming, in what numbers, in order to prepare. A traditional book publisher only needs to know enough to decide on the size of the next "printing", to fill the supply channel incrementally, as demand warrants. The concert happens all at once, so the audience size must be known up front. The book publication might stretch over decades, with periodic decisions about the size of the next printing, so the publisher only needs to know the rate of change in demand, the "first derivative," to use the calculus term. Two very different cases, from very different, non-comparable businesses. |
I'm saying rather, there's no obvious reason to not get paid for them the same way, as long as the audience is willing. If they're not willing, that obviously won't work. But clearly in some cases (like the OPs), they are willing.
So as an author, you'd have to be irrational to not want to be paid as early as possible.
As a purchaser, you're free to vote with your wallet, and not pre-buy anything you don't want to. But if you want what the author is proposing, and want to give him encouragement by pre-buying, why is that somehow bad or wrong?
And my fuzzy calculus aside, the first printing for most books will also be the last one. So better to get the volume right. If only there were a way to accurately gauge demand before doing a printing...