Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
This post does clarify somewhat what you wish to argue. The particular point arose from your statement in an earlier post that:
Bur when you write "That's assuming that you actually had access to the real data" you imply that there is no access to the real data, which is true. Which makes your definitive statement that the market has spoken puzzling to say the least. Though there is access to data that though not definitive sheds some light on the matter. I responded to you in an earlier post:
Unfortunately, the poll on this site appears to be pretty well all that is available. Personally I would have expected far more than 30% to baulk at the high prices. But the real unknown is just how much revenue is lost by the higher prices over a period of time. To what extent are deficiencies in revenue from the initial losses in sales made up by later sales at lower price points? It seems that we do not even have rough poll data on that one. Though an indirect indication is the stagnancy of the Big 5 ebook market whilst the non Big 5 ebook market continues to grow. Why do you think this is? The most likely culprit is the high prices. It is tradpub which is so dependant on blockbusters, and in this new age of publishing such blockbusters may prove to be rare and their effects diminished. Why do you think there has not been a blockbuster for so long? And, of course, there is a very real possibility that future blockbusters will be Indie or Amazon. Wasn't fifty shades originally Indie/Self Published? In the case of Indies there may of course be scope for the Big 5 to acquire print book rights, but other rights are unlikely. Certainly it would be nowhere near as lucrative as some past blockbusters where they held all of the rights.
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I would suggest that the reason that Fifty Shades had such a high percentage of ebook sales has more to do with the nature of the book, i.e. Mommy Porn as it was called.
Once again, we don't have the data, so we have no idea if the Big 5 ebook sales have stagnated or not. If it has, then perhaps the major difference is that since the Big 5 is primarily driven by paper book sales, the number of ebooks they come out with follows fairly closely to the number of paper books they come out with, while on indie side, there is very little limit to the number of new books since there is no limit of the number of authors. It would be more indicative to discuss the number of ebook sales per title by the individual authors and if the numbers are rising or falling based on the price. Once again, data we don't have access to.
I say that the market has spoken because prices have been fairly stable for several years. Unless you think that the Big 5 publishers aren't interested in maximizing their profits, that argues that people are buying Big 5 ebooks at a rate that the Big 5 publishers find acceptable, otherwise, the price would start to drop.
On your last question, why no block buster in recent years, if I could answer that, I would be making millions as a book consultant! The most straight forward answer is that no one has captured lightning in a bottle in recent years. We had a string of Harry Potter(1997 to 2007), Twilight (2005 to 2008) and The Hunger Games (2008 to 2010) as mega block busters and during that time period, several other big sellers (Wheel of Time - 1990 to 2013, A Song of Ice and Fire - 1996 to 2011, Percy Jackson 2005 to 2009, Divergent 2011-2013) and a number of authors who continue to produce books that sell very well. But consider this, during the 1980's and 1990's were there any books that sold remotely close to Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games? So it's entirely possible that the decade from 2000 to 2010 was an anomaly and we are reverting back to the norm. I think that it's also interesting that period is pretty close to the heyday of the Barnes and Noble. Remember the huge release night parties for Harry Potter at Barnes and Noble?