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23rd May 2014, 07:17 PM #16Golden Member
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Files deleted
Thanks Michael,
Have deleted the relevant files off my computer. Shame, thought I'd discovered a wonderful and little known new source of information.
I was completely fooled by the fact that because DRM was on the download and allowed me access for the next 2 weeks that it was all legal.
I'll be on holidays and have difficulty accessing email/internet/mobile phone so my last post on this thread will be tomorrow.
Bill
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23rd May 2014, 07:36 PM #17Most Valued Member
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I'd buy it straight away at around the $50 mark.
Don't think I've looked in the 3 I already have for quite some years now but I did learn a lot from them at the time. I tend to look on books as another form of tool - when I was doing a lot of software consulting, if I got one idea from a book that saved me say an hour's work or thinking, that was worth $120 minimum to me, so books were cheap.
I don't make much money from machining (and what I do make is more by accident than intent) but I'd still buy his book.
I'd agree that self-publishing can be a mug's game in general, but in niche areas I suspect there's a lot of scope.
Baen books has a lot of e-books for download if one is into science fiction. The philosophy there is that by making some of the authors' backlists available for free, you'll be more inclined to buy others. Seems to work - they haven't gone out of business.
https://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx
PDW
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23rd May 2014, 08:48 PM #18
Essentially, any author who writes with the expectation that their book will make money for them has rocks in their head. If they are lucky they might be able to buy a new hard drive for their PC with what they earn.
Only the top 2% or so of book authors make enough money for it to be considered good career; 54% earn less than $1,000 a year from their book sales.
On a $20 book, after the retailer's cut, the publisher's cut and the distributor's cut, the author will be lucky to see more than 50 cents.
There's a whole industry living off the author's work and they are not at all keen to move to a new model that takes them out of the picture.
And as far as hardware locking to a particular PC goes - it does not work, as the PC gaming industry keeps learning.
ANY form of DRM is doomed to failure as circumventing it is as simple as running a decompiler and pulling the appropriate jump-if-not-equal statements out of the code. For DRM to work, the code has to run from your computer. If it's on your computer, you have full control of how the code is executed. The code cannot tell if it is being run by the operating system or inside a decompiler, so it will always end up giving up its secrets.
The games industry is littered with the remains of DRM schemes that have repeatedly locked legitimate purchasers out of their games, while the pirated versions continue to run happily without ever talking to the authentication servers.
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24th May 2014, 12:26 PM #19Cheers.
Vernon.
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25th May 2014, 12:34 PM #20Philomath in training
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Message from Guy
On the positive side Guy, your TMBR books are popular and the guys want the next one (to buy).Hi Michael,
http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=184938
Michael
Thanks for the above link. I went through it all, and was gratified by most of what I read there.
If you are inclined to do so, perhaps you would post this (entire) message there, stating that it is from me.
First of all, a sincere Thank you to all who have said they have found something worthwhile in my existing books. This is a bigger encouragement than any of you will ever know.
I am still trying to figure out a way to continue to make my books available. But I have no intention of spending months working on TMBR#4, and money to print and advertise it, only to find it posted on the Internet 3 or 4 months later by someone who has no grasp of the meaning of the word "copyright", or feels that he is entitled to steal my work.
As for the surmise that I must be in my eighties by now, reports of my advancing years are greatly exaggerated. I'm still on the sunny side of 68. (I told an older chap that recently, and he said, "I have a housecoat that's older than you are!")
I'm currently working on three fiction stories, the shortest of which is very nearly done. The other two won't be done real soon, but two others that some of the guys might like are offered here: www.lautard.com/twostories.html.
Some might also not have noticed this offering: http://www.lautard.com/GRUPPOPAGE.html, in which they might might find some interesting and useful ideas.
Best to yourself, Michael, and to all who have said they like my books and other work.
Guy
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25th May 2014, 02:24 PM #21
Thinking about some of the comments in this thread regarding using Guy's books as an ongoing reference, makes me wonder if the Open Library is actually doing Guy a favour i.e. people get to "borrow" the book for two weeks only and if they think there is enough useful info in there, they may subsequently buy the proper thing. Try before you buy, if you will.
