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No one buys books

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Re: No one buys books

#481

Post by wrp »

closetkantian wrote: post #463
rfarley04 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I'm from Oregon but live in Thailand, where there are ZERO libraries. My absolute favorite thing about going home is just maxxing out my library card and seeing how much I can get through before heading home (I can do ebooks and audiobooks while abroad with Libby but I'm one of those obnoxious people that always prefers physical)

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.

I haven't been to Thailand, but I assume there are also libraries at the universities. The parent appears to be referring to a tradition of public libraries, so these are not really counterexamples.

I've used private English libraries in various countries of the Middle East and East Asia. For the expat community, they were really a treasure before the internet.

Re: No one buys books

#482

Post by lstamour »

grepLeigh wrote: post #434
yellow_postit wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OverDrive (and Libby) were acquired by KKR, the behemoth PE firm responsible for bankrupting Toys R Us. KKR also acquired one of the Big Five publishing houses last year. I'm worried about public library funds being squeezed by an extractive PE playbook. I wonder what kind of negotiating power a regional library has in that situation. Do state library agencies have more leverage than regional libraries? Do large stat…

OverDrive is a strong player but they’re still a commodity. Publishers and libraries can use other lending platforms if and when they emerge as stronger competitors. This article serves as a good overview: https://openeducationalberta.ca/ciicm/chapter/public-library...

The problem is the publishers - they don’t always sign on to provide books to every new platform and don’t always release to every platform. But other platforms do exist: https://bookriot.com/comparing-public-library-ebook-platform...

Re: No one buys books

#483

Post by vik0 »

atoav wrote: post #455
ddingus wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are. Every single public resource is seen as a potential market opportunity being squandered away, or as competition other players do not want to see in play.

Well a library is a place where a population can spend the day getting smarter while not spending money. If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are two things you definitely do not want. Sadly many people seem to think they are really showing the folks up there by retreating from any form of self-education once they are out of school. The opposite couldn't be more true.

>If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are two things you definitely do not want.

This smells like a half-baked conspiracy theory. It's not like the overwhelming majority of people want to get smarter in their free time. I'm not sure how it is in the rest of the world, but in American and all (individual) European cultures, most people don't pursue self-education. I would not be surprised if this applies to most other cultures as well

You might say that's how a lot of people on this website got their knowledge, but this website is statistically insignificant compared to the world population. Plus, it's not like every single member here pursues self-education. I'm willing to wager most people come on here just to be entertained

Re: No one buys books

#484

Post by avar »

tombert wrote: post #366
yreg wrote: post #51

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.…

I am kind of the opposite; I have found it much easier to read on Kindle simply because I can make the text as big as I want. In high school, I remembered that I really struggled to read The Once and Future King, and I never finished it. I eventually assumed I was too dumb to understand it, and that it’s just not for me. Fast forward about 13 years, and I decide to give the book a try again, this time on the Kindle,…

Yes, surely the only reason you'd dislike something at 14-18 years old and like it at 27-31 is the font size.

I take it your tastes have otherwise been immutable in that time period, and that you listen to the same music, follow the same fashion trends etc. as you did back then?

Re: No one buys books

#485

Post by bazoom42 »

yunohn wrote: post #446
devjab wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can. Book publishers are terrible and they always have been. At least that is the case here in Denmark. They game our library system, so that books they know won’t sell well but will be lent a lot at the libraries, like a lot of children books are priced ridiculously. These books are never actually put in stores, because why bother? But our libraries, have, to buy them and then pay fees to the publishing houses bas…

> I guess part of the blame goes to our politicians though. There is no universe in which public funds are leeched without political complicity and corruption. Most likely the publishers benefitted are either related to or provided kickbacks to the influential parties.

Sorry, is publishing a book which gets a lot of readers through the public libraries now “leeching” and “corruption”?

Re: No one buys books

#486

Post by marcus_holmes »

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…

Sorry, but no.

Authors have been complaining about publishers for ever. Publishers treated authors like crap when they controlled the market. No sympathy for them at all.

If they had any integrity they'd move to be the Spotify of books and serve their customers better. Instead (as the article says) they're spending their efforts trying to bail the sinking boat and resist any such move.

The world will be a better place without them.

Re: No one buys books

#487

Post by atoav »

vik0 wrote: post #483
atoav wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a library is a place where a population can spend the day getting smarter while not spending money. If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are two things you definitely do not want. Sadly many people seem to think they are really showing the folks up there by retreating from any form of self-education once they are out of school. The opposite couldn't be more true.

>If you're rich, powerful and an unethical asshole those are two things you definitely do not want. This smells like a half-baked conspiracy theory. It's not like the overwhelming majority of people want to get smarter in their free time. I'm not sure how it is in the rest of the world, but in American and all (individual) European cultures, most people don't pursue self-education. I would not be surprised if this ap…

I didn't say rich, powerful and unethical people actively need to work against public libraries. They just don't need to support them, which is enough, given the fact that they often land in or near places of political power.

Just don't increase the funding while inflation increases and you're basically cutting funding. And then when things eventually start to look like shit tear them down. And these are not even things a rich, powerful and unethical person needs to do willingly or on purpose. It is just a thing that happens, because it isn't high on the priority list. And it isn't high on the priority list because it doesn't make them direct money.

Now if you're a politician that profits from your constituents being not too critical why should you actively support a thing that has the potential to make them more critical? Not that you actively have to be against it, it just isn't that high on your list of priorities..

This is how incentives work. And while there are people who will support measures which won't directly profit them short term, it seems to me they are an endangered species, at least in the US.

Re: No one buys books

#488

Post by bazoom42 »

devjab wrote: post #406
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…

I can. Book publishers are terrible and they always have been. At least that is the case here in Denmark. They game our library system, so that books they know won’t sell well but will be lent a lot at the libraries, like a lot of children books are priced ridiculously. These books are never actually put in stores, because why bother? But our libraries, have, to buy them and then pay fees to the publishing houses bas…

> 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.

Re: No one buys books

#489

Post by vidarh »

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…

> You print books? Well we have e-books now.

The vast majority of sales is still paper books.

> You do marketing? Authors now have their own followings on social media and can reach them directly.

Some do. Most don't. Especially new authors. Publishers are playing a risky game of trying to figure out the tradeoff of how much to invest in developing an authors brand in the hope that future books will cost less to sell. Too much, and you have a cashflow problem today. Too little, and lose out on future returns.

> You give cash advances? Fans on Kickstarter give 10x more.

Most authors have no fans yet, and most never will - most authors write only a few books in their lifetime.

From what I see, most authors (myself included) would rather not deal with most of what publishers do. If anything, most authors would prefer it if publishers did more of the sales effort, but it's not economically viable in most cases.

Re: No one buys books

#490

Post by serial_dev »

bazoom42 wrote: post #485
yunohn wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess part of the blame goes to our politicians though. There is no universe in which public funds are leeched without political complicity and corruption. Most likely the publishers benefitted are either related to or provided kickbacks to the influential parties.

Sorry, is publishing a book which gets a lot of readers through the public libraries now “leeching” and “corruption”?

What a strawman!

Depending on how they got the deal with the library, and how much they get compensated for that, yes it is.

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