Bitchin' Blog Posts
An open letter to Dominique Raccah
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | July 13, 2009 | Monday at 8:15 pm | 97 CommentsI’ve been so pleased with so many of your decisions at Sourcebooks, like releasing Georgette Hayer backlist with spiffy covers and such high quality bindings that I’ve received letters from people thanking me for letting them know about them. There’s that upcoming Kinsale, too, that makes me giddy to the point of twitching.
But today’s news about ebooks? Oh, no. It’s a big ol’ clusterfuck of head shaking forehead pounding with a side order of, “Oh, honey.”
Sourcebooks is issuing 75,000 copies of “Bran Hambric,” a sizable print run in this economy, and has arranged a substantial marketing campaign and book tour for Mr. Nation.
“It doesn’t make sense for a new book to be valued at $9.99,” said Dominique Raccah, CEO of Sourcebooks, which issues 250 to 300 new titles annually. “The argument is that the cheaper the book is, the more people will buy it. But hardcover books have an audience, and we shouldn’t cannibalize it.” An e-book for “Bran Hambric” will become available in the spring, she said.
Richard Curtis, Mr. Nation’s agent, concurs on holding back the e-book edition. “We don’t want to undercut the sales and royalty potential of the printed hardcover,” Mr. Curtis said.
While filing my teeth and chewing on digital media for my daily nutrition could make for some awesome seminar presentations, I have to say, COME ON NOW AND I MEAN IT.
As an ebook consumer, I already agree to take on significant limitations when I choose digital media. I can’t share or lend it. I can’t in most cases give a copy of the book (unless I feel like Waiting for Fictionwise) to someone I think might like it. In some cases, as with Kindle, I can’t even guarantee that I’ll be able to download and reread the book more than six times.
Yet I choose digital media because it works for me, and I liek it. So why am I being penalized because I don’t want to buy the hardcover, and should therefore wait six months or more for the digital copy.
LISTEN UP. If you read nothing else but the following paragraph, then please know I mean what I say here:
I WILL NOT BUY A HARDBACK BECAUSE YOU WANT ME TO, BECAUSE IT’S BETTER FOR YOUR REVENUE STREAM.
I WANT EBOOKS. I WANT DIGITAL BOOKS. I DO NOT WANT HARDBACKS.
YOU CANNOT MAKE ME BUY THEM. YOU ONLY COST YOURSELF THE REVENUE OF MY PURCHASE.
Didja get all that? Seriously, my jaw dropped so hard when I read this article, I’m going to get TMJ from the WSJ.
Robert Gottlieb, chairman of Trident Media Group LLC and Ms. Coulter’s literary agent, said he doesn’t allow any of his authors’ books to be published simultaneously as an e-book when he can prevent it.
“It’s no different than releasing a DVD on the same day that a new movie is released in the movie theaters,” he said. “Why would you do that?”
Mr. Gottlieb, I’ll be honest: I’m embarrassed for you.
Films on DVD and feature films in theatres are NOT the same as digital books and hardbacks. A more apt comparison would be DVD and VHS. VHS, by the way, would be the hardback.
I fully admit that the format questions and the price questions about digital books are still up in the air.
But making this decision is insulting to a growing segment of the fiction buying readership, and, to be frank, ignorantly based on faulty logic. You encourage two things by delaying digital releases of book titles: piracy and ire. I’m not going to pirate books, but I am going to remember that somehow, my digital purchase of your book is of lesser value than a hardback purchase, despite the fact that I buy more books and read more books than most people.
In all things, one should listen to Sarah, in this case, Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester Research:
“Publishers are in denial about the economics of digital content,” said Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps….
Although e-books account for only 1% to 2% of total book sales, as measured by dollars, they are one of publishing’s few bright areas. Ms. Epps… estimates that by year end there will be more than three million dedicated e-reader devices in the U.S., with two million sold in 2009.
Yes, 1-2% is not a great amount, but it’s the only one that’s growing at such an exponential rate. Look at the IPDF statistics for heaven’s sake. Are any of your other revenue streams flooding like that one? In this economy, I doubt it.
I probably should not take decisions like this one so personally, but I am holy hopping angry. It’s insulting to me that I should be dictated what format I should buy, and should be penalized for preferring a different format.
This decision was poorly made and poorly defended. I’m a big fan of your company, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all this week at RWA. You are one of the companies that seems to approach publishing, specifically romance, a little differently, offering up exceptional romance titles long out of print for new audiences to discover.
Digital books are also a new audience, one that should be fostered and treated as equal to those who read paper books. I wish you held us in the same respect as you do your other readers.
Filed: Ebooks, General Bitching, Ranty McRant
Tagged: sourcebooks, rwa, romance, kindle, ebooks, ebook, dvd
caligi said on 07.13.09 at 08:25 PM • [link]
I don’t like hardcovers either so I’ve always waited a year or so for the paperback release.
If ebooks cost less, like paperbacks do, it’s hardly strange for them to wait on releasing the ebook. If it costs the same, then I guess that’s another story.
Jessica Kennedy said on 07.13.09 at 08:35 PM • [link]
Couldn’t agree more with you Sarah. I read about this on another blog and thought “What asses. Fuck you and your book. I’m not buying it. Dumb asses.”
Pretty ridiculous to pull a stunt like that. And what’s the point? He’s going to sell a ton because he’s known for being the “Twilight Guy” so they just need to tuck in their pussy and release the ebook at a decent price.
So, they wait 6 months and all that time they will be losing sales that potential ebook readers would have been making.
Karen Wester Newton said on 07.13.09 at 08:36 PM • [link]
You tell ‘em! Some people just do not get it. I have a house FULL of books and I need to stop buying printed books! I spent over $300 on an eReader so I don’t have to. If a publisher doesn’t want to publish in ebook form, then they can do without my business.
tracykitn said on 07.13.09 at 08:40 PM • [link]
I’m not a digital reader, primarily because I can’t afford a dedicated e-reader just yet (maybe next spring?) but I am such a big reader that the ONLY way I will buy a hardback is when it’s hit the “Bargain Book” status and is priced at less than the full price for a mass-market paperback. I will die and drool and wish until it’s out in MMPB, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much I want the book. I will wait on endless lists at the library before I will buy a hardcover book.
Well, except for old books, of course. But they’re not really at issue here, are they? Or, perhaps if it’s a really really special copy of a really really special book….but I digress.
Down with the hardback!
Lynda said on 07.13.09 at 08:50 PM • [link]
As a bookseller I have mixed feelings toward ebooks, but they are here and we need to deal with them. What I don’t have are mixed feelings toward hardcovers. I hate them. With the exception of the occassional prestige publication, or phenom books ala Harry Potter and Twilight people don’t like them and won’t spend the money. In my perfect world they would release paperbacks and ebooks together, and then do a small print run of hcs for collectors.
Oh, and IFC does release movies in the theater, on dvd, and for On Demand at the same time, dude.
Clothdragon said on 07.13.09 at 08:55 PM • [link]
I buy paperback. I like being able to share with my friends and discuss afterwards when I find good books. I keep considering buying an ebook reader, but won’t until the cost of ebooks are more comparable with what I feel like I get—a very limited version of my paperback. I don’t ever buy hardcovers.
Ok, I have a few I’ve gotten at garage sales for fifty cents, but even then they sit on my bookshelf unread for years because I don’t like hardcovers. I don’t like reading them, I don’t like holding them, and I won’t buy them from a publisher even if I have to wait longer to read an author I like. I love love love Kim Harrison—enough to use the word love several times there—and I still haven’t read her newest. I’ll read it next year when it comes out in a format I can hold in one hand while I read it, and I can keep to read it again just before the next one comes out.
ev said on 07.13.09 at 09:00 PM • [link]
I am the same way. There are very few authors I buy in HC any more, and those only because I started out that way a long time ago. And HP, of course.
But my primary reading format is now ebook- I have run out of room, and I like the convience. Esp since my store has a crappy romance section now that I am not there. LOL
And I am sorry, but it is assholes like that that make pirated books so popular. Someone is going to put it out there sooner or later and sooner than their version.
(I did find out this weekend from the Sony store,that I can reg up to 3 ereaders and 3 comps under the same name and share the books. So I bought one for Daughter #1 who shares much of the same reading interest and we are going to see what happens. If it works, Daughter #2 may deauthorize her book and put it under my acct too. We shall see what happens.)
Kris Eton said on 07.13.09 at 09:01 PM • [link]
I read this and almost puked myself. What person in their right mind would buy a hardback version, wait six months and then buy the ebook? There IS no consumer like that. Ebook buyers are ebook buyers and hardback buyers…are, well, spending too much money (LOL!).
To postpone an e-release thinking it will impact sales for your hardback release is just ridiculous thinking that tells me this publisher does NOT understand the ebook market or readers of ebooks.
Oh, and guess what? I’m one of those people who WOULD buy the DVD the day the movie came out in the theater, b/c the theater has been such a HORRIBLE expensive experience lately that I prefer to watch movies at home, on my own time. Buying a new movie for $19.99 is much cheaper than dragging the family to a theater to shell out $8 or $9 per person, plus another $20 for over-priced food—oh, and I have to put up with jackass who text, talk on their cell, stumble over my feet, spill crap on me, and chat all the way through the movie to boot.
Why are these publishers so reluctant to publish in electronic format? Why are they so reluctant to share a higher percentage of the price with authors? Why are they not embracing the potential in ebooks in a very crappy economy? As far as I can tell, they deserve to fail if this is how they operate.
Meljean Brook said on 07.13.09 at 09:02 PM • [link]
In this case, I wonder how a digital edition is different from a mass-market edition? I know many people (including myself) who will wait for a year before buying a book that came out in hardback. It’s cheaper, and I’m willing to delay gratification so that I can pay less.
