This entire publishing model is now dead, the wheels are off, and it runs down the road at high speed, soon the undercarriage will hit the road, and sparks will fly. The driver will not know what is going on. He will ask the engineers,(writers) and the technicians(accountants) and they will obfuscate and say 'sally forth', keep going, and yet the driver will see the scenery stop going by and others pass him and yet others will say carry on, all is well.
In the analogous manner the current journal publishing method does not see it is dead, but by dinosaurlike inertia, keeps on going down the road.
By the time they see it, will their bones be lying by the road, picked clean? Or will they adapt to this new model and adapt? Greed and avarice are alive and well, as is stupidity in these cartels, in my opinion, their future is bleak.
They will be unable to adapt to the dramatic changes in their funding model. Too many grazers on the hitherto lush grass - what will they eat in the desert to come?
Unless the schools and other research organizations feel the risk of being on the outside looking in if they refuse the NDA, and all their people can not read or post articles.
It seems to me that generations of lawyers can be enriched on this tussle...some criminal...
Nontheless, the nettle must be grasped firmly and decisively by all the groups at once, only then will none get stung
These parasitic organizations have grown entirely too large with an economic model based on blackmail. They are enabled by the researchers and their organizations who did not see the thin edge of the wedge being inserted 100 years ago - compares rates of those days with now -, and so here we are now - addicted to the publish - perish dichotomy. The fat mafia chieftains and their henchmen - copyright police - get set for the final battle - which they will lose.
The researchers do not realize they can simply depart en-masse to the new online systems, and leave the old school over-ripe and dying on the vine.
If they decamp en-masse, in 2 years it will have settled into the new way. This gradualism is a form of failing to grasp the nettle.
What about free readers that sense your eyeball position and can make sure you do not ignore the ads that leap to your fovea until they determine you have read enough...like those 30 seconds ads that tick down to zero on various news sites.
Arrow to the heart for that idea, but I suppose there needs to be a means to pay the writer.
Sell the book for $2, or even $1 and give the writer all but 25 cents, which will run the e-pay front end. If the writer wants to rent an editor to go over the text to hone it, let him pay the editor 10 cents a copy, or whatever they agree on.
A good editor can deal with many authors and in time might have 1000 books in his stable ticking over at 10 cents per sale. That could be a good living as long as you edit well and fast...the author thinks it is free editing. Commission editing has a very low burden.
I admit highly technical books with small numbers of buyers will require higher sales fees and edit costs, and may well need to be locked in some way.
Sales of a lot of engineering texts also need to be shaken up. They have a large client base, but are very costly due to the unholy alliance between school publishers and professors to bring out a new edition every year. Yes, I know all of science become obsolete annually, thus you need that rapid change....NOT
What about for the unwilling? Publishers who embed all rights in their boilerplate!
How can a nascent writer retain the digital rights if the publisher refuses? How can he get a differing royalty structure and sales price for the hard cover, mass media and digital editions, with their wildly divergent burdens?
I have long felt that the bricks and mortar publishers have stood in
the way of e-books, which they probably failed to understand and saw
as parasitic to their main industry.
They did this by maintaining an onerous price on the e-book.
If you look at the traditional book at $25 it is sold to amazon at 55%
off list ($13.75, more or less), and the author will get a royalty of,
say 5-10% of sales price, more or less.
In this there is all the paper handling, waste, remainders etc, so at
the end of the day the publishers end up with a business that makes
7-8% on sales.
That means a book makes the publisher about $1 and about the same for
the author, again, more or less. All the rest is wasted trees, oil
etc.
Of course this an average, some authors might get fatter royalties, as
they sell millions, and some books make nothing at all.
So along comes the e-book and it gets priced at ~$20. all of which
goes to the publisher, less his royalty, so on the face of it, they
appear highly profitable to the publisher.
I feel, that this is not quite the case and the reluctance of people
to pay such a high price will reduce the uptake, which means the sales
are a lot lower than they could be.
Stephen King tried and failed with an e-book where he gave away a few
free chapters and sold the balance. I think ths was killed by the same
greed.
In fact, I feel that the use of freelance authors, who are flat feed
and not royaltied, will enable people to self publish and sell their
book for $2 through self publish sites that provide the front end,
credit card fee collection and remittance to the author of these
fees. The use of a minimal digital rights protection plan will suffice
as a fee of $2 or so will not be a barrier to buyers in most cases.
Kindles will only view approved goods. Implicit in this is that kindle
needs to avoid getting a fee per book read = barrier. The kindle
should be a buy and use device. They might charge a minimal fee to
encode the text in kindle readable format, but this should be a low
cost, much like making a PDF file is quite low in cost.
If Kindle does not do this, others will, and an end run to an open
standard e-book mechanism will appear. The use of OLED screens will
enable color e-books and very low cost. They might not have the
battery life of black and white e-paper tablets, but color is a
seller.
The hand that holds the whip has now changed.
New authors will now have the ability to self publish, and will not ever be slaves - except on their own terms.
Old scribes with no digital rights clause covering their work will jump ship in droves.
What about those recent writers who are trapped with a digital clause??
There will be a war of sorts, the brick and mortar crowd will cling to their bread and butter. These digital slaves will rebel and how will peace ever emerge from these intractable foes?
On the post: If You Think Writing For Free Undermines Your Profession, Just Don't Do It!
Introductions all round
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110323/02473713592/cornell-library-rejects-non-disclosures -journal-pricing-will-reveal-all-prices.shtml
So there some sort of convergence going on here?
