cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
I wandered down today to the Pine (AZ) Labor Day Festival- one of my favorite things at these summer fairs are the library’s used book sale. I wandered all the tables, and hit the jackpot on the last table, with Neil Gaimian’s Neverwhere and William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
Each one set me back 50 cents.
So one (I don’t know who…) might ask, what does the author get out of this book resale?
On the surface, at the moment, nothing. But that’s the most narrow economic viewpoint.
There is more value in me becoming a fan, inspired by these books to perhaps buy others through official channels, or to broadcast my love of the books to my contacts, who in turn may buy or redistribute. You have to think about networks and flow, not one time transactions.
And I love this portable technology. The battery life is incredible. And I get to use my mind to conjure up the imagery of the stories within.
As much as I love digital, there is sheer joy in thumbing through rows of books til one jumps out at you.
The Dead Trees by CogDogBlog, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Not sure if you bought a Walter Mosely novel as well, but I am a big fan of his. His Black NY noirs are amazing, and Devil in a Blue Dress is a masterpiece, and the film adaption is in my opinion possibly one of the best neo-noirs made in the past twenty yeas.
Happy thumbing.
You got it- I bought “Six Easy Pieces”, not even sure why I picked it up.
A thumbs up from the Rev makes me feel good
[...] installment of scenic is brought to you by the CogDog, who blogged some books he had bought, in which I caught a glimpse of Walter Mosley’s name, which made me think of his novel Devil [...]
If you really want to support authors, look for ways to do it directly. More and more authors these days have websites with a donation button, and many are doing crowdfunded writing projects paid for by audience donations. You can find some examples at:
http://community.livejournal.com/crowdfunding
http://webfictionguide.com/
I agree, it’s about the social networking. If Chris Anderson is correct, stuff has to be given away for free and the profits will follow.
By the way, I can tell that you were in AZ. In northern Michigan, we certainly wouldn’t call a Labor Day fair a summer fair.