Roy Blount Jr. is one of America's greatest living humorists, and in this New York Times op-ed piece, he shows why. Writing about the latest version of Amazon's Kindle book-reader, in his role as president of the Author's Guild, Blount attacks the device because it can read books out loud in a robotic voice. Brilliant, hilarious stuff. Blount even suggests this "read out loud" feature is some sort of violation of author's rights. It's killer satire, I tell you.
Astonishing. They're actually getting paid... and they're still moaning?!
Clearly the book publishing industry intends to go through all of your famous stages of denial - just like the newspaper and recording industries – without learning anything.
It would be funny if it weren't so brain-numbingly STUPID.
Posted by: Soilman | February 26, 2009 at 11:57 AM
A "yeah, but..." comment.
First, yes, the book industry is hopelessly backward - makes the newspaper industry look innovative in comparison.
But authors get very, very little of the gross revenues. Most books don't even earn out their advance; for those that do, the ancillary streams (like audio-book rights) is a desperately needed bump.
It's certainly an issue that could stand some negotiation and clarity with Amazon. Just because technology does allow something doesn't mean it's the right model (witness the original Napster).
Disclosure: My wife's an author ;-) ... and she's not yet received one dime from audiobook revenues.
Posted by: tgdavidson | February 26, 2009 at 12:59 PM