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This week, the proofs for the new mystery book arrived and just as quickly were sent back to the printer with two thumbs up and a cheery exhortation to commence printing with maximum haste. It was the first time we’d seen the book printed out in its entirety, with both colors present, and it was super fucking exciting—as we flipped through the pages, absurdly large grins and enthusiastic high-fives abounded. Carefully going over each page looking for errors, we truly felt this book was everything we had hoped for it to be. And that felt good. In the meantime, we’ve added the tech specs to the teaser page, and expect to reveal the book’s name next week.
Proofs Arrive for New Book
pfm said,
Dizzie, i’ll pretend that your question isn’t rhetorical (which it is, since you are familiar with our stuff, and thus know the answer). No, we won’t be. Nor will any of of our major books ever be. This is a book. And in particular, a book that takes advantage of many of the distinct advantages a real book has over some text crammed onto a computer screen. Electronic dissemination of information has it’s role, and as you can see from our website, we embrace this medium fully, but not for everything—some things are infinitely more powerful in the flesh, so to speak. If you, pooling resources with some friends, can’t scrounge up the minimal funds to purchase the book, you can always pester some libraries until they obtain it, which they will.
DIzzIE said,
We can argue over the advantages of treeware copies over digital ones and vice versa back and forth, but that’s not really what this is about. What I ask is that you give your readers a choice of deciding how to read the text. Whether on a screen, on a printed page, or painstakingly scrawled onto the panel of a rooftop air conditioner on top of a certain bookstore in La Jolla, whatever. In that vein, the text may indeed be way more ‘powerful’ once you snort up the freshly dried ink on the page and stroke the curvaceous binding along the back of the spine, moaning ever so slightly as you turn the page…Again, this is all a matter of personal preference regarding your own individual choice of masturbatory medium.
What’s at stake is the ability for the reader to choose that medium. As matters currently stand you have situated yourselves a notch above the rest of us in deciding for us on which sort of medium you would prefer that we read the tomes in question. You decided that the books are best read in printed form, and thus you do not make them available digitally so the rest of us cannot easily read them on the screen (or print them out) at our leisure. This hierarchized mode of restricted distribution is reminiscent of standard corporate publishing practices.
The fact that readers have had to reinvent the proverbial wheel by scanning in copies of the books you otherwise refuse to distribute online (Evasion, Recipes, etc…) demonstrates that a number of readers do want to have digital copies for whatever reason. You already have the copy text neatly packaged in your shiny InDesign files, go ahead and print ‘em into PDFs and put them online. The task is a trivial one for you, and yet one of great expenditure for those of us who otherwise have to scan in, ocr, proofread and format prior to distributing. By refusing to share the digital copies, which you, and you alone, have ready access to, you are acting as if you have the right to control those copies over that of your readers. Which leads us back to what I’ve already repeated much too much: you have a right to impose your choice of medium on yourselves. What I am asking you to do is to offer your readers a choice of either print or digital, or whatever trippy hybrid evolves thereof.
The question of which medium is best for reading or experiencing a certain text is a matter that you only have the authority to decide for yourselves. If you don’t feel that a digital version can carry the same pizzazz or whatnot, then, by all means, don’t fucking read it on the screen. But don’t make it difficult for others to do so if they wish.
In short: make the damn copies available online and save us the otherwise wasteful effort of doing what would otherwise take you ten minutes ourselves. Because your texts will be digitized whether you like it or not, for you have no right to privatize the digital copies sitting there on your computers; to treat them as if they were your private property.
b. traven said,
DIzzIE–
I’m new to this debate, which it appears you and pfm have had before. To situate myself in the discussion, I’ll begin by saying I’m deeply invested in the gift economy–the majority of my daily activities go to putting resources into free circulation, which I’d guess is rare even among those who comment on this page. So I take this question seriously, since I believe everyone should have access to everything.
What you’re basically asking for is for other people to do work you’d like to see done. That’s the essence of your comment. Your argument is that it will be easier for those who run this website to do it than for anyone else. Fair enough.
