Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel
But I don't care about keeping Rick Riordan or any other specific author in business. I care about there being as many different authors as possible. So I buy accordingly, from many different authors. Does that make me a skinflint?
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No, but it does mean that you aren't really a target customer for any specific author, which means they don't really care if what prices you prefer.
That's really the point of what I'm saying. Major publishers have a specific business model. If you are only willing to pay $3 a book, then you aren't a customer they care about. Other posters carry on about how evil publishers are for not putting out books at super cheap prices, but really book prices have nothing to do with publishers being evil or consumers being cheap. It has to do with sustainable business models.
In the indie ebook world, one sustainable business model is to churn out cheap books as fast as possible. It's very similar to the old pulp writer business model. It's sustainable as long as an author can keep churning out books and as long as customers continue to buy those books. For authors who can't get enough customers to buy their books or who can't churn out books fast enough to make ends meet, it's not a sustainable business model.
There are certain paper book genres that use a similar model, though their price point is higher than the indie ebook only model. Perry Rhodan, is an example, though there are less extreme example in other genres. It frequently requires multiple authors writing under the same banner to achieve the necessary output.
If you are a writer that writes one, two or maybe even three books a year, then that model won't work for you. It certainly doesn't work for authors who take more than a year to write a single book. Those authors depend on a different business model and a different price point. If you want publishers to keep publishing your books, then you have to at least come close to earning out.
Best selling authors, with their build in customer base, tend to be very profitable for publishers and make lots of money for the authors. It's what most authors aspire to. These authors frequently give the publishers the margin they need to stay in business. Sometimes, best sellers make huge amounts on money in hard back sales and paper back sells is simply gravy. (it would be interesting to compare the sales figures for book 7 of the Harry Potter series as hard backs verses the sales for paper backs in the first year each format came out. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that they sold more hard backs than paper backs, though I have zero data to support that idea.)
As a customer, you get to decide what business model suits your buying needs. The thing is, there is nothing moral involved. Publishers aren't evil because they want to charge more than a given book buyer wants to pay, and book buyers aren't cheapskates because they are only willing to pay a certain price for any book. It's a choice and like most choices it has certain ramifications. I would say that it is disingenuous to have a specific buying model and complain because it doesn't produce the books you want.