First, as per James Nicoll and Making Light, Games Workshop, the game company that makes Warhammer 40K, is asserting a trademark claim to the term “Space Marines.” They have the trademark on the term in the gaming world, supposedly, but now that they’ve started publishing ebook tie-ins they’re claiming a common law trademark over the term and filing DMCA notices to make Amazon pull books from the shelves.
Of course, the writer they’re doing this to doesn’t have the money to fight back because deep pockets uber alles. If you’re a fan and customer of the company’s games, maybe you should stop buying from them until they clean up their act, and let them know about it.
Second, yet another article about the slow-motion collapse of Barnes & Noble written for The Atlantic this time. Is there any surprise, really, that our slow-motion recovery from a nasty economic collapse is still taking a toll on out-sized companies? Or that the agency-price collusion lawsuit filed in Amazon’s favor would be another cinderblock in B&N’s rowboat?
I’m not what you’d call a fan of B&N, although I will say that I’m less-likely to be given the side-eye when I shop for SF/F in a big chain than in an indie store. Also, I love seeing huge sections of a store devoted to genres, something you rarely see in indie corner shops.
What would be lost if the last of the big chains go under? We would lose a physical space designed to sell according to readers’ tastes rather than the tastes of the bookstore owner.
Third, Chuck Wendig wants to make today International Don’t Pirate My Book Day. His thoughts about treating art as a thing of value are worthwhile, but here’s where he and I differ: when you read my work without paying for it, it doesn’t hurt my feelings.
It’s pernicious, yes. It’s harmful in the long term. If I am giving something away for free, read for free. Enjoy. If not, I would prefer you pay. However, it doesn’t hurt my feelings because my feelings don’t enter into it.
I’ve talked about this before: In the digital world, price is not constrained by supply and demand. Supply is/can be effectively infinite, so there’s no reason for people to pay extra to procure scarce goods. However, the constraint on price is actually “theft;” the balancing act has to be “How much will users pay for this?” vs “At what price point will people just steal it instead?”
Really this is an inevitable consequence of our advertising/consumer culture, in which you the consumer deserve whatever you want when you want and it ought to be cheap as possible. That’s the culture that vendors of every size, from mom and pop stores to massive corporations, have been pushing for generations. It’s thoroughly internalized in our outlook on the world, and now that machines in our homes allow us to cut the actual producers out of the equation, people do so with gusto.
It’s pernicious, yes. Also, I know people will respond with “Customers are willing to pay if you make it easy for them to do so and keep the price low enough.” Yes, that’s true. It’s also a calculation that occurs solely within the head of the consumer. What’s a fair price? How long should I have to wait for it?
There will always be people who think the smart thing to do is to take what they want and give nothing back, if you get my reference. The real issue becomes the size of that group of consumers and how the culture at large talks about them. In my opinion, the battle against book piracy will not be won in courts or legislative chambers, but in the culture at large; what behavior is normalized? That’s the question.
Fourth and last, I’m going to a reading tonight and my body is in full allergic freak-out mode. I don’t have anything life-threatening going on, but the patchy red marks on my face and (fading now, thankfully) hives on my arms turn me from ugly guy to full AVERT! AVERT! status. Oh well.
Mirrored from Twenty Palaces. You can comment here or there.
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I wish I'd thought of that.
Alternative: http://www.neatorama.com/2012/12/18/Cro
Mainly though, I want to point out that if the indie stores survive, they do have to notice what sells and sell it, even if the owner or buyer or whoever doesn't like it. You can make sure you do stock stuff you like that other places might not carry, and promote it, but you also have to pay attention to what the customers want. Whereas while the big chains pay attention to where the money is, they are also extremely centralized. And their buyers are often not any more knowledgeable or capable of good taste than indie store owners who scoff at sf/f, because they listen to what I guess I could call the merchandising aspect of bookselling, the sort of random stuff that gives rigid generalizations like covers without design X won't sell to teenagers or no middle grade novel can have a protagonist older than 12 because children won't identify with them.
Don't get me wrong, I work in a rather disorganized place that I would really like to organize better, and merchandising is very important in some ways. Hardbounds sell better when shelved with paperbacks instead of in a separate section, used books sell better when people don't come up to you all the time and ask how they can find the authors whose last initials come after S because the shelves are laid out really counterintuitively, and certain books sell better when shelved cover-out instead of spine-out. But this sort of thing is more understanding how to use local space and local conditions efficiently - how to work with your building and local customer taste, and using your judgment when needed to say this books sells better when people can see the awesome cover art. It seems to me that publishers' marketing people and big chains' buyers are being organized by applying generalizations rather than checking the specific conditions of the store environment or the book.
I've read a number of people complaining that publishers are ignoring niche markets and midlist authors in favor of trying to find or generate bestsellers. I think this is a symptom of the same mindset. If everything is the same in each store, if the perfect formula can be found, then everybody will read the same thing and we can sell all of it everywhere! There is no one formula that will work in all places and times, though, and you can also make money by selling a large selection of items that have cult followings (which don't overlap) or a variety of styles of merchandise, each style being sold to a different mid-sized audience.
I have been laughed at in bookstores, right at the counter with a crowd of people around. It made me go right back to the impersonal chain store the next time.
While it's true that the chain stores had/have big problems, especially when they would make goofy-pants decisions on cover art or whatever, as a reader I like seeing long long shelves filled with my kind of books.
And I like indie stores too. I just bought a book in one three hours ago. It's just that I'm old enough to remember how bookstores used to be, and I don't want to go back to that. Maybe, even if B&N goes under, it and the other chains will have changed things for the better.