Personally, I’m not exactly sure what I think is best, when it comes to whether the books should be online–so I’ll just toss out a few considerations.
First, a great deal of the material in CrimethInc. books has already circulated in free forms, both in paper and online. It’s essentially out there already, so this is primarily a question of you demanding it in a particular form.
Second, you may be forgetting that, despite the tremendous quantities of energy invested in this site, you are talking to people who have grave misgivings about the internet and digital technology. Call it a love/hate relationship–we recognize the need to use this format to accomplish specific goals, but it doesn’t figure in our utopian dreams. At least not mine!
Third, when it comes to asking for others to do work, you can ask nicely, but if they don’t want to–for example, because they want to keep at least one project “real world only,” on account of their feelings about digital technology–you’re out of line insulting them. The person doing the work is the “most affected,” and thus most qualified to decide what should happen, not the person benefitting from it. There are lots of things I can imagine I might want you to do, if I knew more about you, but if any of them went against your principles, I wouldn’t force the issue. You say “you have situated yourselves a notch above the rest of us in deciding for us on which sort of medium you would prefer that we read the tomes in question”–what a sense of entitlement on your part! As an anarchist who believes in the principles of autonomy and voluntary association, I think a group that works on a book has the right to present it to the world however they wish. What people do with it once they get their hands on it is up to them.
Finally, you’re out of line baiting the volunteers who work on this site and other CWC projects about acting like things are their “private property.” People here work harder than almost anyone at getting free resources into circulation, and also at keeping everything that’s not free as cheap as it can possibly be. I’m sure you picture yourself as a fearless liberation warrior fighting to expand the Commons, but you’ve made a poor enough impression on me, for one, that I fear you’re only hindering your cause. A more polite tone–drop all the sex-negative stuff about masturbation, for starters–will get you a lot farther.
Keep in mind that the people behind this website are receiving requests, demands, and critiques like this in a constant stream. If you want them to experience yours as something more than abrasive static designed to wear them down into eventual despair, you need to be more friendly. On the other hand, if this is really where you want to draw a line in the sand identifying everyone who won’t obey your demands as the enemy, I guess I can’t stop you. I just don’t understand why you would.
rechelon said,
“People here work harder than almost anyone at getting free resources into circulation, and also at keeping everything that’s not free as cheap as it can possibly be.”
But this is blatantly not true and the whole subject at hand! It would be a rather trivial amount of “work” to put the books up as PDFs online and it would make these materials substantially freer. Even if you just spent three minutes posting the indesign proofs to OneBigTorrent, it would have a drastic effect of openness.
Of course I understand that to many the primary appeal of Crimethinc is its closed mystery. (Enough to tantalize and build myth, but little concrete, honest or up front.) I personally feel that privacy in such matters is deeply hierarchical. While personal privacy can sometimes be a tactical necessity in our actions as anarchists, if we don’t take responsibility for the details of our public interactions with one another we use that artificial distance to oppress. But like all who take up the title of ‘anarchist’ you’re certainly free to your own tactics and pursuits, whether they be running off free punk zines, organizing workers or getting a job on staff at the White House!
It would obviously be ridiculous for me to demand that you spend three minutes uploading PDFs. Just as it would be ridiculous to demand that you return to your Soviet and nail together shoes for four hours a day. But I can still express my personal concern at your focus on traditional forms of commerce.
To wax further into hippie for a bit:
I feel that by choosing to publish a ton of literature via traditional formats (albeit sexy ones) and traditional economics while simultaneously choosing to not make them all available online, you are deliberately utilizing our society’s impediments to free communication for your organization’s profit.
I feel it is unjust and maliciously dishonest to sell a product without FULL disclosure of its contents.
