Reply #78: oh, that's silly [View All]

[pop goes the weasel]

Non-fiction writers won't be any worse off than they are today. Non-fiction will continue to be written. They may even be better off.

The notion that googling up a reference in a book is going to deprive anyone of a sale betrays a lack of understanding of how most academic libraries are used. If I need to check a particular book for a citation, I'm sure not going to go out and buy it. If it isn't already on my shelves, I'll check the library. If it isn't there, I'll do interlibrary loan, if I have the luxury of time. But I'm not buying the book, because that book has likely been out of print for 5 years, and I don't have the luxury of waiting forever.

I can listen to a lot of music on the internet, even download single songs from albums. This is the equivalent of what Google wants to do, only making it easy to find the sources for download to begin with. Is that a bad thing, like you think? Why no. It has taken me over a month to find music from a narrow genre that I want. If I could have googled it up and listened to some selections a month ago, I'd have those CD sitting in my reference library right now. I would similarly pay for the right to download the aformentioned out-of-print book, if I had the chance to preview it.

Really, you have a chance at new ways of making money, and your greed and fear is getting in the way.