[Xmca-l] Re: Libraries, publishers, ebooks & Amazon

[mike cole]

Seems like a fundamental issue that gets too little attention --
publication for what? For whom?

In a neoliberal global regime, in a world of digital relocation that
Benjamin could not imagine, seems like the purpose of publication needs a
lot of "not for profit" interrogation.
Mike

On Monday, May 9, 2016, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Hi XMCAristas,
>
>
> This came in my box from Cory Doctorow, thought it may be of interest in
> terms of scholarly comms and the future of digital libraries?
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> Annalisa
>
>
> Publishing is in a weird place: ebook sales are stagnating; publishing
> has shrunk to five major publishers; libraries and publishers are at
> each others' throats over ebook pricing; and major writers' groups are
> up in arms over ebook royalties, and, of course, we only have one major
> book retailer left -- what is to be done?
>
> In my new Locus Magazine column, "Peace in Our Time," I propose a pair
> of software projects that could bring all together writers, publishers
> and libraries to increase competition, give publishers the market
> intelligence they need to sell more books, triple writers' ebook
> royalties, and sell more ebooks to libraries, on much fairer terms.
>
> The first project is a free/open version of Overdrive, the software that
> publishers insist that libraries use for ebook circulation. A free/open
> version, collectively created and maintained by the library community,
> would create a source of data that publishers could use to compete with
> Amazon, their biggest frenemy, while still protecting patron privacy.
> The publishers' quid-pro-quo for this data would be an end to the
> practice of gouging libraries on ebook prices, leaving them with more
> capital to buy more books.
>
> The second project is a federated ebook store for writers, that would
> allow writers to act as retailers for their publishers, selling their
> own books and keeping the retailer's share in addition to their
> traditional royalty: a move that would increase the writer's share by
> 300%, without costing the publishers a penny. Writer-operated ebook
> stores, spread all over the Web but searchable from central portals, do
> not violate the publishers' agreements with Amazon, but they do create
> new sales category: "fair trade ebooks," whose sale gives the writers
> you love the money to feed their families and write more books --
> without costing you anything extra.
>
>
> http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2016/05/cory-doctorow-peace-in-our-time/
>
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-- 

It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch