Lynn Bodoni said:
Either you read much shorter books, or read much faster. Back when I could devote time to pure reading, it would take 6 or 8 hours to read through a typical book - longer as the standard book size grew to 500 and 600 pages.
Reading maybe a chapter a night, and not reading every night because of schedule issues, it can take a couple weeks to complete.
Books are definitely a bigger time commitment than movies.
Even for those movies that are delayed this way, this is a voluntary agreement on Netflix’s part. In exchange, they get more movies available to watch online, or better prices, or something. I don’t really think you can say that it was forced on them.
If Netflix didn’t go along with it, there’s nothing that the studios could do to enforce it. Netflix could go to Walmart and buy DVDs just like the library can.
Does anyone know if Netflix is a sustainable model? The number of movies we watch, divided by the $8 per month my mother-in-law pays them (Xmas gift), divided by 2 for me and my wife both watching, must be, like, fuckin’ nothin.
The answer depends on the average time a movie spends at a home. Those who lose movies and don’t return them for weeks are in a sense subsidizing those who turn them over in a day. The brilliance of the Netflix model is that the late fee is hidden in the subscription fee, and so thus seems to be 0 to the consumer.
The second advantage of the Netlfix model is that they can match stock to demand better than a video store, since each mailing center covers a lot more people.
The third advantage is that with Netflix you are always renting. If you return a DVD to Blockbuster and don’t rent another, they get no revenue. If you return a DVD to Netflix and go on vacation for a short enough time that it isn’t worth pausing your subscription, they still get money.
Their EPS is $1.98 (Yahoo page) so they seem to be doing ok.
:smack:
Several (plural) movie studios are attempting to block Redbox from renting their DVDs in the first month of release. This is a policy that has emerged during an ongoing contract. Since those studios have refused to supply wholesale to Redbox when they supply to outlets that sell them, Redbox has taken them to court. Redbox reached an agreement with Warner, and they have made similar agreements with Sony, Lionsgate, and Paramount. They have not reached an agreement with Fox or Universal.
Which is why Redbox is currently stocking movies within that 28-day window for other studios. It just means they pay about 90% more for each disk because they pay retail. The economics dictate that RedBox will have to capitulate rather quickly. Their margins are razor thin, and they’ll bleed market share if they drop titles altogether.
This is an interesting article on how the post office problems may mess up Netflix. They are concerned about the how getting rid of Saturday delivery and future increases in post rates my effect Netflix.
It also mentions that Netflix made a profit of $116 million last year with 12 million subscribers, so they aren’t making a huge profit per customer. I was shocked at the license fees they pay for streaming content. I wonder what the 30 Rock marathon I did a few weeks ago cost them?
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2010/03/29/delivering-movies-slow-motion?page=0,1
In some states, Wisconsin for example, it is illegal to rent CDs. New or used, CDs must be sold, not rented. The idea was to discourage copyright infringement. But shops get around the law by selling used CDs, and then later buying them back from the customer.
Like many government-funded functions, municipal libraries may not have funds available for immediate purchase of the latest titles. Someone picks out the desired books/DVDs/CDs, etc., and puts them in a list to be allocated in the next budget. Not the best way to keep up with a fast-changing market.
I don’t know if what you are saying is fact, but in Wisconsin it’s not illegal for libraries to lend CDs. And once you get them home, there’s nothing preventing you from making a copy.
So if that’s a law, it’s a stupid, short-sighted one and easily circumvented.
Neither you nor I have the numbers to show whether such a law has curtailed the volume of copyright infringement. For all we know, it may have made a significant difference in the volume of illegal CD copying. Libraries may not carry the CDs that people want to copy, and if they do there may be a long waiting list to get the desirable ones. Libraries tend to carry mainstream titles, and are slow to acquire CDs by new or obscure artists or from independent labels.
So, unless you have figures to show, calling the law “stupid” and “short-sighted” is an opinion unsupported by fact.
Cite for 90%? Retail on DVDs is around $20 when they first come out. You’re claiming that the studios sell Netflix/Redbox DVDs for $2 as long as long as they’ll agree to hold off for 4 weeks.
Keeping in mind that Redbox/Netflix are buying in bulk, not a piddlin’ DVD or two, but hundreds of copies, yeah, I can see $2 a copy.
Bulk saves packaging, and transfers shipping and handling from the DVD producer to the DVD distributor. Studios spend less per copy.
I’m pretty sure Netflix purchases DVDs with special arrangement with the studios and not through normal distribution channels. Most of the DVDs I get from Netflix now are gray with no artwork like below.
This gross overgeneralization, like most gross overgeneralizations, isn’t true.
