I totally hear you on the donation-button thing - I often feel the same way about CDs and such. The problem is, traditionally-published authors (and musicians, and other people in creative pursuits) aren't working on their own; there's a whole infrastructure of editors, publishers, promoters, advertisers, etc., etc. that support them and allow them to have the relative security of things like advances and royalties.
Are these institutions and their associated structure of middlemen bloated and inefficient compared to self-publishing? Absolutely, but they are (in most cases) beneficial to the author, and often are what allow him/her to write as a career instead of in what spare time they can eke around a full-time gig elsewhere - and in the case of editors, often they're what make the difference between a good, readable book and an unreadable bloated mess (see: Tad Williams, or any other author whose first, heavily-edited book was so popular that they got free reign with their next few books despite their dire need of editing). So even though I'm paying for a lot of questionably-necessary services, ultimately I don't feel comfortable shorting the publisher; the author theoretically is benefiting from the relationship.
I do think the rise of self-publishing (and small independent e-publishers) is a boon in the long run; it's not for every author, but the very real threat of competition is likely to force the major publishers to find ways to trim the fat and keep prices down.
As to the book itself, I wasn't avoiding naming it for any real reason except that [a] I didn't want to make it sound like I was going "Would someone please buy this for me?" and [b] it's a problem that isn't specific to this book, it in fact recurs with some regularity. :) I'm a little jealous; I haven't met Mr. Hines but I've generally enjoyed his novels and I'm a big fan of his blog posts on gender issues. Thanks for your offer, but I've got plenty of stuff to read for now, so I'll just buy Libriomancer when I have a little more spare cash. :)
Re: Oh, THAT book
Are these institutions and their associated structure of middlemen bloated and inefficient compared to self-publishing? Absolutely, but they are (in most cases) beneficial to the author, and often are what allow him/her to write as a career instead of in what spare time they can eke around a full-time gig elsewhere - and in the case of editors, often they're what make the difference between a good, readable book and an unreadable bloated mess (see: Tad Williams, or any other author whose first, heavily-edited book was so popular that they got free reign with their next few books despite their dire need of editing). So even though I'm paying for a lot of questionably-necessary services, ultimately I don't feel comfortable shorting the publisher; the author theoretically is benefiting from the relationship.
I do think the rise of self-publishing (and small independent e-publishers) is a boon in the long run; it's not for every author, but the very real threat of competition is likely to force the major publishers to find ways to trim the fat and keep prices down.
As to the book itself, I wasn't avoiding naming it for any real reason except that [a] I didn't want to make it sound like I was going "Would someone please buy this for me?" and [b] it's a problem that isn't specific to this book, it in fact recurs with some regularity. :) I'm a little jealous; I haven't met Mr. Hines but I've generally enjoyed his novels and I'm a big fan of his blog posts on gender issues. Thanks for your offer, but I've got plenty of stuff to read for now, so I'll just buy Libriomancer when I have a little more spare cash. :)