Flametoad blog: ‘Is Cory Doctorow bad for e-books?’
Cory Doctorow has waged laudable battles against the current DMCA and DRM—disasters for readers, writers and publishers alike, whether or not prominent members of the latter two groups realize this. And I love the Creative Common concept dear to him and Larry Lessig. But just how much work should writers and other creative people be expected to do online to promote their p-books, CDs and so on? Could all the time spent marketing steal away valuable hours from writing? And do freebies, as a group, lessen an appreciation of books?
In the Flametoad blog, writer-publisher-marketer Preston Dubois raises questions about the e-free/p-paid model, citing Cory along with others using it.
“What does this tell me about his books?” Preston asks in Is Cory Doctorow Bad for E-Books? “It tells me that when I buy his book from Amazon, I’m paying for the paper because the content has no value. I am afraid that Cory, and to a lesser extent JC, Scott, and a host of other authors using creative commons to promote their work, are training readers to place value only in wood pulp bound together with glue rather than a well-told story. Readers are being trained to expect audiobooks and e-books to be free, because only physical books are worth paying for.”
So, gang, what do you think? In case you’re curious, by the way, the TeleBlog is free because it aids a cause dear to me—well-stocked national digital library systems. But should I expect writers and publishers to stock TeleRead-style libraries for free? Absolutely not, as I see it. As useful as Creative Commons can be, I’d shudder if it were the only business model.
April 10th, 2007 at 4:51 am
It would seem that Preston Dubois didn’t really research this too much. Cory has made no secret about it: eBooks are a way to promote himself as an author and his paper books.
This is a tried and true business method. It’s called “try before you buy” or “pay as you exit”. It works very well – if you have a good product.
Those of us who work for a living don’t work for free. We don’t expect authors to work for free either. Buying the pBook after reading the eBook is a way to reward the author for a job well done and to entice the author to write more.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Bitten by Cory-envy (oh, I have afflicted by it once or twice).
Cory derived a significant marketing advantage by recognizing and seizing upon an important cultural trend early on. Kudos to him, but we can’t all have the same promotion strategy.
The marketing vs. writing goes back to a comment I made a year or two ago about: were writers willing to assume self-promotion duties, or were they uncomfortable with that? Many writers today are uncomfortable with that role.
I personally think in the long term it’s unrealistic to expect CC marketing to result in that many print sales (for novels anyway).
But thanks to Cory, we no longer have to be stung by the humiliation of offering our wares on the web for free. That’s a genuine breakthrough.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:19 am
[...] Flametoad seems to thinks so (found via TeleRead). He suggests that authors like Cory Doctorow, JC Hutchins and Scott Sigler are devaluing the audiobook and e-book formats, and buying the p-book is “paying for the paper because the content has no value” [...]
April 10th, 2007 at 9:36 am
For better or worse, author marketing is here to stay. With the advent of the big box stores, the ‘mid-list’ has become badly squeezed. If authors want to break out, they have to do something.
I do share the concern that the eBooks-for-free model carries real danger. Today, many still read in paper format. But every day, more people switch to ‘e.’ Being early, as Doctorow was, gave him a chance to stand out. But I don’t believe this is a model for everyone.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
April 10th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Hi Ron. Actually, marketing is my profession. I understand quite well the concept behind what Cory and similar authors are doing. My premise isn’t that Cory (and I’m using him as an unwilling icon for the sake of simplicity, not because I lay all blame at his feet) is doing something ineffective. Clearly his try-before-you-buy strategy is working for him and others like him.
No, my premise is that this model could be seen as detrimental to the commercial e-book market. While David quoted one paragraph from my essay, I think it’s the paragraph after that really sums up my thoughts. In short, what about books that aren’t available in print but only in e-book format? Are authors who try to sell e-books at a disadvantage because readers are being trained by Cory to expect e-books as free promotional material instead of something worth paying for?
April 10th, 2007 at 9:43 am
If Preston Dubois is right, then his argument holds for many other things that are free (as in gratis): such as the internet that he is using to distribute his writing with. So if he believes what he writes, i.e. that it is a dangerous thing to get people used to “free”, and if he believes that a boycott of free things is the correct thing to do in order to ward off this danger, he should probably stop blogging. There are many print-magazines that will gladly publish his musings, if they are any good.
