Madison is both intriguing and infuriating. She's a fluent and enthusiastic writer and video blogger - and a raging self-publicist much like myself.
Unfortunately, her website isn't very intuitive, you can't leave comments on her blog (an unforgivable blogging sin) and she insists on doing those stupid finger-wiggling 'speech marks' whenever she says the name of her blog.
But she's also really cute and has a tattoo. As I said, both intriguing and infuriating.
Her most recent post is about the new Amazon Kindle.How Main Street Publishers are Ripping off Kindle Owners
If you haven't heard of the Kindle, let me give you the skinny. Basically, it's like an iPod for books. Except it's about a hundred bucks more expensive.
Roughly the size of a paperback, Kindle has a screen which displays 'eBooks.'
Those are digital copies of books. You can turn the page, scan the text or even get Kindle's creepy electronic voice to 'read' the stories to you.
As a gadget, it's pretty cool. With wireless connectivity, you can browse and download new books instantly, get updates of the latest paper and even store thousands of books for reading later.
It's also completely pointless. Most of us prefer a real book or newspaper anyway and - as girl Arsonist points out - the price of an eBook is often the same as buying a paper copy of that novel.
She wrote to "St. Martin's, Penguin, HarperEbooks, Random House, Simon & Schuster and all the other Main Street Publishers" and argued: "We don't take kindly to the fact you are trying to take advantage of readers (and authors) by overcharging us because you are unable to run your business in a profitable manner."
Steady on there, girl!
I'm not sure how a smart cookie like Girl Arsonist was unaware of this, but the reason books are so damned expensive is not merely because of the paper they're printed on. It's because of the enormous costs of buying, editing and marketing books.
When published in sufficient quantities, the price of printing a book is only a few dollars. I know this for a fact, as I've printed copies of my own books.
When you factor in Kindle sales, you've got to think that:
- You still have to pay the author, editor and marketing team the same as for a 'real' book.
- Everybody who buys a digital copy of the book WILL NOT buy a paper copy.
"We know that eBooks cost pennies to make." Girl Arsonist claims.
Well, you're wrong. They don't. For the most part, they cost as much as making 'real' books.
They are real books. They're just intangible and digital.
That doesn't make them any less entertaining to read, or less compelling, or less sexy or frightening. It doesn't mean the writer spent less time writing them, or that the editor didn't pour over every syllable with the same attention to detail. It doesn't mean that they spent less time marketing the books, or sending the author on cross-country promotional tours.
They did everything they had to do with the 'real' book except print in on paper.
So, when you complain that eBooks are only 'a few dollars less than the actual print book,' perhaps it's worth considering that those few dollars are probably the cost of printing the book.
What more do you want, Girl Arsonist?
Well, now my rant's over, I do recommend you go over and check out her website. Her video blogs are hilarious. I especially liked this one (as I'm really feeling this at the moment, having got a rejection slip for Bootleg Boys just yesterday.)
