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Daynotes
Journal
Week of 24 January 2011
Latest
Update: Saturday, 29 January 2011 10:54 -0500 |
09:14
-
Barbara's dad is doing better. They admitted him because they can't
figure out what's causing the edema. He was already on the diuretic
4-chloro-2-(furan-2-ylmethylamino)-5-sulfamoylbenzoic acid, which I
think they call Lasix. Or is that the laser eye surgery? At any rate,
it may be as easy as changing the dosage or changing to another
diuretic, once they figure out if the heart issues are causing the
edema or vice versa.
Barbara said they were limiting his fluid
intake to 1 liter/day for now, and 1.5 liters/day once he returns home.
They've told him to weigh himself every morning and call the doctor if
he gains more than 3 pounds (1.5 kg) in one day or 5 pounds in a week.
In
Winston-Salem, the Fire Department is the first responder, which I
think is an excellent idea. The fire truck usually shows up
within 2 or 3 minutes, while the ambulance often takes longer. The
firefighters are EMTs, with the training and equipment needed to
stabilize patients until the ambulance and paramedics arrive. One of
the paramedics was nice enough to take the time to talk to Barbara
after they arrived at the emergency room. She told Barbara that it was
fortunate they'd called 911 quickly. If they'd waited an hour, she
said, Barbara's dad may not have made it. She also told Barbara
not to wait if her dad had breathing problems again, but to call 911
immediately. She said they'd rather respond to what turned out to be a
non-emergency than arrive too late for a real emergency.
One
thing I mentioned to Barbara was that I thought maybe her parents
should have emergency oxygen handy. Barbara mentioned that to the
paramedic, who said it was up to Barbara and her family, but that it
wasn't really necessary because the fire department arrives quickly.
But, of course, that's not guaranteed. They may have been called out to
a fire or another emergency, and our recent weather is a reminder that
sometimes the roads are nearly impassable even for emergency vehicles.
I see that the Green Bay Packers, Inc. will face the Pittsburgh
Steelers, Inc. in the Super Bowl, Inc. What I don't understand is why
anyone cares. Do they hold stock in one of these corporate entities? I
understand that some people like to get together and have a winter party,
but what's the point of doing it around a pathetic sports exhibition?
Here's an interesting article in Forbes
that says what I've been saying for twenty years or more: that the
decline in science education is having a profound impact on the ability
of the US to compete in the world economy.
One fix we should
pursue immediately is to require any public middle-school or
high-school science teacher to have at least a BS and preferably an MS
in a hard science, and I don't mean a degree in "science education",
so-called. A degree in education, science or otherwise, is worthless,
but particularly so when it comes to teaching rigorous subjects like
science and math. And, just as having a degree in education says
nothing whatsoever about one's ability to teach, let alone to teach a
particular subject, the absence of such a degree also says nothing.
Having a degree in the subject one is teaching does provide at least a
reasonable expectation that the person understands the subject matter.
If we require real degrees from our teachers, abolish teachers' unions
and tenure, and simply employ teachers year-to-year, firing the
incompetent ones regularly, we could dramatically improve our public
schools overnight.
My
new Kindle is supposed to arrive today. I haven't downloaded any books
for it yet. I'll probably pick up a bunch of free ones any maybe one or
two inexpensive titles to start.
08:45
-
Barbara called just after lunch yesterday to say they were sending her
dad home. He weighed 217 pounds (99 kg) when he arrived at the emergency room
Sunday morning. By lunchtime yesterday, he was down to 202 pounds.
That's 15 pounds or nearly 2 gallons of water-weight loss.
Unfortunately,
even though they'd gotten rid of most of the excess fluid accumulation,
Dutch again experienced some difficulty breathing, so they decided to
keep him in hospital for a while longer. Barbara just headed over to
the hospital. We're hoping they get the problem resolved, or at least
diagnosed, and Dutch will be able to go home today.
My
new Kindle arrived yesterday. I'd already downloaded all of Lois
McMaster Bujold's Vor Saga novels for free from the Baen web site. (I
don't feel badly about that, since I've bought everything she's written
at least once, and many of them several times to give away to others.)
The zip files include various formats. Some of them, like epub, are
useless on the Kindle, but they also include either a .prc file or a
.mobi file, either of which the Kindle reads. I also downloaded a free
R. Austin Freeman novel from Amazon, and promptly got an invoice in my
email for $0.00. Bizarrely, although the book is freely downloadable and in the public domain, Amazon slapped DRM on the file.
I also downloaded Calibre,
intending to use it
to strip the DRM from the Freeman novel, but I haven't yet
installed the DRM-stripping plug-ins. Calibre looks to be very useful
for organizing and managing an ebook collection--adding tags, metadata,
and so on--and for converting one format to another. I would imagine
that I'll eventually have hundreds and then thousands of e-books, so
it's important to get started right. Also, I don't want my ebooks
living in the cloud, so I'll maintain local, DRM-free copies of
everything. I don't expect Amazon to go out of business or suddenly
decide to revoke all my e-books, but one never knows.
I used the Kindle last night to read Bujold's The Vor Game,
which it turns out I'd never read before. I bought it at least once,
and I think several times, new and used, but apparently I gave it away
before I actually got around to reading it. I wonder how many other
times that's happened.
I just started using the Kindle without
reading any instructions. I'm sure there are many features I'm unaware
of, but it's intuitive enough if all you want to do is read a book. I
did, finally, come up with a good answer to the Coupling sofa-cushion rant
(although, to me, sofa cushions are the things you sit on and rest your
back against; what they call "cushions" I'd call "pillows".) A sofa
pillow is ideal for resting the Kindle on while you read. The e-ink
display is excellent for reading under normal illumination. If
anything, it's actually easier on the eyes than ink on paper because
it's very dark gray on light gray rather than black on white. Page
turning was a bit distracting at first. I expected the screen to clear
to white or black during page turns, but you can actually see the new
page being constructed. I soon got used to that, and was able to ignore
it completely.
Here's a collection of useful links.
From: Richard H. Brown Jr.
To: Robert Bruce Thompson
Date: Mon Jan 24 11:14:13 2011
Re: Free E-Book Sites
Dear Mr Thompson:
Since
you've gone over to the dark side to save the planet by not buying real
books, but virtual ones, you might find these free book sites worth
looking at:
http://www.memoware.com/
http://www.ereader.com/ Note: There are some free e-books in here, you just have to search.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://manybooks.net/language.php?code=en&s=001
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebooks.php?do=getall&order=asc&sort=dateline&page=10 Both a forum on various readers, modifications, software, and uploaded books.
http://www.munseys.com/site/home Lots of 50-60's hard boiled detective books and other genre.
http://mybebook.com/download_free_ebook/
http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/home.html may be another e book format of www.ereader.com
http://books.google.com/books
http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/index.shtml University of Chicago educational materials from several libraries
http://openlibrary.org/
http://chestofbooks.com/index.html read online free only, as far as I can tell.
http://www.baen.com/library/
free e-books for download. Most of these are contained in the free to
copy and give away cd's that they include in selected hard cover books.
But you can go to this site:
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
and
down load either the individual books or the .iso images of the cd's
and burn them to a disc, and then copy to your e-book reader, the ones
you want to read. Note: A lot of the books are repeated in the Cd's you
have to pay attention to what you've selected and copied to your reader
software.
These are just a few of the free e-book sites out
there, you may have to free range graze sites like MIT's open course
site to see if they make their course books available either in a d/l
format readable on line.
Feel free to extract the web url's and
post them on a Cheap Bastard's guide to Free E-Books page you
might like to put on your site.
Keep plugging away at your science books.
Best to the wife and the dogs.
Richard H. Brown Jr.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
09:15
- Here's some cheerful news: Churches Find End is Nigh.
Apparently, the foreclosure crisis is going to be hitting churches
big-time starting this year. What kind of lunatic loan officer
would lend money to a church, anyway? A church has no guaranteed
source of income, and the property they're pledging as collateral is
never worth even a small fraction of the amount it costs to build it. I
mean, if you repossess a church building, who are you going to sell it
to? Another church?
And who are you going to go after to recover
any of your money? The church members aren't responsible. Neither is
the pastor. No one is legally responsible for that debt other than the
church itself, which usually has minimal or no assets other than the
church building itself. It's completely circular. If I were a banker,
the only way I'd lend money to a church is if a sufficient number of
the members co-signed the loan, agreeing to be jointly and severally
responsible personally for the debt. And I'd make sure they had
sufficient personal assets to cover several times the amount of the
loan.
It's also long past time that we stopped giving churches a
pass on property taxes. The rest of us, including atheists, end up
paying a lot more taxes to subsidize these leeches. There's no
Constitutional reason that churches shouldn't have to pay property
taxes at the same rates as any other commercial enterprise.
