E-books, Young Adults, and Piracy … Arrrgh!
May 13, 2009Bowler Hat alumnus Cassie Richoux has written up a nice op-ed piece regarding … well … e-books, young adults, and piracy.
I personally think that the ease of pirating makes ebooks far more dangerous to traditional publishing than the idea that “paper books will go extinct.” Many of us like reading a paper book more than one on a screen, but if the one on the screen is “free” and the paper one is still costing us $10, its easy to see why some people would give in to temptation. Especially poor teens or those who live in other countries. [More at Bookwyrm Chrasylis]
Cassie makes several good arguments that challenge my own view that free books and previews on the Web is a great way to introduce new material to an audience.
What do you think? Are free books on the Web a good thing? If you enjoyed a book for free online, would you still consider purchasing a physical edition of the book for yourself or a friend?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Books are still free at the library. If people (including young people) still truly prefer a physical text, won’t they sate their appetite for the real thing at the library rather than downloading a pirated e-text?
As for me, I’m loving my new Kindle. And I just discovered the thousands of titles that are available for free—mostly classics, including enough out-of-print ephemera to make me think a PhD in 19th century lit might actually be fun now. But I’ve been wondering what all this free content will mean for used-book stores and publishers like Penguin whose stock-in-trade is the classics. Why buy a $3.99 copy of David Copperfield at Powell’s (or Penguin’s $9.99 newly printed copy) when you can get Dickens’s entire oeuvre for free online, courtesy of Project Gutenberg?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Oh, I forgot to answer your questions!
Again going back to my Kindle experience. I love the fact that I can download the first chapter of any book I might consider buying from Amazon. This has definitely led me to purchase books I probably otherwise wouldn’t have purchased. I have downloaded a few new books for free from Amazon. One was the first in a fantasy series. I haven’t read it yet, but this strikes me as a good marketing plan. Get the reader hooked with the first book for free.
Would I consider buying a physical copy of a book I read on my Kindle? In most cases no (although I’d considering buying as a gift for a friend).