NetFlix Model

The big difference I can see right off the bat is that movies are not made with Netflix in mind. They make all their money in theaters. Can you imagine the quality of movies if instead of direct-to-video, they were going direct-to-my-instantwatch-queue? Somebody has to write the books, you know, and nobody'll do it for free, not if they're gonna be any good anyway.

At first I thought "No way", but the model is very little different from what we have now, and have had for a long time, in the local lending library.

You pay a subscription fee, often very small, and you have the ability to withdraw X many books at a time for Y period and there's a minuscule penalty if you keep the book a few days over the subscription period.

Netflix already does this.

It's a lending library method. Nothing new to it at all.

There's a webfiction site attempting to do something like this called fluffy-seme. But they seem to be out of commission currently. I wanted to link to it here.

Borders or Sony or someone sent a survey out a while ago floating this idea and asking how much people would be willing to pay for a prospective ebook rental service.

Since I read 2-3 books a month, on average, for such a service to be worth it to me the monthly fee would have to be significantly cheaper than the cost of buying 2-3 ebooks.

Michaelg said:

Well you just killed my thought. If the model is the same as the local library I don't think I am interested. I have never understood why anyone would want their book in a library. They lend it out over and over and the author receives nothing in way of compensation.

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The author's book is purchased by the library. And some countries (though not the U.S.) do pay a small fee each time a book is checked out.

More importantly, your book is made available to people who probably wouldn't have bought it, but if they like it, will probably buy and recommend your books for years to come.

I just can't even comprehend writers who froth against libraries. I know they exist, but the short-sightedness is mind-boggling.

Michaelg--Maybe Amadan was reacting less to your comment than to an overall sentiment he's heard expressed by many writers and that he assumed you fit into.

On the other hand, from the tenor of these two posts, it does seem like you're quite concerned with getting things for your writing. You make it sound as if you're only posting on this forum because you want your book critiqued, and you'd only want a reader if he or she paid for your work. That's a valid stance to take, but I am the kind of author who'd rather have a reader who read for free than no readers at all and who enjoys participating in forums whether I get free critiques or not.

Back on topic--I do think the subscription model could work well for fiction. After all, books are a lot like movies in the sense that people often only want to read them once. But I'm not sure if it will ever come about, mostly because of libraries. I think people have the sense that they should be able to borrow books for free, unlike movies.

However, I'd probably pay a nominal fee for access to tens of thousands of ebooks. The trick is getting the tens of thousands of ebooks. It's a nifty idea and all, but I feel like it's out of my hands. If I ever got the option to opt my books into something like that on Amazon, I would. But I have no control over whether Amazon would create something like that, and I wouldn't necessarily want to be part of something that only listed a bunch of books that's no one's ever heard of--like mine.

Michaelg said:

Ouch, I said I didn't understand it so educate me. Short-sighted? Kinda harsh. I am here to open my mind to something new to me. Give me a break.

I wrote a book, my first, that I would like to have critiqued but I can't till I have 50 posts. That's not my rule but I have to post when I would rather be quiet and read. I am doing the best I can so if you don't like my short-sighted frothing, bite a wall.

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I did in my response. Library borrowers become book buyers. Have you ever known someone who frequents libraries who doesn't also buy more books than the average person? Libraries = free marketing. Seeing each loan of your book at a library as a lost sale is fallacious, first because most of those people wouldn't have bought your book if it weren't at the library (they are borrowing your book either because they don't know you but your book interested them or because they can't afford to or don't want to buy your book) and second because there's a good chance that if they read your book and like it, that will result in them buying a book of yours at some point in the future, and/or recommending you to others.

Also, libraries buy books.

Libraries are a good thing for authors.

Of course, a lot of libraries also offer ebooks now. My local one does (I just need to find my library 'PIN'). There's been a lot of debate recently about Harper Collins wanting to limit ebooks to 26 loans. They're also convinced that libraries + ebooks = loss of revenue. Of course, there's not going to be many libraries left in this country soon...