Of
course, I'm a Constitutional literalist. The Founding Fathers were
quite literate, and said exactly what they meant. If they'd intended to
say "with respect to", that's what they would have said. Instead, they
said "respecting" which means "showing respect for". So, as far as I'm
concerned, what they really meant was that Congress shall pass no law
that shows respect for the establishment of religion. If you think
that's a stretch, consider this: the people who drafted the
Constitution, almost without exception, were deists, which is basically
just another word for atheists.
13:22
-
Barbara's dad was released yesterday and returned home. This morning,
Barbara took Dutch for a follow-up appointment and then took him back
home before heading to work. She called earlier to let me know that her
dad is doing very well. He was able to walk into the doctor's office on
his own, and didn't need the step-stool she carries to climb in and out
of her SUV. The only downside is that his fluid intake is extremely
limited for now. He's allowed only one liter of fluid per day, and that
includes "wet" foods like custard or gelatin. Barbara said the doctor
wanted to keep an eye on things for a week or so, and then Dutch may be
allowed two liters per day.
More on the Kindle and Calibre.
From: Gary Mugford
To: Robert Bruce Thompson
Date: Tue Jan 25 15:02:00 2011
Re: Calibre and the Kindle
Robert,
Calibre
is a wonderful piece of software still very much in evolution. The
author (well, head author) Kovid Goyal, has specific views on what does
and doesn't constitute a user interface and he's fairly obstinate about
changing things based on those views. Other times, he hears an idea and
BAM! it's in the program on Friday (he and the team update just about
every Friday). Now, some of the times, those interface changes will
cause you to examine the heavens, but mostly, the changes are for the
good. I've actually sent along a donation to both Kovid and to the guy
behind the 'programming' language in Calibre, Charles Haley. Not much,
but just to show appreciation for a piece of software that is easy
enough for my mother to use. (Find the book. Press Convert Book, EVEN
if it's already in the right format. Press Send to device. Obey all
rules for connecting and disconnecting and enjoy).
That
said, Calibre doesn't strip DRM. In fact, in Kovid's Calibre
forum at Mobileread.com (Absolutely essential for Calibre, a bit less
for Kindle), his tag says he doesn't have anything to do with removing
DRM.
Now,
MY experience with the Kindle has been nothing but positive. I, without
any help from my friendly neighbourhood tech guy, jailbroke the Kindle
so that I could dictate cover shots used when turned off (or in
hibernation, actually). I now have a series of old SF Magazine covers
show up in alphabetical order. About 100 in all. Quite pleasing and
waaaaaay better than the Kindle defaults. I also changed the margin.
Beyond that, no playing around. No changing fonts from the one I
picked, which is good enough. I charge the thing once a week when I add
whatever stuff I've accumulated through the week. I'm still awaiting
honest to goodness flow control on PDF conversions. I've tried various
articles and even a manuscript for my first collection of bridge
columns and it just makes a hash of the hand and bidding
diagrams. Brings back memories of my first couple of columns at the
Brampton Guardian where the type-setters took north, south, east and
west more as suggestions than actual directions. That first column's
diagram resembled a giant smile. It's only been recently, after 30
years of carrying a grudge, that I've been able to smile at it. And
now, PDF conversion is giving me those same old nightmares.
Anyways,
glad to see you come on board with the Kindle. As somebody who bought
FOUR eReaders of various stripes for family members last year, I'm one
of those obnoxious converts, after years of saying "No, no, not me!"
GM
Gary Mugford
Idea Mechanic
Bramalea ON Canada
Thursday, 27 January 2011
12:56
- There's an interesting guest-post
up this morning on Joe Konrath's blog. Terri Reid's post itself is
interesting, but the most interesting thing to me was Joe's prefatory
comment about the effect of price on sales of an e-book by Ken Follett,
a first-tier author by anyone's definition. Follett's publisher
increased the price from $7.99 to $9.99, and unit sales were promptly
cut in half. My guess is that if they'd instead cut the price of the
book from $7.99 to $5.99, sales would have doubled, and if they cut it
from $5.99 to $3.99, sales would probably redouble. In other words, if
total revenue at $7.99 was X, revenue at $3.99 would probably be 2X, if
not more.
I mentioned at one point that I believed unit sales
for an e-book priced at $2.99 would be literally ten times those at
$9.99, and I see no reason to change that estimate. In other words, for
every $10 in revenue you produce with a book priced at $9.99, you could
instead be producing $30 in revenue if the book were priced at $2.99.
