[Worldwalker]

Okay, I'm not understanding something here. I complain about the lack of a mystery publisher with the same business model (free samples, no DRM, reasonable prices) as Baen Books, and you think I'm trying to find out the name of the author of books that I have on my shelves, and specifically ones that I said I've read more than once? Either one of us is speaking Martian, or I need more caffeine than I thought I did.

And, unfortunately, I'm not sure how knowing that a library hundreds of miles away from me has audiobooks of novels which I already own in paperback will solve the problem of there being no mystery publisher selling the ebooks I want in a form that meets my needs and a price that fits my budget. I'm not interested in borrowing audiobooks (even if I was a patron of the relevant library); I want to buy ebooks.

But in any event, Baen Books is doing quite well for themselves despite giving away numerous books, and not only giving them away, but encouraging the recipients to give them to everyone else, too. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a Calibre tag for separating the free from the paid, so I don't inadvertently give away the wrong ones. Given that mysteries share with SF a very strong series orientation, I'm really surprised that someone isn't doing the same in that genre. I can think of three different series that I started buying because I picked up one volume for a buck off the charity book table at my local supermarket, two more that I read some random volume of at my mother-in-law's place, and several others I found via short stories included in big shovelware collections (mostly the "Mammoth Book of..."). I'd think that "give them the first one or two, and they'll buy all the rest" would be as effective a business model for mysteries as it is for SF/fantasy and narcotics dealing. Of course, that is contingent on selling them for a reasonable price, which the big publishers seem to be unable or unwilling to understand.

In another thread, it was revealed that publishers make about 90 cents on a $26 hardcover, once everything from printing costs to returns has been accounted for. Let's say that for ebooks, they're paying 25% of cover in royalties, and $1 for overhead. Let's also assume, for the sake of discussion, that they're selling through a retailer with a 100% markup, just as they do for pbooks, so that they actually gross 50% of cover. And, further, let's assign that book a $6 cover price. So, from that $6 cover price, after the $1.50 in royalties and $1 of overhead has been accounted for, they're making 50 cents.

That's a loss, right? Only if you assume that the demand for books is totally inelastic. That is, of course, not the case. Books compete with other forms of entertainment, and if the cost to the buyer drops, the demand will increase. Few people spend all of their leisure hours reading. They have more time to read if reading becomes more attractive than, say, going to movies. So if the price of books drops, sales will increase.

Now back to our 50-cent-profit ebook. For the list price of one HC, I could buy 3 ebooks (and have enough left over for a bagel). So instead of 90 cents (the profit on one HC), the publisher has made $1.50 from me (the profit on 3 ebooks). The author, instead of the $3.90 he would have gotten from the 15% royalty on that one HC, has cleared $4.50 from me. The publisher wins. The author wins. The retailer loses very slightly, because of that $2 left over that I bought a bagel with. If we re-price that pbook to $24, so that it's equal to the price of the three ebooks, they break even. The printing plants, the trucking companies, and the warehouse landlords all lose, of course, but such is life. Maybe they can get work building, storing, and shipping ebook readers.