Reading through your justifications for not putting material online for free, I can’t help but feel there must be something more to it than militant aesthetics. Underneath the talk of despising technology (my heart weeps for you! nothing is more liberatory than free creation!) and how you feel we would be better served with a particular set of tactile sensations I can’t help but get the impression that you are afraid you would *make less money* if you put them online for free.
First off, if this is a truthful impression, even in part, please free yourself of this fear! You need not go around through life carrying the weight of our society’s myth that being open and honest will always hurt you. People like to see what they buy and often making things available for free helps advertise them. But even if putting them online for free detracts from your income (and I suspect that they would), the question I would ask myself is was that extra income really being obtained honestly or legitimately?
If someone hears a lot of talk about your latest book they may feel pressured to know what all the talk is about and therefore feel somewhat socially pressured by the scene into buying your book, even if it turns out its not something they really enjoyed or could get behind.
If a high school student in the middle of South Dakota is turned on to Anarchy and is interested in your work are they really going to be able to purchase them? To buy things online you need a credit card. To buy things at all you need money (something, having grown up homeless, I can tell you not all of us have to spare on books, no matter how sexy or cheap). He can’t very well ask his conservative parents. And not everyone has the opportunities for creative illegalism. It’s disingenuous to suggest that his school library would buy him a copy, maybe two hundred have, but many would not, often in the areas that need them the most. Having perhaps been passed a copy of Fighting For Our Lives he goes to your website but is shut out of Days of War, Nights of Love and the Cookbook.
These are important realities that I feel you have neglected out of what can only appear to be capitalist conditioning. A paranoia that success can only be obtained through holding your cards close to your chest. This is a myth and an acidic one that spreads hierarchies and unease. Is it any wonder that so many people feel so negatively towards Crimethinc? When a few have money, resources and training (and why not put up a free primer in sexy aesthetics? your opinion only, sure, but still!) and utilize those resources in relative secrecy it can’t help but generate a deep feeling of disconnect.
Lastly as someone who, although an anarchist from they day I was born, found my most fervent radicalism through struggles surrounding Freedom of Information, I can’t help but feel that you are a) actively working against the most important battle in my book, b) perpetuating a growing disconnect on the part of the eighties era activist/punk scene with today’s most energetic radical anti-authoritarians. (No, we don’t entirely swallow Zerzan or Jensen, but are you really out to sever all solidarity with us just because we like computers and delight in–rather than fear–the possibilities they allow?)
My central focus on Freedom of Information is a product of my own experience and, certainly not something you are obliged to heed to. But it is a passionate focus on my part. Having inspired the throwing of many chairs, punches and molotovs. And I would hope you at least take my perspective into consideration before choosing a course of action that comes off as an insult to a significant fraction of your would-be-customers.
rechelon said,
Mainly I just want to be able to print single pages of Rolling Thunder as posters from their original PDF cleanliness.
pfm said,
rechelon,
most of the statements you make in your reply are coming from one incredibly wrong assumption: you argue as if a PDF of a book is the same thing as a book. you argue as if a PDF of a book has the same power as a book. you argue as if a PDF of a book has the same worldly value. we disagree. and contrary to your statement about a surprisingly large number of people wanting PDFs of our book, we’d argue the exact opposite: given the choice between reading a real book in one hand and a PDF file in the other, you’d be lucky to find a single person who would opt for the PDF. this is an important aspect, one which you totally overlook.
PDFs appeal to the desire for instant gratification that is especially prevalent within our, and newer, generations. we aren’t interested in instant gratification.
your argument about accessibility is insanely wrong-headed. firstly, people do not need a credit card to order our books, so bringing that up was just silly. secondly as it stands, one can buy copies of Days of War, Recipes for Disaster, and the new book for less than $30 including shipping. That is 4 hours of work at a minimum wage job, 10% of a work week and 2.5% of a full-time month in exchange for over 1,400 pages of printed material. (That package also includes 4 posters, 2 guides, fighting for our lives, and 10 stickers). And that’s just if you want to go the sole ownership route—judging from anecdotal stories most people buy a book and share it with their group of friends. 2 people and it becomes a $15 investment, 3 a $10 investment, and so on. now, we know not everyone can get a job, or wants to for that matter, but there are other options. a couple hours of spanging can achieve the same results, or perhaps most simply, going to all the libraries in your are and properly filling out book request forms, and getting friends to do the same, will, with a 100% certainty, result in getting one’s hands on the books.