I’m fine with any publisher who releases first a hardback edition and then follows it up with a mass-market. And I think that any e-book priced at $25 is ridiculous. But why should they come out with a $10 ebook in conjunction with a $25 hardback? Readers aren’t entitled to that any more than they are entitled to a mass-market available alongside a hardback.
Not that I don’t think it’s kind of shortsighted NOT to issue a digital edition with the print edition. A huge selling point for the Kindle was the $9.99 digital edition. But publishers aren’t selling Kindles, they are selling books—so I’m not sure that loss leader is worth it to them in the same way it is for Amazon.
joykenn said on 07.13.09 at 09:10 PM • [link]
Dah! Have you guys never heard of a library! Like the previous poster, I’ve got a houseful of books so I switched to an ebook reader. I just don’t buy print books anymore. If someone charges an outrageous price for the ebook, I generally reserve it in print from the Library. So many times if I read it from the Library I seldom feel the need to wait around a year and buy it electronically. I’m on to the next book instead.
Click on one lost sale for you guys. Multiply me by the tens of thousands of other readers just like me and you’ve got a heap of remainder books to sell! Just sayin’....
Kinsey W. Holley said on 07.13.09 at 09:11 PM • [link]
Sarah Rotman Epps’ observation is the primary reason I haven’t gotten all that involved in the current e-pub tussle with RWA. I have joined Romance Writers for Change, and I gave Kristen my proxy, but I haven’t blogged or tweeted or commented about it, and here’s why - epubbing is the future, whether or not New York realizes or wants to admit it right now. We are in an L shaped recession that could (and, in my pessimistic view, almost certainly will) get worse before it gets better. Publishers are suffering, and they’re going to be suffering for a while. Sarah (our Sarah) is right - while ebooks are a tiny fraction of the market RIGHT NOW, that market share is going to grow. I don’t think ebooks will replace paper, but I do think in the near future they will be on equal footing.
It’s why I just roll my eyes every time an RWA board member says something stupid about e-pubbed authors (I just qualified for PAN, BTW, with an e-book) or publishers get all medieval monkish about the glories of paper (no illuminated lettering? Mass produced typeset pages? Oh the barbarity—we mustn’t put all the brothers in the scriptorium out of work!)
Movies to TV, TV to video, video to DVD, mainframe computers to PCs to laptops, newspaper to internet, blah blah blah - there’s information, and there’s format. The format is not the information. Peoples’ appetite for information does not change - their preference for format does.
Sandia said on 07.13.09 at 09:13 PM • [link]
I think publishers are being incredibly shortsighted on this - their efforts to squeeze every penny out of consumers. They don’t seem to understand that the consumer experience of buying an ebook is totally different than paper books. If you are not paying for the delivery of the book to the retailer, you are not paying for the paper and the ink to print it, why are you charging me a premium? Especially if I am purchasing a DRM’d version which I acknowledge that I will not and cannot resell??
I hope they open their eyes up soon because you see all those movies being pirated on torrent sites? Those are HUGE HD movie files. It’ll be nothing to start sharing books when they’re only in the kilobyte sizes.
darlynne said on 07.13.09 at 09:15 PM • [link]
Well, that explains why Michael Malone’s Four Corners of the Sky hasn’t been available anywhere in e-format: Sourcebooks is his house. I bought his book in hardcover when it first came out and that’s only because I want to support any endeavor that involves him. I won’t throw an author I love under the bus because the publisher is an idiot. All others, it’s “e” or it’s paperback.
ghn said on 07.13.09 at 09:17 PM • [link]
These days I buy lots more e-books than Dead Tree. Mainly because what little shelf space I have must be carefully rationed. I _do_buy the occasional HC book, but they are few.
When I can’t buy e-books, I _might_ decide on a Dead Tree format, but the publisher shouldn’t bet on it. More likely, those money will go to another publisher - one that sells products that I want.
For an author whose books I love, I would probably buy Dead Tree when e-book isn’t available. An unknown? Forget about it!!
Oh - and if a legal electronic version of a popular book isn’t available, a pirate version is sure to appear quickly. _I_ prefer to properly buy my books, but there is always a market for the less than legal stuff. And this sort of attitude just encourages it.
SB Sarah said on 07.13.09 at 09:26 PM • [link]
Hey MelJean! I’m with you there. My problem is that the price of ebooks remains so fluid, and because of that it’s creeping upwards. If a hardback is available for $25, and it’s a brand new release, surely there is a middle ground between consumer price ideal and publisher price ideal that would allow for a digital copy to be available at the same time. Despite the DRM and possibility of limited download, I would potentially pay a higher price for a very-much-wanted new HC release in digital.
Caroline said on 07.13.09 at 09:32 PM • [link]
I’ve gotten so that I only buy ebooks. If a book isn’t released electronically, I pick it up at the library instead.
BUT…I don’t really see how this is very different than publishers waiting several months to release a book in paperback so that paperback sales don’t cut into hardback sales.
And I’m no expert, but if I were an agent, I’d probably push for a delayed ebook release for my authors, too. After all, 7% royalties for a 16-30 dollar hardcover is more desirable than 7%* royalties on a 9.99 ebook.
So, yeah. It may be more inconvenient for me, but I understand the reasoning and don’t really have a problem with it.
*Epublishing aside, authors don’t get a higher royalty rate for electronic releases, at least not from what I understand. Someone with more knowledge, please feel free to correct me.
Sandia said on 07.13.09 at 09:53 PM • [link]
I get upset at this whole debate because all I see is publishers trying to really screw over the consumer. For example, Julia Spencer-Fleming’s “I Shall Not Want” came out in Mass Market Paperback in April. However, the ebook pricing didn’t change at all - stayed at 9.99. Now tell me this, why should I have to pay more to own an ebook when the MMP is available for cheaper? Makes me feel like I’m purposely being punished for being an early adopter.
Also - about the cannibalizing of sales. I used to go to the library for all my reading. Once I got my Kindle I started buying books. So I’m actually a customer who never would have bought that book ever if it wasn’t available to me at a reasonable price in ebook format. They’re losing new customers, not cannibalizing existing customers. They need to get that, and they don’t.
FD said on 07.13.09 at 09:54 PM • [link]
@ Caroline - actually as I understand it, royalties for ebooks can be significantly higher for e-releases unless as with some of the NYT bestsellers crowd, they do better out of the print arrangement. The e-edition and the deadtree editions can and often are covered under different contracts or sub clauses of the contract.
What that argument misses is that for many ebook people, not releasing the ebook until after the hardcover does nothing to help the hardcover sales, because the typical ebook reader, esp in this economy, wasn’t going to buy the hardcover anyway.
I’m a voracious reader and have virtually switched all my reading to e-books. If I really really adore it, and will want to read it in the bath, I’ll buy the paperback.
Maggie said on 07.13.09 at 09:55 PM • [link]
Honestly, I don’t understand why they do hardback for the majority of books. Even if ebooks didn’t exist I still wouldn’t buy them. They are big, clunky, expensive, and not comfortable to hold. Holding back the ebook edition based on the idea that it will increase hardback sales is simply foolish.
GrowlyCub said on 07.13.09 at 09:57 PM • [link]
I agree with the analogy of waiting a year/6 months to bring out a pb for a book with an initial HC release. That’s a valid analogy to e-books and I can’t refute it, but what I can say is that as a consumer, I don’t buy those books that come out as HC originals. By the time the book comes out in pb, I’ve forgotten about it or am no longer interested in the series or title. As joykenn said above:
‘Click on one lost sale.’ Same goes for delayed e-book releases.
By the time the publisher deigns to release an e-book, I’ve moved on to the next book, next series, next author; especially if it’s a new to me author I will forget you in a year, no doubt about it. And if I absolutely cannot live without reading that particular HC book, library here I come!
So, while the analogy is valid, there are still more sales lost than money earned by withholding a pb or e-book version, because if I like a book, even if author only gets 7%, she’ll also get it on the next in the series and the one after and then the one after that that isn’t part of the original series and she’ll get it from my friends when I recommend the book, whereas the buck stops at 0% for a HC and pretty much applies to all following books, even when they revert to pb original releases.
Guess I’m fickle, or have the attention span of a gnat or something.
Meljean Brook said on 07.13.09 at 10:12 PM • [link]
And I agree that’s very much the crux of the problem. The piracy issue isn’t an issue to me, because digital edition or not, anyone who doesn’t want to pay a high price for a new e-book or a hardback book is either going to wait for the cheaper version (be it mmpb or a lower-priced ebook) or they will pirate it. And that pirated version will show up within a day of release whether it is out in print only or also in digital.
I can understand the publisher thinking: we want that window of time when the only version available is the $25 version, the premium version. Because the people who like that format and really want it, and don’t mind paying the extra bucks are going to buy it. So of course there are going to be ebook buyers who don’t mind paying a premium price to read it early, too. But a $25 ebook (or even $17 ebook) is *just* paying for the ability to read it early, without the premium format and durability. They are essentially paying $25 for an early mass market, which is, hoo-boy, way overpriced any way you look at it. And that raises ire, too, because the reader is being gouged.
And I have a difficult time believing that the profit margin on a $25 hardback is so much greater than a $17 ebook that it cuts into publisher profits all that much. I can see where royalties might be affected, though (although even that is questionable, because those ebook buyers who had to wait to buy the cheap ebook version still won’t buy the hardback). That wouldn’t be a reader’s concern, but I imagine that’s an issue for both the publisher and the author.
