Wednesday, February 20, 2013

When Authors Attack

I'm used to library funding being criticized by upper middle class white men who are so full of themselves that they can't imagine that there exist (within their municipal borders nonetheless!) other people who actually utilize the collection and services of their public library.  But for an author to go on an extended rant against libraries? There might be nothing more obscene.  Thankfully, the BookRiot GIFs make it appalling and humorous at the same time.

Despite being a bestselling author, he feels he isn't selling enough books, and that libraries are the reason why!  Libraries (and not ebooks) are also the reason that bookstores are closing down.  Libraries are indeed ruining our society.  By using taxpayer funds to enable all citizens to enjoy books, programming, movies, magazines, music and other media, libraries are single-handedly destroying the free market.

The odd thing is that he doesn't even acknowledge that the music and movie industry are actually struggling because of illegal digital downloads (where the downloader is not paying any money) and that print books are fairly uniquely protected from this epidemic because we have things like libraries (which pay for books with taxpayer funds).

Anyway, he's clearly cray cray.  Thankfully, other authors are rejecting his rant.

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