And, of course, an author who's published by a traditional
publisher gets about $2.50 of that $10, while the self-published author
gets about $21 of the $30.
The real problem is that the cost
structure of traditional publishers won't allow them to survive if they
price e-books at $2.99. Of course, their survival time will be
even shorter if they continue pricing their e-books at $9.99. They
can't reduce e-book prices below about $9.99 because they rightly fear
that cheaper e-books will cannibalize sales of profitable hardback
books, although even hardbacks have become much less profitable than
they were even a year ago. Worse still, e-books priced at $2.99
will quickly kill paperback book sales dead. With Kindles selling for
$139, one doesn't have to buy all that many books to come out ahead
paying $139 for the Kindle and anything from $0 to $3 for e-books to
load onto it versus paying $8 each for paperbacks.
What's a
traditional publisher to do? Their business isn't selling books. It's
selling paper books. With unit sales of printed books--hardbacks and
paperbacks--spiraling downward fast, the fixed costs of traditional
publishers will drive them into bankruptcy before long. The $9.99 price
for e-books is simply a desperate attempt to stave off that collapse
for a little while longer. Traditional publishers had only one thing
justifying their existence. They controlled distribution. They no
longer have that trump card. Authors no longer need them, period. The
only thing keeping traditional fiction publishers in business now is
author lock-in. Publishers were smart enough to grab e-book rights in
nearly every contract they've made for the last decade or more. They
also have multi-book committments from their big-name authors.
But
all that is changing fast. Joe Konrath, rightly I think, advises
mid-list authors not to sign any traditional publishing contract that
offers an advance less than seven figures, to make sure to define
"out of print" very strictly in their own favor, and to include
verbiage about reversion of rights in the event of bankruptcy of the
publisher. (That last is probably ineffective; bankruptcy courts do
pretty much anything they want to, and regardless of any reversion
verbiage the trustee is likely to successfully claim rights as part of
the assets of the bankrupt company.) Of course, no publisher is going
to offer a million-dollar advance to a midlister, let alone accepting
those other terms, so the trickle of authors who self-publish is about
to become a flood.
Right now, there are a lot of fiction
authors--midlist to bestseller--unhappily working out the remaining
books on their contracts, which will be the last books they'll sign
with a traditional publisher. I give the Big Six traditional fiction
publishers another five years, tops. I think there's a good chance
we'll see at least one of the exit the business this year, and almost a
certainty that one or more of them will be gone by 2013. They're all on
life support now, and there's only so long that the tubes and wires can
keep them breathing.
Oh, yeah. I love my Kindle. I'll still buy
printed non-fiction books, particularly the kinds of books I write,
because with their page layouts and color illustrations they're not
nearly as adaptable to e-book readers. But I really have no intention
of ever buying printed fiction again, hardback or paperback. And, just
as an experiment, I may put the documentation for the microchemistry
kits up for sale in Kindle format. Priced, of course, at $2.99.
I
know that many of my friends at O'Reilly read my journal, and I wonder
what they must think. I suspect that O'Reilly will be around long after
the big fiction publishers are smoking piles of rubble, and still
selling a lot of print books, but still it must be disconcerting to be
in the publishing industry nowadays. I don't think they really have
much to worry about. They're an extremely competent group, with skills
that remain necessary even if print books disappear entirely. But the
day may come when I'm contracting out individually with some of them
for various services like editing, page layout and design, indexing,
e-book formatting, cover design, and so on.
I suspect that the
O'Reilly crew would tell you that I turn in manuscripts as clean as any
they've ever seen from any author, but they're just that: manuscripts.
Turning those manuscripts into actual books, printed or otherwise,
takes a host of skills that I don't have and don't have the time,
talent, or desire to master. Smart authors know they can't do it alone,
and I've never been accused of being a stupid author.
08:57
-
When Amazon announced back in July that they were selling more Kindle
e-books than hardcover print books, a lot of people blew it off. After
all, hardbacks are expensive, luxury items that sell in nowhere near
the volume of mass-market paperbacks. Well, Amazon just announced that
they're now selling more Kindle e-books than they are mass-market
paperbacks. So far this month, Kindle e-books are outselling MMPs by a
115:100 ratio. That is simply stunning. The collapse of traditional
publishing may be nearer than I thought.