Cheers.
Vernon.
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Bite off more than you can chew and then chew like crazy.
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25th May 2014, 02:38 PM #22Pink 10EE owner
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There is a myth perpetuated by the large entertainment companies that every illegal download is a lost sale...
Nothing is further from the truth... Those that do such things have no intention of buying it regardless..
Also companies these days like you sell you copies that tie software to a particular account and the software phones home every time is it used to confirm the software is being used by the account holder... This software cannot be sold second hand, cannot be transferred to another user when the original user stops using it.
Also there is the media you purchase with no preview or anything... I bought a set of US standards (from an approved US standard seller) for lathe spindle noses.. What I got was an unreadable PDF that required a third party adobe plugin for DRM...
I did not feel guilty when a person with a hardcopy of the same standards had done an actual readable scan and emailed it to be.
I find it difficult to read from an ebook anyway.. I have books I own and have scanned in personally that I use for the reference tables in them, but actual reading a book, I prefer a hard copy..Gold, the colour of choice for the discerning person.
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25th May 2014, 06:38 PM #23Most Valued Member
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"I am still trying to figure out a way to continue to make my books available. But I have no intention of spending months working on TMBR#4, and money to print and advertise it, only to find it posted on the Internet 3 or 4 months later by someone who has no grasp of the meaning of the word "copyright", or feels that he is entitled to steal my work."
So, basically, Guy is out of the publishing game.
I am sorry to read that, but I understand his reasons and I have no criticism of them. He is entitled to his point of view, and he is entitled to the fruits of his labour.
The problem is that there is no way of preventing what he wants to prevent, none at all. This particular technology genie is not only out of the bottle, the bottle itself has been reduced to powder and used as flux in a furnace.
It does seem that Guy either missed the point of one of my posts, or decided that it wasn't something he was interested in doing. The whole print and mail or distribute to shops part of small scale publishing is unnecessary nowadays. Either print on demand or electronic soft copies is the way to go for small niche market publications, especially as you can apply custom watermarks, footers et al as you go. But - this will still not stop people who would, as I have said, steal pennies off a dead man's eyes.
RC is also correct, conflating pirate downloads with lost sales is a nice exercise to engage in from the IP owner's POV, but it has a very tenuous connection with reality. Most of those people would never have bought anyway and a lot of others would buy if they could do so in a reasonable fashion.
I *like* paper books, but let's face it - it's a damn sight easier to click on a 'Buy' button on a Web site, pay via PayPal and download a custom generated PDF than it is to even buy via the same methodology and wait 4 to 6 weeks for snail mail to deliver to your door.
PDW
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25th May 2014, 09:47 PM #24
Michael,
maybe here is something you could put to Guy:
Why not ask him to join thid snd everyother forum who he might expect to respect his work. Then put up a post (advertise his work) to say that he will take orders for his work right here.
Hw could then follow Pete's advice (PDW) and PM any buyers their 'custom' pdf - top do with what they like - read, print, archive etc. And it they put it on the 'net, it will have their name and contact for the copyright police to 'go get 'em all over it - even in the document properties.
That would deter most (not all - I'm not born yesterday). In other words make it far too hard for someone who paid for the book to bother making available free to someone else.
Now if I bought such a book - and I would - and found somethign really interesting pertaining to a project that say PDW was doing right now, I could send him a copy of my legitimate book to see what I found for him, But PDW wouldn;t conside that copy 'his' book, because it will have my name all over it.
That's no different to me buying a Guy's book on paper, then when the same circumstances arose, I might put the book (MY paper copy) in the mail to PDW for him to read what I sent it for - amy be even the whole book - but then either make photocpies of the relevant pages (perfectly legal) and send the book back to me.
The above version of sharing 'my property' is no different, except I might be more inclined to hlp out PDW because we both save postage and effort.
The 'advertising value' of me showing Pete something useful in one of Guy's books leading Pete to go buy his wn is also the same - but likely to happen more often than with a per copy.
I suspect Guy's book would sell like hotcakes to enthusiasts here and other forums - rather than end up in the hads of dedicated hackers who want to put it on ebay in decoded untracable form....
