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Old 05-19-2011, 11:06 AM   #46
Greg Anos
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Originally Posted by leebase View Post
If a book was still selling well, it would still be published and not part of a backlist.

And of course not all new books sell well. But they have a chance to. A backlist title has had it's run.

Lee
Then, of course, the publishers quitclaim any title that reaches the backlist status? Afer all, there's no value left?
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Old 05-19-2011, 11:06 AM   #47
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Originally Posted by leebase View Post
If a book was still selling well, it would still be published and not part of a backlist.

And of course not all new books sell well. But they have a chance to. A backlist title has had it's run.

Lee
Not to be argumentative but perhaps a large printing operation would have
a different # in mind for the term "sell well" than the author. Certainly the
return required for the author to find it profitable would be different.

Most books that attempt a tie in with the events of the day, or a movie run
would have a limited run, as you suggest but many stories are timeless.

I am not sure what is counted as backlist, anyway. If a book is still listed on
Amazon or offered on eBay, or in an online or b&m used bookstore, is that "in
print"? If the price for a "new" paperback, printed a number of years ago, is
over $100, is that "still in print"? Andre Norton's "Witch World" series comes
to mind.

Then the issue for me is more about getting those kind of books in ebook
form, officially "backlist" or not.

Luck;
Ken
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Old 05-19-2011, 11:07 AM   #48
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Thanks to Mr Ploppy for his comment re Moore & LLoyd...

To Rogue librarian... read my words "it is not unknown," I didn't say any thing else, I didn't say "this is a definition," I didn't say, "It is general, common or anything else..." I said, "It is not unknown..." which implies that it happens, not that it is general or common or anything else... and YES it is an attempt to evade contractual obligations, THAT is the point I was making... and, if you wanted to do anything about it then you'd have to prove (in a civil court) that the publisher intentionally did this... and, anarmadoll, read preceding lines as well... so "bazillion dollars to buy..." hah, hah

It doesn't actually even have to be deliberate... there was a well known case where a publisher actually lost a small storeroom in their warehouse complex (a shelving unit was moved across the access) for a couple of decades... when it was eventually rediscovered, there were a bunch of titles that were thought out of print and rights reverted to the authors but (some titles had up to a 100 or more copies) were in fact still in print and the publisher still had the rights to them...



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Originally Posted by elcreative View Post
And here's another way to be sneaky... if the book is in print then the publisher retains contractual rights but in print doesn't necessarily mean for sale... it is not unknown for a publisher to retain ten, twenty copies in stock but not to supply orders for it just to retain contractual rights by being able to prove the book is still in print...
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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian View Post
Really? I don't think that would fly in a court of law. This does not fit my (or, indeed, the generally accepted) definition of being "in print".
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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian View Post
As I've said, that's not a common definition. "In print" means it's still being published and, therefore, available for purchase, at least in general and abstract terms.

Details will depend on the publishing contract, but as a rule books are deemed out of print if there are less than a certain number of units of the book available for sale to the public. While there is clearly no obligation to sell to a particular buyer, keeping a few copies without any intention to sell them won't automagically keep the book in print forever.

In legal terms you'd simply call that an attempt to evade contractual obligations.
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Originally Posted by anamardoll View Post
Yes, if that's the common definition of "in print" - We have a copy, no you can't buy it - then I'd expect all publishers to have an "in print" Vault where they keep a pristine "for sale, but not really, it'll cost you 1 bazillion dollars to buy" copy of everything they've ever published ever.
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Old 05-19-2011, 11:39 AM   #49
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It's what I call "The Hollywood Mindset".

Guess what will sell, have it created, and market the <bleep> out of it. Then sell the product to all the suckers. That's where you get the ghost written autobiography of a 25 year old comedienne, who's "hot" this year. Or, they latest kiss-and-tell, diet book, how to make a million, ect. Or Iron Man 4. Pump and dump.

Since the shelf life of such creations are about as long as a loaf of bread, the great fear is piracy. Any sale not make while the product is "hot", will never, ever, be made up. That's why DVD's release window got move up over the years, so that the could still use the new release marketing.

There's nothing wrong with this kind of marketing. The problem is, you are not selling to the heavy users. You are selling to the casual users. the people who buy one book a year. The heavy users mostly ignore you.

The "niche" markets cater the the heavy users. The niche buyers buy dozens of books a year, but they won't pay premium prices for them. That's where you get the Baen's, the Harlequins, ect. And they aren't necessarily tied to the "latest book" concept. the book often doesn't have to be new to the market, it's enough that they are new to the reader. And a well run niche just keeps rolling and rolling, until they get bought by a "Hollywood Mindset" publisher who tries to do the blockbuster method to a steady low-margin, albiet, profitable business. Which then wrecks the acqusition, leaving the "Hollywood Mindset" saying that there is no money in niche, and another niche publisher starts up and start rolling and rolling again. And repeat.

The rules for one market don't apply for the other market. Backlist fits the niche market, but not the "Hollywood Mindset" market. And this thread is about what's good for the"Hollywood Mindset" and not the heavy reader market. Hence the conflict.

