Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
I don't think that fiction readers subsidize nonfiction readers. Lots of nonfiction sells well, especially in paper editions. Hachette (almost all fiction) didn't buy Perseus (heavily nonfiction) in order to lose money.
It may be that, on average, bestsellers subsidize midlist. But publishers do not know which titles are going to be the hits and which are going to be midlist. True, some famous names (James Patterson, Hillary Clinton) are surefire bestseller authors. But those authors demand such a high advance that the publisher may lose money on their bestseller. And if a publisher only publishes books by proven bestselling authors, it will eventually die. They do need to takes chances to survive.
Now, I would say that there are some subsidy situations. People who want to own books subsidize people who want to read and return (or resell). Also, people who want to read books shortly after publication subsidize those content to wait a few years. People who buy the hardback, or eBook, the week it comes out are subsidizing the man or woman borrowing a worn paperback in an African village reading room. Is this so horrible?
You might say that you are willing to pay $9.99, during the first month after an eBook release, to subsidize the reading room, but not $14.99. Fine. This will be reflected in Hachette sales data and they will price in the way their numbers people find maximizes revenue. But I can't buy the idea that Hachette is run by idiots who don't know what price to charge.
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The whole "book publishers are idiots lost in the past" narrative makes very little sense and has no basis in reality. All one has to do is look how much the book industry has evolved over the last 40 years to know that book publishers are constantly evolving their sales models. When I first started buying books, authors were just starting to switch from the primary revenue stream coming from selling stories to magazines by the word (a model that had been in place since the 1800's) to paper back books. Amazon, on the other hand, just celebrated their 20th anniversary in July and isn't a particularly profitable company. I think they need a bit more maturity before anointing them the masters of the changing market.