Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I'm also willing to bet their hardcover sell through rate is where they make their biggest money. What happens if ebooks take over, and Baen no longer makes and sells paper books? Think they'll be able to retain that $6 ebook price and survive? I don't.
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No, they won't.
By that time, they'll have had more than 10 years, maybe 15 or 20 or more years, of profitable ebook sales, part of which was because they tied in well with hardcover sales, and they'll have 10-20+ years of happy customers willing to at least try whatever method they come up with to make book-production profitable as an e-only enterprise.
When paper publishing drops off drastically--which I believe is going to happen in the next decade or so--all of the publishers are going to have to make major changes in their business plans. Baen, at least, will have practice listening to their customers, and a measure of goodwill that could get them past the initial bumpy period. They may have more than that; every nuance of new possible tech is brought to their awareness, and they may may be developing sales plans that won't fly in today's marketplace, but might if pbooks didn't exist, or cost three times what they do now.
Or they may just be planning to milk their current methods for as long as they possibly can, and not bother making plans for changes they can't predict. 10 years ago, they weren't designing for the Kindle; there's no point in them designing now for brainchips. Or, if that's too extreme, eyeglass-readers that scroll a single line of luminous text across the top of a pair of glasses.