Plea/Bargain

Little bonus this week, because it's hitting close to home. Some of you may have heard about the Justice Department filing an anti-trust suit against Apple and five US publishers. Others of you may listen to NPR and have heard a quote by one Mark Cooper, director of Consumer Federation of America. I didn't actually hear the quote, but I read it. It disturbed me, just a little. Here's what he said, as per npr.org: "[Amazon] may be a threat to the publishers, but that's only because they're more efficient and they'll deliver books at a lower cost. They're not a threat to the consumer, and that's what's the important point." (Emphasis mine.)

Now, I understand that Mr. Cooper is the director of the Consumer Federation of America, so there's going to be some unavoidable bias. My problem with this quote is it only assumes two parties: publishers and consumers. Unfortunately, there is a third. Need a hint? Look at my bio, and consider who it is writing to you.

That's right: writers. Low prices and piracy are a threat to writers. When we're dealing with cars, with iPods and iPads, with food, water, housing -- most physical objects which inhabit our world, prices are very objective: means of production + cost of production + cost of distribution and shelving = cost to consumer.

Here's the problem with that: publishers are the only ones working for salary or hourly wage, and the only physical object is the book -- which is taken away with e-books. The money a writer receives is entirely dependent on the price of the book. Publishers take the lion's share -- while they need writers to publish, they do handle a crap-ton of the work, between editing (which, sorry self-pubbers, is more than just a spelling and grammar check, which many of us still need), marketing, publishing, and distributing; agents, if the writer went a good route and got an agent, takes another 15% to 20% (I think Josh Bilmes over at brilligblogger.blogspot.com had the actual dollar numbers (roughly) of what a writer brings home on hardback, paperback, and e-book sales. It's not a terrible lot.)

Art across the spectrum is more complicated than cost v. pricing. We can't all just work 40 hours a week, and we can't be guaranteed a salary. We need people to buy books, and to buy books at a price that earns us some amount of money. We aren't owed our passion as a full-time job, and I'm not demanding it. But just remember that it hurts the writers', the painters', the musicians' wallets more than it hurts yours. Just watch the movie Equilibrium to see a world without art. If you want that, by all means, steal the book or demand copies for 99 cents. If you don't, help an author and pay a few bucks more.

See you tomorrow.