I disagree. The general buying public (the customer) has the final say on what and how things get published, distributed, etc.

Publishing is still a business.

The MARKET not the writer has the final say.

Fine. The next time some guy accosts you in an alley and says he wants a sample of your money, remeber this post.

Remember, I am a magician and would do a bill switch!

You are correct, sometimes even without permission of the author.

SMACK!! Just like the guy in the alley accosting someone for their money. The biggest gun usually has the final say. Kill or be killed. How primal...

What a naive, uninformed view. Are you aware that one distributor controls almost 90% of the books that are sold in the US? I'm speaking about the books you find at Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc., not your normal magic books.

If your books do not get with them, you don't get to sell them, even if the public wants to buy them. At least that's the way it was before the internet permitted people to sell short run book from their web sites.

I could, if I wish, take the music publications I own, re-set them in a digital format, and distribute them myself. I would get to keep all the profit. But I wouldn't sell enough books to make up the difference. The music books I own are sold by teachers to their students and are picked up at POS positions as impulse purchases. They are also distributed by some of the internet houses, but that is a very small portion of the business.

We have a distribution network that covers the entire world. But they would never get into print if the books did not pass the editorial board of the publishing company. Publishers determine what gets into print, not the public. The public generates trends, but the publishers try to read and respond to them.

Of course, what do I know? Our family has only been in this business for 60 years. Far be it from me to tell people who don't have a single published work the ins and outs of the business.

Bill, where does this editorial board take an interest in books and do they have criteria?

The keyword ... BEFORE. Things are changing, before there was no sence in copying an entire book at the library to give the person a single page. People can still goto a library and copy a few pages from your copyright book - it falls under fair use. Google has their own army of lawyers, so it should make for an interesting trial.

JoeJoe

In the case of the greater body of the work, which is in the field of educational music, they take an interest in books on more than one level. The company itself is owned by a family who has been in the music business since the early part of the 20th century. They used to follow trends, but in the 1960's, they began to set them. Their chief products these days are instructional material for keyboards and guitars. This is a huge industry. The family that owns the company naturally gets a big chunk of the take, but they know how to market the material, and how to distribute it. The editorial board consists of the family plus a group of people with training in music education and interpretation. It's basically teachers who write material for teachers.

Their criteria include educational background, experience teaching, logically arranged material and appeal to the broadest spectrum of the market. The only way in which the market, itself, determines what is published is that if an initial run of books does not sell within a certain amount of time, it is dropped. But the editorial board itself determines what is published. Also, the name is very important in the business. Our family name is quite well known in educational music circles.

To give you an idea of the distribution of the material, the last time I was in Scotland, I was strolling down North Street in St. Andrews. I saw a tent sign advertising a new music store. So I went in to browse for some things I was interested in. A lady came in and asked about a particular group of pieces. The clerk wasn't sure if they had them, so I asked him if he carried material by our publisher. He said they did, and pointed it out to me. So I went over and pulled the book she wanted out of his stock.

He was amazed, but I was quite pleased to see my bread and butter that far away from home. I made sure the publishing company learned about the new store and sent a representative to call on them.

Things are changing. That's correct. But even though fair usage allows copying a few pages from a book, it doesn't allow wholesale theft. Copying an entire book without permission of the copyright holder has always been illegal.

And the thing about Google's lawyers is that they'd better be very familiar with the ins and outs of IP law. It changes on a daily basis. And ALL the changes since 1976 have been in favor of the holder of the copyright.

The only thing that has really changed is that Ingram used to distribute about 90% or so of all the books. Now Amazon has their own distribution facility. But none of this effects self-published books at all.

Basically, most books in the field of magic, with few exceptions, would qualify as self-published. The exceptions would be the Mark Wilson course, some of the books published for the public, and maybe L&L and Hermetic Press. The Tarbell course would be another. The others have no presence on Amazon. A book must have a run of around 5000 copies before it will go to Amazon.com.

If you want to see something funny, go to Amazon.com and do a search on Ammar. Then click on The Magic of Michael Ammar. You won't believe the results you get.

I truly have no intention of submitting any of the books I publish to Google. Why? I don't need it. I figure the market for a book, then I have that many copies printed. Then it sells out. That's it! No more copies.