So I’m with you; I just don’t know where that happy middle is, although I think there must be one. And unless there is some other ‘premium’ attached to an early, expensive ebook (additional content, maybe a discount at the publisher’s ebook store) then I can also imagine an uproar when the ebook price drops to match the mmpb price point.
Things that make my head explode:
Print books without digital counterparts.
Ebooks priced higher than the the print versions.
Ebooks that are priced higher than the mass market reprint versions.
I imagine one of those things will have to give. Either ebooks are just going to settle at a higher-than-mmpb-lower-than-hardback price, so that ebook readers are paying more for their preferred format, or ebook releases will be delayed so that they are more like a mmpb release.
Which makes me super-glad I’m never likely to be published in hardback. It makes the digital-release-coincides-with-paperback part of my life that much easier.
(Also, sorry if this is a bit incoherent. I’m a little drugged.)
G said on 07.13.09 at 10:18 PM • [link]
Am I the only person who actually does buy HCs?
If I like the author, if I want to read it when it comes out, not only do I buy HC but I then gather them up and ship them to myself in M-bags, so I can read it a year earlier than when it comes out in the UK or in pb. If I don’t care, I wait for the PB.
I also hit a problem with e-galleys this year: Adobe Editions won’t install on my Mac. I won’t be buying an e-reader for a very long time. Leaving aside the general (I read everywhere- sometimes even in the shower- catch that with a Kindle!) the more specific is that I like owning it, holding it, lending it, pushing it on my friends.I read enough on screen and I don’t like it (yes, blogs, books, zines- aghh).
So yes, I totally understand waiting to put out a cheaper version and I say, support authors! Amazon takes over 50% of the sales price for a Kindle book- what’s left for the author? Let alone the indie book store or small press I wander upon while trolling a real store?
Melissa S. said on 07.13.09 at 10:26 PM • [link]
I have to admit, I’m willing to wait. (I’m waiting on Meg Cabot’s Being Nikki because the hardcover prices have gone up 2 dollars and I want it on ebook). The pricing is an issue that I really want ebook stores to take care off because right now Kindle is getting the best deal and I don’t have a Kindle (don’t want one either). Also I’ve noticed that even when the book comes out in paperback, the ebook is still selling at the hardcover reduced rate. I mentioned before that I was only willing to pay at tops 10 dollars for an ebook, and I’m sticking to that, but I think that Sourcebook may be right in holding off on releasing it’s books into a market that doesn’t even have an understanding on what a fair price would be for the new format.
At this junction, I believe that readers forcing a pricing “standard” on some of these out of hand stores like ebooks.com would help publishers feel safer about putting their books out in ebook form and everyone knowing they are getting the best deal possible.
cursingmama said on 07.13.09 at 10:36 PM • [link]
Maybe ebook readers should just stop purchasing all together & wait their turn on the library list instead? Most of the lists go pretty quick, certainly quicker than the 6 month lapse between hardcover & ebook and there are no penalties if you want to check it out & re-read it more than 6 times.
Susanna Kearsley said on 07.13.09 at 11:02 PM • [link]
@Sarah - Did you notice this in today’s Publishers Weekly?
Full article is at: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670070.html
So it looks like the company may be listening to the anti-DRM part of your argument, at least :-)
GrowlyCub said on 07.13.09 at 11:05 PM • [link]
Melissa S, could you elaborate on that? I have no idea what you are trying to say and I really want to!
Amy! said on 07.13.09 at 11:08 PM • [link]
So ... why are the publishers talking about retail price, rather than gross/net profit?
What do those numbers look like, for hardcover, trade paper, mm paper, and ebooks?
I’ll note that this is largely irrelevant to me, since I won’t buy DRM unless it’s trivial to break it (and I haven’t yet decided to make inept work on a non-Windows system), because I’m not interested in renting books (no offense intended to those who prefer to rent).
But the debate always seems to go forward about retail prices of these things; are the margins smaller as the retail price drops? If, for instance, the net profit for a $25 hardcover is $10.00, and the net profit for an ebook is $9.95 ... uh (and yes, it’s possible; the marginal cost of production for an ebook approaches zero).
kirsten saell said on 07.13.09 at 11:10 PM • [link]
Yet I choose digital media because it works for me, and I liek it. So why am I being penalized because I don’t want to buy the hardcover, and should therefore wait six months or more for the digital copy.
I don’t mind them staggering the releases, as long as the ebook is priced appropriately for the format (i.e. less than mass market ppb). But I do think their reasoning is predicated on a false assumption that people would rather pay $25+ for a book right now in a format they don’t like than wait six months and pay less for one they do.
And I’d also add that if the author was making an appropriate royalty percentage on digital, they’d be earning almost as much per copy from that $9.99 as they would from the $25 hardback. So would the publisher, most likely. And they’d probably sell more copies…
Meljean Brook said on 07.13.09 at 11:45 PM • [link]
I don’t know for certain, but I suspect the focus on retail price comes from royalty considerations. I can easily imagine the process going something like this:
PUBLISHER: Let’s put out a $25 hardcover and a $25 ebook!
EBOOK READERS: WTF?! (Pirate and/or don’t buy.)
AUTHOR: Yay. But, dudes, why didn’t I get any ebook sales?
PUBLISHER: WTF? Why didn’t we sell any ebooks? Okay, $25 hardcover and $10 ebook.
EBOOK READERS: Yay!
AUTHOR: WTF? Publisher profit margin is the effing same, but I lost a huge amount of royalties on that ebook because they put it out at the same time as the hardback?
AGENT: Okay, we’ll ask for higher ebook royalties.
AUTHOR: Yay!
PUBLISHER: OMG our profit margin for ebooks! Raise price! $15!
EBOOK READERS: BOOO!
SOME EBOOK READERS: Meh, it’s still okay.
THE MASS MARKET VERSION COMES OUT
EBOOK READERS: BOO!!
AUTHOR: Ebooks are priced too high and aren’t selling! I’m losing out to pirates and to other books that are priced more reasonably!
PUBLISHER: Er, should we lower the ebook price now? Um…okay.
EBOOK READERS WHO ALREADY BOUGHT THE EBOOK: WTF?
THE CHORUS: Sobs.
DS said on 07.13.09 at 11:47 PM • [link]
I like hard covers also but I have no idea what Bran Hambric is so I don’t think I am in the hard cover audience for this book—maybe not even the eBook audience. I also buy lots of eBooks—throw away reading I share with a friend (legally, we are both on the same Kindle account) but only at the “right” price for an eBook—in other words NOT full deadtree price.
Meljean Brook said on 07.13.09 at 11:50 PM • [link]
Of course, whether this is true or not is totally questionable. One of the problems with pricing always seems to go back to the “Our ebook sales are eating our print sales!”, which I find hard to believe, since—like people who will wait to buy mass market—people will usually wait to buy in their preferred format, unless they really, really, REALLY have to have it right now. So IMO, the idea of “ebooks steal sales away from print!” has to go before any standard pricing/release schedule can be established.
mamaphoenix said on 07.14.09 at 12:06 AM • [link]
I’m a technical book author and my publisher sells more of my books in e book format than print. They also give me a larger royalty percentage for e books. The e book is also released simultaneously and as a special package offer (two fer) bundled with the print book. I think technical book publishers are more savvy about this than fiction publishers.
FD said on 07.14.09 at 12:09 AM • [link]
Thinking about it, I wouldn’t generally pay HB prices for an e-book. However, for non-DRM’d new releases that are only out in HB, I would pay a higher price. I would not pay higher prices for an ebook with DRM because I look on lower ebook prices as compensation for y’know, not actually owning a copy of the book.
I think a lot of readers who don’t necessarily have my loathing for DRM would be OK with ebook prices reflecting the format the book is currently available in, starting high, then dropping as trade \ MMPB format come in. It’s when the ebook price is higher than the cheapest available paper format that people (rightly, IMO) get pissy.
Keira said on 07.14.09 at 01:05 AM • [link]
I understand your point, but I agree with Sourcebooks on ebooks.
Ebooks are akin to paperbacks at the moment and are being treated as such. A paperback doesn’t come out at the same time as a hardback why should an ebook arrive on the scene at the same time as a hardback? What makes it more special and deserving?
I don’t think they should wait the same time frame as the movie industry, that’s crazy, but at least a weekend no more than a month, two at the most.
Keira said on 07.14.09 at 01:05 AM • [link]
Or better yet, come out when paperback versions come out of hardback books.
Keira said on 07.14.09 at 01:09 AM • [link]
It all comes down to prices, really.
If ebooks are more expensive - let them come first.
If hardbacks are more expensive - they should be released before ebooks.
If ebooks are equal to paperbacks - they should both come out at the same time.
If paperbacks are more than ebooks - paperbacks should come out before ebooks.
They’re in the business to make money and you don’t put the bargain out before the highest retail price.
Kris Eton said on 07.14.09 at 01:23 AM • [link]
Keira and others, I completely disagree. An ebook is NOT equivalent to a paper version at all. As I said much earlier today, those buying hardbacks/paperbacks are NOT the same audience as those buying ebooks. A person who wants an ebook will NOT purchase the paperback nor the hardback, so delaying a release to make more money is just a ridiculous argument.
I think several on here have already said it…if it’s a new author, strike while the iron is hot…or I’m going to forget this author’s name and their book and by the time it comes out in an ebook version, I’m already buying something else.
An ebook book does not function like a print book. An ebook has no cost beyond formatting, as the cost has already been factored in (i.e. editing, marketing, etc.) to the cost of print versions. An ebook is pure profit - the fees the resellers tack on. What’s there to lose?