You’re very carefully comparing apples and porcupines by looking at the cost of “producing” a movie vs. the cost of “writing” a book. Just as the screenwriter’s time is a small portion of the cost of producing a movie, the author’s time is often a small portion of the cost of producing a book.
I speak from experience here, having written quite a few books. Let me lay out a few of the costs:
[ul]
[li]Research, which often involves travel, purchasing reference books (there’s a lot of specialized information that’s not on the Web yet), lengthy phone calls, etc.[/li][li]Paying an editor[/li][li]Paying a fact-checker[/li][li]Paying a copyeditor[/li][li]Paying a proofreader[/li][li]Paying a cover designer[/li][li]Paying an artist (depending on the type of book)[/li][li]Actual production costs (paper, glue, and ink cost a lot more than a mass-produced DVD)[/li][li]Marketing (this is factored into the costs you quote on movies and music CD’s - you need to include it in the book cost, too)[/li][li]License fees for copyrighted photos[/li][li]and costs of required equipment, software, and so on[/li][/ul]
That’s just what pops into mind. There’s more.
Yes. Redbox, for example, has an ongoing dispute/lawsuit with some studios who want to make them wait 28 days after store sales (and Blockbuster rentals) because they are underpricing the higher-paying markets.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=apskdfBT_Zms
*Redbox seeks a court order declaring Warner’s copyrights unenforceable and barring the company from limiting its supply of DVDs. The complaint is also seeking unspecified damages.
Redbox has made deals with other studios, agreeing to pay $158 million to Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. earlier this month and $460 million to Sony Pictures last month. The five- year deals allow the company to carry the studios’ DVDs without delay. Sony videos are expected to account for 20 percent of all DVDs Redbox licenses or buys this year, Coinstar said. *
This suggests they have special deals with the studios to get the discs and rent them.
The point of a library would be to have the classics and culturally significant items for the long haul, the “long tail” perhaps that people will want to watch but the ; for the hits available by the shelf-full in the month after release, you still have to find a still-open Blockbuster. The library will have Forrest Gump, or How Green Was My Valley, Meet Me in St Louis, French Connection, or maybe even something with Annette Funicello or Jerry Lewis - but hopefully not “Biodome” with the idiot comedian, or Animal…
Mea culpa…I misread the article. I thought the analyst was saying they paid $1 to $2 per disc. He was saying they pay $1 to $2 more at retail.
Under the terms of the previous deal, they paid $17 per DVD to Warner and sold the used disc for $6 for a net cost of $11. Now they pay $15 and can’t resell, and have the 28-day delay.
Yes, but what I said in that particular quote was more about “time is money” than book writing in general, though I will agree that it may not be clear in the post.
No, wait, I think that really the entire post was more about “time is money” than book writing in general.
What is the cost of producing a book anyway, assuming we’re talking a work of pure fiction here(eg, no facts to worry about, no illustrations other than the cover, no photos etc), how much money will it cost to get a manuscript ready for print and printed?
A fiction book that had numerous minor or even just one major fact wrong would fail. The reader would be jolted out of the story, and perhaps never feel like going back to it. Even fiction writers have to research their facts, at least enough to make the story plausible. I used to read old Perry Mason novels, a couple of decades ago, and I used to shake my head, and think “He’d never get away with that sort of crap today”, when Perry broke the law.
A work of fiction MUST be both believable and true to its own world. A mystery novel will fail if, for instance, police don’t have to follow restrictive procedures to collect evidence. Science fiction novels will fail if the science is bad (and it’s not rationalized in some way). Fantasy novels fail if the unicorns in them are simply horses with single horns, and not a separate species altogether. If a writer doesn’t care enough about his/her book to do at least a little research, then it will show, and readers will usually ignore such a book in droves.
Many of my favorite fiction books have illustrations or maps, in the front of the book. This is especially helpful when the story is set in a completely different world, and the geography is important. A picture can truly sometimes be worth a thousand words, when it comes to describing an alien or a Wee Free Man.
And then we get down to the cost of someone’s time. Writing a book can’t be done by scribbling down 10 minutes here and a quarter of an hour there. Most people need to have some time to actually think about the story, and then try to work out how the various bits fit together. If the writer is distracted, even momentarily, s/he might lose his/her train of thought.
Back in Economics 101 or 102, we learned that spending time one way means that we can’t spend it another way. That is, the time that a would-be writer spends, staring at a sheet of paper/typewriter/computer monitor is time that s/he isn’t spending in other ways, ways which might be either more enjoyable or more profitable or both. This factor cannot be neglected.
Principle photography? What principle is being photographed using hookers? Trickle-down economics? Generosity toward the working woman, perhaps?
