“Loose Leaves” | flickr creative commons
Last week, Scott Turow wrote of “The Slow Death of the American Author” in The New York Times. He makes one interesting point, stating that “the six major publishers – five of which were sued last year by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division for fixing e-book prices – all rigidly insist on clauses limiting e-book royalties to 25 percent of net receipts. That is roughly half of a traditional hardcover royalty.” I agree with Turow. Publishers should not do that.
Turow might have had some other thoughtful points of critique between the complaining about people pirating (and reading) his e-books and the Yakov Smirnoff-it’s-even-worse-in-Russia ending, yet that would have been lost amid all the clamoring and complaining.
Did Turow write this article hoping would-be author’s and concerned readers might call their congressman?
Or was this just an old man yelling, “Get off my lawn you whippersnappers with your scooters, Swatch watches, new-fangled computer books and iPaddles”?
Or is he a zombiefied American author, who doesn’t know he’s dead yet, who will continue to try to feed off the brains of the living?
As a lawyer and the president of Authors Guild, Turow’s bothered by the fact that “authors already contend with an enormous domestic market for second hand books.” Anyone who is not selling consumables has this “problem.” If Turow is really bothered by this, he could be baking soufflés as they have obsolescence built in. Or Turow could apply to write the messages for Mission Impossible. Or he could go into Tibetan sand painting.
Some forward-thinking authors might just be thankful that readers find their work to be worth reading year after year. When authors start thinking of their readers as the enemy, we’ve got a problem. It seems Turow wants publishers and authors to follow the same battle plan that failed the music industry. Turow may represent the Authors Guild but I don’t see him representing the thinking of any authors I read, know personally, or have interviewed for Literature for the Halibut.
However, if I were to briefly entertain Turow’s premise that the livelihood of all authors and our “culture is not at risk” if we do not create a sort of “scarcity,” I could come up with something more useful than hinting towards vague legislation and alienating readership. I don’t buy the premise. However, here are three ways of engineering a sort of “scarcity” into a book that could be useful to writers:
- Launch an advertising campaign like jewelry company De Beers did with “Diamonds are forever.” Connect directly and frequently with your fan base such that they know you, love you, and would never “steal” from you. This is the subject of one of the Technium’s best posts, “1,000 True Fans”
- In the event of a Zombie epidemic, these “1,000 True Fans” are the people who will protect you, repopulate the Earth with you, and encourage you to write the history of the times
- Create the book in such a way that makes each copy unique
One author I know uses a combination of numbers two and three. Matt Kindt is the Harvy Award winning writer and artist of the graphic novels MIND MGMT, 3 Story, Revolver and others. (Full Disclosure: he is a friend of mine and we’ve collaborated on a comic book as well as the Paradise Lost Office app for iTunes.) Kindt does all kinds of things to his own books when fans ask him to sign them. Sometimes he even burns part of the book. Other times he cuts out part of a page and pastes it inside the front cover.
These are extreme cases, each of which relate to the plot of one of his particular books. Most of the time he just sketches and paints an original image inside the front cover. This makes each book that a fan brings to Kindt ending up as an original, while connecting directly with his fan (and honing his craft as well). Here’s one example:
If you write disposable paperback fiction and don’t want to develop a relationship with your readers, maybe they feel the same way about you. Maybe that’s why they “steal.”
Turow misses the real problems with e-books, the main concern being that e-books as they are now run on electricity than can be traced to a power plant that uses fossil fuels. The energy saved by not having to transport the physical book is used in powering the e-book. If we are blown back to the Stone Age, or overrun with Zombies, the lack of a functioning power grid could make most of these e-readers, and consequently the e-books, useless. Not to be considered a naysayer, I can’t leave you (readers I cherish) without hope: There are hand crank generators with USB connections. Here is how to make one yourself. Just be sure to print the instructions off or construct a few of them yourself before the Zombies are at your door asking for you to read their favorite passage from Pride and Prejudice.
If you’d like to read more about the future, the undead, and authorship check this out: If the Book Is Dead, The Why Buy a Zombie?
Related articles
- Waiting for Turow (ilmk.wordpress.com)
- Scott Turow Opens His Yap Again (mikecanex.wordpress.com)
- E-book trend doesn’t lessen joy of reading (dailytrojan.com)
- A few notes on “The Slow Death of the American Author” by Scott Turow (petergalenmassey.com)
- Slow Death of the American Writer? Not So Fast… (betweenasleepandawake.wordpress.com)
- Authors Against the Future (theamericanconservative.com)
- Let Them Eat Cake – The Slow Death of The Old Paradigm Author (warriorwriters.wordpress.com)
- Author Scott Turow’s Red-Baiting Rant (misfortuneofknowing.wordpress.com)