Quote:
Originally Posted by cfrizz
This is on the money. People are not only waiting them out, they are actually turning to self published authors. The list of known authors is growing in the self published category making it even easier for fans to find something to read at a reasonable price.
So they can spin it any way they want to, but they are only shooting themselves in the foot trying so desperately to hold on to their overpriced ebooks & paper books.
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1- "Waiting them out" is increasingly common now that they're driving mass market paperback back to its roots as strictly a reprint format for top sellers. If a title is first released as a trade paperback it'll never have a mmpk edition but if it is first released as a hardcover it will definitely have one a few months down the road, typically six months. More and more people are choosing to wait for the paperback to see if the ebook drops along with it.
2- The problem the BPHs face is that they will have to retool their entire business model once pbook sales drop below a certain threshold. At that point they'll have to get rid of returns and remainders, rework payola rates, downsize warehouses... They've done some of that but they need to do much more and they have little stomach for what comes next: more focused imprints and less of them, dropping out of some genres...
They still have a lot further to go before they get their cost structure closer to where the successful small tradpubs live. And a good chunk of extra market share to give up. Faced between defending their market share or their cost structure they chose to defend the latter. The rest of the industry hopes they keep it up.