I am the kind of reader who reads something once and never reads it again (except for a few classics, but even then, we’re talking YEARS between readings). I don’t WANT paper versions clogging up my house. And I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that way. But this argument here and the Sourcebooks article makes me think people STILL don’t understand MY type of reader. Sigh…
I don’t WANT a paper version, so why should I be penalized and have to wait a YEAR for that book to be released in the format I want?
Meljean Brook said on 07.14.09 at 01:55 AM • [link]
But a lot of people delay buying a hardback not because they don’t like how big they are or because they just love mass markets that much, but because of the price. And so I have no doubt that if a $8 ebook came out the same time as a hardback, and this became an industry standard, we’d see quite a few more people buying ebooks. And, yes, over time and as the digital format becomes more popular—as everyone assures us it will—then there’s going to be a good chunk of people who are switching from hardbacks to digital, too, because if they can get it cheaper at the same time ... well, why buy the hardback and why wait for mass market? For every person who loves the ebook format because of the format, there will be two or three who love it because of the price. And at some point, the audience for buying ebooks IS going to be the same as those buying print books.
This won’t be everyone, because there still will be people who prefer print, but isn’t it a sure thing that the ebook readership is going to keep growing? Right now, there is a big divide of ebook readers and print book readers, with just a tiny bit of overlap. But that overlap is going to keep increasing, and those readers won’t care as much about the format as just getting the book as early as they can at the best price they can.
I agree, ebooks and print books are different formats and probably shouldn’t be treated the same. But at least for the next decade or so, until a new generation of readers pops up, every ebook reader is going to be a convert from print. So maybe the total number of book sales will stay the same as people convert to another format, but as print sales decline in favor of ebooks sold, those factored-in things like editing and marketing are suddenly going to be taking chunks out of the ebook profits, because print proceeds might not just cover them anymore. And publishers have to consider those things now, because if they realize they’ve killed themselves by putting ebook prices too low later, they are going to have a hell of a time digging themselves back out. It’s always going to be better to lower the prices than raise them when they realize they can’t sustain a certain business model (and, yes, maybe it means the business model will have to change.)
So, again, I don’t think ebook readers are stealing sales from hardback or whatever. I think that’s ridiculous. BUT to treat ebooks as pure profit now and depending on print sales to cover production and editing costs will be a self-destructive practice for any publisher.
Jan said on 07.14.09 at 02:12 AM • [link]
I’m one of those that wait a year for the MMPB for those authors who have moved from MMPB to HC. Suzanne Brockmann and Sherrilyn Kenyon are two. I have the earlier books in MMPB and I refuse to “upgrade” to HC, just because the authors have become popular enough to bring out in HC. Which, BTW seems to be poor logic. I will wait because my bookshelves have a nice orderly size with the older books and a 7.99 price point. And, it irritates the hell out of me to have to wait a year for a book I want to read. I re-read many of my books, so I do want to own them. So, I do get on the list at the library and order the book when it comes out from Amazon or Better World Books, and, I’m sorry to say for the authors, I buy used as often as I can. Frankly, I don’t have the money or the space for HC books. Wise up publishers. You lost a $7.99 sale and my business. Someone else sold me the book for $.25 plus shipping.
If I had an e-book reader, I would still bargain hunt. Money is tight, and going to get tighter. Guess they don’t want to stay in business. The customer USED to be important.
Sandra Coburn said on 07.14.09 at 02:38 AM • [link]
I know that there are a few people who will buy a book in hardcover the minute it comes out—Harry Potter comes to mind—but I almost never buy hardcovers any more. They don’t fit well in my hand or on my bookshelf, and they are too expensive. Sometimes I get or give one as a present, or I might pick one up in the bargain book section. Like many folks here, I will wait for the paperback or borrow the hardback from the library… and if i don’t love it, I might not buy the paperback. Some people love hardbacks, though, and I guess the publishers have figured that this is the most profitable model for them. I don’t think it will remain that way for very much longer.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 02:56 AM • [link]
One more thing to add to Meljean’s comment about this. I may be wrong, but I would assume there has to be substantial cost involved in developing and maintaining the infrastructure required to produce and distribute ebooks.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 03:01 AM • [link]
I also think ebook advocates are a little sensitive about this issue. I’m not sure why ebooks must be available on the day of release when I can’t get my mass market paperback until months or a year after the hardcover comes out. You don’t want to pay the cost of a hardcover? Then wait like everyone else.
Now, stopping the practice of publishing first releases in hardcover is another issue. (And for what it’s worth, this is rarely done in Australia. First releases for prestigious titles are usually in C-format paperback.)
Teresa C said on 07.14.09 at 03:37 AM • [link]
I think that someone needs to do some marketing research.
From my travels on the internet, I have noticed the following:
People have a format preference, and trying to sell them a different format is an uphill battle.
Whatever format a person reads, is what he/she reads. A person who prefers HC format, will only buy another format, when HC is not offered.
Trade paper readers, only buy Trade paper, unless Trade is not offered.
MMPB readers, only buy MMPB. Heaven forfend you ever expect them to buy anything else.
E-readers, only buy e-books, wherever, and however they can.
So, a Publisher delaying a digital edition, only delays the revenue stream from those digital editions. The digital editions was not a lost HC Sale, as an e-reader will never buy in HC. I think the reverse is also true, a HC reader will never buy an e-book.
I do think, that the longer a publisher delays a cheaper edition, the more sales are lost to the Library and UBS sales, resulting in a lost sale. 0% of $25 is still less than 10% of $7.99.
Sandra Coburn said on 07.14.09 at 03:52 AM • [link]
Meljean wrote
Very good point.
A publisher should consider the ebooks in their cost structure, and the more successful the ebook format becomes, and the larger the percentage of total sales, the larger the proportion of the costs those sales must cover.
Still, the cost of e-book production must be substantially less than the cost of producing a traditional book. Paper costs, shipping costs, storage costs, and all those stripped books have to add up.
From what I have heard at my local RWA chapter meetings, authors are not necessarily getting a larger royalty percentage on ebooks than they do on paper—which I think is rotten. The publisher saves, the author suffers? Not a good model, but epub also allows for greater competition, so maybe competitive pressure will force publishers to compensate authors fairly when it comes to ebooks.
There are so many complicated issues involving eBooks—things like reversion of publishing rights. It was pretty standard to allow rights to revert to the author if the publisher had the book out of print for a certain amount of time. The author could later market the book to another publisher. But with epub, is anything EVER out of print? A publisher might do nothing to promote an author or her works and still hold the rights. These are the kind of things that RWA and other author groups should address in a proactive fashion.
No matter how complicated or difficult or, to some of us who still love paper books and physical bookstores, painful it might be, epub is here to stay.
Off topic? Oh, yeah. Well, uh, nevermind.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 04:06 AM • [link]
I see what you’re saying, Teresa C, but it’s my understanding that not every book comes out in hardcover. (Correct me if I’m wrong because I may well be!) So we’re only really talking about prestige titles that publishers think they can sell as hardcovers. I usually buy mass market, but I can be persuaded to buy different formats if they’re available earlier. I did it for Ward, Kenyon, and Crusie/Mayer.
Amy! said on 07.14.09 at 04:12 AM • [link]
@Kat
Google “marginal cost” or “marginal cost of production”. Unfortunately, I can’t find a good layman’s explanation. The brief version: the marginal cost of production of a digital artifact is zero (or so close to zero as to make no difference).
There are overheads associated with the production of entertainment (movies and music as well as fiction). For fiction, the overhead is the part of the advance that isn’t recovered, some part of the salaries of editors and proofreaders (and salesdroids), office space, various other materials, but all of that is fixed by the time the book is ready for sale.
For a digital release, there are (effectively) no further costs. For music on a CD, the per-unit cost (marginal cost of production) is whatever it costs to create the CD, create the label, and copy the music onto the CD; similarly for DVDs. There is no standard physical format for digital books (‘cause they’re very small, comparatively, so creating a custom format would have an unsupportable marginal cost without adding any functionality). For a physical book, the cost is paper, press rental per unit, ink, glue, etc. Many publishers no longer own presses and binderies; they hire it done (because it’s cheaper—lower marginal cost of production). Publishers take a risk every time they print a book: the result of a print run is a stack of physical artifacts, that cost money to make (and will cost money to store (and since the seventies there hasn’t been an inventory tax exception for books)); to recover that money they have to sell the product. If they don’t sell enough to break even on the print run, they lose money—without considering the overhead costs for editing, proofreading, etc.
If a publisher established their own ebook store, then they would have an additional overhead cost for the maintenance of servers, and salaries of techies, and cost of network connection, but again, when there’s more than one item (book) delivered by this system, it can’t easily be treated as part of the marginal cost—this is particularly true for ebooks, which typically weigh in at under a megabyte (often well under). That’s invisible, on a modern hard drive. Marginal cost of digital downloads is effectively zero (it’s slightly greater than zero, but only very slightly; we’re talking fractions of a cent). This is the reason that the sue-your-customers lawsuits are always expressed in terms of “lost revenue”, which is at best hypothetical, as it depends upon the strength of the acquisition motivation versus the cost of (legal) acquisition. If they sued for actual damages, they’d not be able to afford a minute of a lawyer’s time (not at $2.00 a minute).
But publishers mostly don’t run bookstores for their physical books, and why? Because (dedicated) bookstores do it better. If your city had one bookstore per publisher, how would you find anything? That doesn’t change for epublishing; publishers will end up transferring (one) digital copy, and the (online) bookstore can sell it over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Assuming that the publisher paid the full cost of transmittal of the original copy ... it’s just negligible.