In more bad news for
traditional publishers, e-book readers are selling like hotcakes. I
just saw a survey on the CNN web page asking readers if they owned an
e-book reader. About 25% of respondents said they do. But the real
numbers may be even higher because the question was ambiguous. I
suspect that most of those who responded affirmatively own actual
e-book reader hardware, and that many who have e-book reader software
installed on their smart phones or iPads did not claim to own an e-book
reader.
And, in more good news for authors who are
self-publishing, it seems that people who buy a Kindle buy books from
Amazon at about 3.3 times their previous rates. Why not, when many
e-books cost about the same as a cup of coffee? No doubt that means
they're reading more, but probably not 3.3 times more. I suspect that
what it does mean is that they're buying books that they would
previously have borrowed from the library or bought at a used book
store. That, of course, doesn't bode well for libraries and used book
stores.
From Pournelle's journal:
STUDY OF INDIVIDUALS WITH HIGH INTELLECTUAL ABILITY
Purpose:
Researchers have been attempting to identify quantitative trait loci
(QTLs) for intelligence and cognitive impairment. Although progress has
been slow, some gene defects have been identified in individuals with
cognitive impairment. However, it has been difficult to identify QTLs
which can be replicated in subsequent studies. Some of the difficulty
may reside in the populations utilized for the studies. Almost none has
endeavored to study a cohort of individuals with high intellectual
ability (HIA), those whose IQ is 2 SD above the mean (>130). Just as
studies of individuals with cognitive impairment have led to an
understanding of brain development and function, studies of individuals
with high intellectual ability should be able to provide valuable
insight into these areas.
Outline of Study: The proposed study
of individuals with HIA will be conducted by researchers at the
Greenwood Genetic Center. The study will apply current molecular and
genetic technologies to ascertain variations in a person's genome.
These variations will consist of either single nucleotide polymorphisms
(SNPs) or copy number variants (CNVs; deletion or duplication of
genetic material). Across the cohort of HIA individuals, an attempt
will be made to identify SNP or CNV associations of significance.
Material Needed: Individuals interested in participating in the study would need to provide the following:
a. Signed consent for participating in the study.
b.
Responses to a questionnaire which would provide us with some necessary
demographic (age, sex, race, IQ, etc.) and clinical (medicines,
behavioral characteristics, handedness, etc.) information.
c. DNA and RNA obtained using Oragene saliva kits provided by us.
Privacy:
For the purpose of the cohort analysis, samples will be anonymized.
However, if an individual desires to have individual information
provided to them, this can be arranged.
Other Notes: Besides
individuals, we are interested in enrolling families which have
multiple HIA individuals. Such families would provide an invaluable
resource for genetic studies of intellectual function which cannot be
undertaken in a study of a large number of unrelated HIA individuals.
This is a research project. Therefore, results will not be immediately
available and final analysis of all the findings will likely take more
than 2 years. Additionally, some of the analysis will be undertaken by
scientists in collaboration with researchers at the Greenwood Genetic
Center. It is hoped that funding for the study will be provided by NIH
(National Institute of Health, US) and/or other private/public sources.
Contact:
Individuals with IQ 130+ or families with multiple members having an IQ
130+ who are interested in participating in our study should contact:
Dr. Charles Schwartz
Principal Investigator
Greenwood Genetic Center
113 Gregor Mendel Circle
Greenwood, SC 29646
864-941-8140
ceschwartz [AT] ggc [DOT] org
or
Cindy Skinner, RN
Sample Coordinator
Greenwood Genetic Center
113 Gregor Mendel Circle
Greenwood, SC 29646
864-941-8115
cindy [AT] ggc [DOT] org
To which I replied:
From: Robert Bruce Thompson
To: Dr. Charles Schwartz, Cindy Skinner
Date: Fri Jan 28 08:33:06 2011
Re: STUDY OF INDIVIDUALS WITH HIGH INTELLECTUAL ABILITY
I'm interested in learning more about your study, and seeing the results.
I
took the SAT in 1970 as a high-school senior and scored 800 math, 767
verbal, and 800 on each of the three supplemental SAT tests I took. The
last time I took a formal IQ test I was in high school. I scored 185
(SD15).
Alas,
at age 57, my mental agility and memory are no longer what they once
were. Also, I've never been convinced that assigning numbers to IQs
much beyond four sigmas above the mean says anything meaningful. Still,
I remain a pretty bright guy, and I'd be happy to provide a DNA sample
if that would be useful to your study.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
10:54
-
I've heard from dozens of people who've bought their first e-readers,
either for Christmas or since I started posting about ordering a Kindle
for myself. So far, everyone who's told me they've just bought a
dedicated e-reader (as opposed to an iPad) has bought a Kindle rather
than a Nook, Sony, or one of the other competitors.
