Quote:
Originally Posted by bgalbrecht
The problem is that the BPHs are relying on their top X authors to make all their profits, and if their sales are a bit low, the BPHs seem to think that raising the prices will make up for it. It's true that authors are not entirely fungible, someone who only reads Nora Roberts is probably not going to switch to James Patterson, or Stephen King, or vice-versa, but if a reader's books are priced out of the reader's price range, they'll just wait for the price to drop or buy used. I already have a lifetime's worth of a TBR list, (well, everyone does if they're willing to read a lot of free PD ebooks), so I'm very often willing to wait for a sale on authors I like. Thank goodness for all the ebook sales emails and forums like this.
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I think their problem is quite a bit bigger than just pricing.
You are right that they depend heavily on their "tent-pole", big name author releases to meet their financial targets. And, yes, they keep jacking up their prices because they believe their fans will buy them anyway. Which is probably true: the fans will probably still the book...eventually...
But what is hurting them is the fans aren't buying it right after release.
And that is killing their buzz.
The way the (true) *fiction* bestsellers become bestsellers is a two-step process:
1- the fans of the author (or avid readers) preorder a book or buy it as soon as it's released. This seeds the market as reviews and word of mouth quickly grows and the buzz builds. This reassures the BPHs and the bookstores that the book isn't a misfire and *then* they start promoting it.
2- the combination of buzz and push eventually draws the attention of casual readers. Those folks may only buy a couple books a year, often to gift instead of to read, and while they are always late to join the bandwagon they are legion. Once people start buying a popular book it starts selling big, solely because it is selling big. It's a feedback loop. Kinda like the celebrities who are famous for being famous. (No names needed, right?)
As the corporate publishers took over and the number of new releases increased, the time a book remained readily available decreased. The Randy Penguin alone puts out over 15,000 new releases a year. And shelf space today is way down from a decade ago. Borders alone wiped out 25% and the closures and reductions of book space at B&N have added another big drop. Maybe 10% if anecdotal reports hold true. Smaller chains and folding Indies, declining book space at department stores...
It all lead to what KKR calls the fresh produce model: New releases get stocked for a couple of months and what hasn't moved gets returned. For big name and/or projected "bestsellers" the publishers buy front table promotional placement...for a limited time. After that, a new wave of fresh releases take over.
So it's not just that the publishers rely on the big name authors to move a lot of books, they need them to move a lot of books *fast*.
This process has worked for decades.
Now, back in the olden days before online and before ebooks, books were not available forever. Not easily. Just like with network TV, you either caught it upon release or you risk missing out. There was no guarantee a show would be repeated or a book would get a second printing.
Fans and avid readers learned to buy on sight, even if they knew they couldn't read it right away. The practice continued when we got ebook readers and we loaded them up with PD, freebies, backlist and new releases. That is how we all ended up with years-long TBR lists, right?
But a lot of us, maybe most, no longer buy that way. A few favored authors get picked immediately but most everything else gets wishlisted or backburnered. Stockpiling is going away.
Since ebooks are expected to be available forever, less and less of us are spending today's money on tomorrow's reads. Instead, we're moving to a just-in-time, buy and read model.
Now, this alone shouldn't be cutting King/Patterson/Roberts sales in half. Not even factoring in an election year.
Publishers have raised new release prices by a lot, both in print and in digital. And they are windowing formats more.
And with the added information flow of the internet, readers now know that today's $28 hardback can be had online for $18 today, $11 in trade paperback next March, and $7 next spring as a remaindered hardcover. Or, cheaper than all that, used. Or free from a library.
These days waiting to buy doesn't mean you'll miss out--it means you pay less and can buy other books.
The system depends on readers buying early but it *rewards* them for waiting.
Avid readers have noticed and many (most?) have changed their behavior.
Thing is, casual readers *haven't* changed their behavior. They still wait for the buzz to call their attention to a book. And as even the publishing trade press admits, there is no buzz. No buzz, no bandwagon. And so the big name sellers find their months of preorders and launch week sales adding up to less than half their expected numbers. Take out the pre-order spikes and their second week and third week numbers will no doubt be even lower.
And the clock is ticking: front table payola runs out and a new wave of big name releases is coming.
As pointed out above, this has long been expected around here.
With online sales providing easy access to discounted and used books and ebooks providing an always-in-print, ever increasing catalog, new releases no longer compete for sales solely with other recent releases but with every other book available anywhere. Front list vs midlisters vs backlist.
Note that this is strictly a tradpub business model problem. Indies only factor in to the extent that they contribute to the availability of backlist and new midlisters material at sub-paperback prices. There is no need to get into Indie vs tradpub here...
...except that the rise of Indie, Inc prevents the corporate publishers from pulling a Disney: limiting the availability of their most desirable titles to a few years each decade and thus create artificial scarcity and an incentive to buy early. For publishers this is not an option because they don't actually own their content free and clear. They too only buy licenses. And their licenses only last as long as they offer the books for sale. Otherwise, the rights revert to the author who can sell them elsewhere. Or self-publish.
The PW piece suggests that the launch window, big name author, payola driven business model of the corporate publishers is approaching its end of life.
They need to think different, as somebody or other once (ungramatically) said.
Whole new world and new rules out there. And the new rules are catching up to them.
They do have options but none of them will preserve the status quo or their status.