RSE
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Old 05-19-2011, 12:18 PM   #50
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Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward View Post
The rules for one market don't apply for the other market. Backlist fits the niche market, but not the "Hollywood Mindset" market. And this thread is about what's good for the"Hollywood Mindset" and not the heavy reader market. Hence the conflict.

RSE
Agreeing with most of what you wrote, but isn't this thread really about publishers making money?

You can make money off of niche markets. (See also, Baen, ha.) There's no doubt about that. You can probably make profit off of a niche market like back lists. Certainly some authors have done so very well.

So if the question is merely "Can publishers make money by converting their backlists to eBook format, sticking them up on Amazon, and taking the long view?", I think the answer is surely YES!

Not a lot of money, not bestseller-sexy money, but money.

Lee is also, I think, dancing around The Subject That Cannot Be Rationally Discussed by talking about price points and whether or not consumers will tolerate them. I think, in general, that most people will pay $10 or less for a backlist book that they crave and $6 or less in general for a backlist book that they might like, and anything over that price point they most likely won't buy. Whether or not THAT is profitable for the publisher remains to be seen, but I don't know why it wouldn't be over the long haul.

I think the biggest problem is that publishers aren't taking the long view. Not that there's a lack of evidence for THAT.
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Old 05-19-2011, 01:18 PM   #51
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Lee is also, I think, dancing around The Subject That Cannot Be Rationally Discussed by talking about price points and whether or not consumers will tolerate them. I think, in general, that most people will pay $10 or less for a backlist book that they crave and $6 or less in general for a backlist book that they might like, and anything over that price point they most likely won't buy. Whether or not THAT is profitable for the publisher remains to be seen, but I don't know why it wouldn't be over the long haul.

I think the biggest problem is that publishers aren't taking the long view. Not that there's a lack of evidence for THAT.
I think price is really the question. I think that the publishers would certainly be willing to put out backlist at $6-10. I think a lot of posters here think that backlist prices should be $1-5.
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Old 05-19-2011, 01:40 PM   #52
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
I think that the publishers would certainly be willing to put out backlist at $6-10.
So what's the hold up? They'd sell at that price... there's no doubt in my mind. The vocal minority (which includes myself at various times) would still bitch while the backlist ebooks flew off the "shelves."
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Old 05-19-2011, 01:51 PM   #53
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I think price is really the question. I think that the publishers would certainly be willing to put out backlist at $6-10. I think a lot of posters here think that backlist prices should be $1-5.
And they should be $2-5 dollars. What are the costs?

Story editing? Zero. Already done before, first time around.

Cover cost? Optional. Many backlists don't have a cover. Even if they do want a cover, don't they already have old covers for the book? It's paid for, re-use (just like the story...). The publisher bought it, didn't they? (I have a biography of James Bama, most of his covers were work for hire.)

Scanning and Proofing cost? These are real costs. They are ways to lower them (for another thread) but they are a real cost for e-books.

Putting the actual e-book together. I know a person working in the EU doing this as a private contractor. Price? 100 Euros a book. ($142 USD).

Advance to the author? Next joke. The author can deal or not. No advance for doing nothing.

Website/Space? These companies already have websites, how much more does it cost to keep a 1 megabyte file online?

Accounting? Simple inventory, not Open Item inventory. Every copy is the same. Same costs as any retail operation, spread over the entire backlist.

DRM? Why? At $2, say on Amazon, why bother to hunt for a pirate copy. One button buying, bro...That's paying for the convenience, if not the content. Besides if the DRM infrastructure cost as much as the book, you wasting you money as a publisher.

But the publishers don't want $6-10, they want $15-20. They are just forced down to $6-10.

Last edited by Greg Anos; 05-19-2011 at 02:23 PM.
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Old 05-19-2011, 02:28 PM   #54
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So what's the hold up? They'd sell at that price... there's no doubt in my mind. The vocal minority (which includes myself at various times) would still bitch while the backlist ebooks flew off the "shelves."
I've seen Elfmark complain about backlist titles from the mid 1980s being offered for $10. Then there is Ralph Sir Edwards post than $2 should be the default. So there is resistance to the $6-10 price point.

To further answer your question

* The actual buying patterns of ebook buyers.
Quote:
In theory, the more books are sold online the more sales should move to the long tail. Online bookstores have the advantage of “unlimited shelf space”. Nothing has to be left out of the assortment because of constraints on capital to stock inventory or room to hold it. Furthermore, as Konrath and Eisler pointed out in their extensive discussion of online versus print within the larger conversation about self- or publisher-issued, the differential impact of display when one title has a stack and another has a single spine-out copy is eliminated in the digital world.

But it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. While overall ebook sales in the US are still calculated in the 8-10% range of publishers’ revenues, so we’d reckon perhaps 10-12% of unit sales (ebooks generally, though not always, yield slightly less revenue per copy than print) or maybe even 15% for a publisher still drawing big print sales on books not available as or suitable for ebooks for whatever reason, we’re hearing frequent reports of big books selling 50% or more of their units as ebooks, particularly in the early weeks of their life.

