Quote:
Originally Posted by BaenSidhe
That's what the publishers say and is their reasoning for the high prices and possible delay on ebook releases, but is it really true?
|
Yes.
Quote:
|
Ebooks are a niche market and I believe there are a lot more people out there who would rather have a tangible object than electrons. Additionally, there are people who will buy the ebook, the hardcover, and maybe even the paperback version of a book.
|
They are a niche market
now. That will not always be the case.
Yes, there are lots of folks who want tangible objects. I have both paper and ebook editions of a number of titles. I consider ebooks an addition to paper books, and not, generally, a
replacement.
But consider why there is a one year delay between the hardcover and the paperback release. It's to give the hardcover time to sell, before releasing a cheaper paperback edition.
Folks who buy the hardcover aren't normally buying it because they like hardcover editions. They are buying the hardcover because they want to read the book
now, and are willing to pay extra. If price
is an object, they wait for the PB.
Amazon was offering Kindle editions at $9.99 of current hardcover
bestsellers that retailed at 2 1/2 to 3 times that price. If you just want to read the book
now, don't care about having a tangible product, and have the capability to read a Kindle ebook, which way do
you jump? (Especially when the Kindle electronic edition offers instant gratification: you can place the order, pay, and download immediately and start reading.) Enough people chose the Kindle edition for the publishers to see lost revenue.
Quote:
|
I seriously doubt they'd ever pay for a survey to prove or disprove their belief.
|
They might. I took a survey from HarperCollins about ebooks, looking for data on who bought them, what they bought, what price points they were comfortable with, and what additional features possible in an electronic edition might make me more willing to buy.
Quote:
|
And if consumers believe $10-$15 is a reasonable price to spend on an ebook, publishers could make more money since people waiting for the paperback to come out might decide to buy it now instead of waiting a year or more. If there are enough ebook sales from people who would not buy the hardcover for whatever reason, they'll end up ahead.
|
It's all about the money.
Aside from the impact on hardcover bestseller sales of Kindle editions released simultaneously with the hardcover, they felt that Amazon's default $9.99 Kindle edition price gave consumers an unrealistically low idea of what an ebook should cost.
They have a point. Most of the costs of any book are incurred
before the print, bind, warehouse, and distribute stage. (An editor I know estimates printing, binding, and distribution of the average book at about
10% of the total book budget. He's seen the numbers and has no reason to lie about it.) The cost savings a lot of folks expect because an ebook doesn't
have printing, binding, warehousing and distribution costs aren't anywhere near as great as a lot of folks would like to believe, and there will be definite limits (that will vary by the book) on how cheap an ebook
can be and make any money.
The average price of a mass market paperback is about $8 at the moment. If a publisher can sell an ebook edition at $10-$15 dollars instead, I'm sure they'll be delighted to. But they
won't want to sell it instead of the new
hardcover release, unless the pricing is such that they aren't losing significant revenue in doing so. That's what the Agency Model was all about.
______
Dennis