American fiction author Anthony Doerr says “libraries are evil” (cache) for eating into his revenues. Compare to the more reasoned pro-Google Print essay by Cory Doctorow earlier this year. I wonder how long before more pieces like Library System Terrorizes Publishing Industry and The Right to Read will show up as genuine opinions.
Update: 04/07 00:04 GMT by J : The link is dead; the author says he has “asked the editors at the Morning News to retract my essay.” It’s “farcical” you see. Sound familiar? Well too bad. Anybody save a copy?
Napsterbrarians
“Here’s my point, though: About half of those emails I get include a line like, “A friend told me about your book, so I went right to the library and…”
A writer’s immediate thought is: That’s freaking awesome!
A writer’s second thought is: One more book sale down the tubes.“
That’s the same logic that the RIAA uses to measure how much Napster cost them. That’s, of course, dead wrong. Every single person that downloads a song (or checks out a book) would not have bought that song (or book) if it weren’t available to them. Sometimes we just want to read a chapter, or listen to a song once to see if we like it. Sometimes our needs are transitory? Sure, some % of checked out or downloaded things are lost sales, but not all, I bet not even close to a majority.
I suppose for some authors that it’s more true than for others. I bet JK Rowling lost some sales because of libraries, but on the other end I bet there’s pleanty of authors who would be sad to find the majority of their sales were to libraries.
I’ve always wondered if it all evens out, or if libraries really do cause greater losses. I know in Europe it’s common for authors to get something back from libraries for lost sales.
Writers can be jerks
Wow! What a jerk. A quick look at FirstSearch shows that there are over 1,400 copies of “About Grace” in libraries, including hardback, paperback, CD, audiobook and netlibrary.com.
As an author myself, I know that libraries are one of the greatest markets out there. They are the ones who write reviews of books, and help promote books that are often overlooked by commercial houses. Ask michael Moore and Salmon Rushdie about how libraries have stood up for them and their books when commercial establishments wouldn’t.
He is whining because he isn’t getting more money. Often, books read in the library lead to individuals purchasing other books by the writer, if the first one was good. I know that is true for me.
And if he wants more moeny, he should write more and better books. And get a better agent. Splitting author’s fees is a cheap shot. I know that when a book club individually published my book, much of the profit went to the main publisher, but my royalties weren’t stinted.
And also, my book is coming out of print, but will remain in print in netlibrary.com. Indeed, the majority of my sales in the past year have been to netlibrary.com, and not through bookstores. I’m happy, because people are reading my book. Used books sales, libraries and others don’t bother me. I get my money up front, and I’m happy with that.
Whining jerks should find another field. His frustrations annoy me.
he actually loves libraries
“Libraries are little holy lands with giant invisible tentacles of imagination that fly out the doors and plunge through the windows of the houses around them. Libraries are often the greatest thing that has ever happened to any child in any neighborhood in any country.”
He concludes his piece with “Read. Visit libraries. Love books. And consider buying them once in a while.” I think we can all agree that the more books that are purchased, the more books that will be published in the future. So I agree with him that everyone should “consider buying them once in a while.”
But here are things we can do to help libraries at the same time as helping authors:
1. Donate, rather than sell on e-bay, your relatively new books/CDs you are done reading/listening to. Especially new stuff (published after 2004).
2. For every ten books you purchase on Amazon, purchase one for the library as a donation.
Lets test this
This is simple to test. Lets agree never to buy his books. Lets take it a step further lets destroy all copies we have in all formats. That should provide some measurables to put this debate to bed.
Re:he actually loves libraries
Donate, rather than sell on e-bay, your relatively new books/CDs you are done reading/listening to
This is one of the problems I have with this really. Things you actually like and enjoy you keep, in general you don’t sell or give them away. If his book is good enough then people will buy the book for themselves after having read it in the library. I’ve done this lots of times.
And the analogy with Napster et al is perfect, when you are exposed to new things you then go out and buy them, or buy other things they have done, or buy things done on the same subject area.
Sounds to me he’s more annoyed about the pathetic % he gets, split between publishers or not. But then I guess most writers don’t go into it for the money, or if they do most would find out it’s not the land of fame, milk and honey they might imagine.
cached copy (for those who didn’t get to read it)
Now, I know the author withdrew this, but as you now know that it is parody, I’m sure you can be trusted to read it as such
Doozy Of A Decimal System
by Anthony Doerr
Why libraries are evil, used bookstore are hardly better, and you should always choose hardcover—Author and TMN Contributing Writer Anthony Doerr argues for buying books, not borrowing them.
Libraries aren’t all about benevolence, you know. Free air-conditioning, free internet, free bookmarks, free knowledge, blah, blah. It’s a front. One minute, librarians are handing Hawthorne to a homeless dude and Peas Please to the local gardening club; the next minute they’re chopping your favorite writer off at the knees.
It’s been seven years since the dawn of Napster. Musicians and record companies have sued and stomped their big corporate boots until they’ve turned file-sharing into a swampy underworld of fear.
But what about writers and publishers? Libraries have been Napstering the hell out of us ever since Alexandria. And we have a much steeper mountain to climb: How do you think P. Diddy would feel if a state-subsidized, all-free-all-the-time iTunes superstore with plenty of parking went up right next door to Tower Records? What if, instead of dragging Shawn Fanning in front of the Senate, lawmakers put bonds on the ballot to help expand his operations?