In the meantime, encourage Guy to join our discussion actively. Like others here, I'd love to be able to 'chat' with Guy or ask his opinion on a project right here on the farum.
What the heck, I just discovered his e-mail address and will ask him myselfCheers, Joe
retired - less energy, more time to contemplate projects and more shed time....
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25th May 2014, 10:18 PM #25Most Valued Member
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You touch on one of my main objections to e-books in general.
A lot of them restrict your rights in ways that paper books cannot do and do not try to do.
Lending a book to someone is an example. Gifting it is another. Selling it (I buy a hell of a lot of second hand books). Leaving your entire library in your will.
All these rights have been removed from you in most commercial e-books. So I don't buy them. It's not like the price has dropped significantly to compensate for the extra restrictions.
Anyway, I agree with the basic premise. The likely hobbyist market could be largely reached by the most popular internet forums. Custom editions suitably watermarked are technologically simple. I understand PDF generation well, a number of my software applications use the Bruno Lowagie initiated iText Java library to generate documents on the fly and I can say that it would be well beyond the ability of the non-programmer to undo or change suitably applied watermarks and the like in any sort of sensible time frame. If you could buy a copy of the e-book inscribed with your name and details for say $20 to $50, where's the upside in stealing it? And who would want the embarrassment of their copy with their name all over it, uploaded to a warez type site?
Hell, it could well be a marketing tool - the title page with a 'hand written' salutation and greeting to the purchaser, personally 'signed' by the author. You could even submit the wording that you'd like to see there...... I can think of a few truly *wonderful* ones I'd buy and send to people I know if I got to choose the salutation and knew they couldn't change it.......
PDW
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25th May 2014, 10:38 PM #26Philomath in training
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26th May 2014, 12:38 AM #27Diamond Member
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I've recently bought one of them new fangled print on demand books. Pay the author in the US, a file is sent to a printer in Melbourne who prints and binds one copy and posts it to me in Laidley. Turn around time 1 week. Could be an idea here for Guy. It also means that overseas sales can be cheaper because there is no international airmail.
The flux reference was apt, the book is The Hobbyist's Guide to Casting Metal by Ben Baker.
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26th May 2014, 01:50 AM #28
$20 to $50 dollars for an e-book is the sort of price point that'll encourage piracy. $2-5 is about what you need to sell it at, and it'll still give the author 10x higher returns than a regularly published book.
And I fail to understand why any author would be grumpy about their book ending up in a library; I'm sure that at some time they themselves have used resources from a library, and this is simply a case of paying it back.
(and it's not even like his previous books have been heavily pirated - a google for "A machinist's bedside reader" with the filetype torrent returns no results, and nor does a more general search reveal any illicit download locations...so...storm in a teacup)
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26th May 2014, 10:05 AM #29Most Valued Member
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I disagree. The e-books for open source code libraries typically sell for $40 to $50 and are watermarked with the name, email address etc of the buyer. So people *will* pay this sort of money for an e-book.
I also don't accept the argument that hobbyists in general won't pay. $50? Pfffft. Look around your shop. How many things there cost *less* than $50? Bet they're almost all consumables....
Third point - $2 to $5 is about what an author would get by going through a traditional publisher, true. But I suspect Guy actually does this all himself, contracting out the printing only. So the overheads of editing, sales, distribution, marketing etc aren't there for him.
Here, I agree with you - with one caveat. If the author did not ever consent to his book being turned into a soft copy, where did the electronic library get their one from to loan out? I do not know what the law is, but I do think that a copyright holder has every moral right to control this. Now the *practical* side of the control is, of course, another matter, and in practice it is an exercise in futility. However, his right to be off about it is perfectly understandable.
Yeah. As I said, if he's going to stop publishing until there's a solution to a problem that doesn't appear to actually be there, that's unfortunate but it's his choice. For some reason, 'Canute' comes to mind.
PDW
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26th May 2014, 11:14 AM #30
Depends on the market - if the book is sold to professionals/business/corporate then yes they can generally easily justify the expense, however if we are talking private individuals, then it may be a different story.
Last edited by Christos; 27th May 2014 at 12:19 AM. Reason: Unnecessary personal attacks
Cheers.
Vernon.
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