As with so much other reporting about the ebook market, you have to <\/p>\n
wonder how they’re defining "books" and "the market", especially when <\/p>\n
they are trying to do statistics without good numbers on paperbacks. Are <\/p>\n
they counting textbooks, professional books, children’s books, and so <\/p>\n
on? Are they counting the sales of ebooks in the 10,000- to 30,000 word <\/p>\n
format, which essentially are not published in paper format? <\/p>\n
Sales growth has to slow down as ebooks gain share of market — it’s a <\/p>\n
lot easier to double market share when you start at 1% than when you <\/p>\n
start at 20%. I’m starting to hear of people who have gone back to paper <\/p>\n
after buying or being given an ereader.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
My own experience is that backlist sales in eBook format are growing a lot less slowly than 40%, but they are growing; backlists have become an important part of an author\u2019s income, and almost all backlist sales are in eBook format now. Obviously used print book sales bring to income to an author.<\/p>\n
A discussion in another conference brought this to my attention. Charles Murray, one sociologist I have great respect for, has published in National Review On Line an important essay on the decline of rational discussion, along with an appeal to all readers to make an effort to do more of it. He reminds us of the important American intellectual tradition of defending the right to say the unpopular, as portrayed in great films such as Inherit the Wind, and how the American Civil Liberties Union defended the right of the Nazi Party to march through a Jewish section of Chicago, and he says:<\/p>\n Few remnants of those American themes survive. We too seldom engage our adversaries\u2019 arguments in good faith. Often, we don\u2019t even bother to find out what they are, attacking instead what we want them to be. When we don\u2019t like what someone else thinks, we troll the Internet relentlessly until we find something with which to destroy that person professionally or personally \u2014 one is as good as the other. Hollywood still does films about lonely voices standing up against evil corporations or racist sheriffs, but never about lonely voices standing up against intellectual orthodoxy.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sick of it. I also have no idea how to fix it. But we can light candles. Here is what I undertake to do, and I invite you to join me: Look for opportunities to praise people with whom you disagree but who have made an argument that deserves to be taken seriously. Look for opportunities to criticize allies who have used crimethink tactics against your adversaries. Identify yourself not just with those who agree with you, but with all those who stand for something and play fair.<\/p>\n In Defense of Jason Richwine<\/a> By Charles Murray<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/348323\/defense-jason-richwine\/page\/0\/1<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He does this in defense of Jason Richwine in a matter of considerable concern that we will address another time; it\u2019s part of the long time controversy about IQ, race, Nature and Nurture, and other such complicated matters, and that\u2019s all important and must be discussed; but Murray\u2019s appeal hit me just as I had finished reading a defense of the Cincinnati IRS agents involved in the tax exemption application scandal. We\u2019ll get to that in the next section.<\/p>\n Yesterday\u2019s Los Angeles Times had story \u201cScandal born of vague IRS laws\u201d by Matea Gold that present the IRS side of the tax scandal. There had been an enormous increase in applications for tax exempt status of semi-political organizations, and there had never been any rules established for how to deal with them.<\/p>\n At the heart of the issue is the murky role occupied by nonprofit "social welfare" organizations, set up under Section 501(c)4 of the tax code, which are allowed under IRS regulations to engage in a certain amount of campaign activity, as long as politics is not their "primary" purpose. The groups pay no tax on the money they bring in. They can accept unlimited donations and, unlike political committees, can keep their contributors secret.<\/p>\n That status became especially valuable three years ago with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case, which lifted the ban on direct campaign spending by corporations, including many nonprofit groups. The ruling triggered the boost of applicants to the IRS.<\/p>\n The stepped-up role of tax-exempt groups in politics has stymied the Federal Election Commission<\/a>, which has deadlocked on questions about how much disclosure is required of advocacy organizations that engage in elections.<\/p>\n That has left much of their regulation in the hands of the IRS, which has never clearly defined how much political activity is allowed for social welfare organizations.<\/p>\n Faced with hundreds of applications, the civil service bureaucrats sought to find a formula to winnow out the easy cases with were unambiguously within the intent of the law, and the political organizations seeking tax exempt status for what were, in effect, political advocates. They came up with a formula, \u201ctea party\u201d which identified the political advocates, and those got set aside, and<\/p>\n The problem with this is that while every word is true, the words \u201csocial responsibility\u201d or \u201cprogressive\u201d would generally get the same results, and those weren\u2019t used. It wasn\u2019t that there were rules applied that made no sense: they made all too much sense in a time sensitive situation. I\u2019m perfectly willing to listen to the IRS arguments but I don\u2019t have to believe them. Oh, I can believe there are those who never thought about \u201csocial responsibility\u201d advocates as political advocates. But that is yet another argument.<\/p>\n What needs debating is just how much tax exemption there ought to be for political advocates?<\/p>\n View 774 Friday, May 17, 2013 E-book sales are up 43%, but that’s still a ‘slowdown’ After three years of triple-digit increases, the number of e-books sold last year grew by only 43%. And that’s enough of a difference in the annual growth rate to have publishers talking about an \u2026 Continue reading ![\"clip_image002\"](\"http:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/clip_image00240.gif\" "\\"clip_image002\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
His resignation is emblematic of a corruption that has spread throughout American intellectual discourse. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"