you don't have to buy ebooks from amazon. this might amaze you.RTHKI wrote:
Get laughed at for buying ebooks or get yelled at for pirating them
fatuous take. small capital can still be conscientiously structured and part of a community circulation. small capital can still pay tax. i doubt mom + pops stores are evading tax on quite the scale that an amazon monolith is. i doubt your local bookstore is pushing its workers like amazon rinses its warehouse drones.SuperJail Warden wrote:
I know small book shop owners aren't really the vampiric Republican middlemen that make up the small business owner stereotype that lives in the nightmares of liberals. But I am just going to throw out the fact that small business owners are still capitalist and supporting small capital is no more a virtue than supporting big capital. Big capital started as small capital after all.
'but omg all exchange of goods for profit is CaPitAliSm'.
as for 'big capital started as small capital': well, yes and no. i doubt many local bookstores had angel investors or seed funding from silicon valley. none of them had a 5 year business plan involving 2nd and 3rd rounds of fundraisings and capital injection to the tune of a couple dozen or hundred million $. lots of small store-owners have no desire to scale up to a national franchise.
bad take.
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-20 13:20:09)
I don't see the connection here.
What am I celebrating? I'm stating fact. It's like pushing water up a hill - circular economics is great but it will require some innovative policy and/or tech work to save small neighbourhood businesses from being drowned out by the forces of global economics.
What am I celebrating? I'm stating fact. It's like pushing water up a hill - circular economics is great but it will require some innovative policy and/or tech work to save small neighbourhood businesses from being drowned out by the forces of global economics.
i really cannot be bothered to get into a discussion of the economics of the book trade or the arguments for buying local.
suffice to say for a fractional increase of cost - and none of us here are in a precarious position - you can consume conscientiously to the benefit of your community, peers, the producers of said content and, ultimately, the planet.
or keep talking fatalistically about 'global capitalism'. just don't act surprised when your local town has nothing except betting shops and homeless sleepers.
also the way you talk about going to independent book stores (or record stores or whatever else) honestly just bespeaks a rather dire and unimaginative lifestyle on your behalf. attempting to pillory people who go into small independent bookstores as 'only ordering the finest artisanal goods from france' is just the biggest self-diss on yourself, ultimately. what a sad bastard you must be. regular, ordinary people go into local stores. it's a totally normal thing to do on a routine basis. you find good and interesting stuff; you get talking to people from your community, connect to local events, discover new places, etc.
chapter #1351 in Larssen: A Normie's Life. jesus fucking christ. imagine looking at bookstores and thinking they're for elitists or snobs.
suffice to say for a fractional increase of cost - and none of us here are in a precarious position - you can consume conscientiously to the benefit of your community, peers, the producers of said content and, ultimately, the planet.
or keep talking fatalistically about 'global capitalism'. just don't act surprised when your local town has nothing except betting shops and homeless sleepers.
also the way you talk about going to independent book stores (or record stores or whatever else) honestly just bespeaks a rather dire and unimaginative lifestyle on your behalf. attempting to pillory people who go into small independent bookstores as 'only ordering the finest artisanal goods from france' is just the biggest self-diss on yourself, ultimately. what a sad bastard you must be. regular, ordinary people go into local stores. it's a totally normal thing to do on a routine basis. you find good and interesting stuff; you get talking to people from your community, connect to local events, discover new places, etc.
chapter #1351 in Larssen: A Normie's Life. jesus fucking christ. imagine looking at bookstores and thinking they're for elitists or snobs.
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-20 13:44:20)
Do you do all that walking in your expensive and exceptional shoes though?uziq wrote:
those shoes are really not expensive or exceptional. i feel bad for you, honestly.
there's about 4-5 independent bookstores within 10 minutes' walking distance of my apartment. .
Fuck Israel
It would be interesting to know why my local bookstore went after google and not amazon.
Fuck Israel
i do indeed walk around town in my natty and really rather reasonably priced shoes. from time to time i even polish them.
desert boots in summer though. wait til you find out how much they cost!
every saturday there's even a local market with loads of books!
desert boots in summer though. wait til you find out how much they cost!
every saturday there's even a local market with loads of books!
