Falling in Love with E-books -- Harlequin does the full "e"

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Not necessarily. But part of the value of the book is that when you are done reading it, you can do more with it than just throw it away.

That's especially true when the book is a nice hardcover - which is what eBooks are priced at today.

Can you tell me where I can buy nice hardcovers for $5-6, please? That's what I'm paying for virtually all my e-Books.

Thanks!

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Essentially, they treat reversion of the e-Rights and the paper rights quite separately.

As well they should, in my opinion. For the author, non-exclusivity is at least as good as, if not better than, a firm reversion point.

[da_jane]

No attempt to hold onto paper rights when they're not selling, even if the e-Book sells like hot-cakes. And, since the e-Rights are non-exclusive, authors are free to sell those rights elsewhere too (starting right away). Essentially, they treat reversion of the e-Rights and the paper rights quite separately.

That might be true for Baen, but I don't believe it is an industry wide phenomenon. I believe that Harlequin's e-rights are quite punitive to the author and S&S wanted to stage a rights grab similar to what Harlequin has had. There was much discussion of the S&S "rights grab" over the late spring. There are also different royalty rates for some authors for ebook sales and print sales. You are right that ebook and print sales are treated differently.

I.e., some authors are resistant to ebook sales because those sales are not reported to any of the major bestseller lists and thus ebook sales can hurt an authors' chances of getting on those lists (which is hugely important and not simply because of the recognition but because being on the list can propel sales).

I also haven't seen any publisher, outside of Baen, purchase non-exclusive rights to ebooks, particularly the epublishers. Where would their profit be then?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by da_jane

...for the most part, most books that are on the NYT list are also in ebook format.

Originally Posted by da_jane

...some authors are resistant to ebook sales because those sales are not reported to any of the major bestseller lists and thus ebook sales can hurt an authors' chances of getting on those lists (which is hugely important and not simply because of the recognition but because being on the list can propel sales).

These statements together piqued my interest: They suggest the publishers are pushing e-books, but they are not pushing recognition of them (in NYT lists, for example), which seems strange, because increased recognition would get them increased prestige, sales, etc. Seems like they are simply doing it to establish a market that they don't really want to promote, but do want to control.

They also suggest that although authors may be resistant to e-books, they are apparently being "convinced" by the pubs to play ball, even though it may not benefit them.

Clear signs that it's still considered better to be inside the Publishing Castle, no matter the bowing and scraping you are forced to do, than being among the peasants (like myself, for instance) on the outside.

[VillageReader]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you tell me where I can buy nice hardcovers for $5-6, please? That's what I'm paying for virtually all my e-Books.

Thanks!

The remainder rack at Barnes & Noble. Usually cheaper than the mass market paperback that was just released that sent them to the remainder rack.

[HarryT]

Hmmm. Bit far for me to travel, unfortunately, but thanks .

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by da_jane

That might be true for Baen, but I don't believe it is an industry wide phenomenon. I believe that Harlequin's e-rights are quite punitive to the author and S&S wanted to stage a rights grab similar to what Harlequin has had. There was much discussion of the S&S "rights grab" over the late spring. There are also different royalty rates for some authors for ebook sales and print sales. You are right that ebook and print sales are treated differently.

I remember much fuss over the S&S "rights grab" in the spring. I also remember thinking that it indicated that S&S didn't really get it yet.

Originally Posted by da_jane

I.e., some authors are resistant to ebook sales because those sales are not reported to any of the major bestseller lists and thus ebook sales can hurt an authors' chances of getting on those lists (which is hugely important and not simply because of the recognition but because being on the list can propel sales).

I also haven't seen any publisher, outside of Baen, purchase non-exclusive rights to ebooks, particularly the epublishers. Where would their profit be then?

Not being reported to any of the major bestseller lists is an issue. Of course, the NYT bestseller list doesn't use anything that even resembles a statistical sampling of sales. They gather non-audited reports from a basket of booksellers they've chosen, with a definite emphasis away from any "genre fiction" (e.g. SF/Fantasy, Romance, Westerns, etc.). They're ripe for the kind of revolution that cash-register scanning brought to the music business. Remember when Country music "suddenly" took over the pop charts? That was due to a switch from NYT-style reporting to actual data from cash registers.

I'm sure that it would be easy for sellers of electronic books to report to any of the bestseller lists that would be willing to take their reports. Certainly Baen & Fictionwise must already collect the necessary information in order to pay royalties...


As for ePublishers taking non-exclusive rights. Well, in addition to Baen, there's Fictionwise and Sony (at least) who do that. Of course Fictionwise and Sony aren't publishers, they're retailers.

Baen switched to non-exclusive rights partly to do an end-run around the problem of e-sales and rights reversions, and partly because Eric Flint challenged Jim Baen to "put his money where his mouth is" and really demonstrate that his low-cost no-DRM model is the winner -- by letting authors sell their books to other vendors who are clueless (by comparison) and see what happens.

So far, the word is that authors get a better per-copy royalty from Fictionwise (they say), but the royalty checks from Baen for e-sales are MUCH larger in aggregate.

If you want a bunch of the low-down on these issues, go read Eric Flint's essays on copyright and digital publishing at Jim Baen's Universe. They're archived in full (and free!) at Baen's Columns Archive.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by VillageReader

The remainder rack at Barnes & Noble. Usually cheaper than the mass market paperback that was just released that sent them to the remainder rack.

And timing is all. Tor learned the hard way about remaindering the hardcover editions of Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series at the same time they issued the mass market PB.
______
Dennis

[Aenea]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

So you would rather pay $15 for a DRMed eBook that can only be read for a short time and cannot be resold/given away, then pay $10 for a paper book that be read for a long time and can be resold/given away?

Well, this thread was about e-harlequin and they really do not sell ebooks for $15. Their ebooks are cheaper than the pbooks. For a Dutch copy of one of their Intrige books I pay 3.15 euros, an e version in English is $3.99 which is actually cheaper. Will I buy the p versions now? Nope, will buy the cheaper ebooks...

I really do understand you problems with DRM, heck, I didn't write that mobi utility for nothing, but not every thread is about DRM and how expensive they are. If I want to have an ebook and it's above $8 I'll pass and I'll wait...

Aenea

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Of course, the NYT bestseller list doesn't use anything that even resembles a statistical sampling of sales. They gather non-audited reports from a basket of booksellers they've chosen, with a definite emphasis away from any "genre fiction" (e.g. SF/Fantasy, Romance, Westerns, etc.).

So, I guess the Times' bestseller list is ... just about as accurate as their news reporting, then.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you tell me where I can buy nice hardcovers for $5-6, please? That's what I'm paying for virtually all my e-Books.

The used book store. You know, the thing that cannot exist in the eBook world without DRM.

[NatCh]

Ouch. Walked right into that one.

[astra]

Originally Posted by Aenea

I really do understand you problems with DRM, heck, I didn't write that mobi utility for nothing

What is it?

[HarryT]

The one that got her site shut down and nasty letters from lawyers.

[astra]

Oh, it means she found a way to break MobilePocket DRM?