Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

Re:Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threa... by ben_w on Thursday June 11, 2020 @09:07AM (#23488393)

I’m writing a novel. I’ve been at it since 2016, partly because project planning is just as hard outside of software and partly because I have a full-time job too. Based on what people like Charlie Stross blog about, and based on the few sales estimates I can find, even if I reach the heady highs of ranking 214th biggest SciFi writer by sales, I will make less than $40k in lifetime sales for four year’s work.

As income goes, this is a lottery.

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Re:Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threa... by a1369209993 on Thursday June 11, 2020 @02:13PM (#23491682)

This has little or nothing to do with any supposed reduction in book sales the Internet Archive or any other library, dead-tree or bittorrent, has caused, and quite a lot to do with publishers screwing authors out of royalties for books they do sell. I have no sympathy any author too stupid to realize that publishers are to blame for their still needing a day job after (for example of Myke Cole) twelve books, two TV shows, and a comic series.

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Re:Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threa... by ben_w on Thursday June 11, 2020 @03:29PM (#23492489)

If piracy had zero or positive impact, a genuinely greedy publisher wouldn’t care or would actively encourage it.

When I do finally finish this thing and try to get it published, I will go though a normal publisher, because I like listening to the advice of people who’ve been though things before: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-d...

Also, no: most authors need day jobs because sales are a generally power-law distributions.

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