On the post: Cornell Library Rejects Non-Disclosures On Journal Pricing; Will Reveal All Prices
Wheels have fallen off
In the analogous manner the current journal publishing method does not see it is dead, but by dinosaurlike inertia, keeps on going down the road.
By the time they see it, will their bones be lying by the road, picked clean? Or will they adapt to this new model and adapt? Greed and avarice are alive and well, as is stupidity in these cartels, in my opinion, their future is bleak.
They will be unable to adapt to the dramatic changes in their funding model. Too many grazers on the hitherto lush grass - what will they eat in the desert to come?
On the post: Cornell Library Rejects Non-Disclosures On Journal Pricing; Will Reveal All Prices
Outside looking in
It seems to me that generations of lawyers can be enriched on this tussle...some criminal...
Nontheless, the nettle must be grasped firmly and decisively by all the groups at once, only then will none get stung
On the post: Cornell Library Rejects Non-Disclosures On Journal Pricing; Will Reveal All Prices
Journals
The researchers do not realize they can simply depart en-masse to the new online systems, and leave the old school over-ripe and dying on the vine.
If they decamp en-masse, in 2 years it will have settled into the new way. This gradualism is a form of failing to grasp the nettle.
On the post: Rupert Murdoch's Paywall Disaster: Readers, Advertisers, Journalists & Publicists All Hate It
Yes indeed, the Emperor has no clothes.
I could say he as as dumb as a bag of hammers, but that is being nasty to honest hard working hammers :)
On the post: Big Name Authors Realize Their Old Contracts Don't Cover eBooks; Route Around Old Publishers To Release New Versions
Yes, ads in books, been
What about free readers that sense your eyeball position and can make sure you do not ignore the ads that leap to your fovea until they determine you have read enough...like those 30 seconds ads that tick down to zero on various news sites.
Arrow to the heart for that idea, but I suppose there needs to be a means to pay the writer.
Sell the book for $2, or even $1 and give the writer all but 25 cents, which will run the e-pay front end. If the writer wants to rent an editor to go over the text to hone it, let him pay the editor 10 cents a copy, or whatever they agree on.
A good editor can deal with many authors and in time might have 1000 books in his stable ticking over at 10 cents per sale. That could be a good living as long as you edit well and fast...the author thinks it is free editing. Commission editing has a very low burden.
I admit highly technical books with small numbers of buyers will require higher sales fees and edit costs, and may well need to be locked in some way.
Sales of a lot of engineering texts also need to be shaken up. They have a large client base, but are very costly due to the unholy alliance between school publishers and professors to bring out a new edition every year. Yes, I know all of science become obsolete annually, thus you need that rapid change....NOT
On the post: Big Name Authors Realize Their Old Contracts Don't Cover eBooks; Route Around Old Publishers To Release New Versions
Slavery for the willing
How can a nascent writer retain the digital rights if the publisher refuses? How can he get a differing royalty structure and sales price for the hard cover, mass media and digital editions, with their wildly divergent burdens?
I have long felt that the bricks and mortar publishers have stood in
the way of e-books, which they probably failed to understand and saw
as parasitic to their main industry.
They did this by maintaining an onerous price on the e-book.
If you look at the traditional book at $25 it is sold to amazon at 55%
off list ($13.75, more or less), and the author will get a royalty of,
say 5-10% of sales price, more or less.
In this there is all the paper handling, waste, remainders etc, so at
the end of the day the publishers end up with a business that makes
7-8% on sales.
That means a book makes the publisher about $1 and about the same for
the author, again, more or less. All the rest is wasted trees, oil
etc.
Of course this an average, some authors might get fatter royalties, as
they sell millions, and some books make nothing at all.
So along comes the e-book and it gets priced at ~$20. all of which
goes to the publisher, less his royalty, so on the face of it, they
appear highly profitable to the publisher.
I feel, that this is not quite the case and the reluctance of people
to pay such a high price will reduce the uptake, which means the sales
are a lot lower than they could be.
Stephen King tried and failed with an e-book where he gave away a few
free chapters and sold the balance. I think ths was killed by the same
greed.
In fact, I feel that the use of freelance authors, who are flat feed
and not royaltied, will enable people to self publish and sell their
book for $2 through self publish sites that provide the front end,
credit card fee collection and remittance to the author of these
fees. The use of a minimal digital rights protection plan will suffice
as a fee of $2 or so will not be a barrier to buyers in most cases.
Kindles will only view approved goods. Implicit in this is that kindle
needs to avoid getting a fee per book read = barrier. The kindle
should be a buy and use device. They might charge a minimal fee to
encode the text in kindle readable format, but this should be a low
cost, much like making a PDF file is quite low in cost.
If Kindle does not do this, others will, and an end run to an open
standard e-book mechanism will appear. The use of OLED screens will
enable color e-books and very low cost. They might not have the
battery life of black and white e-paper tablets, but color is a
seller.
On the post: Big Name Authors Realize Their Old Contracts Don't Cover eBooks; Route Around Old Publishers To Release New Versions
The end digital slavery?
New authors will now have the ability to self publish, and will not ever be slaves - except on their own terms.
Old scribes with no digital rights clause covering their work will jump ship in droves.
What about those recent writers who are trapped with a digital clause??
There will be a war of sorts, the brick and mortar crowd will cling to their bread and butter. These digital slaves will rebel and how will peace ever emerge from these intractable foes?
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