I don’t agree with him though. I think “free” is the default, and “property” an artificial concept that is being forced upon us. People should not be weened off of free, but off of proprietary. The proper distinction should not be the price that you paid for goods/works/services, but their quality.
Monetary compensation for authors of fiction is already a bit of a myth. Cory Doctorow sells a lot of books because he, in contrast to most authors, writes well.
April 10th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Howdy Branko. I appreciate your thoughts– I wrote what I did to provoke thoughtful discussion after all. That being said, I think you’re attributing to me positions that I never actually made. Perhaps you should re-read my original post?
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree regarding your second paragraph, although I think we come close on the last sentance of that paragrah. I would add that quality should also trump format–well crafted writing should be valuable in e-book form just as it is in print form. That’s my whole point.
Quite frankly, I’m not sure I follow what you’re getting at in your last paragraph.
April 10th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
We already discriminate in price based on the format of books regardless of their content, see hb’s, tpb’s, mmpb’s for example. After all if content was so crucial in setting value why the same book marketed in a hc costs say 25$ and in a mmpb costs 7-8$?
The market sets prices and it has been working until now reasonably well, better than anything else tried anyway. There is no intrinsic value for content, just what people are willing to pay.
I hope that for e-books the generic value will be somewhere less than mmpb but greater than zero (say about 4-6$ for fiction), but we are in early days yet so it is a great idea to experiment with as many business models as possible.
April 10th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
“Buying the pBook after reading the eBook is a way to reward the author for a job well done and to entice the author to write more.”
Ummm..yeah..ok. I’ve read all of Cory’s books by downloading them for free and haven’t bought a single one. If he’s going to offer them for free, I’m not sure why I should bother worry about “rewarding” him…and at least for me the p-book has 0 value after I’ve already consumed the e-book.
I made a similar argument awhile ago which was cited on Teleread that the main advantage Cory has now is that the book business is geared toward p-books so he can use the e-book as a marketing tool, but once/if the primary distribution method is e-books, then he’s screwed unless he’s writing for some reason other than for money.
The only thing I disagree with Preston’s argument is that the Cory is having a significant impact on the “we expect things to be free.” I’d argue the prominent authors who refuse to allow e-book versions at reasonable prices (JK Rowling) are having a much bigger effect, since they are training e-fans of their novels to obtain free pirated versions.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Cory Doctorow apparently does not believe that a substantial conventional paying market for e-books will ever emerge. For this reason he probably does not share the concern expressed by Preston DuBose that “alternate-format marketing is actually detrimental to e-books.” Doctorow said the following in Forbes magazine:
Doctorow leaves this delicate and thorny task of figuring incomplete; however, he is still sanguine because he believes paper books will continue to sell. He states that “people who are readers will be readers forever, and they are positively pervy for paper.”
April 10th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Why is it all “Cory Cory Cory”? Why no love (or hate
) for Baen, which was giving away ebooks from multiple authors well before Cory ever released Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom?
Eric Flint, one of the big proponents of the Free Library approach, must have thought about the issue. He notes in his latest column on the subject:
It will be interesting to see what he comes up with.
April 10th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Or Peter Watts, even. Blindsight on the Hugo list, also CC. Read it last night, it is good, and I’ll get one when there is an appropriate paperback version around.
http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
April 11th, 2007 at 7:34 am
i don’t regard buying a print book to be a particularly effective way to support an ebook author. paypal is easier and more efficient.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Robert raises an interesting point. Authors typically get just fractions of the prices of p-books (in return for the publishers offering services such as editing and promotion). – David
April 13th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
“Making a living as an author” does not require that one sell only the container — whether p-book or e-book. Cory makes his living “as a writer” by his multiple modalities, which include some % of boingboing’s income, speaking fees, salary-because-he’s-significant at UC, MSM-article fees, and more.
The days of “author living/prospering on royalties alone” are rapidly fading, but the “author surviving/prospering as an intellectual/mind in the world” is reviving, enhanced by the influence that a brilliant mind and valuable output can produce.
This is likely to be true of musicians (playing to people, rather than to the top-40 rating, but still receiving income), actors (working at local as well as global venues, but still receiving income), public intellectuals (income from various sources, both local and global), and for other, dare I say it, “creatives” in the larger world.