This is silly, I know. But I mean for it to be only partially silly. Every week or so I get a day-brightening, put-a-smile-on-your-face-for-eight-hours email from someone who was brave enough not only to pick up one my books but also actually read it. These are strangers—often strangers in different countries—and this fact never fails to dumbfound me. Someone I’ve never met, someone who doesn’t work with my dad, discovered one of my books and found something worthwhile in it. And took five minutes to write to me about it. When you start thinking about this, about how black letters on white pages can slip across national and cultural and social borders, even slip across the border of death itself, you start to realize that every time you read a book, you’re participating in a miracle.
Here’s my point, though: About half of those emails I get include a line like, “A friend told me about your book, so I went right to the library and…â€
A writer’s immediate thought is: That’s freaking awesome!
A writer’s second thought is: One more book sale down the tubes.
My wife is going to kill me for writing this, by the way. Worrying about selling books never got a single novel finished, she says. Writing gets novels finished. Making art is about sitting alone in a room, about trying to shine a completely new light on the world. Making art is not about making money.
But this isn’t about money. It’s about being able to do more art-making. I don’t really give a crap about the money. Honestly. If you buy a paperback of my last book, it’ll cost you $15. Guess how much I get. Guess.
Thirty-one cents. (See footnote.1)
Which is great. I’m not complaining. I’m thrilled to get 31 cents, but far, far, far more than that, I’m thrilled and deeply honored that someone might take 6 or 8 hours out of his or her life to engage with my work.
Obviously libraries aren’t evil. Libraries are fundamental pieces of any community, as vital as sewers or snowplows or good pizza. Libraries are little holy lands with giant invisible tentacles of imagination that fly out the doors and plunge through the windows of the houses around them. Libraries are often the greatest thing that has ever happened to any child in any neighborhood in any country.
But! If you get a book out of the library, read it, and really love it, one good thing you can do for its writer and for yourself is go to a bookstore and buy a copy of his or her book. Because it will help that particular artist continue to put art out into the world. Even if that writer is dead. (See footnote.2)
How? And why is this good for you?
Let’s say you get Edith W.’s story collection out of the branch library and read it on the train to work every morning for a week. All week you feel her little hand moving around inside you. All week you find yourself looking at the world slightly differently, carrying Edith W.’s private dream around inside your head. You cry when it ends. You find yourself thinking about her characters five days later.
Then you take it back to the library.
If we don’t buy the books of the writers we love, we’re helping to keep their next books off the shelves and out of our lives.Meanwhile, across town, Edith W. is furiously scribbling away at her next book. Years pass. She gets the book as far along as she possibly can, then sends the manuscript to her publisher and starts hoping.
You don’t even know about it yet, but Edith W’s new book is so outrageously good it could change your life forever.
Edith W.’s editor reads the manuscript right away. He likes it, likes it quite a bit, but the novel is crazy, full of migrating narratives and sentence fragments and talking houseplants. It’s not topical, it’s not something Tom Hanks could star in, and it is definitely not one of those books reviewers would call a “beach read.â€
At some point, Edith W.’s editor is going to go to his computer and see how many copies her last book sold. He won’t be able to see how many people borrowed it from libraries, or how many times a copy was cycled through a used bookstore. All he can see is how many new copies of the book haven’t been sent back from bookstores.
And if Edith W.’s last book didn’t sell, no matter how much he likes the new one, he’s going to have to think long and hard about publishing it. It takes a special kind of editor and a special kind of house to continue to take financial risks on crazy, perilous, brave, and unconventional books. Why do you think Catch-22 or Animal Farm were rejected so many times? And can you blame a publisher for that? Publishers are trying to run businesses after all, trying to continue putting books into the world, trying to extend the life of their species.
If we don’t buy the books of the writers we love, we’re helping to keep their next books off the shelves and out of our lives. Not only that, we’re helping replace those books with books that publishers think people will buy. (One last annoying footnote.3)
Maybe I’m oversimplifying things. Maybe this sounds greedy, or self-serving, or downright naughty. Picking on libraries is like picking on premature babies; why in God’s name would you do it? Libraries do purchase their books in the first place: I’m aware of that. And they keep writers in front of readers long after the marketplace has decided to get rid of them.
So do what you want. But remember that while a book purchase isn’t necessarily food in a writer’s pantry, it is a message to a publisher that a writer matters, that you want to see more of her kinds of books out there in the world. And, in a capitalist market, whose primary goal is not to improve society but to maximize the wealth of the capitalist, that’s one of the most important messages you can send.
Read. Visit libraries. Love books. And consider buying them once in a while.
Now back to work.
1 My paperback royalty, like most everybody else’s, is 7.5%. On a $15 book, 7.5% is $1.13.
In my case, my publisher, Scribner, sold the paperback rights to Penguin, so I split everything with Scribner. For every book sold, Penguin sends $1.13 to Scribner, and Scribner sends me half of that, which is 56 cents.
My agent gets, and deserves, 15% of my 56 cents. Which leaves me with 47 cents. After the government takes somewhere around 35%, what’s left?
Thirty-one cents.
2 Faulkner’s novels don’t stay in print because they’re good. They stay in print because people buy them. I don’t even want to guess how little the Faulkner estate gets if you buy a paperback of Absalom, Absalom! But buying a copy means that the publisher will have a lot easier time believing Faulkner is relevant.
3 And if you think your one little purchase doesn’t count, remember that literary fiction is deemed “successful†nowadays if it sells as little as 10,000, 15,000, or 20,000 copies.e cimal_system.php
—Published 5 April 2006
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/oped/doozy_of_a_d
withdrawn (at author’s request) on or before 7 April 2006