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-20 13:45:46)
Your persona is more sad bastard than I've ever been uziq, jesus fucking christ. The fact in itself that you can get so irrationally angry at someone poking fun at your inclination towards pretentious behaviour, come now.uziq wrote:
i really cannot be bothered to get into a discussion of the economics of the book trade or the arguments for buying local.
suffice to say for a fractional increase of cost - and none of us here are in a precarious position - you can consume conscientiously to the benefit of your community, peers, the producers of said content and, ultimately, the planet.
or keep talking fatalistically about 'global capitalism'. just don't act surprised when your local town has nothing except betting shops and homeless sleepers.
also the way you talk about going to independent book stores (or record stores or whatever else) honestly just bespeaks a rather dire and unimaginative lifestyle on your behalf. attempting to pillory people who go into small independent bookstores as 'only ordering the finest artisanal goods from france' is just the biggest self-diss on yourself, ultimately. what a sad bastard you must be. regular, ordinary people go into local stores. it's a totally normal thing to do on a routine basis. you find good and interesting stuff; you get talking to people from your community, connect to local events, discover new places, etc.
chapter #1351 in Larssen: A Normie's Life. jesus fucking christ. imagine looking at bookstores and thinking they're for elitists or snobs.
'irrationally angry', haha. you must be confused.
i am very unperturbed and blessedly happy in my shopping habits. the fact you find going to local bookstores some 'noteworthy' aspect of one's lifestyle is really rather sad. it's not only hipsters and cognoscenti at bookstores, larssen. you really will find all sorts -- even a dilbert, for instance, from time to time.
i am very unperturbed and blessedly happy in my shopping habits. the fact you find going to local bookstores some 'noteworthy' aspect of one's lifestyle is really rather sad. it's not only hipsters and cognoscenti at bookstores, larssen. you really will find all sorts -- even a dilbert, for instance, from time to time.
stop trying to normalise yourself uziq, you're no normie like us. Normal bookstores cannot do.
insofar as i don't live in a tiny ex-logging town in the pacific north-west full of opiated grunge rockers, with only one national chain bookstore within 25km, no i am not a 'normie'. but most people who live in towns or cities have independent stores.
the idea of going to a chain bookstore in somewhere like paris or london is almost funny. they only even seem to appear at major train stations or on 'main street'. many cities have independent bookstores. you hardly have to be a self-important interlecktual to go to them. amazing, isn't it!
the idea of going to a chain bookstore in somewhere like paris or london is almost funny. they only even seem to appear at major train stations or on 'main street'. many cities have independent bookstores. you hardly have to be a self-important interlecktual to go to them. amazing, isn't it!
Just accept that everything you do is wrong.Larssen wrote:
stop trying to normalise yourself uziq, you're no normie like us. Normal bookstores cannot do.
Fuck Israel
there is at the very least significant room for improvement tbqh.
i know ive bought from other placesuziq wrote:
you don't have to buy ebooks from amazon. this might amaze you.RTHKI wrote:
Get laughed at for buying ebooks or get yelled at for pirating them
mac made a joke about it in his cuck phase
I miss mac the cuck whisperer. Like seeing a rose grow out of concrete.
Logging, haha. Fur traders actually. The area had been conquered from the Indians by the British. Another wonderland for hunters and trappers, operated out of by Hudson's Bay Company. And yes I bought the local history book from B&N. It would probably be unfair to reduce your town merely to ex mud farmers and savage tribes, so I'm not going to stoop to that.uziq wrote:
insofar as i don't live in a tiny ex-logging town in the pacific north-west full of opiated grunge rockers, with only one national chain bookstore within 25km, no i am not a 'normie'. but most people who live in towns or cities have independent stores.
the idea of going to a chain bookstore in somewhere like paris or london is almost funny. they only even seem to appear at major train stations or on 'main street'. many cities have independent bookstores. you hardly have to be a self-important interlecktual to go to them. amazing, isn't it!
I'm still waiting for the novelization.KEN-JENNINGS wrote:
I miss mac the cuck whisperer. Like seeing a rose grow out of concrete.
Think druids, moonlight orgies and pagan sacrificesunnamednewbie13 wrote:
It would probably be unfair to reduce your town merely to ex mud farmers and savage tribes
Fuck Israel
i'm not from glastonbury, calm down. my hometown is a bit more jane austen than that.
i'm actually re-reading a book that is pretty relevant to this discussion.
haven't read it since my student days but i was always very taken with, and sympathetic to, cultural materialism of the birmingham variety (raymond williams, richard hoggart, stuart hall et al).
haven't read it since my student days but i was always very taken with, and sympathetic to, cultural materialism of the birmingham variety (raymond williams, richard hoggart, stuart hall et al).
In The Country and the City, Raymond Williams analyzes images of the country and the city in English literature since the 16th century, and how these images become central symbols for conceptualizing the social and economic changes associated with capitalist development in England. Williams debunks the notion of rural life as simple, natural, and unadulterated, leaving an image of the country as a Golden age. This is, according to Williams, “a myth functioning as a memory” that dissimulates class conflict, enmity, and animosity present in the country since the 16th century. Williams shows how this imagery is embedded in the writings of English poets, novelists and essayists. These writers have not just reproduced the rural-urban divide, but their works have also served to justify the existing social order. The city, on the other hand, is depicted in English novels as a symbol of capitalist production, labor, domicile, and exploitation, where it is seen as the “dark mirror” of the country. The country represented Eden while the city became the hub of modernity, a quintessential place of loneliness and loss of romanticism. In the novels of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, there seems to be a feeling of loss, and at the same time a sense of harmony among the lonely and isolated souls.
