[stonetools]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

So what's the hold up? They'd sell at that price... there's no doubt in my mind. The vocal minority (which includes myself at various times) would still bitch while the backlist ebooks flew off the "shelves."

I've seen Elfmark complain about backlist titles from the mid 1980s being offered for $10. Then there is Ralph Sir Edwards post than $2 should be the default. So there is resistance to the $6-10 price point.

To further answer your question

* The actual buying patterns of ebook buyers.

In theory, the more books are sold online the more sales should move to the long tail. Online bookstores have the advantage of “unlimited shelf space”. Nothing has to be left out of the assortment because of constraints on capital to stock inventory or room to hold it. Furthermore, as Konrath and Eisler pointed out in their extensive discussion of online versus print within the larger conversation about self- or publisher-issued, the differential impact of display when one title has a stack and another has a single spine-out copy is eliminated in the digital world.

But it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. While overall ebook sales in the US are still calculated in the 8-10% range of publishers’ revenues, so we’d reckon perhaps 10-12% of unit sales (ebooks generally, though not always, yield slightly less revenue per copy than print) or maybe even 15% for a publisher still drawing big print sales on books not available as or suitable for ebooks for whatever reason, we’re hearing frequent reports of big books selling 50% or more of their units as ebooks, particularly in the early weeks of their life.

So it would appear that ebook sales are even more concentrated across a smaller title band than print.

LINK

Looks like the average ebook buyer, contrary to MR belief, is more focused on current bestsellers than on backlist.

* From Poohbear in the other thread:

Older publishing contracts did not cover ebook publication rights. To release ebook versions, publishers have to negotiate new contracts, or amend existing contracts, to include digital versions.

* From jb cohen (other thread):

1) There is a large number of older (catalog) dead wood books with some of the larger publishing houses. If the publishing company is going to create electronic books it takes time to work through the entire catalog to produce the electronic versions. They will typically start with the bigger name authors such as Grisham and Clancey and work down to the lesser known authors such as Andy Mc Dermott, so it takes time.

2) readers such as myself expect to pay less for an execltronic book then a dead wood book so there is no incentive to go through the older books and create the electronic versions. Some publishing companies that I have heard of refuse to create electronic versions of older novels and instead have said that all novels published on or after this date will include electronic versions.

All of this means that it will take time -a few years- before the publishers put out their back-list, even where it may make sense to do so.