yes, these are barriers, but they only require the most minimal of efforts to overcome. and guess what, to actually do anything the books discuss will also require some effort—changing the world (or even one’s life) can’t be achieved by clicking a link. it might seem trite to you, but it is important to us—actually, not important, but ESSENTIAL—that our most polished and carefully constructed texts have a strong footing in the real, actual world.
you also gloss over a glaring problem with your theory that a PDF is the ultimate in accessibility. an 80,000 word PDF is only useful to someone who owns a computer and has an internet connection, things that are undoubtedly more difficult to obtain than our books. yes, people can use library computers to access the internet, but not to read 80,000 (or 200,000, as with the cookbook) word books (technically it can be done, but i imagine it is extremely rare). yes, that person could waste the public libraries resources and print it out, but i would guess you are intelligent enough not to argue THAT as a solution. and if they are already at the library, they are just a few hours effort (at absolute most) away from getting their hands on the real book anyway.
“Having perhaps been passed a copy of Fighting For Our Lives he goes to your website but is shut out of Days of War, Nights of Love and the Cookbook.”
Ah, and this brings me to my next point. You say, “I can’t help but get the impression that you are afraid you would *make less money* if you put them online for free.” And you are right, this is a concern, and we feel a very valid one.
Of course, unlike what you imply, none of us involved receive ANY wages whatsoever from our work on CrimethInc. projects, so we wouldn’t make less money. The CrimethInc. project would make less money. As we’ve said a hundred times and demonstrated with our actions more than 10,000 times in the past many years, every penny that comes in through book sales goes back out in other projects. every month we send thousands of fighting of our lives in the mail, absolutely for free. we have distributed nearly 500,000 copies this way, and i would consider it to be by far the most important part of what CrimethInc does, since everything else follows that initial seed, as you example suggests. (interesting sidenote: we have a free PDF of FFOL on our website, yet people, thousands of them, still prefer to get and distribute real copies of the pamphlet. amazing!). we also do many projects like the posters, stickers, magazines and guides that operate at a slight loss.
The implication that we don’t release PDFs simply because we want to pad our individual wallets is just plain slander, and you should be ashamed for making such a declaration on a public message board. look at our prices for all the stuff we offer, do some research and then feel dumb about making such a baseless accusation.
All that said, here is the real tragedy of having a whole book as a PDF. Let’s say your kid in North Dakota downloads it. Because he can’t afford a laptop and is using his 5 year old desktop at home, that means he can only read it in his bedroom, sitting upright in his chair, on a 15″ CRT monitor. for the text to be at all readable, he can only see one page at a time, even though the book was designed to be read in two-page spreads, and unlike a typical book, has many designs and ideas that rely on that layout. the text is interesting but after 30 minutes, during which he reads at about half the speed he reads on paper, his eyes began to hurt from the eye strain of reading text on a refreshing crt monitor, his back hurts from sitting upright, and he keeps getting distracted by his friends who won’t stop IMing him. he can also see the day outside his window and so his reading the book is a compromise with what he wants to do with his time, at best. he has read 8 pages, it’s good but it isn’t gripping him (no wonder, considering the circumstances) and eventually he gets so distracted that he just closes the file. he never reads it again. and he never pursues the book, because he already ‘has it.’ he downloaded the PDF because it was easy, and thusly, never read the book. never leant the book to a friend, never recommended it to a friend and then discussed it with him.
you might argue that this is the exception, that even half the people would be ok sitting at their computer for over 40 hours, eyes straining to read the text on the pitifully low-resolution format (screen is 72-100 dpi, a book is 1200 dpi). but i would be willing to bet everything i could that if our book was available as a PDF, less than 1% would ever be read all the way through. and that 99% would be less likely to pursue the real book than they were before having a PDF, as they already ‘have the book.’
