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Originally Posted by darryl
We are rehashing this yet again. There is nothing new in this discussion, and people's views, including my own, have not changed.
I'm going to address the original Question posed. The Big 5 not only have an idea, but they have a strategy. They certainly do have a clue. I don't like their strategy nor do I agree with it. I think at times they have behaved stupidly, getting involved in the ebook conspiracy perhaps the most conspicuous of them. After taking control of prices through agency, they did experience some problems, and still seem to be experimenting with prices. However, they have extensive backlists which they can now monetise thanks to ebooks and POD. It's taken a while, but they have made great progress in making these titles available again as ebooks. They do indeed seem to charge high prices on some backlist titles, but then they do seem to be experimenting with these prices. I haven't looked personally but I would not be surprised to see a repeat of their strategy with new releases, where a just re-published backlist book is priced high initially, with later reductions. It is fair to say that some Big 5 pricing is actually competing with Indie pricing, but not when a book is newly released or re-released. Competitive prices come after a time or during sales. Certainly Harry's example of Dick Francis books for about $US5 are competing directly with Indie titles, and there are many more.
It seems to me that for the Big 5 to compete fully with Indies they would have to price comparably without regard to print sales. A print book at $US13 or $US14 with the ebook version at $US5 is likely to lead to increased sales of ebooks and ereaders and increased use of reading applications on phones and tablets. This has the potential to emasculate or at least cause significant damage to their still very profitable print book business over which they exercise significant control. Yes, they are losing initial ebook sales, but may well be recouping many of them later when the ebook prices come down. Their real risk would seem to be rampant piracy whilst their prices remain high. However, whilst such piracy does occur, it seems that the vast majority of readers are prepared to wait, and their business model remains viable.
There are many factors that I won't discuss here, but I do believe that the print book business will decline over time, though it will remain significant for the foreseeable future and will likely never completely die. I once thought differently, but having looked more deeply at the whole picture, I think the Big 5 is taking a rational and practical, if somewhat cynical in some aspects, approach to its pricing. And a continually evolving one.
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It frequently surprises me when some posters assume the publishing industry is full of idiots simply because they don't want to join in a race to the bottom and make books a commodity. The publishing industry is constantly experimenting with pricing trying to find that point that maximizes their profits (which I suspect can vary quite a bit depending on the specific book).
It's a very interesting new world with ebooks and backlist. I do wonder what the real world data is for how sales have been changed by ebooks and audiobooks, but we aren't likely going to find that out unless individual authors decide to share that information. I haven't run across anyone actually doing it since Scalzi did it with Redshirts and Lockout, and that's been a while.