So ... ebooks are priced (if they have anyone pricing them based on analysis, rather than the PR idiots who seem to want to price them based on what they had for breakfast or the phase of the moon) on an expectation of n sales to cover the (fixed) overhead costs (but in fact only a portion of the overhead costs, because the print editions are also priced to cover those costs, and those prices are based on analysis of returns or the publisher stops doing business). This is, for forward-thinking publishers, rather liberating ... but some of the dinosaurs, clearly, find the idea of a marginal cost approaching zero to be at best disturbing, and contrary to the laws of ... profit.
Teresa C said on 07.14.09 at 04:51 AM • [link]
Kat, I think you are probably the exception that proves the rule, in that you aren’t married to a format. I don’t think anyone knows how many people simply don’t buy a book, because it isn’t in their preferred format. I do know that there are books that I haven’t purchased, simply because they did not come out in a digital edition.
And, I know that there are books that I own multiple paper copies of, that I purchased in digital, as soon as I knew that they were available. If I could buy all of Linda Howard’s backlist in digital format, I would be a happy camper (it is so lovely to know that I can re-read McKenzie’s Mountain at the drop of a hat, it makes me smile.)
Don’t even get me started on the Audiobook versions of beloved books.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 05:07 AM • [link]
Thanks, Amy! Those are great points which I admit I hadn’t thought of when I posted my previous comment. I suspect the immediate cost/profit equation isn’t the only thing Sourcebook considered when it made its decision. I’m told Amazon takes a good loss in pricing ebooks below $10. This is clearly not sustainable. And from a publisher’s perspective, it seems like part of a plan for Amazon to set a market price that it can later ask/force publishers to meet, whether the costs bear it out or not.
I’m not saying Sourcebooks is right, by the way. I’m just saying they may have valid business reasons (which, of course, ebook readers may or may not agree with).
In the absence of such data, isn’t it understandable that Sourcebooks would want to minimise the possibility of ebook sales cannibalising hardcovers? There’s a reason hardcovers, trade and mass market don’t all come out at the same time. I think Sourcebooks is trying to figure out where ebooks fit into that timeline (based on Dominique Raccah’s comments on Twitter).
Casi Nerina said on 07.14.09 at 05:07 AM • [link]
I’m with you. I live abroad and English books are expensive here. When I go to the store books that are 7 or 8 dollars at home are the equivalent of 14 to 16 (or more) dollars here. I love to read, and if I was at home my collection on my ereader would no longer fit in the library room, that’s how many I’ve bought in 10 months.
Yes, they definitely need to treat us as equals.
Kaetrin said on 07.14.09 at 06:08 AM • [link]
Hear Hear Sarah!
Suze said on 07.14.09 at 06:30 AM • [link]
Wow, what a discussion. I’m flip-flopping as I read the comments, but my thoughts are circling around these truths:
- I will buy hardcover for a book that I just absolutely cannot wait for (Patricia Briggs Bone Crossed), but I resent having to do so.
- In most cases, I don’t mind waiting for a more economically feasible version to come out, but I really don’t understand why anyone except libraries want hardcovers at all. They suck in every way except for durability, and ability to keep orderly on library shelves.
- When a series goes hardcover, it generally starts to suck (Hamilton, Kenyon, Brockmann).
- When I read a hardcover book I get from the library, I generally don’t buy a cheaper format when it comes out, unless it’s one I know I’m going to re-read a lot (Briggs, Bujold).
- I have been known to buy the hardcover, then the paperback, then another copy of the paperback.
- However, I have run out of room, and so have bought an e-reader.
- DAMN the formats! I’m not enjoying book shopping anymore!
- I’m shopping differently now, and not to the benefit of publishers.
- I don’t buy books on impulse anymore, because I’d rather have it electronically. However, it’s so tedious browsing for books in different e-stores that by the time they’re out at a price I like in a format I can use, I’ve forgotten about them. And because I can’t browse by author like I do in a physical bookstore, I’m missing books by authors I like but have slipped my mind.
- So I’m buying fewer books over all. Which is good for my credit card, but sad for me and my authors.
Casi Nerina said on 07.14.09 at 06:44 AM • [link]
@Suze
- I collect hard covers from some of my favorite authors, and when I lived in the states I would buy the ones I couldn’t wait for.
- See point one
- I agree with this to some degree, but I still enjoy reading Hamilton (Laurell right?) and Acheron was a great climax to Kenyon’s series, now I want to see the next one.
- I don’t buy it after I read at the library either, unless I know I’m going to want to read it over and over.
- I currently have four copies of some of my favorite books - Hardcover, 2 paperbacks, and an ecopy. The hardcover to keep the two to read and loan out, and the ecopy was bought once I moved to Korea, because my little apartment doesn’t have enough room.
- I didn’t want to have exorbitant shipping home costs so I bought one before I ran out of room. I’m still going to have a whole box of books to ship home.
- I only buy one format. If it doesn’t exist I skip it and I’ll wait until I can buy it paper copy.
- I always try not to benefit the publishers. They don’t need any more money.
- Author websites are a wonderful thing. I’ve bookmarked all of mine, and keep a file where I list the upcoming release dates (at least by month) so that I can catch up and keep up. Though, admittedly some of my authors don’t have websites, or they aren’t updated often enough.
- I’m in the same position.
Theresa said on 07.14.09 at 06:46 AM • [link]
I hate hardback books. Most of my books are paperback but I’m buying a large number of ebooks as well. I enjoy reading an ebook on my laptop more than I enjoy reading a hardback. For me, reading a hardback is just not an enjoyable experience - I dislike the format and I can’t exactly explain why. I do buy some hardbacks - primarily nonfiction and biographies. However, I hate when my authors switch from paperback to hardback (you know who you are). I understand that “in demand” authors do that but I’d rather pay more for a book and get it in the format I want than have to wait for the paperback. I feel the same with ebooks. Let me, as the consumer, pick the format. You’re just going to delay my purchase and annoy me (and potentially lose me as a reader if the author is borderline) if you force me into your prescribed format.
Casi Nerina said on 07.14.09 at 07:12 AM • [link]
Oooo. I like that solution. Let the reader pick any format all at the same time. Hard, paper, trade, all the various e versions. That would be nice.
G said on 07.14.09 at 07:50 AM • [link]
I think a lot of what is being said here is silly. My preferred model would be a free e-book with my HC. Until then, I will pay HC prices for what I want to read faster. For those who are saying that folks have"preferred reading modes”: be serious. Would you pay HC price for your MMP? If not, then money is an important aspect and having cheaper models come out later is the correct answer. If waiting makes you not buy a book, then I guess that you don’t buy a lot of books.I am an accountant and saying that digital books have zero marginal cost is completely ingenuous: redefine marginal cost to include overhead then. Note that royalties, to author and especially to seller (I believe Amazon takes more than 50%) are already part of that marginal cost.
I would like to see how authors can survive without the “dinisaur” apparatus of the advance and that is part of the structure surrounding real books- those things some of you think are obsolete and not needed. Those structures are what are supporting e-books.
Once again, I think we should have a free e-book with our HC, then let it come out at 50 cents less than the cost of the comparable book (to make up for the cost of paper:)) with the TPB or MMPB.
Edie said on 07.14.09 at 07:55 AM • [link]
This is a hard one for me. Ideally I wish they would do away with hardcovers all together, I think I have only brought five new in my book buying lifetime - and that was only cos I knew I could onsell them and get most of my moola back. But in Aus, there is actually not a major market for hardcovers..
While I can understand the rational in considering ebooks the same as MME, I am with a lot of other people on the fact that I think 90% of the market for ebooks would not buy the hardcover anyway, and probably 90% of the people who are going to rush out for the hardcover are very unlikely to actually buy it in ebook.
And while there is a rant going on about mainstream books, can we mention the horrendous DRM and the absolute stupidity of the muddying of international e-rights?
These days I can’t even buy the darn ebooks anyway as I am excluded for being in oz, yet the majority of the publishers here that release a limited number of romance books are behind the eight ball on ebooks. Aussie Harlequin doesn’t even have ebooks as far as I can tell.. sigh
Rambling rant now over.. lol
Casi Nerina said on 07.14.09 at 07:55 AM • [link]
Everything else you said I can agree you have a right to say. Except that. Part of it is simply the ambiguity - how many is a lot for instance.
However, the bigger part of it is how do you get from A to B? waiting means no buying, so therefore we must not buy many books? Perhaps its that we buy so many books that we forget the ones we didn’t buy when we wanted to wait?
Jocelyn said on 07.14.09 at 09:11 AM • [link]
Totally agreed. I buy hardcovers for my auto-buy authors pretty frequently, but I’m much more likely to sour on an author if I have that “do I really want to spend $20+ on this novel?” moment. I’d still be buying all Charlaine Harris’ new novels if they came out in paperback right away, but I decided I didn’t want to spend twenty bucks to read about Sookie getting the snot beat out of her again, and talked myself out of buying anything else by that author ever again.
You know why? Because I know that by buying hardcovers, I’m getting ripped off. I’m willing to pay that extra cash for a novel I seriously can’t wait for, but I’m not happy about it and I’m always looking for a way to talk myself out of it. I don’t like the format (hard to carry, hard to read in bed).
Honestly. There is no hardback market to cannibalize. There’s an impatience market to profit from.
MichelleR said on 07.14.09 at 10:04 AM • [link]
I don’t buy print books. Oh, I don’t mind winning them like I did in the recent raffle, and Amazon Vine sends them for review, but I don’t really purchase them and don’t need to between my Kindle and the shelves of TBR books.
I buy lots of e-books, often on impulse, and with no real set limit, because these are my luxuries and everybody deserves 1 or 2 of those. That means that I will read a review and if it’s glowing or it sounds appealing, I will immediately purchase the Kindle version. It’s not about saving money, but about convenience and immediacy.
