Rethinking things...

Yesterday I posted on my blog the previous entry about Spotify and music. I had about half an hour of thinking I was making some progress, before my friend Dave very kindly (and gently) pointed out that my earnestness regarding supporting musicians might not match up with my previous point about the wonders of libraries and second hand bookshops.

The moment that he pointed this out, my heart dropped and my stomach tightened. So far it had all been going fairly swimmingly. Mostly because I haven’t yet made any changes or stated much of an opinion. In fact, this is the first time I’d written about something I was planning on doing.

And yet alongside the sinking feeling was a feeling of excitement. For this was exactly why I’d started a blog and encouraged people to read it. Because I don’t want to make unbalanced decisions and miss things. I have opinionated friends who aren’t afraid to question things, and that’s one of my greatest resources.

As a result, I’ve spent much of today thinking about this point, and felt much more inspired about the whole project. This is what it’s about – the wrestling with decisions – the thinking I’m right when actually I’m wrong.

So here are a few follow up thoughts. Buying music and books has some overlap, but also many differences. To me, there are three main aspects of both decisions:

o Environmental impact

o Where the music/book is bought from

o Contribution to the artist/author

In many ways it came down to something I said at the start of the project – each time you make a decision, your values come into play. For books, I’d probably place a higher value on the environmental impact than the contribution to the artist because that’s my particular passion in this instance – I simply don’t see the need for millions of identical books to sit on dusty bookshelves across the country.

For music, as I only listen to music digitally (i.e. downloads versus Spotify), the next highest value is the artist revenue. I’d like as much to go to the artist as possible, and avoid sourcing it from somewhere where an online merchant takes a huge chunk of the price. If I’m buying a physical CD (possibly as a present), then I’m going to try to use an independent record store

Book wise, I believe an author receives approximately 80p from the sale of a paperback book (note – this isn’t a scientifically researched figure – just one I read in an article today). For books, I’d aim to buy new books from an independent bookshop (if such a thing exists in Bristol). I do definitely think there’s a place for new books - an author I might want to support, a book I really want to read, a book not available second hand – but I also see the environmental value in second hand books and libraries. So the question is, how can I do this best?

Libraries appear to be in the clear in this respect, thanks to the Public Lending Rate – this gives an author just over 6 pence per lending. This might seem a lot less than the 80p they receive from a book sale, but you have to consider how many times that book might be lent during its lifetime, and how many more people might read it that wouldn’t have shelled out for the book.

Which brings me onto second hand books. I’d definitely aim to source them from a second hand bookshop or charity shop, but avoid other second hand routes like Amazon Marketplace. Another thing that has become more common is an author setting up an online “tip jar” (via something like paypal) for readers who want to contribute. I like this idea, and I’ll try to look up authors of second hand books I buy in order to see if they have this – if so, I’d gladly pass on a quid to make up for not having bought it new. I would also very much welcome this becoming more widespread or easy to do, as I would like to be able to support authors whilst still doing what I think is an environmentally positive thing.

Added to that, if I buy a book second hand and like it, I may buy a copy for someone or buy another book by the same author, which in turn will benefit the author.

So it’s not a perfect answer by any means, but I don’t see that there’s currently a way to completely marry my environmental views and still create revenue for the authors.

Thoughts?

Oh and I thought I’d finish with a quote by Neil Gaiman on second hand books

– “In the big scheme of things I'd rather have the books in motion. I'd rather the books were owned and loved than sitting on a shelf in a bookshop”.