Comment on Australians love cheap books. Here's why that's a problem
murtaza64@programming.dev 3 weeks agobooks are hard to make compared to tv/movies and video games?? how?
Comment on Australians love cheap books. Here's why that's a problem
murtaza64@programming.dev 3 weeks agobooks are hard to make compared to tv/movies and video games?? how?
NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 3 weeks ago
Because outside of some textbooks they are almost entirely solitary efforts until editing, which is a very difficult thing to pull off. They have smaller audiences, take longer to ‘consume’, can’t be sold for as larger margins, and they are not easy to monetise in other ways aside from sale. Additionally physical copies are much more expensive to make than digital copies of media, and many book enjoyers want physical copies.
Just look around, nobody gets rich making books. Mass market tv/film and video games are staggering profitable by comparison, and hence easier and more attractive to make.
murtaza64@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
you’re right, it’s definitely easier to market and push a high budget movie or game and make a ton of money off of it. I guess I was thinking of total labor involved in publishing a book vs a movie without considering whether it will actually be read/watched
NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 3 weeks ago
Oh right, yeah that is a correct thing to be confused by. I was talking market and you were talking effort and we were both probably thinking: what the fuck sort of idiot is this person? :p
It’s just generally true that being an indie creative while having to pay rent or get thrown to the street to starve and die is very difficult. People with vision and drive make the most valuable culture, and capitalism sees that as inefficient.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Well, there’s also licensing the rights to adapt into movies or video games. And I think Amazon has a Netflix-like service for books? (I don’t know, because I never use Amazon whenever possible. I suspect it’s probably not a great deal for authors, just like streaming music is bad for musicians, etc .) And of course there’s libraries, which don’t receive nearly enough support themselves, but I believe do give some form of compensation to authors. And people who write frequent but shorter works can work on a patron model.
Not that I disagree with your underlying point. The finances with books are very difficult. There are other options though. Unfortunately the major publishers are really bad at exploring them, because they’re very old and very set in their ways.
NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 3 weeks ago
Ah yes, “Your inner fish, the video game”. I can see it now. “Debt: the first 5000 years the Netflix series” rivetting viewing.
Margins on books are awful, authors are largely paid a lump sum for publishing because they need food and sales on a book are often quite small. Like a few thousand small. Keep in mind you also need money while you are writing a book before it’s being sold.
Patreon models and self publishing only works for smut and pulp.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Patreon, as I said, only works for things being published in small chunks regularly. Smut and pulp are definitely within that category (and there’s nothing wrong with either style of writing!), but it can also work for certain types of non-fiction writing where you might be publishing your research process as you go.
Self-publishing can work for any style of writing. It’s difficult to get noticed, and most of the more successful self-publishers became so because they also have followings on other platforms like YouTube, but it is a viable option.
I’m not suggesting that any of these ideas are panaceae. Like I said, I basically agree with you that it’s difficult to be commercially successful in writing. I just wanted to point out that it’s not quite as black and white as to suggest that you can’t monetise it any way other than sales. 15 years ago people probably would have said the same thing about movies, and it’s still mostly true about video games.