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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by bender »

Pakehendrix wrote: Problem with self-publication is all of those steps involved in the proofreading, redrafting, editing stages - they are critical, and usually damned expensive. I really would hate to find that authors had started skipping those steps as a cost-cutting measure...
You mean like hiring a recording engineer, producer and mastering engineer? And often even a studio?

On a semi-related note, sound often gets completely skipped in TV and video production and yet it's similarly critical to the end product. The only reason production companies here can get away with it is that the broadcasters almost never enforce their own technical standards.

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BG wrote:New release hardbacks are regularly around the 60 buck mark and yes it is extreme when you can download do less than a third.

Cheaper from mighty ape or amazon but then you're not supporting local shops right.
The last one I bought was from Whitcoulls and it was $34.95 (still about double the price of the eBook though).

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Pakehendrix »

benderissimo wrote:
Pakehendrix wrote: Problem with self-publication is all of those steps involved in the proofreading, redrafting, editing stages - they are critical, and usually damned expensive. I really would hate to find that authors had started skipping those steps as a cost-cutting measure...
You mean like hiring a recording engineer, producer and mastering engineer? And often even a studio?

On a semi-related note, sound often gets completely skipped in TV and video production and yet it's similarly critical to the end product. The only reason production companies here can get away with it is that the broadcasters almost never enforce their own technical standards.
Yep true, but as I said before - bands can make money from gigs, tours etc. a hell of a lot easier than an author can from anything of the sort. Bands can have songs picked for movies/games (Naked & Famous in FIFA 12)/ads/political campaigns etc. and keep a nice little steady income coming. I'm not saying it's easy, but I think that there's options and ideas out there. Plus bands are usually several people chipping in, so divided costs etc. where an author is almost always alone in that.

Plus there's other issues - spelling/grammar/punctuation/typesetting/printing errors are far, far more damaging to a book's reputation (and easier to spot) than imperfections in an audio recording, where particularly in rock music those things can be put down to taste and character. Self-funded bands rarely pay the megabucks for studios - those are used by bands with big labels and big money behind them.

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Bg »

Steve jobs bio 50 bucks at whitcoulls or 10 bucks from kindle....
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Vince »

Pakehendrix wrote:
Vince wrote:
Pakehendrix wrote:The thing is that with music, there are other opportunities to make money (gigs, merch). But with books, that is one person's (mostly full time) job and only real source/opportunity for income.
They could do readings.
:lol:

That was a joke, right?
No. From what I can gather, that's what a lot of people do. They write something and then they read it out in bookshops and all that. I doubt it happens much here in NZ, but they seem to do it a lot in the US.
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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Vorbis »

BG wrote:Steve jobs bio 50 bucks at whitcoulls or 10 bucks from kindle....
I'd rather pay the $50 to support Apples dwindling profits.

Seriously, there's something nice about having a physical book in you hands, rather than digital kwalitee kontent.
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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Vince »

Pakehendrix wrote: Yep true, but as I said before - bands can make money from gigs, tours etc. a hell of a lot easier than an author can from anything of the sort. Bands can have songs picked for movies/games (Naked & Famous in FIFA 12)/ads/political campaigns etc. and keep a nice little steady income coming.
And I suppose it's never occurred to anyone to adapt a novel for the movies, eh? Wouldn't THAT be clever? :shock:
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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Pakehendrix »

Yeah but how many books are adapted for a film each year?

How many songs are included in movies, ads, TV shows, campaigns?

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by bender »

Pakehendrix wrote:
benderissimo wrote:
Pakehendrix wrote: Problem with self-publication is all of those steps involved in the proofreading, redrafting, editing stages - they are critical, and usually damned expensive. I really would hate to find that authors had started skipping those steps as a cost-cutting measure...
You mean like hiring a recording engineer, producer and mastering engineer? And often even a studio?

On a semi-related note, sound often gets completely skipped in TV and video production and yet it's similarly critical to the end product. The only reason production companies here can get away with it is that the broadcasters almost never enforce their own technical standards.
Yep true, but as I said before - bands can make money from gigs, tours etc. a hell of a lot easier than an author can from anything of the sort. Bands can have songs picked for movies/games (Naked & Famous in FIFA 12)/ads/political campaigns etc. and keep a nice little steady income coming. I'm not saying it's easy, but I think that there's options and ideas out there. Plus bands are usually several people chipping in, so divided costs etc. where an author is almost always alone in that.

