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995 Posts
I think people buy new books because they like to hear the spine creak and smell the pages, etc, they don't like other people's dirty throwaways, and/or they might want to be "one of the first" to read something. Other people don't care about that stuff and buy used books because they can save money, sometimes a lot. By making "used" ebooks, they are removing 2/3 of the reasons why people would be willing to buy a new book (at new book prices). So the only people who will be able to sell at new book prices will be highly established authors with rabid fans waiting to buy whatever they put out next the moment it is available (or even put up for pre-release months in advance as they do now). The unknowns, like a lot of us here, will not have that clamoring horde climbing the digital fences to pay new book prices, so instead, we'll have to give our work away until we can build a clamoring horde. I realize that at 99 cents and obviously the free lists, many of us already give our stories away, so perhaps nothing changes there. But if people can get your book for free, and then they can give it away to others, you're not even going to get download credits. So, to my mind, this means, essentially, the number of indies making a living from selling books will plummet right back to where it was before this little Gold Rush began. Which, I suppose, was inevitable, but still...
