So, I belong to at least one community that provides DRM-free copies of ebooks.
In spite of being aware that author royalties get paid on sold books rather than books that got copied and passed along, I download a lot of freebies, including authors I would be happy to pay Ebook prices for - if the ebooks were offered to me at a price commensurate with that which my counterparts in the USA pay.
eg. I can buy a Loretta Chase romance in ebook format for around $12 AUD at Borders Australia website. Cheap compared to the paperback format, which would be at least $17-22.
On Amazon, the ebook costs ~$5. But you need an American address or credit card (my friend informs me that it's just the address, but I'm pretty sure it's a credit card) in order to purchase the ebook. So I'm paying $7 more for an ebook (no extra formatting, no extra shipping) just because I live in Australia.
(The difference between hardcopy books in the US and Australia is even greater: books you can purchase for $5 in the US sell for $20+ in Australia. Count the number of books in your library. Now multiply that by $15. That's a conservative estimate of how much extra you'd have paid for your library if you lived in Australia. And that $15 difference is for a trashy paperback novel, not a popular or famous title or a hardcover edition.)
Plus, I can only purchase a handful of Loretta Chase's previous novels - the ones that the publisher has the rights to publish in ebook format outside the US.
I would like to support the authors I read - particularly those who've written stuff I enjoy. I'm well aware that their royalties are dependent on books bought; and that as someone who aspires to be published, someday my income will depend on whether people are going to buy my books in whatever format they're published
I was thinking - maybe this is just me - but I'd be okay with, say, a PayPal button for my favourite authors, allowing me to donate directly to them if I acquired an ebook of theirs to read that I wouldn't otherwise be able to buy (not being in the US, possessor of a US credit card, inclined to the popular stuff - which is pretty much all you get in ebook format around here, or willing to pay around $35 for a paperback novel to be delivered to my house from the US).
Does anyone know of an author who does this? Who has this option? Is there a reason people don't do it other than that their publishers would probably get narky about the money queue skipping them? Or do they all cite the "you should buy the books through the authorised channels" line?
It's all very well to say that I should buy books legally, but what about when those books aren't available for me to buy legally in my country? And are unlikely to ever become legal in my country because there's apparently not enough demand for them?
In spite of being aware that author royalties get paid on sold books rather than books that got copied and passed along, I download a lot of freebies, including authors I would be happy to pay Ebook prices for - if the ebooks were offered to me at a price commensurate with that which my counterparts in the USA pay.
eg. I can buy a Loretta Chase romance in ebook format for around $12 AUD at Borders Australia website. Cheap compared to the paperback format, which would be at least $17-22.
On Amazon, the ebook costs ~$5. But you need an American address or credit card (my friend informs me that it's just the address, but I'm pretty sure it's a credit card) in order to purchase the ebook. So I'm paying $7 more for an ebook (no extra formatting, no extra shipping) just because I live in Australia.
(The difference between hardcopy books in the US and Australia is even greater: books you can purchase for $5 in the US sell for $20+ in Australia. Count the number of books in your library. Now multiply that by $15. That's a conservative estimate of how much extra you'd have paid for your library if you lived in Australia. And that $15 difference is for a trashy paperback novel, not a popular or famous title or a hardcover edition.)
Plus, I can only purchase a handful of Loretta Chase's previous novels - the ones that the publisher has the rights to publish in ebook format outside the US.
I would like to support the authors I read - particularly those who've written stuff I enjoy. I'm well aware that their royalties are dependent on books bought; and that as someone who aspires to be published, someday my income will depend on whether people are going to buy my books in whatever format they're published
I was thinking - maybe this is just me - but I'd be okay with, say, a PayPal button for my favourite authors, allowing me to donate directly to them if I acquired an ebook of theirs to read that I wouldn't otherwise be able to buy (not being in the US, possessor of a US credit card, inclined to the popular stuff - which is pretty much all you get in ebook format around here, or willing to pay around $35 for a paperback novel to be delivered to my house from the US).
Does anyone know of an author who does this? Who has this option? Is there a reason people don't do it other than that their publishers would probably get narky about the money queue skipping them? Or do they all cite the "you should buy the books through the authorised channels" line?
It's all very well to say that I should buy books legally, but what about when those books aren't available for me to buy legally in my country? And are unlikely to ever become legal in my country because there's apparently not enough demand for them?
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