Timewaster's Guide Archive

Departments => Books => Topic started by: Firemeboy on July 14, 2005, 04:34:11 PM

Title: Giving away books!
Post by: Firemeboy on July 14, 2005, 04:34:11 PM
What do you all think of this? (http://craphound.com/someone/000363.html)

Basically the author makes this books available for free download online at the same time as the printing of his books.

I would have like to have done this with my book, but very rarely can you find a publisher willing to do this.  

I particularly like this quote.

Quote
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: bosssmiley on August 10, 2005, 09:59:11 AM
What a great idea for building a readership.
People who read his books online and like them are almost bound to want a handy paper copy they can read anywhere.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 10, 2005, 10:26:03 AM
Eh, just makes me think the guy is such an amateur that he's desperate just to get people to read his book, he must be vanity published since no level headed publisher would allow him to do something like this.  Pretty much a huge warning sign saying "this book is a stinker".
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on August 10, 2005, 10:34:54 AM
I disagree. You don't earn a whole lot of money on your early books anyway. Might as well build press and awareness.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 10, 2005, 10:47:36 AM
This is his third book and all three have been free, I'd say the building awareness period is long past.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on August 10, 2005, 11:09:13 AM
maybe he's just interested in having it out there. Interesting how because it's free we assume it's not good.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: JP Dogberry on August 10, 2005, 11:14:14 AM
He's not necessarily bad - Bruce Sterling managed to convince his publisher to release The Hacker Crackdown for free.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: 42 on August 10, 2005, 12:42:57 PM
I can see this sysyem working best if the author has the book released both in paper form and free electronic form. For small press and vanity press authors, this is a good marketing stradegy.

It probably won't work for every author. If the author just isn't that good, well then it won't work no matter how much free stuff they have out there. But if the author is good then I can see them developing a fan base and having greater monetary success with later sequels.

The other option is to go the traditional route, which takes much longer.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 10, 2005, 09:38:24 PM
Though from reading this guys site some more it seams like he plans on doing this with every book.  Which begs to ask why would anyone publish this with that deal let alone TOR?  Who, according to amazon, is the publisher.  Make me embarrassed to have my brother at the same publishing house.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: 42 on August 10, 2005, 09:45:48 PM
I can think of a lot of reasons you should be embarrassed by your brother, but being published by TOR isn't really one of them.

The truth is that publishing houses don't really market books. Books are primarily marketed by the authors. So if one guy wants to market his books by giving them away for free first, then he's welcome to try. If he succeeds, good for him, if he fails, we will mock him mercilessly. Time will tell.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on August 10, 2005, 10:27:05 PM
TOKYOPOP is now marketing original manga by giving it away for free online, one chapter at a time.

http://www.TOKYOPOP.com/takuhaionline
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Chimera on August 11, 2005, 01:22:07 AM
Quote
I can think of a lot of reasons you should be embarrassed by your brother, but being published by TOR isn't really one of them.

Oh no you didn't!

Careful, 42, or you shall experience an angry girlfriend slapdown.  ;)
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 11, 2005, 01:24:33 AM
Ahh, now I know what 42 was talking about. ;D
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Chimera on August 11, 2005, 01:55:22 AM
Touche.  :)
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: EUOL on August 11, 2005, 06:54:09 AM
Quote
Eh, just makes me think the guy is such an amateur that he's desperate just to get people to read his book, he must be vanity published since no level headed publisher would allow him to do something like this.  Pretty much a huge warning sign saying "this book is a stinker".


Actually, DOWN AND OUT was one of the most well-reviewed, best-selling sf/f novels by a new author of its year.  People are STILL talking about it at the cons and on the blogs.  

Research has shown that a web presence of a novel doesn't really impact paper sales.  People like to hold books, and libraries make most books very accessible to people who don't want to spend money on them.  The end result is that you can publish books or stories for free on the internet and the publicity can outweigh any lost sales.

Scott Card has been publishing all of his short stories (which he also publishes in anthologies in paper form) for free on the web for some time.  And, Baen (one of the biggest sf/f publishers) maintains a free library of downloadable books.  

