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When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

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Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#21

Post by alpinisme »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #18
alpinisme wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody in this thread has said the book is racist. The question was whether you can see the motivation of retitling from a publishers (or for that matter booksellers) perspective. If you want people to buy the book, the old name is a turn off whether the content is raciest or not.

> If you want people to buy the book, the old name is a turn off whether the content is raciest or not. This depends on the audience. For some people it is a turn off to adopt the title to a woke zeitgeist.

You’re right of course. Some people will buy the non-woke title as a protest vote of sorts. And others will go out of their way to get an old copy out of a non-political sense of loyalty (some of these people were already buying the book as a historical object though and would have preferred a used copy to start).

But it is not just about people buying the book knowing it changed, or buying it because it changed. It’s about coming across a title like that cold, without knowing any context. (Remember: the aspiration of a publisher is always to have the book become more popular with new formerly uninterested audiences). It’s an empirical question whether that title will do better than a retitle but my money is on the title without the most fraught words in the English language on the cover.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#22

Post by squidbeak »

carlosjobim wrote: post #10
drakonka wrote: post #2

I only skimmed this, have not yet read in great detail, but it made me think about backlists in indie publishing. This is a thing for self-published authors as well, only we tend to take a more optimistic view on the backlist: a large backlist is more of a benefit than a challenge. It is necessary to keep putting out new books of course to get new visibility, but income stability comes not from readers buying your sh…

> Likewise, covers and blurbs go out of date and need to be refreshed once in a while. Why? The reader understand that they are from another time.

The same reason you repaint your fence occasionally.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#23

Post by boesboes »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #9
freddie_mercury wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't understand why editors decided to rename Agatha Christie's 1939 book Ten Little Niggers in 1985? Or is that a "recent cultural trend" where you can understand why publishers followed the trend and made a change? Because once someone admits that change was okay, it's no longer a question of principles and just a series of judgment calls that different people will make differently. Publishers make chan…

> My daughters are Asian I wouldn't buy them a children's book where "be Chinese" is considered an acceptable Halloween costume. There also exist people who would rather avoid buying books where the publisher changed the content in 1984 style to appease the woke moaners.

If only those people would read

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#24

Post by ses1984 »

squidbeak wrote: post #22
carlosjobim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Likewise, covers and blurbs go out of date and need to be refreshed once in a while. Why? The reader understand that they are from another time.

The same reason you repaint your fence occasionally.

Your covers lose their protective coating and will rot due to moisture?

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#25

Post by alexey-salmin »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #6
alexey-salmin wrote: post #5

> And here is a lovely classic children’s book — from 1960 — that’s about two little girls, and a witch, who has a baby, and a spelling bee, an actual bee that spells things. And there’s a minor part of the story where the girls are putting on their Halloween costumes, and one is a witch, and the other is “a little Chinese girl … and she had makeup on her face.” > I think we agree at this point that a nationality is…

You really don't understand why editors decided to rename Agatha Christie's 1939 book Ten Little Niggers in 1985? Or is that a "recent cultural trend" where you can understand why publishers followed the trend and made a change? Because once someone admits that change was okay, it's no longer a question of principles and just a series of judgment calls that different people will make differently. Publishers make chan…

[dead]

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#26

Post by themaninthedark »

alpinisme wrote: post #16
GJim wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to understand why a story about a child innocently dressing up as someone from another culture is perceived by some Americans as racist.

It’s never really resonated with me either. But I think this thread has a good example in it: a patent not wanting their child to read a book in which people consider “you” to be an acceptable costume (making you feel strange or uncomfortable, since kids often don’t like being singled out or noted as different — especially not in a way meant to exaggerate and lean in to stereotypes). This is doubly true when the kids…

Counterpoint: St. Paddy's day - where a lot of people dress up and claim to be Irish.

Or when someone dresses up as a 1920 gangster, just always happen to Italian...

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#27

Post by bdw5204 »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #5

> And here is a lovely classic children’s book — from 1960 — that’s about two little girls, and a witch, who has a baby, and a spelling bee, an actual bee that spells things. And there’s a minor part of the story where the girls are putting on their Halloween costumes, and one is a witch, and the other is “a little Chinese girl … and she had makeup on her face.” > I think we agree at this point that a nationality is…

One reason why authors should self-publish is to prevent their books from being bowdlerized by the publisher in the future. You can't predict what will cause future "morality enforcers" to faint. Self publishing also means you can publish things that the current "sensitivity readers" (i.e. censors) would never let you publish.

Of course, this isn't foolproof because your descendants or heirs might also be willing to bowdlerize your work or even take it out of print altogether. So another option would be to just release all of your copyrighted works into the public domain upon your death allowing anybody who cares to publish uncensored copies.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#28

Post by dml2135 »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #9
freddie_mercury wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't understand why editors decided to rename Agatha Christie's 1939 book Ten Little Niggers in 1985? Or is that a "recent cultural trend" where you can understand why publishers followed the trend and made a change? Because once someone admits that change was okay, it's no longer a question of principles and just a series of judgment calls that different people will make differently. Publishers make chan…

> My daughters are Asian I wouldn't buy them a children's book where "be Chinese" is considered an acceptable Halloween costume. There also exist people who would rather avoid buying books where the publisher changed the content in 1984 style to appease the woke moaners.

Also consider that maybe the parent comment would not have bought the book in 1984 either, for the same reason.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#29

Post by djoldman »

> And sometimes we’re not sure if what we’re seeing even is an error. The following passage, from Philip K. Dick, displays a lot of creative use of language, but the “zommed” in the third line — while matching the print book — seems a bit suspect. Should it be “zoomed”? How can we know?

Strictly for possible typos: if the author is alive, ask them, otherwise leave it.

> Sometimes a book is completely accurate at the time of publication, but becomes factually inaccurate over time, giving the wrong dates for the beginning of daylight saving time or an incorrect planetary status for Pluto.

> Should we fix these factual errors? Do we need the author’s input? What if the author is dead, the agent is retired, and the editor has left the company? Should we fix them silently or with some kind of editorial note?

> Then there’s the case where the content of a book is not incorrect, per se, but may have become outmoded or offensive.... What do you do here? Do you update the language that’s incidental to the content of the book? Does it matter who you think is buying this — whether it’s people who want the diet advice or people who are researching the historic participation of Asian Americans in diet programs?

No. A book should capture an author's intent/concept/idea at the time it was written and those intents/concepts/ideas should be frozen.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#30

Post by [deleted] »

themaninthedark wrote: post #26
alpinisme wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s never really resonated with me either. But I think this thread has a good example in it: a patent not wanting their child to read a book in which people consider “you” to be an acceptable costume (making you feel strange or uncomfortable, since kids often don’t like being singled out or noted as different — especially not in a way meant to exaggerate and lean in to stereotypes). This is doubly true when the kids…

Counterpoint: St. Paddy's day - where a lot of people dress up and claim to be Irish. Or when someone dresses up as a 1920 gangster, just always happen to Italian...

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