Reading Boner

While I was sleeping, the internet left me a present:

2500+ well-formatted eBooks.  I feel a sick day coming on...

My calibre library was already around 1200. There's no way in hell I'll ever read all of these. A lot of these titles hold absolutely zero interest for me. But... shit.... t'was free.  What's the point of having a nice internet connection if you're not going to use it to steal shit?

Thanks, thepiratebay.org! Expect a much overdue support check.



Why I don't feel bad about stealing eBooks:
eBooks are the the easiest way for talented and undiscovered authors to get exposure for their work. Forums for the free and near free exchange of reading material are going to facilitate the easy exchange of ideas in the form of books.

If we start sharing our eBooks, especially the ones we create ourselves, they costs us nothing but time to write, nothing but time to share, nothing but time to read, and nothing but time to get rid of if they suck.

We're culling the herd.

Publishers publish based on what they think they can make money on. That's why a paperback costs twenty-five-fucking-dollars new and a dime used-- publishers have to cover their asses in case they invest in a flop.

Publishers need to get on the eBook train. They have to. If they don't, they'll die.  Look at iTunes.

I can compare this to the music industry and my own personal experience pretty easily. Stealing music has exposed me to more artists that buying it or listening to the shitty radio ever would have.  Because of stealing music, the list of artists I would pay money to go watch in concert is long, where before, it was pretty small.

The same goes with authors. The list of authors I'm likely to read, experience, ask for TreeBooks from for Christmas, et cetera, is much longer than it would've been if I were having to shell out twenty bucks on a gamble of a book.

There is another potential side-effect to the iTunesification of reading material. The concept album is dead beacuse people can download the tracks they want and only listen to those, while skipping the rest of the album, so the focus in the consumer-based areas of mainstream music has shifted from making money on albums to making money on tracks. We may see less emphasis on novel writing and more emphasis on short-story writing and editorials (blogs like this). 

Commuter-length fiction and semi-journalism will, in my opinion, become more and more popularized as more and more people use the web instead of the corner vender to grab their reading content.

Will this make 'Merikans even dumber than they are? It won't help. But it's just a drop in the bucket compared to the failings of the education system.