Quote:
Originally Posted by queentess
All readers are potential consumers for written product...but by releasing something as ebook-only, they cut themselves off from a broader revenue stream and audience that they could be reaching if they took the time to release in paper format as well.
All I'm saying is that they're shooting themselves in the foot.
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That is true, but the marginal cost of publishing and distributing an existing Kindle-formatted book in epub format is very low compared to the marginal cost of publishing and distributing that same book in print format. The predominantly indie authors under discussion here presumably do not have the capacity to do a print run and then distribute the product. In either case it comes down to a business decision - a cost/benefit analysis of the different formats (various ebook formats AND print AND audiobook and any other formats I may have missed).
Personally, I don't have a problem with authors who choose to publish only in Amazon, or only offer epubs through B&N. It just means that I won't buy their product, which is my choice as a consumer. I read widely and there are no books that I *must* have. If my favourite authors all chose to release in Kindle format only, or only released in the USA, or only published in Xhosa [1], so be it - as another poster has said, plenty more fish in the sea [2]. It is entirely up to the author whether I, and others like me, are an important enough market segment in the cost/benefit analysis.
I'm not anti-Kindle or anti-Amazon, but I chose not to buy a Kindle because I preferred the Sony for various reasons. Those reasons still hold, and my Sony is going strong, and so I am not interested in buying a Kindle just to read indie books of unknown quality. Although I have the technical skills to convert, from my point of view if the author doesn't consider it worth their time to do the conversion then why should I? A lot of people on here say that the Kindle is better because of the ease of buying books. While I prefer to download and store books on my computer and then sideload only those that I am reading to my Sony, like many Kindle users I also want my book buying to be easy. I am not going to jump through hoops (converting formats or using a vpn to get around geo-restrictions) to get a book.
[1] Incidentally, I know someone who speaks several languages, including Xhosa and Zulu, and neither is her native language.
[2] The potential collapse in global fish stocks is a topic for a different forum.