So, Sprig, the truth is that this is neither a crap book, a poorly selling book, nor a self-published book.  You can make fun of him if you wish, but his marketing campaign made him one of the TO READ writers of 2003.  DOWN AND OUT still maintains a sales rank on Amazon better than ELANTRIS.  (The new book isn't doing quite as well, I hear--though it did get a starred review in PW.)
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 11, 2005, 07:30:29 AM
I really don't care if others think it's great, if its free on the net and hasn't been in print for quite some time, or a short story, I will never read it.  Period.  And the book industry is really behind the times on letting people do that, I can download that book onto my phone I don't need to by a physical copy to take it where I want, same with people who have a PSP. Heck even an iPod can display text files.  True there are people that like books, I tend to be one, but this guy's target audience, and yours, are people that have access to this technology and would rather get a free book then pay for one.  And you're wondering why his books aren't selling as well as the first one?
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on August 11, 2005, 09:39:08 AM
I'm not sure that post made sense.

What I still don't get is why you think "free" means "Sucks"
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 11, 2005, 09:46:12 AM
first off there are two different arguments, things have been a tad hectic here so I didn't explain that too well in the above posts.

1) my personal opinion that free internet books=sucks thats how I feel deal with it.

2) It's bad business, and crazy, for a publisher to pay to publish a book and then let the author give away free copies at the same time.  Especially when his target group would never have much of a reason to by the book then.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: JP Dogberry on August 11, 2005, 10:04:51 AM
Well, umm, no. Paper is MUCH easier to read, and properly bound paper is much easier than printed out stuff, even bound.

Case in point: I have The Hacker Crackdown on my computer, read one chapter and I'm waiting until I find a book copy because it's easier and nicer to read.

It's like how pirating music makes people buy more music. You find something cool for free, and then decide to buy the album.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on August 11, 2005, 10:19:39 AM
yeah, point 2 doesn't bear out given actually history. Internet downloads have been shown to have no negative impact on sales of physical goods. All it can do then, is act as publicity. Why is that "bad business" or "crazy?"
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 11, 2005, 10:25:37 AM
Quote
yeah, point 2 doesn't bear out given actually history. Internet downloads have been shown to have no negative impact on sales of physical goods. All it can do then, is act as publicity. Why is that "bad business" or "crazy?"


We're talking about free downloads not things like iTunes and there's no evidence to support that claim while there's plenty of evidence to support the exact opposite, why do you think the record and movie industries are loosing millions a year from illegal downloads?  RPG companies are also loosing a lot of money from illegal downloads so there are examples of books for you, and yes I know this isn't illegal but it's the closest thing.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on August 11, 2005, 10:47:13 AM
they're not losing millions of dollars to that. They're losing money because they charge too much, aren't marketing correctly, and refuse to embrace the available options.  Likewise the RPG industry. Yeah, there's pirating there, but I think that 90% or more of the companies publishing RPG books are doing so because they're interested in the game and few have practical business education or experience says a lot more about how they're losing money. Books have a much lower profit margin than many other products. Especially books that necesarily have smaller print runs and have nice paper and full color. It's easy to lose money in that business. RPG books are a much different industry than novel sales.

The music industry was hitting it's slump long before pirating music became popular.

Every study I've seen has confirmed that people who download heavily (even illegally) are much more likely to buy more music than those who do not. Where is the loss in this? Show me a study that contradicts this, and I don't mean Lars from Metallica saying in court that he's lost money. I mean someone with a brain who has looked at numbers beyond the fact that "we lost money this year" and "people are downloading this year."

I'll also refer you back to your brother's post. "Research has shown that a web presence of a novel doesn't really impact paper sales." I don't know where he got that research, but I figure of anyone here, he's the most likely to have seen that.

I think the guys running Tor probably have a MUCH better sense of what's good business or not than you do. Simply because they're in the industry and look at that information daily, and they've studied it, not just casually read a few articles. They disagree with your opinion. I think I'll trust them before I believe your opinion on that specific matter.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Entsuropi on August 11, 2005, 01:04:03 PM
Isn't it recorded that during napsters run, sales of music went up? And when it was shut down sales dropped off? Though it has been noted that this was at the tail end of the Record -> CD conversion craze, and I suspect that the publicity fallout of the court case might have done something.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Jade Knight on August 11, 2005, 03:12:28 PM
Copies of episode 3 were floating around the net pre-release, and it broke records first day.

In addition, in Britain, they are actually purposefully leaking certain major TV serials on the net because British studies have shown that this increases initial viewership.

