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Originally Posted by LeeH
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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Except that, if you're producing both an ebook and pbook, the edit/artwork/etc. costs are split between them. (Formatting is different for both, but should be related enough that ebook doesn't take just as long as pbook formatting; some of it should carry over.)
And additional paper copies cost money (printing & distributing); additional digital copies don't.
We're aware that there are serious costs in ebook production--what we challenge is the notion that those costs are, and continue to be, the same as pbook costs.
Cost of producing N pbooks, including getting it in stores: $X. Therefore, N x cost per book must equal X+profit.
Cost of producing N ebooks, including getting it in digital stores: $X-Y, storage/shipping cost, possibly also author advance, artist fees, and so on, if those are already covered by pbook costs. N x cost has to be bigger than (X-Y) for a profit.
Cost of producing an additional N pbooks: $X-Z, edit/format costs.
Cost of producing an additional N ebooks: $0.
Ebooks, unlike pbooks, don't automatically become less likely to sell a year after release; they're still there on the site, findable with the search function. Older books in a series, or older books by a popular author, can sell just as well as new books.
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Selling eARCs? That's an interesting idea. We currently make eARCs available to all our reviewers before the physical ARC is available, but I can confidently state we have not considered selling this version. First impressions are, I'm not 100% comfortable with this idea - the ARC, after all, is supposed to be a review tool, and selling it means you are making available via retail an imperfect item. Interesting, though, and I'll certainly bring the idea up.
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FWIW, I have almost no interest in eARCs. The only books I'd be interested in reading advance copies of are things like Harry Potter--and not because I want to read it early, but because I don't want to be barraged with spoilers by people who release the ending to discussion groups just to be jerks.
However, I know some people love getting early versions, and enjoy watching books change through the editing process. And if it's permissible, some of the people who'd buy them, would happily post online reviews... more publicity, in areas you don't normally have access to.