for you to assume that we had no real reasons for not releasing the books as PDFs shows how little you have considered the issue from our perspective and how little initiative you have taken towards coming to your own understanding based on observation: we run a very large website with many dozens of texts available for free online. in fact, the vast majority of pages on our site exist just to present the texts, as well as PDFs of many, many publications. we even offer free, high-quality PDFs of all the stickers and posters we sell. obviously we have been very selective about what we don’t offer as PDFs.
in the end, it appears you think a PDF of a book that is easily available is a step forward, we think it is not, and we’re ok with disagreeing. in fact, we encourage people to disseminate everything we publish in whatever ways they see fit, but don’t ask us—or worse, publicly accuse us of greed—if we don’t agree with you what the best course of dissemination is.
rechelon said,
I never pondered the possibility that individual greed might motivate your collective decision. I took it for granted that you are simply spending all your profit from Crimethinc ON Crimethinc trying to get out the message in the form you prefer. That’s sorta the problem.
What I am worried about is your focus on getting cash to get out the message. To propagate a certain message at any cost. The cost being an ethical one: marketing and selling a product without allowing people to know precisely what they’re buying.
Keeping secrets in this regard applies your position of economic privilege into social power over others. Some people buy (or have someone else buy) your books because they have to in order to decide whether or not they like them. By simply having a broad reach you are able to achieve an even further reach. Your economic power and social influence compounds on itself, not just via people’s positive reactions to your ideas/art, but through your secrecy. That is a seriously ethically questionable situation. Not a trivial issue, but a central one.
You perpetually return to the difference in qualia between the reading experience of a paper book and a computer screen.
Let me make something clear: I like almost everyone would prefer the paper one. But I would also like the extra options that the PDF also provides me. There’s a freeing aspect to that. Most people if they peruse the contents (how THEY see fit) and like what they see, even briefly, will buy or obtain it in physical form.
You contest that the ‘possessive’ nature of having downloaded a PDF would dissuade potential readers from buying actual copies. While that may be true in some cases, an easy solution might be to leave the damn thing as you sent it to the printers. Where, with color test lines and the like on the sides of the pages, they are constantly made aware of how their copy is not a *real* version. Or even just break it up into a bunch of sections, because no one’s going to download each one and feel like they have the whole thing. And you being Crimethinc I would certainly expect all the normal warnings and urgings to get off the damn web packaged with any PDF.
Physical copies will still be lent around, but if people don’t buy your book because they can peruse an awkward PDF copy I fail to see how that would be a loss. I, of course, have small quibbles with some things Crimethinc publishes, but overall am delighted with your work and want to see it flourish. (In discourse, competition and synthesis with other views, of course.) But I wouldn’t want even my best of work to flourish at such costs. By what measure would I know to what degree my ideas were being spread because they were wonderful and joyously recognized as such, and to what degree they might be spread simply because I had the initial capital to launch the ONLY really global anarchist propaganda powerhouse. A position that because of its secrecy and closedness was self-reinforcing.
Far be it from me to make absolutist accusations about your behavior, all I can report on are the trends I see. Hopefully to some constructive end. Even if you take this entirely defensively and try to pretend like I’m some sort of uninformed drive-by attacker who doesn’t know anything about the history and inner and outer workings of Crimethinc.
Ever since Days of War, Nights of Love came out (to a fizzle in my circles back then) I’ve been disappointed and sort of embarrassed with some of the things you’ve collectively done in pursuit of Getting The Books Out as an end unto itself. The most apparent has always been your limited selection of digitally free material. To claim as you have in these comments that you’ve worked the hardest you can to keep things free or cheapest is annoying because getting those resources out as freely as possible would mean putting them online in entirety.
