Serious answer: I think there is a huge oversupply of authors at the moment. The world would probably be better off if half of all authors (selected at random) were to quit and go find something more productive/lucrative to do.

(I think everyone, even people who simply don't want to work, should be able to eat and receive reasonable medical care. Authors not having healthcare is terrible, but no more terrible than unemployed people not having healthcare; the problem there is the crazy American healthcare system)

If readers value books, but not enough to make writing pay, isn't the economic thing to stop being a professional writer?

> How much do you value your favorite authors eating or having health insurance?

I'm not the OP, but seeing as most of my favourite authors are already dead (some have been so for more than a century) I would so: "not so much". The "would someone think of the content creators" mantra kind of works (up to a point) in the music and movie industries, where Taylor Swift doesn't compete against long-time dead J.S. Bach, nor does Star Wars compete against Melies's films, while any new fiction author has to compete against long-time dead authors like Proust, Kafka, Joyce or Ray Bradbury.

>How much do you value your favorite authors eating or having health insurance? //

Thing is with ebooks the author should make more money, there's a wider accessible market, lower production cost. But publishers moved to close the market and to increase the selling price whilst at the same time accruing the added profit from the reduction in production cost.

The blame here shouldn't be on those buying the books who refuse to be screwed by the publishers.

Readers don't care about the booktrade, they want to read books and have authors rewarded for writing them, the booktrade somehow doesn't seem to help much to this end.

Instead of starting a Patreon, perhaps your writer friend could sell books to readers rather than to a publishing house?

The reality of the matter is that the ungodly amount of offer reduces book value to a very low level. Between books published in the last 200 years and the humongous amounts published every week, there is just too much choice to justify spending significant sums on individual books.

I suspect the answer will be a switch to "open publishing", with authors and editors collaborating via websites like on OSS programs and then monetizing on "stores", hence keeping costs so low that they can work on economies of scale.

People don't buy books because they value their favorite authors eating or having health insurance. They buy the books because they want to read them.

> readers' perception of value in books is fundamentally misaligned with the actual economics of the book trade, to the detriment of both.

The actual cost of a book has no bearing on it's value. You could spend a billion on editing, publicity, materials, etc. and if no one wants to read it good luck.

Right, so as the parent suggested, the comparison to the music industry is pretty apt. A handful of popular superstars live very well. In the middle you make enough to live, but not to live well or from forever, but you do get to do what you love. At the bottom you have people who do it because they love it - either terribly, or in a very specialist niche that takes a lot of skill/creativity and will be extremely valued but by only a few.

I try to buy records/merch from (some of) my favourite bands. I value them greatly. They'll never make a decent living from it.

> > The issue is that the prices are too high for perceived value.

> How much do you value your favorite authors eating or having health insurance?

I give to charities to take care of those who can't take care of themselves; I buy entertainment to be entertained.

> readers' perception of value in books is fundamentally misaligned with the actual economics of the book trade, to the detriment of both.

Then maybe the profession of writer will gradually go away, much as the profession of fencing master (the real sort, who taught how to win in a fight, not at sport) has.