Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
Okay, let's think about that. Seriously, a publisher is in business to make money, and the happier their customers are, the more they buy, and the more money they'll make. Of course they care about that... it's how they make money.
I think publishers want to give customers what they want--if they can, and I think most of us agree the problems aren't insurmountable--yet customer behavior (ie pirating) makes them fearful of losing their shirts. And since ebooks in general haven't reached profitable numbers yet, as print books decline in popularity, that's a legitimate concern.
And as I've illustrated, simply giving customers good quality product, low prices, multiple formats, no restrictions and no DRM is no guarantee they won't be pirated.
Beyond guesstimation numbers, what publishers need is an assurance that they can sell a product that will make them a profit, and not cost them too much in loss. If the steps I outlined in the paragraph above aren't working to deter piracy, what will? What will make consumers, who know they can pretty much pirate with impunity (and therefore they do), willingly stop pirating it?
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Im sorry, I must respectfully disagree. If they cared what consumers wanted we wouldnt have these ridiculous prices, badly formatted ebooks and worst of all, half the books people want not even scanned. They want to do what they want to do and poo on whoever disagrees. And if you really want to start asking questions, PIRACY is the answer.
Heres how a conversation with a publisher may go, if you ask me.
"Sir, Ive had many complaints from consumers and I have to ask, just why is this book thirty dollars?"
"PIRACY! Its because of all these PIRATES PIRATING this book! Have you seen the torrents? Direct downloads?! HAVE YOU?!"
"Well no, but Im pretty sure that doesnt justify the cost, I mean the regular book is five dollars on the Marketplace at Amazon."
"People use that? Probably stole it from a library."
"Sir, I really dont think everyone is stealing from you."
"Thats exactly why you arent paid to think."
"Ive also had many requests for this book here. Now while I recognize its an older book Ive actually taken some time to look at numbers and its highly pirated as is. So if we were to provide a legal alternative there could be money to be made here."
"OR THE PIRATES COULD PIRATE IT!"
"They already did sir."
"Then why should I care? Well consider it a loss."
"Sir, Im trying to tell you it could be a gain. Many of these consumers have already said theyd be more than willing to pay for it if given an opportunity."
"Consumers? You mean 'PIRATES' dont you? Theyll tell you anything to justify what theyre doing!"
"Sir, I have to agree with them in this case."
"Whos side are you on?"
"Theres sides here? Sir, Im just trying to tell you that if you get this book scanned and formatted properly and give it a price that makes sense, say five dollars, you could make some money."
"Five dollars? Are you insane?! How am I supposed to pay my Maserati bill on five dollars a book? Do you see this cigar Im smoking? Its imported from Cuba, finest there is, do you know how much it costs?"
"Honestly sir I dont really care."
"Thats a shame, I was going to give you one."
"A real shame if I ever saw one sir."
"Suffice it to say I cannot afford this amazing imported cigar by selling books at five dollars each."
"Sir Ive crunched some other numbers and..."
"What is your job again? Youre doing a heck of a lot of number crunching. Dont you work in the mail room?"
"... and Ive taken the numbers of how many books youve sold along with the number of people have pirated it and the general consumer opinion."
"Oh have you now? This should be interesting."
"At thirty dollars sir youve sold somewhere around twenty thousand copies. Youve also had about five thousand returns due to people being angry about DRM and the horrible formatting in this book plus many complaints on Amazon over this. The reviews are mixed but you have three and a half stars so far. In those reviews around ten thousand swore theyd never buy a book from this company again."
"Alright, what of the pirates?"
"We have a petition I stumbled across that was linked to on Amazon, three hundred thousand people signed that theyd like it to be dropped to five dollars and until then theyre boycotting."
"And the pirates?"
"About five hundred. This is not only torrents downloaded but also from various direct links. Now, I got the direct link numbers by a Google search and checking how many people 'Thanked' and replied to the threads so there may be more, so Ill just double it to be safe. I think thats mighty generous but fine, a thousand. A thousand pirates, three hundred thousand boycotting and five thousand successful sales where the customer did not complain or demand a refund. Sir, I dont even need to crunch numbers anymore. Youre losing money here. Ive also noticed that alot of the user names of people who 'Thanked' the post and posted in the torrents have signed that petition."
"They would, its covering their behind."
"Or maybe they really want to give you their money but cant."
"Listen kid, I know you just got hired and you have many ideas of how things should be but they just dont work that way."
"Sir this business makes no sense."
"That kind of attitude is exactly why youre down there and Im up here."
"Id also like to take a moment and discuss the horrible formatting done on this other book. I just purchased this twenty dollar book last night and dont even see any chapter breaks on my Kindle. This is downright inexcusable."
"What do you want, a refund?"
"No, I want you to get someone to fix this."
"Not going to happen. Too many books we have to get scanned properly, I have an author on the phone and hes wondering why were selling his book so cheap."
"Im your secretary sir. Theres no one on the phone."
"Get back to work."
Thats the way I see it. You can give them all the reasoning you want, all the numbers you want, they dont care. They know what they know and thats all they know.