Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
Setting a higher price is often not the way to maximize profits. You need to balance the profits per sale against the number of sales. Takes me back to being forced to sit in on discussions about revenue vs. profits, profit maximization, pretty curves on graphs showing profits vs sales with the later 3D graphs trying to handle multiple variables including one memorable one that I thought looked like an attempt at a 3D Mandelbrot bug.
|
Of course not. In current Indie publishing, ebooks are the principal format. Where print books are made available, they are ancillary to ebooks. I would suggest to you that when Amazon or their authors are setting prices, the effect of such prices on sales of paper books are simply irrelevant. On the other hand, the Big 5 are focused on paper books, where they have substantial control between them of the publishing and distribution infrastructure. Distribution of ebooks, at least in the US, is dominated by Amazon. The Big 5 lost the advantage it would have had in ebooks long ago, ceding dominance to Amazon, much as the music industry did with Apple and the Movie Industry did with Netflix. It was the so-called innovator's dilemma in action, and like most incumbents they failed the challenge and must now deal with the consequences. In these circumstances it would be remarkably stupid for them now to ignore the likely effect of ebooks on print book sales. And whatever other defects the Big 5 may suffer from, stupidity is not one of them. If they were going to do this the time to do so has long passed. The effect of ebooks on print book sales is arguably the most dominant factor for the Big 5 in setting prices for their ebooks.
Indies try to price to maximise returns on ebook sales. The Big 5 should be pricing to maximise returns on combined print and ebook sales. They are obviously taking the view, rightly or wrongly, that pricing even close to Indies will have a very significant impact on their print book business. Certainly their high pricing of ebooks as compared to Indies is losing them a lot of ebook sales.