It's true that a lot of people will tip a barista a dollar (or more) for a cup of coffee and not really bat an eyelash. But pay for a book or song or movie or photo or whatever? Hell no! That stuff should be free! As the Facebook post points out, it takes a lot longer for someone to write a book (or to create any of that other stuff) than it does for a barista to create a latte. It takes a lot longer to write a book than to bring you a meal at a restaurant, so why are you obligated to give them a big tip while complaining books should be free?
Part of it is that buying a coffee or a meal at a restaurant is a face-to-face transaction. So there's some amount of social shaming involved. If you don't tip then people might see and think you're an asshole. Not to mention what the barista or waitress/waiter will think of you. So you feel a social obligation to tip that doesn't exist with buying a book because the author isn't present--unless you're at a book signing.
Plus when you give a big tip you can feel like a big shot. Especially if you think the barista or waitress is cute you might give her a big tip so she'll like you. (Not that I ever do that.) Or to impress people with you with your largess.
You can say, well tipping is part of their wages. It's their livelihood. Duh, you think writers are writing just for the pure hell of it? Writers need money to live on too. So no, books shouldn't be free. Pirating a book or buying and then returning it makes you an even bigger asshole than not tipping. Maybe no one will see it but it's still true.
Generally though I think when it comes to non-food or drink transactions a lot of people tend to be cheap assholes. (Including me.) A while back eBay added a feature to let you allow people to make offers on items. You can set a floor, which is good because some people are complete assholes. You might have an item that retails for $200 and someone will come along and offer you $50 for it. Really? A few times someone even has the gall to message me to ask, what's the lowest you'll take for this? In other words: what's the absolute rock bottom price because I don't want to pay a penny more than I absolutely have to. It's like, hey I'm trying to make money here; it's hard to do that when you want me to give stuff away for 20% of its retail value.
It feels that way with selling books sometimes. People love free books, but paying for them? Not so much. Maybe I should sell more books in person; then people might feel more compelled to give me money.
2 comments:
I saw a reader complaining that the second book in a series wasn't free. I believe I commented saying that it takes a lot of time to write books! On the other hand, these days there are so many things trying to get a little money here and there. Apps, books, movies, video games, xbox live. On top of cable and internet bills. I just got an echo dot. A lot of the games are a subscription. If not, they have ads running. But again, I agree with you. People have to get paid for their work.
last weekend at SDCC they had promos for the new Picard series (on CBS AA) and Fox announced The Orville is moving only to Hulu...you should hear the crying and whining from people about how TV shows should be "free" and they aren't going to pay to watch shows and they already pay for cable/satellite and don't want streaming services so why do they have to miss out...the list goes on...
Sadly, people feel they are entitled to entertainment without cost these days, no matter if it's books, music, movies, TV shows....they are entitled to be entertained at someone else's expense.
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