And Tatu was (perhaps still is?) the best-selling group in all of Russia, and every single one of their mp3s was available for download (for free) off of their website.

Every study I've seen done on this matter either states that putting something online for free either does not affect, or increases sales.

There are a great many factors which may be affecting the RIAA's slump in sales (however, this slump has NOT affected new releases - one of the hottest categories of music traded online), including the rise in Indie music popularity, the economic recession we've had, price hikes by record companies, individuals specifically boycotting the RIAA, etc.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on August 11, 2005, 04:18:31 PM
Australia and UK had record-breaking music sales...
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040329-3585.html
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: EUOL on August 11, 2005, 05:21:30 PM
Let me put forth this argument on Sprig's side, however.

Yes, electronic publishing doesn't seem to adversely affect paper sales.  However, that MIGHT just be because we don't currently have an electronic reader that is as convenient as a paper form.  Sprig, have you ever tried to read an entire book on a PDA?  I have, and I eventually went and bought a copy--and it was a free book in the public domain!  It's just too difficult right now.

If electronic paper does become big, I could see this being dangerous to the business.

However, there's the webcomic phenomenon to look at.  They release their content for free, then expect people to support them anyway.  How many people buy paper copies of webcomic books?  It's a big industry--and those comics are all for free.  Does that mean that because they're webcomics, Sprig, they're worse than paper comics?  Just because free=crap?

Oh, and the research I quoted came--unfortunately--from one of the panels I attended at worldcon.  So, I don't have anything solid to quote.  There is, however, this argument:

http://www.baen.com/library/

(P.S.  You--Sprig--claim that by releasing his books for free, his later titles have become less popular.  Why, then, does his first continue to sell so well?  I argue that it isn't the 'free' nature that is making his later books sell poorly.  It's the fact that he considers himself a 'literary' sf author, and is therefore writing works that are increasingly esoteric and difficult to read.  People simply don't like the second two books as much.)
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 11, 2005, 08:35:10 PM
I never said free=crap I said free books=crap, there's a difference, one I don't have to explain since it's my opinion.

Quote
Yes, electronic publishing doesn't seem to adversely affect paper sales.  However, that MIGHT just be because we don't currently have an electronic reader that is as convenient as a paper form.  Sprig, have you ever tried to read an entire book on a PDA?  I have, and I eventually went and bought a copy--and it was a free book in the public domain!  It's just too difficult right


They already have "paper" that displays what ever a PDA or PC sends it, it's called digital paper and will probably be available in stores within 5-7 years.  You can already buy it in Europe from what I understand but it's expensive.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: 42 on August 11, 2005, 09:18:52 PM
Yes, but keep in mind that authors are trying to make money now, not in 5 or 7 years.

By giving away free books and getting his name out there, Doctorow will have his reading audience established. So when everything tanks in 5 or 7 years, he can just switch to selling his books.

Yes, in the long -term it may not make sense to give out free electronic copies (depending on advancements and acceptance of technology), but for right now it is working.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Spriggan on August 16, 2005, 10:02:24 PM
http://news.com.com/i/ne/p/photo/electroniccard_500x355.jpg

Eletronic Paper coming out next year in Japan
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on August 16, 2005, 10:15:40 PM
and we think that will be fun to read? that horrible blue looks awful.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on August 25, 2005, 03:41:04 PM
But it's aqualicious!
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Faster Master St. Pastor on November 21, 2005, 03:45:50 AM
On a completely unrelated (not) subject, while most of the arguments put up are good ones, I don't think I'd be able to do that. Call me insecure one more time, I dare you.  
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on November 21, 2005, 09:23:52 AM
You're insecure.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Lightning Eater on November 21, 2005, 06:08:15 PM
Personnally, giving out books online would be a really good strategy on me since reading big bodies of text on a screen sort of hurts my eyes, I'm ok with the articles and forums here, since they aren't as big, but with a book I'd only be able to read a chapter or so before having to buy it so I can read it on paper.

Although, on second thought, I'd probably be less likely to get it, because i'd have to be expecially good for me to be able to keep reading.
Title: Re: Giving away books!
Post by: Faster Master St. Pastor on November 21, 2005, 08:15:05 PM
GAHHH!

My insecurities! they  are killing me!

you've crushed my hopes and dreams and shattered my self confedence. I hope your happy.