Why? It dilutes the material. I know what the market is, and I haven't missed yet.

A book no one reads is no better than a book that was never written.

This applies to all books... including those which are self-published.

I stand by my NAIVE,UNINFORMED yet inherently TRUE statement.

The MARKET has the final say on what and how things get published.

Cholly, it dosen't sound like youre talking about any markets. It sounds like your belief is that all works should be made public and available to anyone who wants them at no cost to themselves. And certainly no benefit to the author. You have explained this position by telling us that 15 year old kids don't understand IP so there is really no such thing. You have basically said, the artist HAS to create or go crazy, and once they do create it's up for grabs and anyone should be able to do whatever they want with the work? Am I misreading your position here?

Vandy

Yes, you are.
Please go back and ACTUALLY READ my original post!

My original post stated that Google's recent action is admirable but it's like putting a "band-aid on a corpse."

Modern technology has allowed an entire generation of kids to "share" copyrighted media for over a decade. It's going to be hard to convince these "kids" (many of whom now have kids of their own) to start paying for music, books, etc. they can STILL get quite easily for free.

I'm not advocating it... just stating a fact.
The "cat is out of the bag"
There is no way to stop file-sharing.
Too many countries... too many computers... Too many people doing it.
It's like the mythical Hydra...

All we can do is damage control.

Then start by supporting the rightful owners of the copyrights, instead of taking a stand somewhere between apathy and a doomday prophet.

HELLO!!

I'm a cynic, Mr. Baker.

Please forgive me if I don't climb aboard the Titanic.

Bon voyage, my good fellows...

I'm going to find another thread to corrupt.

No, the market has the final say on what gets purchased. If I print off ONE copy of a book, it's published. I may not have a single sale, but the book is published.

In fact, an e-book is a "publication," whether you like it or not. These are legal definitions, not some kind of "well, in my opinion," kind of thing.

So, you bought a book, and you are an expert. Big woof!

(waving happily as the great unsinkable ocean liner sets sail without me.)

Wave away, Cholly. You know how much value people on this forum place upon the opinions of people who hide behind ficticious names.

I'll explain how the real publishing industry works. I've had a bit of experience with it. Let's assume that I am a previously unpublished author. With a previously unpublished author, there is no way that a published can decide what the market will do. If such an author submits a manuscript, chances are, it will be sent back with a pink slip. An author needs an agent to get the manuscript into the main part of the publishing house.

But getting an agent isn't easy. For every book that is published by a major house, somewhere between 100 and 1000 may be submitted. It's hard to determine the exact number, because manuscripts are submitted in duplicate to all publishers. Once the MS makes it to the readers, then the reader may or may not send it further up the line. If you have a new author, such as J.K. Rowling ca. 1996, then there is no way that the market will determine anything. The committee will have to go with its gut feeling.

But once the book is printed and distributed, then the market comes into play. If the book lies dormant until a significant event, and then it takes off, the publisher may consider a second book in the series. If it takes off right away, they generally will definitely go for a second one. And in this case, the market begins to determine what gets published. But if the author decided that she doesn't want to publish anything else, this may pose problems. So it's not just a simple "The market decides what is published and how." If this were the case, every semi-literate who tells bad jokes on stage would have a book out.

There are some exceptions. Any time a celebrity "writes" a book, if they have enough of a following, they will have a market, and therefore a publisher. Sometimes the market is a captive one. Congressmen will publish a book, and demand that a group purchase several hundred copies an inflated price to have him speak at a function. Radio talk show hosts of all stripes publish their own books and hawk them on the air. Some of these books even make it into the bookstores.

But ultimately, if nobody will publish a book, any book, the market will never have a chance to determine its success or failure.

I published my first book 40 years ago. It was a book on how to play the banjo. It was published by the company that publishes my father's material. I probably would not have gotten my book published if it hadn't been for the fact that my name and his are almost the same, and Dad's publisher didn't want to see my name in among the people who wrote for Mel Bay. Mel really wanted the book, just because of my name. As it turned out, it sold about 15,000 copies. I still run into people who learned how to play from my book, and in some of the strangest places -- the Czech Republic, Germany...it's a strange world.

Bye, Golly.

Bill, as an author If you don't want your works digitised I believe that you should have the choice of opting out.