Re: E-books

Posted by Nick Kismet from 209.210.100.3 on August 24, 1999 at 02:02:13:

In Reply to: Indiana jones inspired e-book posted by Barry Nugent on August 23, 1999 at 22:54:06:

Every writer has two dreams:
1) That people will someday read the book he/she worked so hard on.

2) That people will actually pay money to read the afforementioned book.

Until recently, the publishing industry prevented both dreams from ever being realized ( at least to the extent most people would want) and the majority of novels written went unread except by family and friends. Furthermore, most authors would rarely see any return on their investment in the world of self-publishing, except for the few who took pity on them and shelled out the equivalent purchase price for the limited edition, vanity press works.
Then along comes the Internet and all that changes.
Now, we can put our hard work, for better or for worse, on a wesite and invite people to read it. We can even tease them with sample chapters and get them to pay money, either for a published version, or a downloaded "e-book".
Here's a question for all of you, readers and writers (I know there are quite a few of the latter in our forum)
Should the unpublished (and by that I mean not published by a major publishing house and sold at Barnes & Noble or Amazon)author be able to expect people to pay for fiction of questionable quality? Or should he/she make it available for free?
A bonus question is this: Are you more likely to read something you've spent money on?
I personally have a rather dim view of e-books, but I am willing to listen to alternative viewpoints.

The Adventures of Nick Kismet

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Re: Uhhh... Ulla 20:26:33 8/24/99 (0)

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: Every writer has two dreams:
: 1)  That people will someday read the book he/she worked so hard on.

: 2)  That people will actually pay money to read the afforementioned book.

: Until recently, the publishing industry prevented both dreams from ever being realized ( at least to the extent most people would want) and the majority of novels written went unread except by family and friends.  Furthermore, most authors would rarely see any return on their investment in the world of self-publishing, except for the few who took pity on them and shelled out the equivalent purchase price for the limited edition, vanity press works.
: Then along comes the Internet and all that changes.
: Now, we can put our hard work, for better or for worse, on a wesite and invite people to read it.  We can even tease them with sample chapters and get them to pay money, either for a published version, or a downloaded "e-book".  
: Here's a question for all of you, readers and writers (I know there are quite a few of the latter in our forum)
: Should the unpublished (and by that I mean not published by a major publishing house and sold at Barnes & Noble or Amazon)author be able to expect people to pay for fiction of questionable quality?  Or should he/she make it available for free?
: A bonus question is this:  Are you more likely to read something you've spent money on?
: I personally have a rather dim view of e-books, but I am willing to listen to alternative viewpoints.

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