Eric Flint on Electronic Publishing

[ralphmelton]

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm is Eric Flint's discussion of the effects of the Baen Free Library on sales of the author's books. In particular, he claims (and I think I agree) that putting his books online for free has increased his profits. Very interesting...

I do agree with the Library that it is the copyright holder's prerogative to decide whether an electronic copy should be released. On the other hand, if it really is more profitable to put electronic forms up for free, as Eric Flint is claiming, then I feel less sympathetic to those clamoring for strong protections.

Comments

[beegle.livejournal.com]

First, I have to admit that I rejoiced when I read that article.

I wonder how much of his findings are book-specific. I hate reading long documents on screen. I usually opt to kill a tree and read the hardcopy. I own book versions of a few things that can be downloaded for free because they're just easier to read. Frankly, buying the book is usually -cheaper- than making a printout unless you're doing it covertly at the office.

I'm a geek. I spend a lot of my day in front of a computer. Worse, my day's split between my work computer and my home computer. Syncing a 5GB mp3 collection is much easier to deal with than toting a big CD carrier back and forth. Yes, the CDs sound better, but convenience wins. In a few cases, I've downloaded mp3s that I can legitimately listen to (because I own the CD) instead of ripping them because I didn't have the CD around.

Yet, in most cases, I later go back and rip my CD and delete my downloaded copy. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with law or consideration for the artist. Most of the stuff that you find on Napster, Audiogalaxy, Gnutella, or the rest is crap. It's truncated, poorly recorded or encoded, and the id3 tags are usually broken. All it's good for is getting a marginally listenable version of the song.

I wonder if the recording industry could take advantage of that: make low quality (perhaps 64kbps mono) recordings available from the recording company's web site. They'd be the most convenient, hence the most widely distributed. People wouldn't bother with the better quality recordings unless they're the sort of fans who are likely to buy the album.