War in the land of the E Books...
Ok ladies and gents, we've covered Apple, we've covered taxes, we've even covered wifi on the beach, now it's the turn of the publishing industry. So a long long time ago there was the printing press, then came along the supermarkets getting into a price war with good old Waterstones, but hey Waterstones fought back! Waterstones jumped up and down, took a few cues from Daunt Books and shimmied up its image, (just like Starbucks of late). But was it enough? Clearly not because there's a Goliath in town - and it's called the E Book.
Actually scrap that it's not called the E Book, it's called the evil eye behind the E Book, the multiple eyes who are intent on one goal and one goal only - WINNING. Forget the authors, forget the craft of writing, forget how damned hard it is to get published anyway... No - now it's all about selling off a download for the lowest possible price known to man - Hey well it's not on paper anymore is it? That means... We can sell it as cheap as chips - because the words, well they're the lowest common denominator between a book and, well blank paper right?
Now look, don't get me wrong. I love my tablet, I love downloading, I love reading occasionally when there isn't a proper book to hand, but in no way does the experience of holding mimic holding a book. For one you read 11% faster reading on the printed page. Yes that's right! Say it takes you three days to finish a book (we read fast here at The GWG), at a daily rate of three hours, that's twelve hours over the course of the week - 11% of twelve hours is: (have to get my calculator out now...) is 79.2 minutes. so say you read a book a month (stay with me), that's sixteen hours per year wasted by reading a tablet.
Say you're an avid reader and you devour a book a week, that's 68.644 hours over a year - that's almost three days! Ok point made. Now back to the price war - some E Books have recently been reduced to a shocking 20p - yes! You heard right, 20p!!!!! Who were the offending parties? Sony and Amazon (slapped wrists all round), though the authors are certainly not complaining as the trend propels them to the top of the Bestseller list faster than you can say 'Conspiracy of The Casual Vacancy,' but anyway Peter James for example - author of the thriller Dead Man's Grip (in seventh place on the list) was certainly not complaining because Amazon and Sony still paid his royalties in full - yes as if the book were sold in hardback in Waterstones (to come full circle). So what's the problem I hear you ask? The problem my dear friends is that we (the public) get ever used to buying E Books, for less than the price of a Twix. What's wrong with that? I hear you ask... The years of labour, the value of art, the simple fact that we need writers to uphold the cultural institution that is well, writing...
Without royalties and book deals and the public behind them - they can't eat. And if they can't eat, they can't write and if they can't write - there's no one to write the books in the first place, which would admittedly be quite a sad state of affairs.
0 comments: