William Gillis 🏴
@jindra @whatanerd @hakan_geijer \
From what I hear, the bulk of books that the major publishers sell go basically to monthly subscribers/donars who rack the books and rarely read them or people who get kinda interested, but not enough to eventually read.
If this immediate flash of interest and desire to collect can be satiated by downloading another PDF that you likewise never read.... it's a lost sale.
William Gillis 🏴
@jindra @whatanerd @hakan_geijer
This is not apologetics on my part, to be clear, I don't think these business reasons trump the various ethical reasons to release PDFs. And as I said, things flip for big hot ticket attention-grabbing items that can build steam on their own. But like the little historian who wrote a volume on a tiny corner of anarchist history might not get more than 10 sales without the benefit of the above tricks to increase sales.
JindrⒶ, the critically pointed
@rechelon @whatanerd @hakan_geijer
That's super interesting, thanks for this info. Trying to imagine to be in a publisher's shoes, I kinda see more of why they end up doing what they end up doing.
William Gillis 🏴
@jindra @whatanerd @hakan_geijer
That said, the evidence as such is more or less that in a space where books sell 50-800 copies, if you put the book online for free, often that immediately removes the majority of the buyers who are only going to pick it up on a lark in hopes of eventually reading it, without actually reading it.
This flips in the other direction when a book is such that it is able to build attention and importance via distribution.
William Gillis 🏴
@jindra @whatanerd @hakan_geijer
No studies within the anarchist scene. The profit margins are -- generally -- so hair thin plus collective process inclines orgs towards conservatism that no one wants to do risky things. But beyond that it's not really a mass market where you could do real studies uncluttered by noise. Each book is generally very different. Plus it's a hard sell to an author who is going to get peanuts anyway.
William Gillis 🏴
@jindra @whatanerd @hakan_geijer
Currently the line of at least one prominent publisher is "we'll secretly try to upload everything to libgen and won't pick fights with TAL hosting it but don't want to make it front and center because it'll piss off authors and lose us sales."
I think there's clear evidence that online copies diminish sales, but that creates the moral question of WHY did folks buy only when they had no other options.
JindrⒶ, the critically pointed
@rechelon @whatanerd @hakan_geijer
>I think there's clear evidence that online copies diminish sales
is this just your experience, or was there a study or something about it? (I trust your experience, but still I would like to read more about it and why it happens)
JindrⒶ, the critically pointed
@whatanerd @rechelon @hakan_geijer
So my opinion is that if the publishers released a pdf version, then
a) it's not going to cost much, since they make it digitally anyway
b) it's going to then at least end up on libgen.is, which is good
c) piracy will not hurt sales anyway - I think the illegal downloads will all be just extra downloads on top (so it's actually marketing)
(therefore I think the argument "we cannot afford this" does not hold water)
But that's just my opinion and I would be curious to hear if there actually is some research/experience about this.
Masonic Cowgirl
@rechelon @jindra @whatanerd @hakan_geijer for example, most academics I know seem to not really care if someone pirates their texts, but that's also because they primarily get paid through a salary, rather than royalties
here the government also provides grants for people (especially young people) to write books, and I've never done it (there's a lot of bureaucracy involved) but many of my friends have, and they also generally don't really care if someone pirates their book afterwards because they got paid to produce the book to begin with, independently of its sales
I don't think either of those really apply to anarchist publishing, but they could indicate some directions we could go in
Masonic Cowgirl
@rechelon @jindra @whatanerd @hakan_geijer I think also one of the things that I think is necessary in these debates - because there is a genuine conflict of interest between creators who make very little money, and *every* step of book production costs money, not simply the writing part (there's also copyediting, page design, indexing, plenty of other costs along the way, and ensuring that information is freely available - is to ask what other models could we find that could ensure that creators get paid while also readers don't face a financial barrier to the book they want to read
Masonic Cowgirl
@hakan_geijer @rechelon @jindra @whatanerd I like that idea, that a land project also serves as a publisher
Masonic Cowgirl
@hakan_geijer @rechelon @jindra @whatanerd yeah, the hard part would always be in the details, but what I like about it is that it also reminded me of some of the better publishing industry initiatives, such as the Banff Centre - the dream would be to combine some of the best publishing industry practices with the best anarchist practices, although obviously we should not underestimate how much work it would take to turn it into something real and sustainable
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