While you may feel as artists that the uniformity of a certain experience or qualia with paper copies is more important than making the actual ideas or resources as free as they can be, I can’t help but feel you’re shooting yourself in the foot and contributing to the Crimethinc-as-privileged-Anarchist-institution trend that so pisses off your detractors.
Beyond being simply honest, it would still unquestionably be a plus in making material more easily and completely available to some people in certain sectors as well as tangibly expressing the radicalism of your commitment to anti-copyright.
AndIllSayItAgain said,
“most of the statements you make in your reply are coming from one incredibly wrong assumption: you argue as if a PDF of a book is the same thing as a book. you argue as if a PDF of a book has the same power as a book.”
I’d just like to point out how wrong this statement is. A physical book is information written to paper, while a digital book is merely information. The paper is useful because it doesn’t need a computer for it to be read, you can hold it in your hand, it has emotional worth for those with a soft spot for paper, and of course if you’re a publisher it has all kinds of monetary and investment values.
Paper has one massive restriction, a human being is always required to extract the information. You cannot qoute, search, translate or otherwise process the information in a paper book without manual labour by a living person. If you’re familiar with Dawkins then you’ll understand that this is a massive restriction on the fitness of the meme for success in the meme pool, at least those parts of the meme pool that exist in the digital realm. If you truly have something to say that is worth hearing, and you wish it to spread as far as possible, then a wide distribution through the digital networks is *essential* in this day and age.
pfm said,
If you truly have something to say that is worth hearing, and you wish it to spread as far as possible, then a wide distribution through the digital networks is *essential* in this day and age.”
We agree—that is why we have this website.
DownRiverKid said,
the teaser is simple. yet it is sooooo obscenely exctiting. i dont even know what to do to keep myself strapped down until this comes out.
HURRY UP !!! IM LOSIN IT!
xdx said,
In a world where print culture is disappearing, I find the insistence on printing beautiful books to be wonderful and endearing.
smileya said,
A few comments:
1. Things are better in print format, fuck the internet. The internet already has such a mass of worthless information that some good information added to the pile really doesn’t do much for the medium, and also, the internet lends itself more to skipping over shit and not seriously reading anything. Things in print are more likely to be read in full by the people that have access to them that things on the internet are.
2. I’m surprised little attention has been given to the argument that these books cost money for a reason. It’d be nice if money or resources were all obtained for free which resulted in the ability to distribute this kind of literature freely (Which certainly happens from time to time), however books are things that take a considerable amount of resources and money to produce, and you, the passive consumer who seeks to skip over most of it while reading it online, don’t have to pay those expenses, the people producing the books do. It’s absurd to say that all the books should just be free. I’m sure the crimethinc publishing collective probably has enough resources to perhaps produce this book for free as a “gift to the masses” if they wanted to, however I’m sure that would also consume all money saved entirely and would result in the seizure of any future crimethinc publications from lack of funds. Books cost money because they cost money to produce. This is obvious to most, but not to you Dizzie.
3. Some facts for readers of these comments about Dizzie. I have seen Dizzie’s comments elsewhere on the internet, particularly heavy on forums like totse.com and the worthless shit that gets spewed there. Dizzie spends most of his time compiling scams everyone already knows into rediculously lengthy online documents that a few people read and probably skip over most of given that they’re all just excerpts from a bunch of things people have already read. He also criticizes crimethinc on numerous other websites on the internet, calling the publishing collective “greedy” for charging the small fees needed to make the publications available. If you search for some of his posts online, they show his intelligence and ethics, both of which are very low. He consistently writes about methods of ripping PEOPLE off (not corporations) through pickpocketing, robbing people’s personal belongings, and generally fucking people over for personal benefit in the types of ways that people talk about on the mostly horrificly oppressive message boards of totse and other sites. In other words, Dizzie has the ethics of the stereotypical “scum punk” that steals from their friends for drug money and other assorted nonsense that goes along with it. While having the ethics of a scum punk, he clearly has the access to computer tools of a more privileged character and judging from the amount and frequency of content he posts online I judge that he also spends a considerable amount of time online, enough to suggest that he’s probably a middle to upper class suburbinite fascinated with the “forbidden” parts of the internet like 12 year olds who fetishize the jolly roger “anarchist” cookbook.
