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Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

parkerhiggins.net

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Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#71
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not if you want actual wide readership, as opposed to theoretical wide readership. Ask a blogger!

A friend of mine self-published her first novel early this year, sold 40K copies so far, and is doing very well with presales for the next. Most of her sales are on Kindle. She's friends now with a lot of other self-published authors who are also doing quite well. So I wouldn't say people need publishers anymore for wide readership.

It is possible, I'm not convinced it's probable.

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I like about Amazon is their large selection of classics like this, formatted for the Kindle, at $0.00.

Thank Project Gutenberg instead.

P.G. deserves most of the credit, that's correct. But Amazon also deserves credit for integrating it into the Kindle system. They didn't have to do that, and they make no money off of it.

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has found a reliable metric to determine the quality of art, not even close, other than what others are freely willing to pay for it.

"not even close" Really? Because while Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are far from perfect, they are quite useful in pointing out movies that have more rather than less quality.

Those are aggregated peoples' opinions, which are subjective. I was thinking of objective metrics.

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a list of "Best-sellers initially rejected", though. Not quite the same as quality initially unrecognized. Some of them could still be books of low quality, that happen to be popular.

Nobody has found a reliable metric to determine the quality of art, not even close, other than what others are freely willing to pay for it.

Sure they have -- your response to the art. Its a perfectly reliable metric to determine the quality of art, since "quality of art" isn't an objective quantity but instead a subjective quality, and so is exactly what each viewer finds it to be.

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#75
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine self-published her first novel early this year, sold 40K copies so far, and is doing very well with presales for the next. Most of her sales are on Kindle. She's friends now with a lot of other self-published authors who are also doing quite well. So I wouldn't say people need publishers anymore for wide readership.

It is possible, I'm not convinced it's probable.

Selling books in large quantities isn't all that probable with a traditional publisher, either. Even if they publish you, they usually don't market your book near as well as you'd hoped, and your royalties are a much smaller percentage of the sales price. With Amazon you can publish a book at $2.99 and keep 70% of that.

I've seen a fair number of articles by people who'd published several books with traditional publishers, then decided the self-publish route paid more and got more books in the hands of readers.

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#76
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite Amazon's open platform, I'm fairly sure that her phrase: "We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience..." refers to Amazon's conflict with Hachette.

The irony is the statement applies equally even if you switch the roles of Amazon and Hachette!

Amazon intentionally delayed/prevented the shipment of Hachette books to customers. What actions did Hachette take that would be similarly punitive (or punitive at all)?

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#77
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While she may speak with the authority of having written "The Dispossessed" (which is wonderfully good), her words seem to mostly be about Amazon. In that regard I think her comments miss the mark ("corporate fatwa" being the biggest silliness).

In what way do they miss the mark? I have immense respect for both Ursula K. Le Guin's work and her ideology. Her comments seem pretty sensible to me.

I cannot speak to her ideology, as I've only read her novels and admired her amazing craftsmanship and care. For example, in "The Dispossessed" she crafts a point of rational observation of both extremes of capitalism and communism. I've not had the opportunity to read of or hear her own personal views.

I think her remarks aimed at Amazon miss the mark. She said: "...We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience and writers threatened by corporate fatwa, and I see a lot of us, the producers who write the books, and make the books, accepting this. Letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish and what to write."

Amazon was not "punishing disobedience", rather they are attempting to negotiate more favorable terms for literally all involved parties. (Amazon's historical data shows a lower price for e-books increases overall sales generating a higher profit for Amazon, for the publisher, and for the author.)

To me, attempting to show an equivalence between Amazon's contractual negotiation with Hachette and religious pronouncements from Muslim clerics sounds a false note in an otherwise important statement.

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Those are reasonable examples of what it takes to try to "force" an entire country out of capitalism "for their own good". Socialism as a part of a general economic or ethical philosophy - embedded within the liberal democratic system - is not quite as bad on its own. The fundamental ideas behind the movement led to things like universal public education, national investment in the sciences and arts, as w…

The fundamental ideas behind the movement led to things like universal public education, national investment in the sciences and arts, as well as universal public healthcare. These are all things which almost every modern nation recognizes as good ideas. There are many people who disagree 100% on that point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you then say that 'The C Programming Language' are 'Structure and Interpretation of Programming Languages' are commodities, no better or worse than the dozens of alternatives?

I think he answered your question already: "Some are good, some are terrible." Try reading the parent a little more thoroughly.

After I posted, I realized that my phrasing made it look like I didn't read the article thoroughly. Here's another attempt:

Would you then say that 'The C Programming Language' are 'Structure and Interpretation of Programming Languages' are commodities, good books among many equivalent good books?

Re: Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards

#80
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is the statement applies equally even if you switch the roles of Amazon and Hachette!

Amazon intentionally delayed/prevented the shipment of Hachette books to customers. What actions did Hachette take that would be similarly punitive (or punitive at all)?

Hachette demanded certain prices as condition of allowing Amazon to carry them.
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