Seems I Am Not The Only One....

One thing I've seen pointed out elsewhere - while publishers still have their issues (though probably a bit less so than the MPAA and RIAA currently), putting off a (new) book purchase for a month is likely to have a bigger negative impact on an individual author than the publisher. The issue exists for other media too (low sales reflect badly on the original creators, many of whom dislike the actions of their distributors nearly as much as we do), but is probably less acute in the case of, say, blockbuster movies, which are largely studio productions.

I'm not saying there's a right answer here, but it's worth considering how best to target our actual opponents while minimizing collateral damage.

Yes, don't hurt authors. They've got nothing to do with the bullshit from the RIAA, and those royalty checks only come once they've earned out the advance.

Seriously, anyone who thinks the average author is rolling in dough like Stephen King or JK Rowling has got to have their heads examined.

(Also, what she said, which tiurin gets at below: http://franzi1981.dreamwidth.org/952524.html )

I'm not convinced this will do all that much, unless peoples' April spending is much less than usual March + usual April. That is, we'd need people to actually not spend instead of just shift their spending to a different month. Because just shifting would lead to lower profits for Q1, but bumper profits in Q2, and not actually do anything for overall '12 profits.

I'm in favor of people just not spending in March and not making it up in April- or hell, not spending in March and spending less in general April on- but fat chance of that happening.

I worry about how a boycott like this could affect small businesses. With the economy the way its been, small businesses are teetering already.

Re your edit: Used books give no money to the authors. That's not necessarily a problem, but if your hope is to mitigate the damage to the creators, it won't.

Also, why does anyone think the RIAA or MPAA gives a crap about books?

Yeah, I was wondering that too. But I assumed that DrVitoti at Reddit knew more than I did about the SOPA supporters. Possibly a bad assumption.

And yes, I know that used book sales don't help authors. I just don't have a solution for that. There are sometimes on-line options for helping recording artists without helping major labels. But a similar ability for authors would be a rare thing, as self-publishing is harder for books than for music (IMO).