pants said,
I am so excited to get my ‘hands’ on this one, literally. Even if I didn’t absolutely love every object, whether it be cd, record, book, or dvd that Crimethinc has released, I have always loved and appreciated the creative methods utilized in printing them. This is just my opinion and the great thing about a forum/website/whatever such as this one is that anyone can express their own opinions as well… opinions and ideas can be wonderful, but anger and slander can taint and completely miss the point. I see your work as positive and I react accordingly. Thank you for your work in the information/anti-information realm.
b. traven said,
Hey friends, let’s try to stay on topic. I appreciate the discussion about this, but as soon as we’re speculating as to someone’s character aside from the content of their actual posts, things can get unconstructive quick.
I’m not central to the group that maintains this website, but I think there are plans to hammer out some kind of guidelines for blog commenting, to keep all the material on this website streamlined and useful to the general public (which blogs often are not, in my opinion). Just as the last few convergences have been sober spaces, I think it could make sense to request that people refrain from insulting language and off-topic rambling here.
Zanturaeon said,
Pre-order, I want to pre-order! PRE-ORDER! How may I do thees?
xJx said,
i agree with xdx, put this shit out in print. i love print, enough of this computer.
crimethinker said,
How insanely hypocritical! You justify the prices by saying they can be bought with the earnings of a 4hr day job. Just after I read all this anti-work propaganda coming from Crimethinc.
b. traven said,
Two links for you, crimethinker:
http://www.crimethinc.com/books/intolibraries.html
http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/atoz/practical.php
pfm said,
hey crimethinker,
we’d never suggest that sometime obtain employment just to get our books! we listed many ways to obtain our books, one of which is with cash obtained by employment. while not employed personally, nearly everyone i know is, and for those people using cash from that labor is probably the easiest way to get the books.
anon said,
Pfm- You are presenting the idea of reading pdfs and reading a book as an either/or proposition. This is clearly not true. One can supplement the other. One may wish to use a pdf to quote parts of the book or to merely print out certain passages they deem worthy. This would seem like something you would encourage and want to make as easy as possible.
Furthermore, how people read the book is not your decision. No one can argue that you have put a ton of work into this project and deserve a ton of credit. This, though, does not allow one to decide how another consumes it. Once the book is out in the open, it is not yours anymore. It is the reader’s book. They can choose how they read, interact and (hopefully) disseminate it.
It is a little to sad to see you falling back on the argument that anyone can afford your book. With that rationale anyone can afford about anything. Is dumpster diving is a waste of time since a bag of chips is affordable by anyone? Clearly you are not a chip manufacturer and this comparison is limited but if one of the arguments for dumpster diving is that food should be available to everyone, shouldn’t this apply to books about anarchism to an even greater degree? Shouldn’t information concerning the end of property be the easiest information to get?
As rechelon suggested, putting your book online will not result in less sales. Ask cory docotorow and lawernce lessig http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ (a book i suggest you read considering your responses. don’t worry you can check out the pdf before you buy it) if posting their books has lessened sales. The reason they do it is because they actually want people to read their books. By not doing this you are almost requiring people to buy it or dependent on someone who has. The large percentage of people who are going to buy the book are part of the choir you have been preaching to for years. There is a huge audience for your books that might not want to take the plunge without knowing what they are getting. A simple pdf can alleviate this issue for at least a few.
If the end you are after is revolution and your book is one of the many means to it, start treating it like one. The book is not an end in itself. It is not a money generator. It is merely information that should be able to be read by anyone who wishes to and hopefully put to use.
