Posts by BenWilson
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Sacha, do you really think music is hurt? The way I see it, there's more good music available now than ever before. DRM be damned. There's also a pretty large amount of not particularly good music, again more than ever before.
OK, I don't listen to it so much, but that's only because I'm getting old and I've heard so much music.
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I tend to think it's actually what they want to read. But I don't really know.
Yes, the tabloid will proliferate. So will novels. So will serious thought, and the expression thereof. Everything will proliferate. I would actually expect new forms to also appear, made possible only by the cheapness of the delivery. The world will be awash with writing, and everyone will find what they want, from quality through to trash. As they do now, just less efficiently, with a lot more dead trees.
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I don't see how the cost of writing has been impacted.
Because the standard can be so much lower. I think I may have not been clear there. The cost of writing something good is the same as it ever was. The author still has to do their research and search for their inspiration etc. But you can write something not particularly good and get it to a massive audience. With print, the cost of the distribution impacts backwards, driving a lot of writing out.
You could say this is excellent, that it drives quality in. But that does ignore all the people who don't particularly want quality. Or maybe they want both quality AND quantity. Or maybe they just can't afford quality. All of these people lose out with print.
And I have to say, a lot of what is printed is not high quality either.
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You are saying that. I didn't and I can't see how you parse it out of what I said. The "it" refers to "the art of writing". It is your assumption that massive proliferation also means shocking degradation. I don't think so. I'm sure a lot of crap will be written. More crap than ever before. But that is not the same as saying less that is good will be written. Surely you can see the distinction here?
More email is currently being written than ever before. A colossal proportion of it is spam. But that doesn't mean that the non-spam isn't getting written, or that it's become spammy, or in any way less valuable.
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Sacha, I'm curious about what it is that you fear. Things like this silly Kindle t2s business? I see that as simply hurting the Kindle business, a foolish move.
Islander, the statement that the e-book is coming is not an assumption. It's a prediction.
Did you* really* mean
Yes, I really did. As I see it, more people writing means more chances of great art. It is not the sole domain of a very small group of people any more, and that is a good thing. Print is holding humanity back. I really think that. It's also killing a lot of trees.
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would hate to have Brett and Jemaine coming down on you for infringement
Yes, the last thing I need is to be lampooned to death. Not to mention the bad karma.
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Actually, following that thought: The beauty of the e-book is that it costs stuff-all to write and deliver. The value paid is almost entirely "what someone finds those words to be worth" (if they can be made to pay it). When I think of what I use the internet for, mostly for gleaning information, I find that almost all of it comes from amateur writers. I don't read manuals any more. There is just no point. I read forums, which will answer my specific question, and raise issue around it that I never even thought of. The people who write these forums usually have other sources of income, because although their answers have been valuable to me, I'm only one person. Their specific answers just don't have wide enough appeal to spin out much cash. The owners of the forums may be deriving some income, but not a great deal. But it's a pretty cheap thing to run.
Does this mean the end of the professional writer? Or at least the end of it as a potentially incredibly highly paid job?
I doubt it. There will still be people whose words are worth more, and appeal more widely, than others. They will still be able to charge a lot for that, one way or another. It will still sell. But the way that it gets the cash will almost certainly change.
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I'm not sure that this hasn't gone to cross purposes now. Islander is saying that she doesn't have a problem with the existence of e-books, she just doesn't want a bar of them. Which is something that is really between her and her publisher. Sacha seems to be saying "don't worry, it's all going to turn out fine with e-books". Which may be true, but it's not going to convince Islander to want anything to do with them.
Both positions are fair enough.
Islander doesn't and shouldn't have to put up with her work being used in ways she doesn't approve of, at least while she's alive. She may be missing out. But then again, maybe not. E-books aren't big money makers yet, and there is the danger they could be money losers if they start getting ripped off, something that is absolutely a lot easier to do with an e-book than it is with print.
But I think e-books are coming, no matter how much authors do or don't want them. They really are just so much more convenient. Time will tell whether it is a good or a bad thing for the authors. That's crystal ball stuff.
As I see it, the real danger to Islander is not the ripping off. It's that people may actually defect from print, leaving her behind. They may actually prefer free or extremely cheap books. I can't see that this will necessarily mean a shocking degradation of the art of writing. I think it more likely that it will lead to a massive proliferation of it.
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Those Japanese ones strike me as bearing great resemblance to the fad of Shocking Confessions stories in the 19th century. Which, ironically, I've mostly read in e-book form. They can be amusing, like Fanny Hill, or just curious and strange, like English Opium Eater. The subject matter itself makes up for most of the shortcomings of the author's talent.
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btw, I thought everyone had seen FOTC. I was homaging, not nicking.
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