Author Urges eBook tie-up

[the_callant]

Article on BBC news web site where author Bill Bryson suggests bundling ebooks and physical books together. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24228057
Not sure how practical this is.

[tubemonkey]

Author Bill Bryson has called on publishers to give away e-books when people buy the printed versions in order to boost sales of physical books.

No... the idea is to move forward; not to hang onto a dying format. Physical books shouldn't be propped up; they should be allowed to die.

[Catlady]

I would absolutely love to have digital versions of print books bundled like this. Best of both worlds.

[fjtorres]

Amazon agrees it is a good idea.
(Angry Robot has been doing it for a while.)

Which is why Amazon created MATCHBOOK to encourage this kind of bundling.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=221578

Of course, that automatically means it's an eeee-vile idea for some...
(shrug)

[Hampshire Nanny]

I like the idea of getting a free copy of the eBook when I buy a physical book. What I wouldn't like is to tie the eBook to the physical book and not sell it separately. Occasionally, I'd love to have a physical book so that I could get it signed by the author or ... But I have run out of space for books printed on paper. The majority of my new purchases are electronic books and I would hate to be forced into purchasing the printed copy just to get the electronic version.

[speakingtohe]

It would give those people who want to sell their ebooks something to sell anyway

Helen

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

No... the idea is to move forward; not to hang onto a dying format. Physical books shouldn't be propped up; they should be allowed to die.

This is not about formats (which is a silly thing to fixate on in 2013; the "format wars" have been won. E-reading is here to stay, though print isn't going to disappear anytime soon), it's about business models and pricing.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by holymadness

This is not about formats (which is a silly thing to fixate on in 2013; the "format wars" have been won. E-reading is here to stay, though print isn't going to disappear anytime soon), it's about business models and pricing.

Exactly.
BOGO promotions are a common way to draw attention to products and it fits in perfectly in the current bookselling environment.

It is about "read the ebook, gift/lend the pbook", "read the ebook, decorate with the pbook", or just reaching out to casual readers to get them to try the ebook on their phone or tablet at a reduced cost.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

No... the idea is to move forward; not to hang onto a dying format. Physical books shouldn't be propped up; they should be allowed to die.

Bryson is talking about bookstores rather than books. Now I'm not the type of person who gets attached to independent stores, but I am gravely concerned about competition in the marketplace. As things stand today, you'd be lucky if anyone outside of MR could name two or more places to buy ebooks

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Bryson is talking about bookstores rather than books. Now I'm not the type of person who gets attached to independent stores, but I am gravely concerned about competition in the marketplace. As things stand today, you'd be lucky if anyone outside of MR could name two or more places to buy ebooks

Bookstores, books - same thing to me. They're on the out and no amount of marketing is going to stop the inevitable. As to competition, I liken it to a fight between buggy whip dealers. Survival will require a unique online presence. Failing that, it's adios.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

No... the idea is to move forward; not to hang onto a dying format. Physical books shouldn't be propped up; they should be allowed to die.

I disagree. Although I often prefer ebooks, especially of books that I plan to read once then discard, there are many books that I buy in hardcover and would want to continue to buy in hardcover. If also given the ebook version when I bought the hardcover version, depending on the book, I would probably read the ebook version and just put the hardcover in my library for the moment. But if my choice is to pay for both an ebook and a hardcover, I'll buy just the hardcover and read that.

eBooks are great for novels; they are not so great for footnoted or heavily illustrated nonfiction.

eBooks are not necessarily a move forward. I view them as more of a lateral move than a forward move.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rhadin

eBooks are not necessarily a move forward. I view them as more of a lateral move than a forward move.

Uhmm... Let's say they are a great move forward for narrative prose and will likely (over time) exterminate MMPB. The premium print formats will endure a while. At least a couple decades more.

Just keep in mind the game is ongoing, ebooks and reader devices are still evolving and there is still big money in the other pbook classes. It won't be long before ebooks break out from the narrative text domain.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Just keep in mind the game is ongoing, ebooks and reader devices are still evolving and there is still big money in the other pbook classes. It won't be long before ebooks break out from the narrative text domain.

I'm not so sure about ebooks taking over the other classes of publication any time soon. We have had the technology for a couple of decades now. For example, university researchers have been reading papers as PDF or PS documents and many government documents have been provided as PDF or DOC (gack!). Reading on computers may have been inconvenient, but we knew how to create richly formatted documents and many richly formatted documents were available as soon as tablets emerged as viable ereading devices. So why haven't we seen the emergence of a bookless world?

Maybe there hasn't been enough time to make the transition. Maybe we have to wait for habits to change among those who are accustomed to the world of paper. Maybe the technology is almost there, but we have to discover that final touch. Maybe the current business models are holding us back. Or maybe, just maybe, we will never leave the print world behind. Maybe there will be some sort of balance between e and p.

Keep in mind that the MR crowd is extremely biased. A huge chunk of us are biased towards technology of any form. Those who aren't are still attached to ebooks. We may be a sign of things to come, or we may just be outliers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I'm not so sure about ebooks taking over the other classes of publication any time soon. We have had the technology for a couple of decades now.

We've had archival editions, not real ebooks.
I'm not disagreeing that print will endure for some applications but I do think that over the next few decades display tech will evolve to provide compelling value-adds that will allow other book types to move to digital. We are not there but I think it is a reach to assume we will never get there.

As Bill Gates said; People tend to overestimate the impact of new technologies in the short term and drastically underestimate it over the long term.

[abookreader]

This idea always reminds me of when movie studios make different versions of DVDs with various deleted scenes and "added bonuses" to try and justify raising prices and to try and entice the customer into buying more than one.

I don't care if they want to bundle eBooks with paper books. I really don't want the paper book and I wince for the poor tree who had to die in vain if somebody should happen to send me one. But just like the movie fans who love all that extra stuff there are people who love having paper books with their eBooks. If you can make a business for that run on with it. I just don't want to be paying extra for MY book so that they can have THEIR bundle.

I'm a simple girl really - give me the eBook I want and keep the price low and I'll be a much happier customer.