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Originally Posted by bhartman36
1) Stephen King made $440,000 US because he's Stephen King. Compare that number to the sum he usually makes for a book. Comparing it to a lesser-known author isn't really a valid comparison, if what you're trying to do is measure the success of the technique (rather than the success of the author).
2) King released the chapters DRM-free on the condition that 75% of the people who downloaded them would pay for them (I think the price was $1, if I remember right.) He stopped because he wasn't even getting that from people.
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I will point out that 1. That wasn't the P-book rights (hard and paper), and any of the auxillary rights, either. For a market that is small and fledging, $440,000 was a lot of money. And 2. let's think this over. How many chapters in a Steven King book? 20? 30? 40? I've gathered his books are rather long. (I have no interest in either the
genre or author, so I'm kinda the mythical Man from Mars on this.) That's 20, 30 or 40 or more dollars for an e-book. That's above hardcover prices. Amazon tries to cap at $9.99 a book for Kindle, and Baen caps at $6 for general release e-book. (Pre-publication versions go for more, but the price drops on publication.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
Granted, Baen has been doing this for a while. They're the equivalent of where eMusic was several years back in the online music industry. Small vendors can afford to do DRM-free ebooks because it's better for them to have their e-books readable by as many people as possible (rather than tied to a specific device). Larger vendors have more to lose.
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And more to gain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
It should also be noted that book publishers currently have a lot less incentive to go digital than the music industry did. The barrier to copying a book is a lot higher than the barrier to copying a CD. Essentially, that means that the risk of digitizing is higher, since you're removing the biggest obstacle to copying. (The DRM is actually trivial, by comparison.).
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Maybe you'd better look at the P.D. ebook available here and elsewhere. Over 6,000 titles here, and nearly 30,000 at Project Gutenberg. And all those books were scanned and proofed by volunteers. That's a lot of books. And please don't think scanner are limited to P.D. scanning. People scan things for the Darknet as well (think Harry Potter.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
At this point, Amazon represents the best hope for ebook readers. If Amazon succeeds, ebook readers will become ubiquitous. If they fail, ebook readers may become relics.
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They weren't relics before Amazon, they'll still be around after Amazon. Niche, yes, but still around...Being able to carry a thousand books in one hand is a tremendous rush....