I really
like my Kindle. Since I got it, I've not read any printed fiction,
despite the fact that I was half-way through a Beverly Connor paperback
when the Kindle arrived. I put that aside (I almost never have two
fiction books going at the same time) and started reading books on the
Kindle instead. I also have a new John Sandford novel that Barbara
brought me from the library, and it's still on my TBR pile. I don't
think the novelty of the Kindle is the reason for that; the
novelty wore off after the first five minutes. It is possible that it's
the authors involved that make the difference. I like Connor and
Sandford, but I've been (re)reading Lois McMaster Bujold, who is in an
entirely different class.
Despite the fact that the Kindle
displays only about half a page worth of text on each screen, reading
seems to go faster on the Kindle. It's also more convenient physically
than a printed book, particularly for reading in bed. At least for me.
I have reasonably large hands--just large enough to palm an NBA
basketball--but they're only just large enough to grip the Kindle
easily one-handed without squeezing the bezel. Someone with smaller
hands might have a hard time getting a solid one-handed grip on a
Kindle without using pressure. Of course, there's no particular reason
not to grip it by squeezing the bezel rather than spanning it across
one's fingers and thumb.
I just did a 15-second experiment with
Barbara. She wears a women's extra-large golf glove, but she can
just barely grip the device one handed without squeezing the bezel, and
her hold that way is uncomfortable for her and none too secure for the
Kindle. She demonstrated the girl-way to hold the Kindle, using both
hands with most of her hands behind the device and both thumbs on the
front. She finds that method quite comfortable.
I now have a
couple of dozen books on my Kindle, none of which I've actually paid
anything for. Some are PD, but most are from the Baen Free Library.
Several of my readers have sent me books with the DRM stripped, which I
haven't loaded on the Kindle. Amazon provides free first-chapter
previews of every e-book I've looked at, so if I want a book I'll check
those first and then buy it. Assuming it's $2.99 or less. I do wish
that every author would put up a PayPal tip jar. That way, I could
simply torrent a DRM-free version of any overpriced e-book and send the
author $2.04 directly. (Their 70% of the correct $2.99 list price, less
the $0.06 delivery charge that Amazon deducts.) Actually, of course,
I'd just send them the three bucks. Or perhaps several times that much,
if I'd torrented several of their titles.
Boy, if the music and
movie industries complain about torrents wiping out their business
models and profits, wait until it hits the publishers. An average
e-book is less than 1 MB, which would take literally one second to
download on my broadband connection. In one hour, one could download
more e-books than most serious readers read in a lifetime. And I'm told
there are already big zip files readily available that contain
thousands of e-books in one file. Stuff like 5,000 mystery novels or
8,000 SF novels all in one file.
Publishers--the ones who price
e-books at $9.99 or even $14.99--should be worried about that. No, they
should be in a complete panic. Let's see: pay ten or fifteen bucks for
a DRM-crufted file that can be revoked at any time, versus pay $0.00
for a DRM-free copy of that file. A few people will spend as much as an
entire second considering that deal. Most won't. On the other hand,
authors who self-publish have nothing at all to worry about. Sure, some
people will download free copies of their books. That's called
publicity. But a whole lot of people will find it a lot easier just to
visit Amazon and pay the man his three bucks.
Put it another
way. I (and I suspect many of my readers) think nothing of going to a
used bookstore and carrying home $100 or more worth of books. If I can
get 33 DRM-free ebooks for that price without even leaving the house,
why would I bother downloading e-books for free? And it'll get better
once Amazon drops the minimum price for the 70% royalty from $2.99 to
$1.99. Most authors will find they sell enough more books at $1.99 to
make it more profitable than pricing at $2.99. So my $100 would then
buy me 50 titles. That's more than most people read in a year, and
probably twice what I read in a month. Eventually, I expect the
standard price for an e-book to hit $0.99, where it'll probably stay.
And, at that price, authors will earn higher royalties at Amazon's 70%
rate than they currently get for each paperback sale. It's wonderful to
watch the free market operating.
00:00
-
Copyright
© 1998,
1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010,
2011
by
Robert
Bruce
Thompson. All
Rights Reserved.