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No one buys books

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Re: No one buys books

#601

Post by vl »

grepLeigh wrote: post #332

From the article: >>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?" I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local…

But you realize that you paid for all of this with your local taxes? It’s not like there is a magical place where laser cutters chose to spawn for free.

Re: No one buys books

#602

Post by vidarh »

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #38

I'm currently writing a book about independent thinking and I have zero expectations that it will sell even a single copy. However, the net gain I will get from having completed the goal of writing the book is invaluable to me personally.

I have two projects at the moment. Both slow-going because of other things, but one is the third in a series and I'm hopeful it will reach (very) low thousands based on the performance of the previous ones (over a period of years, not quickly; it's niche SF), the other is fiction, but will have code fragments in between chapters and I'd consider myself lucky if I sell a dozen. I'm more excited about writing that one...

Re: No one buys books

#603

Post by ornornor »

paxys wrote: post #101

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…

> Imagine a world where you wanted something good to read, and among all the garbage out there saw a title and went "this one is by Simon & Schuster, it has to be good".

I feel this way about DK books although they don’t really do fiction but practical titles.

Re: No one buys books

#604

Post by loup-vaillant »

bumby wrote: post #590
loup-vaillant wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then you go on to say, I said "tend to" . A tendency does not make an absolute and complete genocide. I also said "I'm afraid" , which is supposed to convey some level of uncertainty. Carnegie's donation doesn't invalidate my point, even if he wasn't an outlier . > The irony is that one of the most ludicrously wealthy people in history was also probably the single largest contributor to public libraries. Where…

What evidence would it take to change your mind? Because it seems like you'll rationalize any outcome to fit your mental model. If the wealthy don't fund something, it's because they're narcissists. If they do, it's because of statistics. At the same time, you ignore the statistics about narcissism.

> If the wealthy don't fund something, it's because they're narcissists. If they do, it's because of statistics.

I said no such strawman, and it's not my main point anyway.

My main point is: the idea that rich & powerful people will generally do what it takes to stay rich & powerful is not conspiracy thinking, it's common sense. The idea that a sizeable proportion of them will resort to unethical (even lethal) means to do so is not conspiracy thinking, it's common sense.

That's it, and I don't think Mr Carnegie here provides any significant evidence to the contrary. I mean, the same guy reportedly had strikers shot and killed, didn't he? It's hard to believe such a guy donated large amounts of money out of the goodness of his heart.

Re: No one buys books

#605

Post by pookha »

paxys wrote: post #101

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…

Publishers are going nowhere. Who else is going to pay politicians millions for their ghost-written "memoirs"?

Re: No one buys books

#606

Post by helpfulmandrill »

linuxftw wrote: post #569
al_borland wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm continually shocked by the number of people who forget that libraries exist, and what they are.

It's almost like it's a totally unnecessary public expenditure at this point, and those funds could be used for, IDK, feeding the homeless?

If they get rid of the libraries the savings will be used for tax cuts. Guarantee it.

Re: No one buys books

#607

Post by wesselbindt »

linuxftw wrote: post #569
al_borland wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm continually shocked by the number of people who forget that libraries exist, and what they are.

It's almost like it's a totally unnecessary public expenditure at this point, and those funds could be used for, IDK, feeding the homeless?

You mentioning helping the homeless in this convo has the same kind of vibe to me as conservatives only mentioning mental health when talking about gun control. They only ever mention mental health as a distraction from issues they do actually care about (like gun control), and have no interest in actually solving mental health issues. It's a typical way of bad faith arguing. That's just vibes though; there's a good chance you'd actually in earnest like to divert library funds toward helping the homeless. It's an issue that's very close to my heart too, so I get the sentiment.

Still, I disagree. Just because one of two problems is worse (e.g. literacy and homelessness, or murder and burglary) doesn't mean we can just ignore one problem in favor of another. Just because murder is worse than burglary doesn't mean we should divert all police attention and money currently being spent on burglary to solving murders. Just because women's rights in the US by far surpass those in Saudi Arabia doesn't mean we should take the efforts we put into women's rights issues in the US and divert them to solving women's right's issues in SA. Just because homelessness is in some sense worse than illiteracy and low education doesn't mean we should divert funds from libraries to solving homelessness.

Having written all this out, it feels far too obvious for you to not know this. Maybe it's not just vibes.

Re: No one buys books

#608

Post by bombcar »

vundercind wrote: post #356
bombcar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also a highly effective sorting algorithm - anything still talked about ten years after it came out is probably worth some time. I will say that it seems entirely possible to relatively quickly see all US animated kids movies …

> I will say that it seems entirely possible to relatively quickly see all US animated kids movies Decent or better ones… maybe. There’s a deep bench of poor-to-terrible animated kids’ movies that were straight to VHS/DVD/streaming. For god’s sake, there are like nine Land Before Time movies alone.

There's a surprisingly large number of direct to DVD/VHS animated movies you just cannot find ... anywhere. Not on streaming, not at the library.

It's hard to even find a list; and some are pretty decent, for what they are.

Re: No one buys books

#609

Post by bombcar »

ginko wrote: post #443
bombcar wrote: post #25

The entire book industry rides on the backs of bibles, hobbits, and extremely ravenous caterpillars. Seems almost poetic, somehow.

> The entire book industry rides on the backs of bibles, hobbits, and extremely ravenous caterpillars. Have to say I'm kind of surprised about the bibles part. Aren't those usually printed by smaller church-associated publishers?

There are some dedicated publishers that make bibles (most any Christian publishing house will have a bible of some sort) but the big names on Amazon or the bookstore are from the big houses (often under an imprint, mind you).

Re: No one buys books

#610

Post by chrisBob »

randcraw wrote: post #589
grepLeigh wrote: post #332

From the article: >>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?" I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local…

In contrast, public libraries around the Philly area are essentially dead. Town libraries are so underfunded that their mortar presences are open only until 7 PM M-Th, close at 5 F & Sa, and are closed Sundays. They have greatly reduced their paper book holdings and now rely almost entirely on ebooks, which number fewer than 2000, and interlibrary loans of any kind do not exist. In contrast, public libraries in Michi…

Where in Michigan? I regularly visit libraries in Ann Arbor, and Whitmore Lake. Both have libraries that are a wonderful resource for the community, but the difference in funding is obvious.
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