[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

It looks the same from the other perspective. Here you are saying that you know more about publishing than the rest of us because you talk to publishers. And we are supposed to believe that their perspective isn't biased?

Of course it's biased. But let's consider whose perspective I'm talking about.

The folks I know aren't the CEOs concerned with the price of the stock, or the shareholders concerned with their investment.

The folks I know are the working stiffs - writers trying to make money writing (where "make money" means "more than minimum wage for the hours they spend crafting their work"), editors who acquire and line edit titles, who get a paycheck from their employer to keep a roof over their head and feed their family, copy editors and proof readers who expect to get paid for skilled work, artists who get commissioned to create covers, DTP specialists who prepare finished manuscripts for publication - friends trying to make a living helping to produce books people will buy and read.

I'm biased. I want to see my friends survive and prosper. I have some idea of the skill required to do what they do. When I see posts that suggest their actions have no value, and should be omitted in the service of providing cheaper ebooks, I'm not sympathetic. My reaction tends to be "What do you do for a living? How would you feel about suggestions you should be paid less, or perhaps dispensed with entirely, in service of your employer being able to provide goods/services cheaper?" Of course, they're different. Such concerns shouldn't apply to them...

In too many cases, I don't see concerned consumers. I see people who want something for nothing or very little, and are unconcerned with what might be necessary to bring that about.

One definition of "greed" is "inappropriate expectations". I see lots of comments about producer greed. Oddly, I don't see any about consumer greed, but it's very real, and a driving factor in economic decisions.

Personally, I think that what the folks I know do adds value I'm willing to pay for.

Not *no value* but *no cost*.

Depends upon the viewpoint. The person involved might set a value on their time in dollars per hour, track hours spent, and assign that as a cost.

It's done in large publishers to track costs on products. There is no reason an independent publisher couldn't do the same thing,

I'm shocked!

Oh, good! Let's do it again! *bzzzzt!*

But we were talking about the division of costs between the different formats. That implies that there are other formats beside MMPB.

It does indeed. But costs get divided among the formats a book is actually published in. If there is no hardcover edition, there are no hardcover related costs to apply, nor is there an edition you can assume covers various costs so the others tag along free.

That would be marketing. The free books go into marketing costs.

Correct. But from Bean's POV, it's cheap marketing.

The costs get cut. Smaller advance, less people working on copyediting, less time spent on the cover, little if any marketing.

Good luck. Smaller advances are problematic. Advances are paid based on anticipated sales. Publishers compete for good content. It will be hard to get away with paying smaller advances, especially if you are talking about authors with proven best seller status. The folks who will get nailed on this will be new authors/midlist authors, who already have problems. Copy editing/proofreading is increasingly not done now to save money, and you'll see lots of complaints elsewhere on MR about the results. Less time spent on the cover is also increasingly the norm. Artists are under pressure to go all digital to get it done faster and cheaper. And marketing is absolutely critical. I don't care how good the book is. You have to let the audience that might want to read that book know it exists. That's what marketing is all about, and it's just as critical for an ebook as a print edition.

There are also no print related costs. And I'm not talking just about manufacturing. Marketing is easier, accounting is easier, and this translates to less costs.

I'm not sure why you think marketing is easier. Accounting may be easier. But I don't think either of those will drop the costs by a significant amount.

But there is a solution to the current problem: ads. Have the initial sale of the ebook be a "HC" version when it comes to price, but release a different version of the book when the PB comes out that would show on the header of every page something along the lines of "this cheap version was brought to you by...". You know, something that is easy to do, and everyone can be happy. And of course, for those that want a clean copy, they can pay the full price.

There have actually been attempts at ad support in pure print editions. Once upon a time, you would find ad inserts bound into mass market paperbacks in the US. They didn't last long: most of them were from tobacco companies.

There have been suggestions of ad support in ebooks, too, and someone might try it. But the basic issue is that the supply of ad dollars is finite. Advertisers are increasingly focused on results. The question will be "Did the ad sell the product?" Ads that don't produce don't get continued. How many ads in ebooks do you think might actually sell products? What pitch would you make to a media buyer at an ad agency to get the placement?
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Dennis