I think you're doing a couple of things here that are possibly problematic:
1) Reading authors being pissed at people downloading their books as authors trying to effect a solution by so doing.
2) Equating sampling music-to-buy-maybe through fanmixes with downloading entire books via torrents.
Okay, so the first thing is, we aren't necessarily trying to change anything or effect a solution in epublishing and piracy. Sometimes we're just mad!
Authors - traditionally published authors, I should say - are in a pretty awful position here. We're caught between our readers, or potential readers, and our publishers. As I said in the original post, every author wants their books available everywhere in every format, but for most of us who want to make a living at it, that is not up to us. It's up to our publishers. Most of whom are moving on this, but slowly, as big bodies of people tend to do. And then our readers blame us for any access problems and expect us to effect change, because getting in touch with a person who has a personal presence online is a lot easier than moving a corporation.
Sometimes we get mad about that. Sometimes, when people tell us that they downloaded our book, we want to express our hurt and rage. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing denunciations of "screaming" as anything other than a tone argument.
As for the second - writers, at least the kind who live online, tend to have a lot of freebies. You *can* sample my books, and Sarah's. The first two chapters of my work are up online at both publishers' sites, and I've included a lot of supplementary material at my own site. I've also contributed to non-profit efforts like the December Lights Project - with a free short story. And, being a ficcer from way back, I totally support fan uses of my originary material.
There's enough of my stuff freely available online for people to figure out whether they want to read my stuff, is what I'm saying. Samples! Take one! Tell your friends!
Authors can't hold concerts. We can't supply you with awesome merchandise like a Wonderella bobblehead doll. There is almost no way for you to support an author except by buying their books, and that is the only way we are able to remain viably publishable. (Yes, Cory makes it work. Cory has the skillset and passion to do so, and as I recall he was fairly flush when he started.)
There's something else about this argument which isn't totally connected to what you've said here, but it does concern me a lot: If the only people who can become writers are the people who can successfully edit, produce and market books without the assistance of publishers, then the only people who can become writers will be very privileged people - even more so than our current model. Quite apart from matters of personality, they will be people with sufficient time and money to do a lot of things for themselves currently handled by others. That rules out a lot of single parents, anyone who has a day job, and obviously is even more heavily slanted against people more likely to be from less privileged economic backgrounds.
no subject
1) Reading authors being pissed at people downloading their books as authors trying to effect a solution by so doing.
2) Equating sampling music-to-buy-maybe through fanmixes with downloading entire books via torrents.
Okay, so the first thing is, we aren't necessarily trying to change anything or effect a solution in epublishing and piracy. Sometimes we're just mad!
Authors - traditionally published authors, I should say - are in a pretty awful position here. We're caught between our readers, or potential readers, and our publishers. As I said in the original post, every author wants their books available everywhere in every format, but for most of us who want to make a living at it, that is not up to us. It's up to our publishers. Most of whom are moving on this, but slowly, as big bodies of people tend to do. And then our readers blame us for any access problems and expect us to effect change, because getting in touch with a person who has a personal presence online is a lot easier than moving a corporation.
Sometimes we get mad about that. Sometimes, when people tell us that they downloaded our book, we want to express our hurt and rage. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing denunciations of "screaming" as anything other than a tone argument.
As for the second - writers, at least the kind who live online, tend to have a lot of freebies. You *can* sample my books, and Sarah's. The first two chapters of my work are up online at both publishers' sites, and I've included a lot of supplementary material at my own site. I've also contributed to non-profit efforts like the December Lights Project - with a free short story. And, being a ficcer from way back, I totally support fan uses of my originary material.
There's enough of my stuff freely available online for people to figure out whether they want to read my stuff, is what I'm saying. Samples! Take one! Tell your friends!
Authors can't hold concerts. We can't supply you with awesome merchandise like a Wonderella bobblehead doll. There is almost no way for you to support an author except by buying their books, and that is the only way we are able to remain viably publishable. (Yes, Cory makes it work. Cory has the skillset and passion to do so, and as I recall he was fairly flush when he started.)
There's something else about this argument which isn't totally connected to what you've said here, but it does concern me a lot: If the only people who can become writers are the people who can successfully edit, produce and market books without the assistance of publishers, then the only people who can become writers will be very privileged people - even more so than our current model. Quite apart from matters of personality, they will be people with sufficient time and money to do a lot of things for themselves currently handled by others. That rules out a lot of single parents, anyone who has a day job, and obviously is even more heavily slanted against people more likely to be from less privileged economic backgrounds.
I find that disturbing.