It’s not an either/or. No Kindle version, 99% chance of no purchase. I might think about it for a few seconds. I might put the book on my wishlist as a reminder, but it falls into the category of either a lost or delayed sale.
There have been times recently when I haven’t put the book on my wishlist for reminder and could not recall a title. If someone doesn’t mention that title again, I’ll never even have an opportunity to check back.
It seems logical to me that, like the grocery store that puts little items by the register, that pubs would cater to impulse buyers, and want people to have access to the book when it’s fresh in their minds, rather than have them be in a Borders two weeks later and unable to recall a thing or have it show up in the mail after the initial interest has faded.
ShellBell said on 07.14.09 at 10:57 AM • [link]
I only buy hardcover or trade priced eBooks if they are heavily discounted, otherwise I go to the library. When I utillise the library I probably won’t bother buying the eBook when it finally becomes available for me to purchase.
Publishers and etailers logic is incomprehensible when it comes to the pricing of eBooks. Lora Leigh’s Maverick and Dangerous Games are two examples of eBooks that I won’t be purchasing. Both are available only from Mobipocket at US$14 each while the paperback and kindle versions are less than US$10. Both also have geographical restrictions so even if I did want to get totally ripped off by Mobipocket I couldn’t purchase them anyway. I no longer feel ripped off by the pricing as I no longer buy the eBooks at hardcover and trade prices. I borrowed both books from the library and whilst I did enjoy the books I probably won’t bother purchasing them as eBooks so lost sales for Lora Leigh.
I recently tried to purchase Johanna Lindsey’s new release at a discounted price only to get pinged by the pitiful ‘geographical restriction’ excuse on checkout resulting in yet another lost sale.
I used to spend a minimum of US$100 a month but not any more, probablt not even half that now. While publishers and etailers are slowly but surely driving me away from eBooks, I’m not heading towards the shops to purchase the paperbacks, I’m rapidly heading towards my local library for free reads.
Sandra Coburn said on 07.14.09 at 01:18 PM • [link]
Kat,
I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. How can Amazon take a good loss if ebooks sell under $10? They don’t have to store them. They don’t have to order them when they run out, pack them in a box with padding, and ship them (free if the order is $25 or more). They don’t have to take damaged returns or restock them. The cost for having them available for download must be negligible. Unless their price from the publisher is more than $10—which I don’t see—how is that possible? If they can sell a trade paperback for $7.99 and make a profit—which they obviously do—AND ship for free when there you buy four of them—how could ebooks under $10 be a loss-leader?
Maybe their profit margin on e-books is smaller, but I don’t see how they could be realizing a loss on ebooks.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 01:30 PM • [link]
My understanding is that Amazon is selling ebooks for less than the price that they’re buying them from publishers. And I think that’s what’s most troubling for publishers—that consumers now expect a sub-$10 price point for ebooks that publishers may or may not be able to sustain in the long run.
The problem that I see publishers having with dirt cheap ebooks is that when they overtake print books there’s going to be an expectation that dirt cheap prices will be sustainable. But if ebooks eventually have to bear the bulk of the overhead costs of publishing, then I can see why publishers might not feel such prices are a good idea.
Amazon, on the other hand, wants to move Kindle units and gain as much market share as it can while the market for ebooks is still developing and growing so that when it’s time to consolidate they have enough market power to influence if not dictate the outcome.
Sandra Coburn said on 07.14.09 at 01:56 PM • [link]
Mass market paperbacks sell in the $7.99-$8.99 range all the time. (Let’s not even get into the Sam’s/Costco/Wal-Mart discussion!) Why would Amazon have to pay more than $10 for the ability to sell an e-book, when, if we assume that 50% markup number, they are only paying $4.00-$4.50 for a paperback? That just doesn’t add up to me.
Very confusing.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 02:04 PM • [link]
Maybe it’s to do with economise of scale? I have no idea. But the fact remains that Amazon is taking a loss on ebooks to sell it below $10. As consumers we might think this is a good thing because it puts publishers under pressure to reduce their costs/mark-ups. But you can see why publishers wouldn’t be too happy about it.
Sandra Coburn said on 07.14.09 at 02:38 PM • [link]
Hmmm…. Economy of scale has to do with the fact that, to a point, it is cheaper per item to make many items than just a few. Once the book is edited, the type is set, the press is going, it is cheaper per book to print 100,000 than to print 100. Ebooks avoid both the printing costs AND the shipping costs completely.
If Amazon’s cost on e-books is truly more than the cost of a paperback book, then there is some piece of the puzzle missing. I would love to hear from a publisher why that would be true.
Sandia said on 07.14.09 at 02:44 PM • [link]
Sorry to all the authors out there but the more I read about the publisher’s attitude towards the consumer, the more I’m tempted to look on the torrent sites for free stuff.
Makes me want to rebel - why should I pay for it if you continue to try to screw me on pricing because you incorrectly believe that I am the same consumer that will buy a HC book?
I just don’t get why publishers don’t understand that a majority of ebook sales comes from a completely new segment - who can just as easily disappear.
Lyron Bennett said on 07.14.09 at 03:56 PM • [link]
Got to say I am totally unimpressed with this article in every way. It is personal, and frankly very, very silly. The only decision a publisher has is when to release it and this is a format that needs experimentation not to be made rigid for the, frankly, e-clique people that post here. I’m very disappointed. I always thought you guys were WAY smarter than this.
Here’s a mean way of making my point. I know that in tennis shoes everyone’s happy that its a race to the bottom, right? That’s why there is unilateral support for sweat shops? I mean, the whole goal of capitalism is to get products to be as cheap as possible, thus its got to be good for the world that people make products for as cheaply as possible regardless of the way it destroys the integrity of the process. Seriously, mean metaphors aside, we need to be having a conversation about how to support authors, not a conversation demeaning people who are trying to save authorship from the race to the bottom. We need experimentation, we need to find the balance between pleasing the people who post here and pleasing the VAST majority of book buyers who buy print books, we need to listen to people like Dominique when they go out on the limb. We need actual conversation not articles that read “THE WORLD IS ABOUT ME, THUS ALL PUBLISHING SHOULD BE DONE JUST FOR ME.”
Again, this website is usually so smart (and entertaining) but this was totally off the mark.
G said on 07.14.09 at 04:20 PM • [link]
Hear, hear Lyron! I have been amazed reading these comments.
I buy a lot of books. I support writers (most of whom eke out a living-see Scalzi et al’s posts on advances/royalties).
I deeply regret when authors I love leave writing because they can’t afford to live in poverty. When I climbed out of hand to mouth, I made decisions. One of those was to buy HC certain books, to replace PBs with HC in some cases. I know the royalty difference between HC and PB. I don’t steal books (or music). I don’t expect either to be free.
And what I meant when I said that one doesn’t buy a lot of books if one can’t wait to buy in PB, is that there is no way I could afford all the books I read in HC. Nor could I get them all from the library (if I were in the US now) because although I frequented and supported my library, I read more widely and faster than they can stock. I learned to “trage” my desires both to purchase and to purchase in HC long ago. Nowadays I get to buy more HC and I am happy with that. But I still buy in PB. If I don’t care enough to get it when it’s in PB, I don’t care enough.
Books are not bubblegum. I won’t read crap because it’s easier to get (ok, I will, but that’s because I am an addict. And I will generally read a crap magazine before a crap book).
Am I really so different than the other real readers out there? And I define that as: “people who read more than 8 books a month”. And most of us read more than that, I think. We buy most of the books in the US, I have read. And I don’t need them all on reader or to beggar authors to get them faster.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 04:24 PM • [link]
But I’m not sure that’s what publishers intend to do. Part of the price of the hardback is the fact that you get to read the book first. You pay a premium for the quality of the binding as well as the timing of the release. You’ll still get the ebook eventually—just not on release day. Whether you wait and buy a legal copy or decide to read a copy from elsewhere is your decision, much like I can decide to wait for the mm paperback, or buy a used hardback from the UBS, borrow it from the library, or hang around Borders for 2 hours to read the book in its entirety.
I do think it’s a valid point to say that some readers may well turn to illegal downloads if ebook releases are delayed, and that’s something that publishers have to weigh up.
Again, I don’t necessarily agree with Sourcebooks here. But I think this is the right time for publishers to be experimenting with what they can and can’t do, and what the market can and can’t or won’t bear.
Suze said on 07.14.09 at 04:45 PM • [link]
I don’t understand what this means. I’m pretty sure a publisher has to decide more than when to release a book. Also, I get the impression that release dates are greatly impacted by when a book can get fit into the schedules of a limited number of printers.
Pricing should be based on real numbers, not experimental imaginary ones. Harlequin, who probably does more market research than any other publishing company on earth, seems to have come up with a business model that takes paper and e-books into account, and it seems to be working for them.
If Amazon is losing money on their e-books, why are other e-book stores adopting their pricing? Why aren’t publishers looking at what Harlequin is doing and emulating them? Most of all, why isn’t anyone able to plot out the costs of publishing paper books versus e-books so that people can make decisions based on real information, rather than stuff we’re guessing at.
And G, some books ARE bubblegum. Not every reading experience can or ought to be steak & lobster. Especially if a person is reading 6 or more books a week.
