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Originally Posted by LeeH
Thanks for the feedback, guys - I work for Angry Robot, and it's all vital information.
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Great to see you here!
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Originally Posted by LeeH
Some very valid points have been raised about the range of possible answers to some of the questions, and I'll bring this up at a future marketing meeting. However, as has been suggested earlier in this thread, we have a number of ideas of what we want to do, but our current survey is focussed on a very specific area.
[SNIP]
We need to make sure the price we set for our eBooks is fair. Fair for the reader, fair for the publisher, and fair for the author.
garygibsonsf hit the nail on the head with his breakdown of cost areas. Just because a book is being published electronically, the other associated costs are still there. 50% to the retailer is a good rule of thumb - sometimes it's lower, usually it's higher. Then there's the editor, copy-editor, several layers of proofreader, advance to the author, office space, artwork, etc. Other than warehousing (which should be relatively low for a small imprint like ours) and the cost of printing (which is pretty much the lowest cost involved in the whole process), the cost of producing an eBook is identical to the cost of a paperback.
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garygibsonsf is, of course, quite right. But please note that if you do it right, the eBooks should not add much (if anything) to the marginal cost of producing a book. Yes, you still have all the fixed overhead and the per-book variable costs of editors, copy-editors, etc. -- but you had exactly the same costs without eBooks. And in any well-considered eBook system, you should be preparing the eBook text directly from the final copy-edited-just-before-'type-setting' input that you use for printing. (And don't forget to archive the bits!!!!) Adding eBooks to the picture should
lower your expenses per-book-sold. And if it doesn't, something is wrong with your setup.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LeeH
However, it is perceived that the cost is lower, so we need to address this misconception and set the cost of the eBook, accordingly.
We'll be selling our eBooks though many of the usual retail channels, but also through our own site, and as we can cut out the middleman this way, everyone benefits from the higher margins (which essentially means we can pay the author more, while at the same time making a higher margin ourselves, which in turn leads to good (and sustainable) eBook pricing in the longer term).
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Yes! Sales through your own site let you cut out the retailer (and possibly a level of distributor too, link Ingram's). The 50-60% cut those levels of distribution would otherwise take should let you price your eBooks
much more aggressively than dead-tree-format -- while still paying authors a royalty that is at least competitive with paper (if not better) and also enjoying improved margins for the publisher.
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Originally Posted by LeeH
Nothing is set in stone, yet, and the survey answers we get will be vital in guiding our overall pricing structure.
Like all businesses, we won't always get it right, and our customers won't always agree with what we do, but we're determined to ensure that everyone gets a fair deal, all round.
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Kudos to you for trying, and for asking your customers what their opinion is.
Some highlights of the Baen model that I recommend that you copy:
- NO DRM!!!!!
- They buy non-exclusive (but nearly-permanent and universal) eRights. Authors are free to sell non-exclusive eRights elsewhere on whatever terms they like. Baen buys the right to sell the bits anywhere in the Universe with (I think) no reversion unless they outright stop offering the eBook for sale.
- Selling books in bundles for even more aggressive prices: my net cost-per-book from (after bundles) Baen is around $3.40 (that price is good to with ten cents or so). It would be a bit higher if all books were priced at current levels, but for the first few years they sold single books for $5 (now $6) and monthly bundles for $10 (now $15) so my overall average is lower.
- Royalties to authors that are better than trade paperback but not quite as good as hardcover. And obviously waaay better than mass market paperback.
- Extensive free samples: 25% of each book is available online for anyone to read.
- Broad format support: currently html, rtf, Sony Reader, Mobipocket (and maybe more).
- Users may re-download any book they've previously purchased at any time in any format.
- Did I mention NO DRM?
- Sell eARCs -- Electronic advance reader copies. Baen sells 'em for $15, with the understanding that it's the final turned-in manuscript before copy-editing, etc. And buying the eARC does not mean the customer gets the eBook too -- that's an addition purchase of a different product. Eager fans buy these too. I'm not sure what the author's royalty looks like on one of these sales -- but I've never heard any of their authors complain about it!
With all of the list above (and probably a bunch of stuff I don't know about), eSales are more profitable than paper sales (on a per-book-sold basis) for Baen -- even with each eBook sold covering its full pro-rata share of both overhead and editing/copy-editing/art/etc. costs. And they're a net win for the authors and readers as well.
It works so well, and builds so much customer loyalty, that I'm utterly mystified why more publishers don't do the same.
Xenophon