MCM’s new book: Panda Apples
At copycamp, I met MCM, author of the well-known (at least by most copyright geeks) The Pig and the Box. I had actually read the book when it first was released, but didn’t remember it until I saw the cover. It’s a great commentary on the shift in how some creative works (like music and literature) can be distributed, and challenges our traditional concepts of where the value of something exists. What threw a wrench into my though process was the use of physical objects to represent intangible copies. Although I understand the necessity for that to make the concept easier to understand, it did make me temporarily uneasy because it’s already becoming increasingly difficult for sculptors and other artists who make tactile objects to explain that there is still a very real (and, often, steep) cost to production (not to mention our desire to make one-of-a-kind or limited-edition works).
MCM now has a new book, Panda Apples. He explained the life of this book as being something of a counter experiment to The Pig and the Box. With The Pig and the Box, he invested almost no marketing time or money, and didn’t start to offer the option of donations or actual purchases of paper books until he was actually asked for them. Unlike The Pig and the Box, Panda Apples is not merely a collaboration (with Len Peralta), but also being supported by marketing which The Pig and the Box didn’t have. A few days ago, MCM told me that:
Again, with very little marketing [...] we’ve had about 2,500 downloads and 250 purchases. So already, in this first 24 hour period, I’ve technically earned more than I did on the Pig book after a year
Panda Apples is probably also benefiting from MCM’s past exposure from The Pig and the Box. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out!
Tags: business models, copyright, mcm, panda apples, technology, the pig and the box
