Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:49:33 -0500
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Over the weekend: Amazon vs MaCmillan
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Eva Whitley wrote:
> Speaking as someone who relies on royalties as part of paying my
> bills, and as a former small press publisher:
>
> If you don't think $15 is a fair price for a book, then don't buy it.
> No one's twisting your arm. But it takes the same level of effort to
> write a book whether it's delivered on dead trees or live electrons.
> The cost of paper and shipping is minor compared to the cost of
> royalties, editing, development, promotion, etc. It's a financial risk
> for a publishing house to publish a book, and good for Macmillian for
> being brave enough to buck the trend.
<snip>
What I object to is the *publisher* getting so much, and the author getting so
little. The same, of course, is true in the music industry.

Two examples: on folkalley.com (24x7 folk), they had a fundraiser piece a year
or so ago from Arlo, who said it was THIRTY YEARS before he got one dime of
royalties from the record label.

Then there's The C Programming Language, by Kernigan and Ritchie. These were
the guys who, around 1970, *invented* C. Most of the operating systems you run,
most of the lower level software, and some of the higher stuff, is *all*
written in C. I guarantee that it's sold more than a million copies, possibly
several million. The price has gone from about $36 15 years ago, to about $42
now. It hasn't been updated since the mid-nineties. There are no pictures. It's
not 300 pages, trade paper size. Oh, and one more thing: THE AUTHORS TYPESET
THE WHOLE BOOK. They sure ain't millionaires....

  mark
--
Have you noticed that, when we were young, we were told
that "everybody else is doing it" was a really stupid
reason to do something, but now it's the standard reason
for picking a particular software package? -- Barry Gehm