In the end, making pdfs will not do any of the things you claim. It will not lower you sales. It will not keep people in front of a computer that they wouldn’t already be in front of. Clicking a link may very well start a revolution if the right person clicks the right one. One of the reasons it may have yet to is everyone is keeping there damn property so close to themselves. Do not be a part of that problem. It is a simple one to solve.
I hope you do not take this as an attack on ct as a whole, just this particular issue.
hadleyspain said,
anon,
where is this argument that anyone can afford to buy this book? no one ever said that.
and personally, i think that clicking on a link is not a real experience, whereas opening a book is. so thanks crimethinc, for making books.
anon said,
hadleyspin:
that arguement is contained here:
“….one can buy copies of Days of War, Recipes for Disaster, and the new book for less than $30 including shipping. That is 4 hours of work at a minimum wage job, 10% of a work week and 2.5% of a full-time month in exchange for over 1,400 pages of printed material. (That package also includes 4 posters, 2 guides, fighting for our lives, and 10 stickers). ….
clip
…a couple hours of spanging can achieve the same results, or perhaps most simply, going to all the libraries in your are and properly filling out book request forms, and getting friends to do the same, will, with a 100% certainty, result in getting one’s hands on the books.”
you may well be right to point out that those exact words were not used but i think one can admit that is the essence of the point.
clicking on a link is indeed a real experience. just not much of one.
but what if on the other end of that link is something which makes you look at the world at a 180 degree perspective from where you were before?
those books may well have that effect.
putting it online only increases the chance that someone will be led to have that real experience with the book as well.
pfm said,
anon, hadley’s correction was spot-on, and it is disingenuous of you to pretend it wasn’t. you said ‘afford’ and hadley rightly pointed out that i suggested people can get it free from the library, which has nothing to do with ‘afford’ing the books. the initial “essence of your point” was indeed wrong, as hadley stated. let’s not have any more back and forth bickering on this unless new ideas are presented, please.
Kristin said,
I just recieved the book and must say that reading it in text, feeling the pages, curling up outside in the open air gave the words much more meaning to me. I read some of it online (like the secret world) and its definately just something more magical in physical presence. its not so much that the book is a “posession” as it is that its portable, physically there, and easily transferable. its easier to “afford” and share a book than it is a PC or laptop. thanks so much for the hard work guys!!
p.s. libraries are definately the best, and crimethinc into libraries is even better.
crimethinker said,
Let’s quit this metaphysical nonsense about the “magic” of books in physical form. Nobody is arguing that the books should only been in pdf form. Everyone who loves the “feel of the pages” and whatnot are free to purchase the book with the money they may have, but the option should still be there so that those who do not wish to/can’t spend money, those who want to copy/paste pieces, those who want to email it to friends, those who want to read it on their damn computers.
Personally, I feel a type of comfort and “magic” at the feel of the computer’s keys beneath my fingers, the glow of the monitor in the night, the ability to read information about almost anything for free [unless that material is published by Crimethinc =( ].
Kristin said,
I guess we all have different opinions on the magic (or lack of magic ) of books. i like them more than pdfs, and you like pdfs more and we both have valid reasons.
(the glow of computers personally hurts my eyes after a while but its cool that someone could appreciate it)
annnd the book clearly says “please reproduce, translate, and adjust this book and all books at will, with or without citing sources” ( i found an uncited thoreau quote,actually my favorite thoreau quote about sucking the marrow out of life, in it and was pretty pleased!)
anyway, maybe someone will reproduce it online soon, and then you can read it! i just dont like computers too much to sit there and type it out or scan it or whatever. there are lots of pdf lovers out there who are probably already started on uploading it. crimethinc just doesnt want to, i guess they are busy or their eyes hurt when looking at computers too, or maybe they’re like “damn its done i dont wanna touch it anymore”
maybe you can get one into your local library and then upload it for other pdf lovers!! good luck on however it gets done! my eyes hurt just from this long comment haha!
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DIzzIE said,
November 8, 2007 @ 8:19 pm
Hi,
Are you going to be making this tome available online for free?