Hey guys! Thanks for all the love, but please don't pirate and steal our books. Is $3.99 really too much to ask for something that literally takes months to create? Again, thanks for being fans.
No, $3.99 isn't too much. I remember buying Piers Anthony books as a kid for $14.99 per paperback at Barnes and Nobles back in ~1995. But in the years since the internet has been populated with content, there's almost too much information, it's hard to want to hold back. But when i want a hundred series of something be it TV shows or books or movies, I'd have to spend millions to acquire them all (
assuming they are even on the shelves to purchase, which half the time they aren't).
Trying to keep an open mind, to some degree I understand when something isn't available somewhere else (although it's still stealing), but while it may be 2-3 full days of work in another country, just as I would not want to steal someone else's labor, why does that entitle someone else to steal our labor?
We're not a corporation. We're not even upper-middle-class by US standards. We're just a couple doing this as a little extra income to pay our bills. It's this or drive Uber. Would you stiff an Uber driver on a ride?
Stealing implies I've deprived you of something. Stealing usually is something physical. Digital content is an entirely different beast, the ability to make infinite copies.
I've spent multiple years on programming projects and given it away for free. Projects that are primarily forgotten now.
But no that doesn't entitle anyone to my (
or your) labor. I do things for the love of the craft, and for the hobbies i love. I still have a view of things when i was 14, that commercials, taxes, and greed are evil; That information should be free; That everyone should pitch in to make things better. Yeah it may be a little bit communism in it's own right. But i also understand people have to eat, and few are good at growing their own food or hunting (
or like me, too squeamish to make the kill).
Though if I do pay someone, i prefer all of my money goes to the creator/individuals, and not the publisher, or middle-men, and certainly not the corporation that owns the name of a studio where they cycle out the staff. Yes i believe in paying the dues for appropriate service. But one needs to have sufficient service too.
A note, just because i may download something doesn't mean it changes anything or i consume it. I tend to save up and archive possibly for a later date so hopefully it won't be lost; But I rarely read nearly as much as i'd like. When you have a certain amount of content, you then enter choice paralysis, and having it is more likely you won't use it vs you will. Far more likely, you'll fall back on something you know you loved and read before, vs some random content you don't recognize.
I understand that. It's not the format shifting for personal use. I recorded records onto cassettes so I could pop them into my Walkman was a teenager! It's the posting them so other people can steal them. BTW, send us a screenshot that you've paid for the book, and we're more than happy to give you another format if you need it.
A format that is NOT DRM locked to hardware or a program is always preferred. DRM MP3s showed quite the annoyance with trying to keep music you purchased and being able to play it on other than the Zune or iPod, when you had so many other places to play it. Videos/movies have mostly backed off from DRM too, although encrypted streaming is still present and even being pushed by the new '
digital transmission standard' currently passing through the FCC.
Regardless, if it's convenient and the price is right no doubt people will pay for it. I think things have taken a very unfortunate turn since the 2008 housing bubble where we've been in a depression for a long time. I saw gas stations close that were more novelty, furniture stores, coffee shops and flower shops, where when necessity to get by the unnecessary things got dropped. As Disney and Netflix and Microsoft raise prices on subscriptions and try to raise prices they instead will get more pushback and people cancelling subscriptions; What could justified by someone for $5/mo can't be justified with $30/mo.
Personally I'm very much against a lot of the current digital practices. It's a '
you will own nothing and be happy' push by the WEF and elites where you are sold a '
license' for a product and not the product itself; One they can pull back at any time. So while you think you '
bought' something when in fact you were '
renting' it; But to the mind of us who grew up buying physical things we'd actually own it with all the privileges that are attached. Instead you have to log in, verify, practically piss blood proving who you are; And in the event you have the license
AND the company decides you haven't been put on a blacklist for some type of 1984 wrong think or should be cancelled or blocked,
then you can '
access' your content. Amazon has proven by
deleting books off peoples kindles/accounts that if you have something it isn't safe if they deem it. Sony has proven that if you bought series that
they can yank it any time and say 'thanks for the money', as well as
disabling games and demos just because they deem it.
Sorry i don't mean to ramble to you, nor preach. When you've been burned by the system enough and what was trusted is broken, you can find yourself refusing to feed the system out of spite.
www.everand.com