For Williams, “the contrast of the country and city is one of the major forms in which we become conscious of a central part of our experience and of the crises of our society”. What kinds of experience do the ideas appear to interpret, and why do certain forms occur or recur at this period or at that? To answer these questions, Williams argues that “we need to trace, historically and critically, the various forms of the ideas”. It is this historical perspective that makes Williams's work essentially important for it rejects a simple, dualistic explanation of the city as evil in search of peace and harmony in the countryside. Instead, Williams sees the country as inextricably related to the city. In search of the historical, lived form, Williams distinguishes two of his best-known categories: “knowable communities” and the “structure of feeling.” Over the centuries, Williams describes the prevailing structure of feeling—traces of the lived experience of a community distinct from the institutional and ideological organization of the society—in the works of poets and novelists.
In the same vein, Williams sees most novels as “knowable communities” in the sense that the “novelist offers to show people and their relationships in essentially knowable and communicable ways”. In sum, Williams notably said: “It was always a limited inquiry: the country and the city within a single tradition. But it has brought me to the point where I can offer its meanings, its implications and its connections to others: for discussion and amendment; for many kinds of possible cooperative work; but above all for an emphasis—the sense of an experience and of ways of changing it—in the many countries and cities where we live”
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-21 02:36:29)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +640|3935
Why must textbooks be so expensive?
I saw a banner ad at the top of the Amazon page that reminded me I can save up to 90% by renting a textbook. That is when it dawned on me that the textbook system is just like Microsoft Office and Adobe software. Textbook makers don't want to actually sell you a textbook the same way Adobe and Microsoft don't want to sell you permeant licenses. All three of them rather have you rent a service for all of eternity. Amazon probably makes more money renting the textbook to me than it would make actually selling me a copy of it.
I saw a banner ad at the top of the Amazon page that reminded me I can save up to 90% by renting a textbook. That is when it dawned on me that the textbook system is just like Microsoft Office and Adobe software. Textbook makers don't want to actually sell you a textbook the same way Adobe and Microsoft don't want to sell you permeant licenses. All three of them rather have you rent a service for all of eternity. Amazon probably makes more money renting the textbook to me than it would make actually selling me a copy of it.
putting textbooks through annual revisions and making it a course requirement to have the latest edition is a racket, yes.
quite a high part of the cost is just the simple economics of it. believe it or not, academics command quite high royalties on textbooks, relative to other types of book or publication. if you want the world's best academics and foremost authorities on a subject to sit and write a textbook, which is by all accounts a rather laborious and otherwise thankless task (i.e. it does not confer academic prizes, research grants, or career advancement), then you have to remunerate them.
turns out the best-suited people to write textbooks are very, very busy people and value their time per/hour quite highly.
the other part of it is that they aren't produced in very high print runs. this goes for textbooks and specialized academic books of any kind. in any given year you're only going to have a few thousand sales, at most, and all of those will either be undergraduates forced to buy them due to course reading requirements or university libraries acquiring reference copies. nobody is selling 20,000 copies of a textbook. so the individual cost goes up very quickly.
you can see the same thing in principle when you look at the lists for any respectable university press, e.g. stanford's or yale's. a book will frequently cost $60 or $100. the reason isn't because 'publishers are evil': it's because your book on the history of feminism in post-revolution haiti is going to sell about 316 copies in 5 years. most of them are a specialism within a niche within a micro-genre of a subject. these things are brought to press for the 'betterment of knowledge' and 'their contribution', not for lucrative commercial reaasons; the tacit operating principle of the whole industry is that high prices will mostly be soaked up by university library acquisition budgets (more often than not the main customers).
e: i edit and work on monographs and book-length academic texts, not textbooks, before you do a jay and accuse me of being part of the 'textbook mafia' and a 'joke career'.
quite a high part of the cost is just the simple economics of it. believe it or not, academics command quite high royalties on textbooks, relative to other types of book or publication. if you want the world's best academics and foremost authorities on a subject to sit and write a textbook, which is by all accounts a rather laborious and otherwise thankless task (i.e. it does not confer academic prizes, research grants, or career advancement), then you have to remunerate them.
turns out the best-suited people to write textbooks are very, very busy people and value their time per/hour quite highly.