Plus there's other issues - spelling/grammar/punctuation/typesetting/printing errors are far, far more damaging to a book's reputation (and easier to spot) than imperfections in an audio recording, where particularly in rock music those things can be put down to taste and character. Self-funded bands rarely pay the megabucks for studios - those are used by bands with big labels and big money behind them.
I get where you're coming from there but I think you're missing the point a little bit- technology has become available and people have developed skillsets that mean they can do an adequate job on their own music or as a home business. This means that options that were only available professionally and at great expense are now accessible to virtually any band that wants to put out a recording. Not only that but whole businesses have cropped up to aid distribution. There's not really any reason the same thing couldn't happen in bookworld. In fact- I saw today that there's a free app in the Apple App Store for creating your own iBooks.

You're right about there not being the same extra financial opportunities available for writers though- although licensing in particular is becoming less lucrative for musicians than it used to be (because there is so much more out there).
Pakehendrix wrote:Yeah but how many books are adapted for a film each year?

How many songs are included in movies, ads, TV shows, campaigns?
A few.


Lots.

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Vince »

Pakehendrix wrote:Yeah but how many books are adapted for a film each year?

How many songs are included in movies, ads, TV shows, campaigns?
Sure, but I bet there's a lot more people writing a few songs than people completing an actual novel.

It's just a guess but I'd say there's probably more musicians than writers.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that you can probably find ways to supplement your income as a writer, much like bands do. Have the odd creative writing workshop. Coach students. Maybe do some copywriting (the equivalent of being in a covers band) I doubt it's easy but it's possible.
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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Pakehendrix »

I know that technology has made new things possible - but I just am curious as to what they are, and speculative as to what will happen in reality. I just think it's a really complicated issue for such an old medium.

As for book deals - that's kinda my point; if you had ten novel-to-film adaptations, a decent proportion of those are going to be established and successful authors, and those who are not are potentially likely to be ignored if their name isn't significantly attached to the film - OR it could be a massive boost to their career, but the point is, it's a miniscule number in comparison to music deals.

Being lucky/opportunistic enough to get a song licensed must surely happen to thousands of musicians and bands (established and new-ish) every year, so it's got to be a much more widespread and effective career-starter than the infinitesimal chance of a book-film deal. I know there's more musicians than authors, but I'd bet it'd be a pretty heavily decreased percentage of musicians who were actually producing polished-enough music.

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by bender »

Pakehendrix wrote:I know that technology has made new things possible - but I just am curious as to what they are, and speculative as to what will happen in reality. I just think it's a really complicated issue for such an old medium.
Technology has allowed countless bedroom "producers" to actually record and release music where once it was the domain of the pro studio. Why can't software allow a writer to correct their own grammar, typeset etc? It'll never be the same, but then generally self produced music isn't either.

Also, given the awesome spelling and grammar common in the most common source of written communication of the times, how long do you reckon it'll be before people accept it (or possibly don't even recognise it) in written publications? :mrgreen:

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Pakehendrix »

Don't even joke about that.

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by bender »

Pakehendrix wrote:Don't even joke about that.
y wud i jk abt sch srs stuff?

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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by RuBear »

I don't see why grammar/spellcheck has to be such a big deal. If you can't find two of your friends to read the whole book at a slower than normal pace then your probably going to struggle to get anyone else to read it either. That with more advanced grammar/spell checks should be able to remove the majority of mistakes. Add to that the possibility of instant updates any time in the case of digital media and I don't think there is anything to worry about.

The refining of the novel is perhaps more time consuming, though I've never written a book and not sure how much of this is done by the authors themselves.
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Re: The "Get Off My Lawn!" thread

Post by Pakehendrix »

It's a massive part of the work...don't forget that most novels take a year of pretty intensive work. Good writers will agonise over almost every word and piece of punctuation, and that's not for proofreading reasons. Spelling and grammar checks can't examine style, intentional 'mistakes' (thinking about something like Trainspotting, which would have been impossible to proof-read, and yet everything needs to be correct; or something like Room or Cloud Atlas where common/proper nouns are mixed around for effect) so it's certainly an important part.

I know things can be updated etc. (just like there are new editions and reprints and so forth) but the idea that books would be released before they were 99.99% perfect is a scary thought - wouldn't you find it distracting and annoying to come across loads of mistakes in a book? It'd be like watching a movie with lazy cuts or soundtrack blips...

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