Library 1.87
29 May
What’s daffier than daffy?
Writing a book about the future of libraries (you know, those places where they lend books to people)... and then charging twenty dollars to download it.
Who out there has the pun, the barb, the eloquent poison-pen quip, to sum up the silliness of this situation in devastating fashion? Let’s hear ‘em. Seriously, I’m tapped out. I got nothin’...
Since his book is published through Lulu.com, you can get an estimate for how much it would cost to manufacture the book on a per item basis: less then $10. Since he bought an ISBN, there’s some retail markup but even factoring that into the cost, he’s pretty much doubling the price for the printed edition. Charging twice as much as the printed edition for a download is a clear cut case of shenanigans.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:43 pmClearly, he’s writing for an incredibly gullible audience. Which tells me how little he knows about libraries and librarians in the first place. And just as clearly, he’s more interested in making money than in making sense. How about “Techno-twerp exploits self-defeating prophesy.”
May 30th, 2008 at 12:47 amI have a simple response for this post and the two comments: Nobody is requiring you or anyone else to buy either the download or the print book.
If you’re offended by a writer who actually hopes to have some small compensation for the effort involved in writing a book, so be it. I disagree. Nobody paid me to do this, done entirely on my own time. There’s no way I’m going to earn Big Bucks on a PoD book in librarianship. With a LOT of luck I might earn minimum wage for the time spent on the book…
Keith: No shenanigans. The Lulu edition doesn’t have an ISBN, only the Amazon/CreateSpace version. In fact, you can determine EXACTLY how much I’m receiving for the downloaded or print versions from Lulu itself (it’s about $13 for the print version, $16 for the download—I’d prefer that people buy the print version, but offered the download because people asked for it).
StaciB: I could refer you to those “incredibly gullible” librarians (such as John Dupuis and Pete Smith). For that matter, I could refer you to my dozen traditionally-published books in the library field (beginning with MARC for Library Use) to demonstrate how little I know about libraries and librarians. But, since it’s clear that I’m more interested in making money than in making sense (presumably why I’ve been giving away Cites & Insights for seven years now), I’ll just bow to your superior wisdom. It must be nice to be able to make such crack judgments about my knowledge and abilities with such utter clarity.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:42 pmSo, are you saying that the only value of a book is the paper it’s printed on; that the intellectual effort that went into researching and writing the book has no value? Walt isn’t doing anything weird here. O’Reilly charges $$$ for downloads of their books ($20 for a book that sells for $25 in print, for example). Or is it that you’re saying that people in our profession shouldn’t make money from their intellectual output? In that case, maybe we shouldn’t even be paid for the work we do in libraries, because I see little difference between being paid for working in a library and being paid for writing a book that seeks to benefit libraries/librarians.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:14 pm[...] commenter on another blog wrote this: Since his book is published through Lulu.com, you can get an estimate [...]
July 9th, 2008 at 8:22 pm