It’s funny seeing this comment and the article about Seattle libraries reducing digital copies both on HNews front page at the same time. I love libraries. It also feels like all our public institutions in the US are crumbling under assault from all sides.
Limiting or undermining literacy remains important to those who benefit from it.
The advocates of "whole-language" learning as against "phonics" seem to do a fair job of limiting or undermining literacy. Yet how it benefits them I don't see. And what is the reference of "it" in the last sentence? Literacy, or limited or undermined literacy?
Can't help but feel for the publishing industry considering how shafted they got by tech. You distribute books all over the country? Amazon can do it better and cheaper. You print books? Well we have e-books now. You have a massive back catalog? Google just scanned all of it. You do marketing? Authors now have their own followings on social media and can reach them directly. You give cash advances? Fans on Kickstarte…
> there saw a title and went "this one is by Simon & Schuster, it has to be good" Meet Fitzcarraldo, the publisher house with four Nobels so far: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/10/four-nobels-an...
That strikes me as cheating a bit, counting translations. Still, good for Fitzcarraldo.
Writing is art, just like painting, acting, playing an instrument, etc.. Great hobby. Don't expect to make it a profession. There's a truth behind the phrase "starving artist".
Lottery winners are famous. It's easy to forget that most lottery tickets don't win.
I recently started buying paper books. Yes, it's not particularly ecological, but I found that I'm able to focus at the text much better this way. My Kindle (despite plenty of obvious advantages) just doesn't really work for me. It took me years to realize this, but I always start to tinker with the brightness settings, switch pages back and forth, go into the book library and back, play with highlighting words, etc.…
On top of all of that, nobody's going to revise the book out from under me while I'm reading it, or prevent me from loaning it to a friend, or even yanking it entirely from my device.
Let me introduce you to two of my best friends: Airplane Mode and USB cable.
> books they know won’t sell well but will be lent a lot at the libraries This sounds weird. Wouldn’t the books which are lent more also sell more? Childrens books are a big market for book stores and of course they want to sell the most popular books. Are you referring to some particular book which cannot be purchased? Also libriaries does not have to buy any book.
It may sound weird, but there is not a link between lending from libraries and book sales. Some children’s books sell well, but if you go to the sections of them in book stores you’ll rarely find more than a handful of Danish authors represented. The ones which the bookstores know will sell well. Our Libraries have to make all Danish published material available. Some of this is indeed not bought, but because childre…
So, can I publish a book in Denmark, say it costs 1,000 dollars, and your libraries will be forced to buy it just because they have to make "all Danish published material available."?? There must be some sort of guidelines (though seeing how Swedish law works I wouldn't be surprised you guys just "trust" people to price things correctly).
I gotta admit: I rarely make time for any recent fiction. Too busy catching up on the last 5,000 years. I don’t expect that to change before I die. Film has a similar problem—there are plausibly low-thousands existing films worth my time, a whole lot of them 30+ years old. I could never watch a film made after 2000 and not run out of good entertainment in my lifetime. They’re damn lucky the Mouse got copyright extend…
There are gems coming out today that will be considered great works by our descendants. By avoiding current authors or media you miss out on the cultural story and critique/commentary that influences all our media. Sure, the last 5000 years are interesting, but isn't right now pretty amazing too? You might accidently read the best book ever written but you won't know until history plays out. But I think it's importan…
> There are gems coming out today that will be considered great works by our descendants.
Wow. Can't wait for the next Harry Potter / Avatar / Celebrity book / Spiderman movie !!!!11!!!1! Great works!
It may sound weird, but there is not a link between lending from libraries and book sales. Some children’s books sell well, but if you go to the sections of them in book stores you’ll rarely find more than a handful of Danish authors represented. The ones which the bookstores know will sell well. Our Libraries have to make all Danish published material available. Some of this is indeed not bought, but because childre…
So, can I publish a book in Denmark, say it costs 1,000 dollars, and your libraries will be forced to buy it just because they have to make "all Danish published material available."?? There must be some sort of guidelines (though seeing how Swedish law works I wouldn't be surprised you guys just "trust" people to price things correctly).
All publishers are required to supply one copy of any published book to the royal library (for free).
Individual libraries are not required to buy any particular book. They have a fixed budget for buying material and will decid based on quality and expected demand.
This is an exaggeration. I also live in Thailand, and I just got a library card at the very stately Neilson Hayes library last week. A bit pricey (3000 THB/year) but amazing ambience since the library was built in 1860.
Yea $100 bucks a year for a small historical library with a very limited selection of English books (that's 45 minutes away from me) doesn't really compare to a free library that's in every city in the US (or many libraries in bigger cities)
To the above posters credit, it sounds like their claim of exaggeration was spot on (he didn't say it was a lie). You didn't say their libraries don't compare to US ones, you said they don't exist.
There is a steady stream of tech books being published.
Does anyone know what sort of advance a tech author can get,
if we leave out the biggest author.