Speaking as someone voting on the Hugos--I already bought Parasite, I'm already going to buy Ancillary Justice, and I might or might not buy Neptune's Brood. My household has a copy of most-or-all of the WoT books.
If they gave me a full electronic copy of these works, I would probably not look at them. It is possible that I will decide I simply must buy Neptune's Brood based on the excerpt; it is also possible I will be left with a bad taste in my mouth because the writing style does not suit how I read ebooks[1] and it will quietly slip off my radar and never get bought.
If you're comfortable with e-reading novels anyway, it is not unreasonable to see yourself as having already paid for the books, and thus not buy them. If you're not comfortable with e-reading novels, full copies are not going to motivate you to buy the books any more than samples would--you will either read a few chapters and think "okay, this is worth getting on paper" or read a few chapters and think "thank god I didn't pay money for this".
There are (currently) 7386 people who can vote at this year's WorldCon (that includes supporting memberships, but not children's memberships). Run with 7500, since there's still room for people to buy membrships... Hell, let's run with a ballpark of 8000 people eligible to get the Hugo's voter's packet.
I know there are going to be some people who shell out for a WorldCon membership and have not already read, heard of, or bought these books. I realize it is possible that there are going to be some people who have meant to look at these books, and have not had the chance, and that seeing the sample in front of them may motivate them to buy. I hear this works sometimes.
But I think that out of eight thousand people, the number of people who haven't already read/bought the books they were interested in, who were already open to the idea of buying the books, who take a look at the electronic sample of the books, and who then say "what? this is only a partial sample! well because of that I'm not buying this book!" is not likely to put a huge dent in the book sales. You know? --- [1] I won a cute, charming steampunk/Egyptology/spy/urban fantasy novella (I think--would need to double-check the length) for my ereader. And I nearly stopped reading three chapters in because e-readers are not well-designed to let you flip back a few pages and see what the date at the start of the last "sometime in the past" segment was. I am glad I didn't stop, but it was a deliberate and conscious decision that I would probably not make in most cases.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-14 06:40 pm (UTC)If they gave me a full electronic copy of these works, I would probably not look at them. It is possible that I will decide I simply must buy Neptune's Brood based on the excerpt; it is also possible I will be left with a bad taste in my mouth because the writing style does not suit how I read ebooks[1] and it will quietly slip off my radar and never get bought.
If you're comfortable with e-reading novels anyway, it is not unreasonable to see yourself as having already paid for the books, and thus not buy them. If you're not comfortable with e-reading novels, full copies are not going to motivate you to buy the books any more than samples would--you will either read a few chapters and think "okay, this is worth getting on paper" or read a few chapters and think "thank god I didn't pay money for this".
There are (currently) 7386 people who can vote at this year's WorldCon (that includes supporting memberships, but not children's memberships). Run with 7500, since there's still room for people to buy membrships... Hell, let's run with a ballpark of 8000 people eligible to get the Hugo's voter's packet.
I know there are going to be some people who shell out for a WorldCon membership and have not already read, heard of, or bought these books. I realize it is possible that there are going to be some people who have meant to look at these books, and have not had the chance, and that seeing the sample in front of them may motivate them to buy. I hear this works sometimes.
But I think that out of eight thousand people, the number of people who haven't already read/bought the books they were interested in, who were already open to the idea of buying the books, who take a look at the electronic sample of the books, and who then say "what? this is only a partial sample! well because of that I'm not buying this book!" is not likely to put a huge dent in the book sales. You know?
---
[1] I won a cute, charming steampunk/Egyptology/spy/urban fantasy novella (I think--would need to double-check the length) for my ereader. And I nearly stopped reading three chapters in because e-readers are not well-designed to let you flip back a few pages and see what the date at the start of the last "sometime in the past" segment was. I am glad I didn't stop, but it was a deliberate and conscious decision that I would probably not make in most cases.