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Comment by chmod775 | Hacker News Reader

I'd rather donate money directly to the author. I will not under any circumstance still reward Amazon for what they're doing.

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You could support your local bookstore. Bookstores are closing down all over the world. Most authors do not support a way to pay them directly. For example, traditionally published authors have all of their royalties handled via their agents. For a non-trivial amount of sales, direct donation would be an accounting headache for individual writers.

> Most authors do not support a way to pay them directly.

I think this is the problem that should be addressed.

Musicians went through a similar process in reverse order: first Napster ("piracy") then streaming services (analogous to Kindle/Amazon, where a huge 3rd party inserts themselves between content creator & consumer). Eventually some musicians twigged that they were getting screwed every way, so they set up ways for fans to pay them directly or via a less money-hungry intermediary (e.g. Bandcamp).

Not a perfect solution by any means, but if book authors feel their situation is bad enough, they could look into how musicians are dealing with it.

I'm probably not alone in thinking I'd far rather pay an author directly than Amazon or book publishers.

"Bookcamp", anyone?

Bandcamp is a great site

As with music, the final product you consume involves a lot more work/expertise/people than just “writing it“. You can see the quality differences when you compare self-published print on demand to quality publishing.

Naturally. And the editors, typesetters, designers, proof readers, etc. should get paid for their work. It is just a question of ownership and power imbalance. The problem with the current mainstream system (both in books and music) is that the publisher often effectively owns the work - not the author.

I've read reports that, thanks to TikTok, the number of bookstores is now increasing rather than decreasing. At least in the US.

You would never do that, and nobody is falling for it.

It's not that uncommon for people to pay small donations to free releases on Bandcamp and similar sites where you can set your own amount. Most won't do it, but there's clearly a subset of consumers who do, or this business strategy wouldn't exist.

Personally I have no issue paying for books and other media as it's not the price keeping me away. My issue is that any amount of that money going to providers that are pushing this DRM locked content, which I will absolutely under no circumstances support, no matter how cheap.

You're projecting. On my PayPal account alone there's ~1k worth of various donations to things I support just in the past year. Maybe half is individuals.

Giving money so a good thing you enjoy can continue existing really isn't a concept that's completely out there for most people. There's a thriving ecosystem of platforms for funding/tipping/donating.

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