I buy far too many books, and used to buy remainders before I learned they often don't earn any revenue for the writer. After getting a Nook last November, my ebook buying has gone through the roof, but I've wondered, what with all the sale prices, whether the writers were losing out on their royalty payment. You've answered a question I've really been wondering about.
Personally, I'm okay with people buying remaindered copies. Since the alternative is often for those books to get pulped, I'd much rather give readers a cheap and legal way to get those books.
I don't know ... I think readers have an obligation to make sure they're buying legal copies, but beyond that, it's not the reader's job to worry about where the author gets the better royalties, or if one outlet gives us better terms than another. As long as you're buying legally, I'd say do whatever's most convenient for you as a reader.
Jim, are you a member of NINC or eloop? If not, may I have permission to repost this entry to those lists? I would simply provide a link, but if someone isn't on LJ it becomes a hassle.
That's a very nice disclaimer there. Be a shame if anything (like, say, competent counsel funded by a bestselling author with real damages) happened to it...
That's a snarky hint about just how enforceable that disclaimer really is, in the fantasy world encouraged by law schools in which all legal questions are answered within the discussion period and nobody has any business-opportunity costs or attorney's fees that prevent even the most picayune questions from getting a full Supreme Court hearing.
One thing about court battles - never forget that if the dollar amount in dispute is less than the maximum able to be awarded in small claims court, you can file in small claims, and it reduces your costs and puts things on a more even footing.
For that matter, if the amount you wish to *claim* is less than the max for small claims court, you can use their system... In Ontario small claims jurisdiction is up to $25K, but most counsel will tell you that if your actual claim is between 25 and 100K, you might as well forego the possibility of getting that 100K. Waive $75 thousand and ask for 25 thousand in small claims. Going through the superior court, even if you won the hundred thou, you'd lose close to seventy five in legal fees and costs, to do it. Superior Court's only really "worth" it for matters over a hundred thousand.
But check carefully before you try this in the U.S. I believe some states consider this kind of court shopping grounds for dismissing the case.
Also, the small court claims limits in the U.S. tend to be $5k or less; see Nolo's list. So the cost/benefit equation may be slightly different than in our apparently much-more-generous northern neighbor!
And if you ever want to sell through Amazon again they will have you on a little list. It would be really nice if we had an antitrust act in actuality instead of just on paper.
Disclaimer: One of my degrees is a BA in Economics, where a fair amount of my coursework was around antitrust. I worked at Microsoft during their antitrust case (though not in their legal or marketing departments--I'm a software guy, I helped build server OSes and the MSN backend), and then (after quitting for cause) I worked at the company set up to monitor Microsoft's behavior for compliance with the terms of the settlement
( ... )
The monopoly portion, as you note, is worth discussion.
The "unfair practice" should be covered by the Kindle format and the difficulty in loading and running non-Mobi files from other vendors. It seems rather more self-perpetuating than Microsoft's bundling of IE.
Which is where I would argue the "harm to consumers" comes in. My company flat-out will not sell ebooks on Amazon, because Amazon's contract is abusive. This means that Kindle owners are severely handicapped in their ability to get ebooks published by my company (and others). We get complaints from the clueless all the time, and have to refer those people to other vendors where they can at least get a PDF (which is a poor substitute for a proper, reflowable ebook).
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I don't know ... I think readers have an obligation to make sure they're buying legal copies, but beyond that, it's not the reader's job to worry about where the author gets the better royalties, or if one outlet gives us better terms than another. As long as you're buying legally, I'd say do whatever's most convenient for you as a reader.
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If not, then yes, you can post the entry to the lists. Please just make sure it's unaltered and includes a link to the original source.
Thanks for asking!
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That's a snarky hint about just how enforceable that disclaimer really is, in the fantasy world encouraged by law schools in which all legal questions are answered within the discussion period and nobody has any business-opportunity costs or attorney's fees that prevent even the most picayune questions from getting a full Supreme Court hearing.
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Also, the small court claims limits in the U.S. tend to be $5k or less; see Nolo's list. So the cost/benefit equation may be slightly different than in our apparently much-more-generous northern neighbor!
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It would be really nice if we had an antitrust act in actuality instead of just on paper.
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The "unfair practice" should be covered by the Kindle format and the difficulty in loading and running non-Mobi files from other vendors. It seems rather more self-perpetuating than Microsoft's bundling of IE.
Which is where I would argue the "harm to consumers" comes in. My company flat-out will not sell ebooks on Amazon, because Amazon's contract is abusive. This means that Kindle owners are severely handicapped in their ability to get ebooks published by my company (and others). We get complaints from the clueless all the time, and have to refer those people to other vendors where they can at least get a PDF (which is a poor substitute for a proper, reflowable ebook).
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