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Showing posts with label ebook pirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebook pirates. Show all posts

Sunday, 13 October 2013

Secondhand books...


I bought a job lot of 20 second-hand books, dirt cheap on eBay. The author? Nora Roberts. They worked out to be 50 cents each in the end. I blame author Anny Cook. She started telling me about a couple of good Nora books to read, no, I’ve never read Nora and I suspect Nora has never read Amarinda. Anyway, I took wise Anny’s advice and scanned eBay and whiz-bang-presto – there were Nora’s books cheap.

So, what I want to know is this – do authors like Nora get pissed that their paperbacks, once read by the initial purchaser, are then sold second-hand? While everyone knows ebook pirates suck big, hairy donkey’s balls, isn’t what they do kinda similar to what the sellers of second-hand paperbacks do? They pass on ebooks to others. I’m guilty of buying cheap paperbacks and I know I’m not the only one. Is it just because ebook writers probably don’t sell as many as the Noras of the writing world that they get more emotional seeing their books shoved back out there on the internet by people who are not the initial seller and therefore the ebook writer doesn’t get the income? The second-hand paperback market I’m sure doesn’t send Nora her cut of the 50 cents per book that I just bought.


Just a thought… 

Posted by Unknown at 5:06 pm 0 comments  

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Sunday, 30 December 2012

No Cynthia, it ain’t different…



So, I rarely read books purely because like everyone else on the planet I’m busy. The only time I do get to read is on the plane or if I take myself away from civilization for a couple of days and zone out. Then I read. Paperbacks. No, I don’t read e-books. I like paper. Weird considering I write e-books but then in a world of great weirdness ‘tis only one more thing to add to the weirdness pile.

Anyway, I bought some books by a particular author. It’s a series. I bought them at a second hand market about a year ago. I don’t have the whole series…probably why they were selling cheap. So, I mentioned to a writer friend that I’ll have to have a look around for the ones I am missing. She said to buy them second hand from the internet. I found that interesting as this particular writer, let’s call her Cynthia, continuously bitches and whines about e-book pirates who sell/trade e-books – hers - on line cheating the writer – her - of said e-books out of money.  Hmmm…double standard?  

Now let me just say that e-book pirates are pond scum in my eyes. Their only redeeming feature is…er….ah…well, I’m sure maybe their pet ferret loves them and undoubtedly they enjoy playing with themselves.  

I am always amused by authors who get all het up and emotional over e-book scum ripping off their work – “taking away our hard earned money” – but then these same writers would happily buy a paperback second hand - not from the author’s publisher - but a Joe Blow seller on the internet. The money doesn't go back to the writer. And no, I don’t go with the argument that the paperback author  is only expected  to get the money from the first virgin sale of said paperback. It’s a dumb argument and you could apply it to e-books so why use it?

So, is it that e-book writers are more emotional about things? More into double standards? Do they spend more time then they need googling their writer names to see how many times they are mentioned on the internet and that’s when they see the e-book rip-off sites?  Are paperback writers less angsty? And from what I gather unless you are a world famous writer adored by gazillions, paperbacks don’t get you as many royal as e-books.            

By all means have your double standards but keep ‘em to yourself.

And no Cynthia, it ain’t different…

Posted by Unknown at 5:45 am 1 comments  

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