Earlier quoted context omitted.
Limiting or undermining literacy remains important to those who benefit from it.
A literate population that reads what you want them to read is even better.
[deleted]
No one buys books
661–670 of 752 posts
Re: No one buys books
#662Can'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…
> The vast majority of sales is still paper books.
Do you have numbers for this? I wouldn't be entirely surprised if paper book revenue dwarfed ebook sales, but given that the latter has no marginal cost, I expect that profit from ebooks is still a very large slice of the pie.
Anecdotally, with my two self-published books, ebook and PDFs make up a pretty large slice of the pie even though my books are known for prioritizing the print experience (careful layout, lots of illustrations, etc.).
> 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.
A new author with no established celebrity or audience is basically dead in the water. There was a world where a new author could:
1. Write a book that was good on its own merits.
2. Convince an agent to represent them based on that book's merits.
3. The agent convinces an editor at a well-known publisher to take it.
4. The publisher prints it and gets it on bookshelves in stores everywhere.
5. People looking for books stumble onto it and buy it.
That world existed when people had a lot of spare time and attention and relatively few things vying for it. That world no longer exists. You can consume media 24/7 and never come close to running out, all without spending a penny.
The days of just having to write a great book and get in front of two people to be successful are dead and gone.
> 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.
There's a lot of stuff most people would rather not do, but unfortunately, sometimes the economic systems don't enable that.
Re: No one buys books
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
what logic leads to this conclusion? I tend to lean to the rising tide lifts all boats. who benefits from illiteracy?
The response to your comment thread here is some pretty high flying conspiracies. The thought that those in power would try and make the country illiterate is straight up ridiculous. That would completely undermine the competitiveness of the country AND the time line to get any benefit for the "elites or whomever is behind it" would be significantly long. Now if you are talking about a country like India - sure I cou…
I don't think I said anything about making people illiterate.
Undermining literacy means so they are not as literate as they could be to improve their lives.
For example, there are more than a few studies on literacy and education levels of the political spectrum for better and worse.
India is a different world. The crime against humanity that is the caste system all but forbade 1-3% of the population to be permitted to learn how to read. 95-98% of Indians were not permitted to learn how to read, and had to rely on the interpretations of the less populous castes.
Ironically it is a minority that largely broke this logjam and helped push literacy for the many forward.
I'll gladly take the downvotes for speaking the truth about caste being a divider between people and society.
Re: No one buys books
#664Earlier quoted context omitted.
I volunteer at my local food bank to help feed to homeless. I understand just how dire the need is. Libraries are a luxury we cannot afford right now, and frankly nobody uses them. Any 'feel good' purpose like 'literacy' is already met by public schools. There's already federal subsidies for internet and telephone for the needy, and the people that live too far away to get internet definitely don't have the money or…
> I volunteer at my local food bank to help feed to homeless. I understand just how dire the need is. If you spent much deal actually dealing with the homeless themselves, you'd know how crucial a resource a library is for homeless people. For something you see as "dire", you don't seem to have even done anything as simple as google "libraries help homeless." > Libraries are a luxury we cannot afford right now, Compl…
What do you think you've done to sway my opinion on the matter? There's a finite amount of money, and more pressing needs than letting people checkout paper books.
Let's look at it like this: Current budget: $100; $90 going to library, $10 going to feeding the needy. We can assume that even the entire library's budget won't overcome the shortfall in feeding the needy.
You're choosing to let more people be unfed in order that a handful of people can read Harry Potter or whatever is popular these days. Bad trade off.
Re: No one buys books
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
You did say they want to remain high status, likely due to their over indexing in narcissism. Even if that’s not your main point, the logical leap that we seem to disagree on is that promoting illiteracy is the means to that end. Carnegie does provide evidence against that, as does all the libraries and educational buildings that are named for wealthy donors. There’s a philosophical argument that all altruism is actu…
> You did say they want to remain high status, likely due to their over indexing in narcissism. Quote me, or I didn’t.
>The prevalence of assholes is a documented thing...latest numbers I've heard was over 6% of clinical narcissists...who would ever be surprised that high-status people like being high-status?...the idea that rich assholes would like to keep the education level of the general population below a threatening threshold...it's just obvious."
Feel free to clarify, but to me, this reads as, "Rich people, being narcissists, will try to maintain their high status by keeping the education level of the general populace low."
It also reads as a narrative talking point without good evidence to support it. I.e., "I can't prove it, I just know it's true."
Re: No one buys books
#666I'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.
Reading someone else's book about how to think independently seems like some sort of ironic joke.
I'd love it if the first page was just "Stop reading other people's thoughts and go think." And then the rest of the pages are blank.
Re: No one buys books
#667Re: No one buys books
#668Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think most cultural goods compete in hit-driven markets. That is a given. But as far as I understood the article claims the downfall of books in general. And that is not true, in my opinion at least. Books are bought as web novel or viewed on Kindle Unlimited or in general as self-published endeavors. And as the link in my post states, KU pays good, Patreon works as well. There also emerge more and more paid and sp…
> Books are bought as web novel or viewed on Kindle Unlimited or in general as self-published endeavors. I've seen no data to suggest this is true at least in the sense it's some sort of major revenue shift. "Traditional" - so non-web novel - type e-books make up about 20% of sales of traditional books, and this has been very slow to change in recent years. As far as I can tell - and this might well be way off, so I'…
Regarding KU, what is your opinion about the numbers here? https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/15o4f5d/ku_payouts_...
I think web novel and similar channel revenue is hard to estimate, since Patreon revenue and so on flies below the radar.
It is of course still a niche, but I don't think it will stay that way. And I assume publishers see the effects already in consumer behavior. Just look at the Chinese web novel market.
Re: No one buys books
#669Books are a vestigial organ. Nobody uses books as their primary mode of accessing information about the world anymore. What is interesting is that the cultural mores around this vestigial organ have persisted to such a great degree. Harry Potter Books are a psycho-social mechanism of self-construction more than an actual work of fiction. The phenomenon of "I am a bookish person who reads Harry Potter" as a psychologi…
I think I can rewrite this post using simpler language:
"I don't read books, and I assume nobody else does too.
People who read fun stories have ulterior motives besides enjoying the stories. (As opposed to the honest motives of people who enjoy movies or music, or other media)
People who write books have ulterior, egotistical motives to do so.
Celebrities sometimes write memoirs. See, this proves something!
The above points show that books are a "vestigial organ" and a "simulacra." "
Did I miss anything?
Re: No one buys books
#670Earlier 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.
> 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. This is conspiracy level thinking. Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and subdued. The assault on public institutions like libraries comes from 2 places: 1) Stop wasting my tax do…
> Nobody wealthy is sitting around scheming how to keep the proles dumb and subdued.
There are corporate divisions doing A/B tests, etc. to find out what works for the lowest common denominator, and how to profit more from someone's ignorance. Many people here are directly involved in making it happen.