Pam said on 07.14.09 at 04:48 PM • [link]
Yeah, what is up with that? I had so looked forward to her last one, too. My daughter thinks Harris is channeling Meyer and Sookie’s developing the Bella whine…
Sorry about going off-topic. I don’t feel qualified to comment since I don’t use an e-reader. I am not passionate about format, only reading. Every table setting should include a weight for holding a book open—easier with a hardback, BTW. I read all my favorite authors in library versions first and choose my keepers from whatever is cheapest. I would read ebooks, if I weren’t too cheap to buy a reader or likely to get gravy on it…
The one thing I don’t understand is commentators who are so passionately attached to their own favorite format that they seem to think that a) everyone shares their preference or that b) their preference should be treated as the primary format and all others should take a back seat. These attitudes may be a function of age to some degree. I suspect that the majority of hardback readers are older (and perhaps more prosperous and/or blinder), while the ebook aficionados tend to be dominated by the born digital generation. Pricing and format dominance should evolve as demographics change, and, in the meantime, readers will vote with their wallets. It seems like the marketplace model works best when things are in a state of flux. In the long term, DRM issues are probably way more of a hot button for me.
Edie said on 07.14.09 at 04:56 PM • [link]
I guess as a lot of us have leapt on the ebook ride with such glee, (in most cases, probably because we read wayyy more than 8 books a month) it is hard to be patient while the publishers experiment.
I just think that sometimes publishers are cutting their nose off to spite their face with the pissfarting around they are doing with ebooks.
I read similar articles to Kat on the Amazon thing I think, and it just makes no sense to me, I do not understand under what justification they can charge suppliers more for ebooks then they do for print books - where under the iffy system they are going to get returns and less shelf time.
I don’t know any answers, but while the publishers sort themselves out, I will be spending the majority of my dosh at small epubs with much less hassle. And only buying known authors from the mainstream..
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 05:03 PM • [link]
I assume this is so they can remain competitive. It’s similar to airfare wars. When a new competitor comes into the market, or if a new market opens up, the airlines will price below cost to get people to try the service and hopefully gain loyal customers. Same here. There’s probably some wiggle room for Amazon’s competitors because the Kindle can only read limited formats.
Good point about Harlequin. Do you know the % difference in ebook vs print prices? Because a lot of HMB books tend to be shorter than most other publishers’.
As to pricing/costs, we’re guessing because we don’t know because we’re not publishers. I suspect the publishers do know their own numbers and are busy crunching them.
That about sums up what I think.
Jody W. said on 07.14.09 at 05:04 PM • [link]
I guess I don’t have a problem waiting for the reasonably priced ebook like I do an mmp. However, as many have pointed out, paper books without a legal digital equivalent gets pirated digitally anyway. That Sourcebooks book will be up on the torrents…how fast? Fast. The use of DRM doesn’t slow pirating at all. Paper-only makes digital pirating slightly more challenging but not impossible.
I have about $100 in bookstore giftcards and have for months. I can’t bring myself to use it because I’d really rather do my reading on my Sony instead of adding hardcopies to our overflowing house. So even though the giftcards were intended for me, I think I’ll use them for the kids, who don’t have ereaders. Yet :).
My 7 yr old begs to read on my Sony, where I’ve downloaded a few books and some Gutenburg texts for her. She thinks its awesome. She also loves paper. And audio books. And movies. And picking on her sister.
Edie said on 07.14.09 at 05:06 PM • [link]
suppliers should read retailers.. sigh
BTW I think it is not necessarily people believing ebooks to be the dominant format in any shape or form, or that they should be pandered to as readers above others. Though it could be a bit of being made to feel like a second class citizen due to being an ereader at times.
I think a lot of the stuff on this thread is general frustration that the publishers are farking it up soo much, when publishers like Harlequin seem to manage to get it down relatively pat. That it also seems that the big boys are trying to shut the e-book thing down, (which is just the way it appears sometimes) so that when something is announced, you can get fired up, IYKWIM. ;)
Spamword: I wish I had 86 answers for the problem of ebooks.. ;)
Lyron Bennett said on 07.14.09 at 05:08 PM • [link]
@ Suze.
Sorry, what I mean is that the only Publisher decision regarding an e-book, is generally not “if” they are going to do it or “how” (since they remain fairly boring text docs) but “when” will they be released. Sourcebooks is working on the things they can control.
As for Harlequin the answer is simple. They publish a single genre, to a single audience. That pricing is going to work everywhere (just as pricing doesn’t carry across all kinds of non-fiction). Romance readers are a more digital breed, though not the same kind of digital folks worldwide. In Japan for instance, the #1 device for reading romance novels is the cellphone. The book the article was about was YA, there isn’t any reason to think Harlequin’s pricing would work, is there?
And lastly all of the points revolve around the same question: what is an authors words worth? Unlike musicians who can fall back on the live show, an author is only worth what their words can be sold for. To have sustainable authorship in the 20th Century, we are going to have to keep their words valuable and it’s definitely not clear that the right way to do that is to immediately release a 9.99 ebook that might lower the number of $25 p-books you can sell for that author. Books are a passion, an art, a craft AND a business.
Kat said on 07.14.09 at 05:09 PM • [link]
Edie, my guess is that they have a very streamlined process for getting print books out, and they can reasonably model things like returns and remainders. But they probably don’t have the same processes and calculations in place for ebooks, so they’re being conservative.
I think you’re in Australia, right? My big ebook issue is why there aren’t more Aussie publishers releasing ebooks, especially for authors whose works haven’t been bought by overseas pubs. When I see no experimentation at all, I’m more likely to forgive pubs who take risks even if they don’t always go the direction I’d like.
Lyron Bennett said on 07.14.09 at 05:21 PM • [link]
Just to clarify on my comments above, I think what Harlequin is doing is really smart and a great example of why they really get the people they publish for. I just am not sold that their model will work for other publishers in other genres. As we used to say to our interns, “every shelf is a different story.” Publisher’s will have have to learn the rules of digital one genre at a time.
Kate Jones said on 07.14.09 at 06:18 PM • [link]
I have to confess that I still fall into the segment of the population that still wants the physical book—hard cover, paperback, flashcards, whatever. That said, I’ve just started getting in to digital content (authors I want to try without owning the physical book, etc.), and it has no less value or importance than the printed version.
Seriously, what are they thinking?
Henofthewoods said on 07.14.09 at 07:12 PM • [link]
I still by printed books when I can’t get the ebook, but I resent it. I am willing to spend as much for an ebook as for a printed book. I think I end up spending much more on ebooks, because ordering online allows me to ignore the total amount I am spending. Especially with the small epub housing, I end up paying more $/word than I might if I were handling the books. Some people spend cash faster than credit and some the opposite. Paypal, fictionwise, and mobipocket will bankrupt me eventually.
If I am absolutely dying for a book in a series, I buy it in whatever format I can get. If I love it, I will fill it in to my ebook collection so that I will have the whole series in one place.
Sometimes I specifically tell myself that buying two copies will help support an author that I like so she/he can keep writing more books for me. I do this more now that I make a grown-up salary than when I was a grad student. If I buy an author’s book on opening day and swell those sales, the publisher won’t dump that author. I don’t want my favorites to get dumped.
SB Sarah said on 07.14.09 at 08:22 PM • [link]
Let me be perfectly clear. I mother fucking hate piracy of books. I know having run this site for the last few years how very much of a difference it makes to authors who are trying to keep writing as their full-time job to lose even 20 or 50 sales to piracy. AT NO TIME do I advocate that people take free and pirate over paying.
I do think attitudes like the one exhibited by Sourcebooks encourage piracy and that is so unfortunate because ironically, I’m on the side of publishers and authors: I very much want them to make a profit. Why? Well, that part is all about me: I like reading books.
Specifically, I like reading ebooks, and I resent deeply being told that my purchase of a digital book is not what they want. Yes, in an ideal marketplace we’d all have beaucoup bucks and buy hardbacks.
My point is, the price of ebooks until now has been very fluid and inconsistent, and because it seems so arbitrary it’s insulting to the ebook consumer. Combined with a statement that my digital purchase is not preferred and will therefore be delayed because my purchase detracts from a preferred format, that fluidity and inconsistency makes me hopping mad.
Personally, I’m ok with buying a digital book at a higher price if it’s a brand spanking new book available in hardcover only. I don’t think there has to be one price for digital books and that the price can adjust depending on the hardcover then paperback release schedule.
I’m with you entirely that authors and publishers need to get paid - hell to the yes on that one - but the manner in which Ms. Raccah approached her explanation demeans and dismisses a growing and eager book buying readership. I agree: we need to be having a conversation about pricing, format and profit that involves the publishers, the authors, and the consumers.
That said: downloading a book for free means that that author may not be able to write as a full-time job and support herself or her family any longer. Really. If you like the books you’re reading, buy them. Otherwise we will all have less to read.
Randi said on 07.14.09 at 09:06 PM • [link]
@ G:
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but epublishers (let’s say folks like EC, Loose ID, Samhain, etc) do not operate on an advance business model. Authors, instead, receive a much higher royalty on their sales. This is a very successful and highly profitable (for all involved) business model. So your supposition that the “dinisaur” apparatus of the advance model is absolutely required, is false.
Possibly, if NY publishing thought about re-vamping their payment models, the format issues might then resolve themselves.
Question for any authors here who publish through EC/Samhain, etc: Is your royalty on the ebook the same as the hardcopy (when there IS a hardcopy, that is)?
G said on 07.14.09 at 09:53 PM • [link]
@Randi-Are you really mocking my spelling? I can make worse typoes than that!
Are you also suggesting that the e-pub (or self pub)model of getting more revenue with every unit sold with no upfront advance can actually allow people to write full-time who don’t already have a stable of novels giving them earnings? I was a stockbroker too- I know what it’s like to live by commission as well as have a trailing stream of income (not that I had it- I was never into ripping off friends and was a broker only for legal reasons).
