Quote:
Originally Posted by cush
Book publishers that will continue to succeed will be ones who adapt and expand their ebook publishing and de-emphasize the production of hardbacks except for technical publications requiring large format detailed illustrations (medical texts come to mind) or other text that might be technically unsuitable for digitization. There will always, I believe, be a limited market for beautiful, well printed paper hardbacks but I believe the era of the popular novel in either hardback or paperback is ending.
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Actually, this doesn't have to be the case....
Baen Books has been releasing ALL their books in electronic form on or before the day they're available in paper. Their system releases the first half three months early, the third quarter two months early, and the last quarter the month before the paper books are due in the store. They originally tried this as pure advertising, to help make customers aware of the books due to be published.
What they found is that they got far more hardback sales. People were special-ordering the hardbacks ahead of the publishing date, which helped drive sales to the large chains. Now, they release more of their new authors in hardback (which makes more money for both publisher and author). Their hardback sales are thriving, and their webscription plan tends to invite people to try authors they wouldn't normally have purchased, just because the ebooks were sold in a monthly bundle. And they seem to have found that the people who would buy BOTH the hardback and the ebook outnumber those who would buy either but not both. There are even people who buy the electronic ARC (usually available at a hardback price more than 6 months before paper) AND the hardback, and usually the normal webscription too.
And they've grown a crop of VERY enthusiastic promoters, because we like the whole policy.
A side note: Couple years back, Baen released a CD enclosed with the first edition of War of Honor by David Weber. This disc included the ebook editions of the whole Honor Harrington series, plus additional books by other authors who had contributed stories to the Honor Harrington anthologies. Plus high-res versions of the cover art, etc. The disc cover said "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared, but NOT sold". A couple of months later, a Barfly asked if he could give away copies at an SF convention. Jim Baen replied "Sure, be my advertising department for free. I love it."