cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/questions/p/1330162/why-do-american-authors-who-advocate-for-noble-causes-keep-their-books-behind-paywalls-i
That one thing that keeps puzzling me.
it feels weird when an American author keep giving media interviews talking about the cause they are advocating for and keep referencing their paywalled book.
Why do they not at least release the book for free after say a certain period(say 3 months) to advance their cause beyond their existence.
I had seen this phenomenon with American politicians, people important in technology and even feminists and social advocates.
Why?
Maybe authors want to eat or something. I heard eating is a thing now.
I’m puzzled that you think this is a uniquely American phenomenon. But to answer the rest of the question:
Most of these people are probably spending time on their causes that they’d otherwise spend working. Their need/desire for money didn’t suddenly go away.
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Politicians need campaign money
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Important figures in tech pretty much always want as much money as possible, whatever else they claim; that’s part of why they do what they do
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A lot of feminists and social advocates probably need the money for their living expenses
Also, this plays into the norms of book publishing. People sometimes value things they pay for more. I tend to assume free books that aren’t classics are worse books, because in my experience, they often are. Traditional publishers usually won’t allow the book to be free (because they’re not charities, even if the book is about a cause), and self-published works have extremely variable quality.
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We need to ban questions from people bad at thinking
Probably because they want to make money.
Same reason you (and/or others) ostensibly preach the same/similar noble causes online, but you don’t refuse a paycheck either: you have bills to pay. So do they.
They like to eat and pay bills.
is this a strictly American thing or just a people who write books for a living thing?
money, duh…
Get a library card, beep.
“library card” doesn’t magically make me get all the books that I want.
I currently just follow MIT open books and DOAB for interesting books.
Money does. Congratulations, you now understand why everybody needs to get paid.
Not just a 'Murica thing, people write extensive literature of many types and ask for money. Some take a strict buy-then-read, some do more akin to the usual open source model of give and ask later.
I rather like the approach of give, ask for donations, and then also sell some physical special version in nice bindings or similar.
This is true, but it really is left up to the author because sometimes the writing of the material itself could take a multitude of years. Why do you think AI companies want to steal all of it rather than support those who actually create? It’s hard to make and takes a long time.
It is, but being one who grew up when the OG Napster was a thing I came to look at intangible things in a different way. Replication of data is inevitable, people have been doing it since we first learned to communicate, so trying to perpetually fight it ends up just causing people on both sides grief in the end.
One of the first I recall to use the model I mentioned was Nine Inch Nails and the ‘Ghosts’ album, a novel concept at the time that seems to have been a lot more accepted in recent years.
You think they are a good writer and should continue to write. Doing so full time only works if they can monetize it. If they have some primary source of major income, sure I guess. But if writing is how they feed their family, that’s just the way it goes. My plumber is a bit of a socialist philosopher, doesn’t mean he comes and does all the work for free.
Because we all toil under capitalism, and are forced to use money to survive.