the other part of it is that they aren't produced in very high print runs. this goes for textbooks and specialized academic books of any kind. in any given year you're only going to have a few thousand sales, at most, and all of those will either be undergraduates forced to buy them due to course reading requirements or university libraries acquiring reference copies. nobody is selling 20,000 copies of a textbook. so the individual cost goes up very quickly.
you can see the same thing in principle when you look at the lists for any respectable university press, e.g. stanford's or yale's. a book will frequently cost $60 or $100. the reason isn't because 'publishers are evil': it's because your book on the history of feminism in post-revolution haiti is going to sell about 316 copies in 5 years. most of them are a specialism within a niche within a micro-genre of a subject. these things are brought to press for the 'betterment of knowledge' and 'their contribution', not for lucrative commercial reaasons; the tacit operating principle of the whole industry is that high prices will mostly be soaked up by university library acquisition budgets (more often than not the main customers).
e: i edit and work on monographs and book-length academic texts, not textbooks, before you do a jay and accuse me of being part of the 'textbook mafia' and a 'joke career'.
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-21 09:08:57)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +640|3935
That all makes sense. I really like university press history books. It feels like a real accomplishment when you finish a 1000 page history book from Yale University Press.
I have a follow up question though: Why did you join the textbook international narco-terrorist cartel? Why couldn't you get a real job?
I have a follow up question though: Why did you join the textbook international narco-terrorist cartel? Why couldn't you get a real job?
in all seriousness i did move to academic publishing because it pays more money than traditional book publishing.
'trade' books, i.e. books you'd buy in a bookstore or from amazon (ha), have extremely thin margins. it's an open marketplace and there are a great many of them. the publishing industry has been whittled down by successive gains from the likes of amazon; publishers actually have an asymmetrical relationship with wholesalers and retailers, who reserve the right (in the UK and EU) to return unsold books for a full refund. all of the risk, and consequent losses, are on the publisher.
another aspect is that everybody wants to be in book publishing. a lot of over-educated, idealistic young people dream of moving to NYC or london or some other publishing hub to be an editor at a glamorous publishing house. the industry dines out on that image of social prestige and 'glamour', even if it is sometimes a bit 1950s and out of date. wages are radically depressed across the board. an editor even at a main publishing house will survive on a pauper's wages if they're in NYC. you get paid in social kudos, not in money. and for every person nearing 30 who starts to worry about long-term financial stability, there's another cohort of fresh young Vassar grads or whatever other hyper-qualified route is the norm in america (normally private liberal arts college, big research grad school, 3 different unpaid internships ...).
i have no regrets about moving to academic publishing, though book publishing is undoubtedly more fun and 'trad'. going for lunches with authors and quaffing wine at book launches is very, very fun, and if you're a book lover it really doesn't feel like a job sometimes.
i also wanted some freedom (and money, which is perhaps the same thing) to think about my own writing and PhD research. my head was full of non-fiction books junk when i was working on it full-time and my appetite/ability to further my own intellectual interests was basically nil. i was worried about money more than i wanted to be and burnt out from reading manuscripts and proofs for 40 hours a week.
please, sir, a penny for your thoughts.
'trade' books, i.e. books you'd buy in a bookstore or from amazon (ha), have extremely thin margins. it's an open marketplace and there are a great many of them. the publishing industry has been whittled down by successive gains from the likes of amazon; publishers actually have an asymmetrical relationship with wholesalers and retailers, who reserve the right (in the UK and EU) to return unsold books for a full refund. all of the risk, and consequent losses, are on the publisher.
another aspect is that everybody wants to be in book publishing. a lot of over-educated, idealistic young people dream of moving to NYC or london or some other publishing hub to be an editor at a glamorous publishing house. the industry dines out on that image of social prestige and 'glamour', even if it is sometimes a bit 1950s and out of date. wages are radically depressed across the board. an editor even at a main publishing house will survive on a pauper's wages if they're in NYC. you get paid in social kudos, not in money. and for every person nearing 30 who starts to worry about long-term financial stability, there's another cohort of fresh young Vassar grads or whatever other hyper-qualified route is the norm in america (normally private liberal arts college, big research grad school, 3 different unpaid internships ...).
i have no regrets about moving to academic publishing, though book publishing is undoubtedly more fun and 'trad'. going for lunches with authors and quaffing wine at book launches is very, very fun, and if you're a book lover it really doesn't feel like a job sometimes.
i also wanted some freedom (and money, which is perhaps the same thing) to think about my own writing and PhD research. my head was full of non-fiction books junk when i was working on it full-time and my appetite/ability to further my own intellectual interests was basically nil. i was worried about money more than i wanted to be and burnt out from reading manuscripts and proofs for 40 hours a week.
please, sir, a penny for your thoughts.
Textbook Big Textbook answer. Look in the back pages, Mac. They usually have the odd-numbered answers there.