Far more knowledgeable folk than I have discussed why S King thinks a better royalty split with no upfront makes sense, while the other 99%+ of authors who don’t make the top 10 lists would never be able to survive. Go check out the huge internet thread last year about royalties and advances. It ran through Peterfreund, Scalzi, and a host of other pros’ blogs.
This is assuming that writers would prefer not to have to write while working full-time. I like it when the authors I enjoy can actually live on their writings. Think of the time lag alone, to get 4 or 5 books out there to survive on royalties (one hopes). Ignoring publishing lead time (if you postulate instantaneous, which is a fallacy)- there’s the writing time. And what might take 6 months to a year could take 3-5 if wrapped around full time and perhaps grueling jobs.
Paul Mikos said on 07.14.09 at 10:00 PM • [link]
What if, in a staged release from hardcover to paperback and ebook, you could get the ebook free with the purchase of the hardcover from Amazon or B&N upon relase of the hardcover? You get the ebook now, before it is officially available for $9.99 in six months. What if Barnes & Noble and Amazon launched a program with the Public Library Association to give consumers the option to donate the print edition to a struggling public library? Or you take it to give as a gift or re-sell on Amazon?
http://publishingassociates.blogspot.com/2009/07/thoughts-on-ebook-pricing-release.html
Randi said on 07.14.09 at 10:08 PM • [link]
@ G: No, I wasn’t mocking you. I used your spelling b/c that’s what you used. I didn’t know if “dinisaur” was a shorthand for something or maybe you meant to spell it that way. Rather than assume you had misspelled it, I just chose to use your spelling. And I used quotes b/c you used quotes.
As regards your assumption that the higher royalty model does not allow authors to work full-time-well, I guess eauthors would be able to tell you whether they can or not. But your assumption that an advance model allows authors to work full time is fallacious. Only the NY best sellers make enough on advances to write full time. Mid list and new authors don’t make enough on their small advances to write full time. Unless they have other income coming into the household (like a spouse).
I’m confused about this: “Think of the time lag alone, to get 4 or 5 books out there to survive on royalties (one hopes). Ignoring publishing lead time (if you postulate instantaneous, which is a fallacy)- there’s the writing time. And what might take 6 months to a year could take 3-5 if wrapped around full time and perhaps grueling jobs. “
I’m not clear on what your suggesting here…
G said on 07.14.09 at 10:29 PM • [link]
I think you are incorrect. I gather this from reading Carrie Vaughn’s blog, Diana Peterfreund’s blog, Sara Reese Brennan’s blog,John Scalzi’s blog and all the other authors who posted on this thread, from knowing Jim MacDonald and Deb Doyle, Jane Yolen and other authors.
It is possible to concentrate on writing after a book or two, with some luck, as a “regular” author.With advances. Was I unclear- it takes time to write a book. It takes much more time to write a book when one uses up 10-14 days earning a living in another way and perhaps also eating, sleeping, having a family. Advances allow one to eat while writing. Even small advances help. They get bigger if the first book does well, btw.
It takes say, a year to write the book. Get an agent, get a contract. At least another year until it’s pubbed. Probably 18-24 months with edits, etc. 6 more months until royalties.
Even if you take a lot of pubbing time out, it still takes time to write and edit the book. I say twice as long without any advance (which is generally 1/3 on signing, 1/3 hand-in, 1/3 pub- or so I have read).
Is this rocket science? Because I am not an engineer but it seems, at this place in the art of authoring and publishing, this is where we are. And I don’t like the huge advance. I think it throws too much marketing (as a result) at too small a number of books.
And poster above- I would definitely trade the HC for an e-book six months later (unless I love the art- and it’s not on the e-book. Maybe. Depending.) That would allow the e-book to be DRM and later.
GrowlyCub said on 07.14.09 at 10:33 PM • [link]
No, we do not. I’m a reader. I’m in this to be entertained, not to support authors or make sure they get to eat beyond paying for the entertainment I consume.
I get really annoyed when people tell me I demand too much or I shouldn’t be expecting quality, preferred format or similar bs. I’m willing to pay for the words others write. I have no other responsibilities as a reader/consumer. None!
Publishers want me to buy their product and they are in competition with many other publishers and other forms of entertainment. They want my good will and my money, so they ought to make sure their offerings are competitive and attractive enough to make me want to spend my cash for their product and not for some other product.
If they make it hard for me to get their product, if they make me feel like I’m not their preferred customer, if they think they can play head games with me, I won’t buy. End of story.
Randi said on 07.14.09 at 10:36 PM • [link]
@ G: I think we’re just going to disagree, here. Which is fine.
However, yes you were unclear, to me; and no, it isn’t rocket science-but since I was confused, it might as well have been. Geez, snarky much?
G said on 07.14.09 at 10:55 PM • [link]
Sorry- I’m a bit tired. It’s late here and my two kids are a handful. I do sometimes get snarky. I’m also a little oversensitive to perceived snark myself, so happy thoughts to all, I’m sure we will be thinking over this subject for the next several years. My brother is a dedicated Kindle user himself.:)
Kat said on 07.15.09 at 12:40 AM • [link]
Sarah: But even in your example of paying a premium for ebooks released at the same time as hardbacks you’re “encouraging” piracy because when people see ebooks costing more than $10 many resent the evil publishers who are overcharging them for products they can make for free (hyperbole intended). I don’t think the situation is clear-cut for publishers either.
And I’m don’t get why being told ebooks aren’t the preferred format is so insulting. At the very least, I can’t see that it’s any more insulting than saying mm isn’t the preferred format. Hardback has always been the preferred, most prestigious format. It’s going to take a while to change that mindset—among publishers as well as authors, critics and some readers.
Kat said on 07.15.09 at 12:55 AM • [link]
If anyone’s interested, the NYT has a good overview of the issues: When to Schedule E-Book Releases - A New Worry for Publishers.
Mary Beth said on 07.15.09 at 02:06 AM • [link]
I agree with everyone else who has said readers buy preferred formats and the delaying of cheaper formats from being released b/c the publishers thinks this will somehow force people to buy the HCs is total stupidity.
I like paperbacks. I read paperbacks. A lot of them. Anywhere from 3 to 8 titles a week. Every week. Every week for over 20 years. That’s a lot of books. I detest going to the bookstore every week for a freaking YEAR only to see the titles I _want_ to read and _will_ buy are still in stinking, stupid, expensive, too-big HC.
Edie said on 07.15.09 at 02:26 AM • [link]
Yes I am an aussie.. but you are nicer than me. ;) The whole stoopid aussie publisher crap release schedule and no ebook thing, just makes me crankier and more impatient for someone to work it out.
Robin said on 07.15.09 at 03:22 AM • [link]
Hell, yes!
You know what my approach to this situation is? It’s to buy a hard copy of the book USED (which, btw, you can get on the first day the book is released these days) and deprive the publisher of the revenue TOTALLY.
That’s right; these publishers who think they are cannibalizing their own print sales by putting out ebooks at the same time as print are actually, in my case at least, LOSING THE SALE COMPLETELY WHILE INDIRECTLY SELLING ME A PRINT BOOK. Oh, the irony, I can’t help but love it.
And as a secondary issue, this approach also deprives the author of a royalty, for which the author can thank his or her publisher. One more reason IMO authors need to be much more connected to the growth of digital, and not in a OMG MAKE IT STOP kind of way.
Susan D. said on 07.15.09 at 11:28 AM • [link]
As a publisher, I understand Ms. Raccah’s dilemma, and—before you damn me—here’s why: the costs of making a hardcover book are similar to making a paperback and e book. Really, they are. (editorial, marketing, distribution costs—those don’t go away w/ digi books.) Printing accounts for roughly 10% of a book’s cost. The other 90% of the costs still exist whether it’s a p-book or an e-book.
Digi book readers probably aren’t the readers who buy hardcovers. (Would love to see some market research to know if this is true, BTW.) But—and this is an important factor in a decision like this—a large purchaser of hardcover editions are institutions and libraries. If a pub releases digi w/ hardcover and libs buy the cheaper digi edition instead of HC, then a pub looses significant revenue.
Given our modest profit margins on books to begin with, it’s tough to break from a model that brings reliable income, even as we desparately NEED to break from that model and forge a new path. We’re bumbling our way through finding a new biz model in the age of digi books.
Amie Stuart said on 07.16.09 at 03:04 PM • [link]
Cost aside, they’re losing potential sales. The comparison to movies/dvd might not be the same but I’d bet the comparison to TV and TV on DVD is much closer. I’ve noticed shows on DVD are coming out MUCH sooner than before—I think Dollhouse comes out this month instead of making us wait a year. AND as I recall, it was the *ahem* online viewing stats that helped save Dollhouse—even TV is having to change the way they look at numbers and the way they meet the demands of the viewing public. Obviously those who watch TV online aren’t hurting the networks (much?).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT anti-hardcover but there are very few authors I buy in hardcover (outside of YA!!). What Gotleib etc don’t realize is, consumers are going to do what they’re going to do! Those who want the HC version are going to buy it regardless if there is an ebook version or not! Funny enough Jackie Barbosa and I were discussing this and she HATES HC!! LOL There’s no undercutting, there’s only meeting the needs of ALL their consumers.
Amie Stuart said on 07.16.09 at 03:16 PM • [link]
I have GOT to get dressed for work but wanted to comment on Meljean’s question. There actually IS a clause in my Kensy contract that if e is the only format available and if sales fall below a certain level, the book is considered officially out of print (I think it’s 100.00). So, to answer your question, for one pub, the answer is yes, there is a point where a book is considered out of print. Take that for whatever it’s worth :D
Care to comment?
Comments are now closed for this post.
Subscribe to These Comments