eBooks [Writing / Rant]

I know I said this would be an article about the Kindle (no blog today), but I think it's far more fair to talk about eBooks as a platform rather than the actual reader. I could line up the pros and cons of eBooks, but it's easier to get my feelings across in a proper post as opposted to a list.

eBooks are not a new thing-- they've been around for many years; I speak of course of PDFs. It's always been handy to have an electronic copy of any hard media you have lying around, even if it's something as simple as a manual or something a little more advanced like a sourcebook or a magazine, and this fact hasn't changed. All that's really happened is that the idea has become larger and more mainstream. Now that the format has expanded to encompass books, there's been a huge impact on the industry as a whole, though the real pinch is located squarely in the writer's pocket, not in the publisher's. I'm using slightly out of date figures (and somewhat unrealistic for most), but bear with me:

With hardcover and paperback sales, the publishing house recieves about half of the RRP of a sale, and then about 15% eventually gets back to the author-- so on a sale of a £12.99 hardback book, the publisher gets around £6.49 and the author closer to £1.95. Also remember this is assuming the publishing house in question is a fairly large one, and that the writer is pre-established, and that the book actually sells for the RRP. Which, in this day and age with online sales and in-store offers competing with such, doesn't often happen. Truthfully, I don't know the impact that such sales have, but I don't imagine they're good for the writer. This is to say that the market for writers is not a brilliant one, and this is hardly news to anybody.

However, eBooks most certainly don't help matters. The average eBook sells for a little under half of the RRP of a hardback, sometimes quite a considerable amount less; so let's assume a sale comparative to the above hardback to be £5.99. Of that, 70% goes to the publisher (~£4.20) and about 25% (~£1.50) to the author. Now, one can argue all day about whether people will choose eBooks over the real, physical kind, but Amazon's figures do not lie: on the Kindle alone this year, eBook sales have been twice that of paperback and hardback sales. Eventually this will even out into some kind of workable economy, but for now everything is very much in flux, with the authors taking the biggest hit. Obviously, that offset of 45p doesn't seem like much, but let's say I sell 10,000 'books' a year, that's a loss of around £4500. That's a terrible blow to writers that just can't be remedied in the short term. And that's without taking into consideration the bookstores! Wondering why books are costing more? It's because they're selling less. Hello, endless cycle.

Now, that's not to say I don't like eBooks. From a reading point of view, the Kindle opens up a world of easily accessible content without delivery times or townward treks to find the book you want. And, speaking of the Kindle specifically, the screen is beautiful. I own a Kindle, and I use it daily, because frankly-- it's amazing. However, I have purchased a grand total of one eBook; The Last Words of Famous People, because it was not readily available in the UK at the time. And, I will not be buying another.

As any long-time reader knows, I like to have backups of my things, and with them being my things I do what I damn well want with them. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of what's right and wrong in the modding/ROM scene, even judges have ruled for the consumer's right to have copies (or backups) of things they own in case of loss or damage. The same argument holds true for my books. Even owning a Kindle, I continue to buy paperbacks (and the odd hardback, though I've never been one for them if I can avoid it), and rather than purchasing it a second time, I simply pirate the eBook.

Shock and appaul, yes? No. Not one of you reading this isn't running a single piece of pirated software, watched a pirated film, or used a 'chipped' games console. The difference is, all I'm doing is transferring something I own onto another medium, and how I get it there is besides the point. The same is true [Segway/Rant] for games: I own a copy of Sonic The Hedgehog for the Sega Megadrive. This game, in all of its reiterations, has not changed one iota. Why on Earth should I pay for it again for a newer system? I've run pirates of it on the GBA, the DS, the PSP, the PS2, the Wii, the Xbox, and even my sodding phones! The only thing I actually paid for it a second time on was the Xbox 360, and that was because I'm not 100% certain I haven't sold the original. I feel no guilt for this, because I'm taking a copy of something that belonged to me and moved it to a different platform. It's a different story when you're downloading illegal copies of games you don't own, because that's actual piracy, and a judge will convict you for it if you're caught. We all do it, of course, but the day you're caught you'll go down like a lead balloon.

So, I've gotten off-topic, but I've rationalised my belief that in continuing to support the industry in its original form (we're back on books now, not games, although the same applies), I've done my bit to gain access to my content however I damn well please.

Now, for a moment of hypocrisy in my writing; I do in fact intend to submit an eBook to the Kindle Store fairly soon. What is this shit, you ask? How can I slap the format one second and jump on the bandwagon the next? The rational is as simple as above; with Amazon's system whereby 70% of the sale price is returned to the writer, those who publish through them don't have to worry about any additional costs or cuts, and so if one doesn't have immediate access to a publishing house, it is in fact the perfect place to get one's name known without quickly becoming out of pocket.

And so there be my feelings on the matter.