Book People Archive

Re: Trade protectism explain in relation to cartoons.

The following message arrived with an inconsistent margination
and indicators of who said what, so please forgive me as I cut
the various portions and reply to them severally, to make sure
I do the best job possible of keeping thing clear.

Michael

[Moderator: I tried to fix up the quoting marks in the version of David's
 post that just went out to the list, though that wasn't the version that
 Michael is responding to here.  If necessary, I'll make adjustments in
 posted replies to keep the > quote marks consistent, though in this
 post Michael's already done it; thanks! - JMO]

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 Haradda@[redacted] wrote:

> In a message dated 2/2/2006 1:42:57 PM Mountain Standard Time, hart@[redacted]
> writes:>
>>
>>
>> Actually, more and more people are learning to do all this on their own,
>> through direct power via control of their computers, etc.  I gave the
>> example of Robert Rodriguez and his "Troublemaker Studios," earlier.
>> Of course, you could simply do it yourself, in any numbers, for even less.
>
>
> I think that it is true that more people are doing this on their own.
> Some may actually become quite professional.

I would like to keep the label "professional" out of such conversations,
at least as it is used in most instances.

Even though I am supposed to get paid the average professorial salary to
do my work at Project Gutenberg, most of you know that I haven't had the
paychecks coming for nearly three years now, and I haven't changed those
ways in which I do my work. . . .

The work stays the same, whether I am a "professiona" or an "amateur."

Let's also not forget that "amateur" means the person who does something
for the love if it, and I know we both do our eBook work out of love.


> When I was in business before my accident my use of computers, fax's and the 
> internet made me appear as though I was a large company. And while it is true
> you can do it yourself for less (burning DVD's).  But you are still spending 
> about 20-35 minuntes per disk to burn one.  Burning 20 DVD's takes around 10 
> hours.  Burning 100 DVD's take 50 hours. You reach a point where just from a 
> time factor it's more economical to stamp them out rather than burn them.

Or to use more than one burner.

However, I must agree, even Project Gutenberg CDs and DVDs are stamped out for
as much distribution as those provided by our volunteer burners.

However, when it comes down to it, anyone who buys the average computer today,
CAN burn CDs and DVDs, and many burn enough to mail out hundreds per month.

I'm forwarding this to a friend who does this to get more details.

He seems to do pretty well at this, judging from his monthly PG donations.


> Not to mention people think (so I've been told a few times) that paper labels
> don't look as professional as silk screen printing.  And although I haven't 
> run across it yet.

Again I must object to the word "professional."

> Burned DVD's/CD's don't have as long a lifetime as stamped DVD's/CD's.

I've heard this too, and have found that burning at half speed works well,
but, or course, that doubles the time it takes.

Will they burn as background jobs?  Or will those jobs usually crash if you
run other serious jobs?

Remember when you could assign processes certain resources?


> Some are saying as short as 2 years.  Some are claiming that stamped 
> DVD's/CD's unless the blanks are archival quality (gold leaf) have a life of 
> only 10 years.  There is even a fungus that eats the aluminum leaf of CD's 
> down in Brazil.

I make new copies of anything I use on a regular basis.

Not to mention keeping them backed up on hard drive AND optical disks/tape.

>> "Maximizes your profits," there's the rub.
>> Whatever happened to just making "a decent profit?"
>> "We owe it to our shareholders" to charge as much as we can get!
>> "You can't blame me for wanting to bring home more for my children!"
>> Sheesh!

> Actually I think that maximizing your profits is making a decent profit.

I guess "The Protestant Ethic" has gone out of fashion, but I hadn't
expected it to be as true here.

> You have to make a living wage and have enough investment capital to keep 
> going. I have never had to face shareholder's ( just partners ) so I wouldn't
> know. Partners are difficult enough which is why I have always insisted on 
> having control.

Of course what some people call a living wage is not true for others.

Remember when the new tax cuts gave huge breaks to "middle class families"
with 1/4 million dollar incomes?

And that was when 1/4 million was significantly more than it is today.


> My needs are really very simple as all my income from this 
> is spent on buying more books to scan and blanks and computer 
> equipment/scanners to keep expanding upward.  One of the reasons why I am 
> doing this is because my wife objected to my buying more books with the 
> family income.  But as long as I am making money to buy books not using 
> family income that is ok.

Well then, I guess that makes you as much of an amateur as I am!


>>> Prices set very low imply that the product is not worth very much.

>> Only in the perspectives of certain points of view.
>> When you are dying of thirst, a gallon of water is priceless.
>> Whey you are dying of hunder, a meal of anything is priceless.
>> When you have polluted all the air, fresh air is priceless.
>> How many of you are aware that there have been "fresh air stations"
>> providing a literal "breath of fresh air" in cities of millions for
>> over a decade now?
>
> This reminds me of what Mark Twain say "That a man's most precious possession
> is his last breath."

In this case, I must disagree with Mr. Twain.

My most precious possession is what I have accomplished with my life.

Personally, I consider the public domain to be the greatest of civil rights,
and perhaps someday someone will protest the loss of those civil rights with
as much vigor as the loss of our other civil rights.


> I use to give collections of ebooks to people for Christmas gifts and 
> birthday presents.  They never even used them at all.

That's a pretty sad scenario.

I do that, too, and encourage others to do it, perhaps I am just luckier.

However, this DOES significantly demonstrate one of my favorite things
concerning the entire world of eBooks:

"eBook are of little or no value to those who don't read them.
Most people would never be as impressed by an eBook collection
on the coffee table as by a `normal coffee table book.'  And a
person can't really turn around and sell your 50,000 eBooks in
the same way they could if you gave them 50,000 paper books."

The benefits of eBooks are just about solely to those who actually read.

This is just one more example of how eBooks can benefit the poorer readers
more than they benefit the rich, particularly of they don't read them.




Give the world eBooks in 2006!!!

Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg