This may seem like a rant to some, but I assure you, it is not. The other day I was on Facebook, one of the most vapid social media sites out here in the interweb, and saw someone complaining about the cost of ebooks. The person posting claimed that any ebook priced over $1.00 is a rip off and that he encourages people not to buy it. Being the person I am, I posted on his comment, stating that I have a 400+ page ebook right now selling for $1.98 and that it is a bargain at that price. His response was, “you are part of the problem with your corrupt greed”. I would have loved to respond to him, but the comment was deleted, soon followed by his account.
You might just chuckle and say “Troll!”, but this is not the first time I have heard such a sentiment. I have heard people complaining about the cost of books, ebooks, music, etc. for a while now, so you have to ask yourself, what are you willing to pay for art?
In the case of a book, here you have weeks, months and in some cases, years of a writer’s life in front of you. There is literally blood, sweat and tears in those pages, especially in the case of an indie writer. The publishing world is a harsh place and finding someone to put your work out into the world is more difficult in many ways that actually writing. But to many, writing is not an easy task either. Finding time to write between your “real” job, social life, eating and sleeping can be a task in and of itself. Then there is coming up with a story, believable characters, setting…it’s all work and art. So when someone complains and says that it should be free or next to free, they obviously aren't really taking it all into consideration.
Imagine you go to work, do your 9 to 5 job and at the end of the week your boss says, “Oh, your job isn’t worth more than $1. You should just do it for free.” Then he gives you nothing for your entire weeks’ worth of work. That’s what it is like for us, hearing this comments.
Sure, with the self-publishing world becoming a little too big for its britches, there are a lot of stories, novellas, novels and collections making it out there that are not very good, even terrible. The market has been flooded over the last little while with people that haven’t ever fought through rejection letters, that have taken this new road without a chance to hone their art and these writers almost make the argument about work being free legitimate.
Almost.
Many of these writers do give their books away for free, not just as a promotion, but all the time. And if they are giving it away and people are rating it and recommending it, this work that is not just sub-par, but totally substandard, where does that leave the rest of us?
The problem is, there are plenty of great writers out here that work hard to put out the best work they can, only to have people more willing to pay $5 for a coffee at some artsy fartsy coffee bar that will last them only minutes, than on a book that will open their minds and last forever.
The same goes for music.
For paintings and sculptures.
Hell it is even the same for hand-fashioned clothes and tattoos.
We live in a world where people want it fast and cheap, but what do we sacrifice in the long run for that? Quality? Craftsmanship? Do we give up true art in order to have it cheap or free? I hope not. I hope that there will always be a group that wants a well-made, hand crafted corset that might cost a fair bit, than the one made by slave labor that comes apart in a month or two. I hope we see a day where people are buying music of artists they enjoy and want to show support to instead of just downloading it for free and making them give it up all together. I as for writers, I hope to walk into a Starbucks one day and know that the guy sitting there, sipping on his over-sized, overly expensive coffee, reading a book on his (insert ebook reader of choice), paid a fair price for the story he is reading and supported the work that went into it. When you drink your fair-trade coffee and eat your fair-traded chocolate, I hope you are reading a fair-trade book and listening to some fair-trade tunes.