So it would appear that ebook sales are even more concentrated across a smaller title band than print.
LINK

Looks like the average ebook buyer, contrary to MR belief, is more focused on current bestsellers than on backlist.

* From Poohbear in the other thread:


Quote:
Older publishing contracts did not cover ebook publication rights. To release ebook versions, publishers have to negotiate new contracts, or amend existing contracts, to include digital versions.
* From jb cohen (other thread):

Quote:
1) There is a large number of older (catalog) dead wood books with some of the larger publishing houses. If the publishing company is going to create electronic books it takes time to work through the entire catalog to produce the electronic versions. They will typically start with the bigger name authors such as Grisham and Clancey and work down to the lesser known authors such as Andy Mc Dermott, so it takes time.

2) readers such as myself expect to pay less for an execltronic book then a dead wood book so there is no incentive to go through the older books and create the electronic versions. Some publishing companies that I have heard of refuse to create electronic versions of older novels and instead have said that all novels published on or after this date will include electronic versions.
All of this means that it will take time -a few years- before the publishers put out their back-list, even where it may make sense to do so.

Last edited by stonetools; 05-19-2011 at 02:31 PM.
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Old 05-19-2011, 02:30 PM   #55
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Just my two cents, and feel free to ignore me, but... It's a little off-putting that whenever anyone makes a point you don't like, you say "We don't know that!" in an attempt to shut down the conversation.
Who's attempting to shut down conversation? I love Baen. I'd love for more companies to do the things I like about Baen. But I can't say "Baen does it, so therefore it must be a financially successful model that other companies should emulate.

That's PARTICIPATING in a conversation, not shutting it down.

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Old 05-19-2011, 02:32 PM   #56
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<shrug> Ask Eric Flint. He's been quite open about his sales and view on Baen and e-books. He was one of the original Baen author guinuea pigs at the beginning of the free e-book Baen Library.

He wrote about it in a series of essays called Salvos Against Big Brother In Baen's universe. Nor did he have a huge backlist when it started. But he had enough of one to do a comparison.
His Prime Palaver articles are from 2001, 2002. I'd love to see current writings from him on this topic about sales.

Lee
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Old 05-19-2011, 02:34 PM   #57
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Originally Posted by Ken Maltby View Post
Not to be argumentative but perhaps a large printing operation would have
a different # in mind for the term "sell well" than the author. Certainly the
return required for the author to find it profitable would be different.
If authors can get their publishing rights for ebooks then I'd bet a good many of them would benefit from putting out their own backlist.

That's a different scenario.

Lee
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Old 05-19-2011, 02:37 PM   #58
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His Prime Palaver articles are from 2001, 2002. I'd love to see current writings from him on this topic about sales.

Lee
His Salvos Against Big Brother were from the late 2000's, but you have to buy the e-magazines. As far as I know, he hasn't compiled them into a book. (I haven't checked to see if he has them on a website, since I own the entire run of e-magazines...)

You can still buy the e-magazines, they will be in continual e-print.
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Old 05-19-2011, 02:44 PM   #59
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A couple of "what this thread is about" -- so here's MY answer as the one who started it -- fully recognizing that threads take on a life of their own and need not confine themselves to the OP's intent.

I was trying to bring to light the notion that we, as readers, need to offer incentive to the publishers and authors to bring out their back list in ebook form. Arguing that back list titles should be priced to compete with used paperbacks (as some have, not necessarily in this thread) -- and complaints about price in general, all seem to ignore the publisher's pov.

As consumers, we all want the most for the least. In that, I'm like everybody else. I too would hesitate to pay new retail hardback price for an ebook of, say, Dune. Frankly, even paying the $9 or $10 "new paperback book" price would give me pause. But that's me thinking as a consumer.

Instead, we should consider what it is to be a publisher in the business of making money. If we want something bad enough, we need to offer rewards for it's creation. And if we never come to LIKE the situation, we can at least understand it better.

Lee
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Old 05-19-2011, 02:50 PM   #60
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Originally Posted by stonetools View Post
I've seen Elfmark complain about backlist titles from the mid 1980s being offered for $10. Then there is Ralph Sir Edwards post than $2 should be the default. So there is resistance to the $6-10 price point.

To further answer your question

* The actual buying patterns of ebook buyers.


LINK

Looks like the average ebook buyer, contrary to MR belief, is more focused on current bestsellers than on backlist.

* From Poohbear in the other thread:




* From jb cohen (other thread):



All of this means that it will take time -a few years- before the publishers put out their back-list, even where it may make sense to do so.
I used a range of $2-5 dollars. I used $2 as the worst case senario for the publisher. Let's use a $2.99 price point at Amazon. $2 goes to the author/publisher, Amazon gets the $.99. Split the $2 50/50 and how many books sales does it take to pay out the costs to product the e-book? My estimate is 300-500 sales. Anything above that becomes pure profit. No marketing costs, no production costs, 1 cent a year (being generous) for storage.

But that would potential take demand away from your bestsellers (at $15-20 for the same cost structure...)

Sorry, I don't buy it. Or else those niche marketers would have died years ago...
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