Author's Guild protest against Amazon.com
Ken sent me this link to this sensible rebuttal by Sylvia Nasar (author of A Beautiful Mind, the biography) to the recent Author's Guild protest against the way that Amazon features used books for sale on its website. Nasar was recently elected to the board of the Author's Guild.
From the letter from the Author's Guild to all its members, urging them to stop linking to Amazon.com, it's apparent that the Author's Guild has fallen into the trap of believing that siding against free market economics and their very own readers in the name of financial gain is somehow sustainable.
The Internet is wonderful because it has forced business people who depend on inefficient markets to become more customer-focused. Music labels who have kept CD prices high are now wringing their hands over declining music sales which they attribute to Napster and other file-sharing services.
In this case, physical space has been collapsed. The shortest distance between two places in the physical world is a straight line, but more often it is a windy path over streets, around blocks over and over again to find a parking spot, and then a hike over to your final destination. The Author's Guild doesn't protest used book stores because, frankly, there aren't that many of them and they're hard to get to. Customers who once wanted to shop for both Prada and Target once had to drive long distances because the Prada's of the world don't want their stores showing up next to discounters. They could use physical distance to mimic the distance between their brands (and their prices).
Online the shortest distance between two places is not even a hyperlink. It's to put two things next to each other on the same page. As a customer, if you could buy a used copy of a book for cheaper than a new copy, wouldn't you want to know about that option when you were on the page listing the new copy? You wouldn't want to buy the new copy only to find out later that a used copy was available but was located elsewhere on the website. That's what the Author's Guild wants Amazon to do.
I've bought a ton of used books since Amazon launched the service, but it has only increased my overall book spend. I buy used copies of books I'm not really sure about--it may be an author I haven't heard of. In the past, I would have just not purchased the book. When I know I want a book, I still buy the original hardcover because I want to keep a nice first print in my library. For a few books, I keep both a hardcover first print and a paperback copy that I use as a reading copy or a loaner to friends.
Certainly, I hope to be a published artist of some sort some day, and if I am, I would only hope that an active used market existed for my works. The Grateful Dead are probably grateful that their fans actively trade bootlegs of their concerts. Far worse to be an author who sees his books fail to generate demand even in the used market. Those unfortunate souls have no chance of even generating any revenue to be "lost" to the used market.
From the letter from the Author's Guild to all its members, urging them to stop linking to Amazon.com, it's apparent that the Author's Guild has fallen into the trap of believing that siding against free market economics and their very own readers in the name of financial gain is somehow sustainable.
The Internet is wonderful because it has forced business people who depend on inefficient markets to become more customer-focused. Music labels who have kept CD prices high are now wringing their hands over declining music sales which they attribute to Napster and other file-sharing services.
In this case, physical space has been collapsed. The shortest distance between two places in the physical world is a straight line, but more often it is a windy path over streets, around blocks over and over again to find a parking spot, and then a hike over to your final destination. The Author's Guild doesn't protest used book stores because, frankly, there aren't that many of them and they're hard to get to. Customers who once wanted to shop for both Prada and Target once had to drive long distances because the Prada's of the world don't want their stores showing up next to discounters. They could use physical distance to mimic the distance between their brands (and their prices).
Online the shortest distance between two places is not even a hyperlink. It's to put two things next to each other on the same page. As a customer, if you could buy a used copy of a book for cheaper than a new copy, wouldn't you want to know about that option when you were on the page listing the new copy? You wouldn't want to buy the new copy only to find out later that a used copy was available but was located elsewhere on the website. That's what the Author's Guild wants Amazon to do.
I've bought a ton of used books since Amazon launched the service, but it has only increased my overall book spend. I buy used copies of books I'm not really sure about--it may be an author I haven't heard of. In the past, I would have just not purchased the book. When I know I want a book, I still buy the original hardcover because I want to keep a nice first print in my library. For a few books, I keep both a hardcover first print and a paperback copy that I use as a reading copy or a loaner to friends.
Certainly, I hope to be a published artist of some sort some day, and if I am, I would only hope that an active used market existed for my works. The Grateful Dead are probably grateful that their fans actively trade bootlegs of their concerts. Far worse to be an author who sees his books fail to generate demand even in the used market. Those unfortunate souls have no chance of even generating any revenue to be "lost" to the used market.