Quote:
Originally Posted by yankgirl
I used to work for Penguin books and when eBooks started they swore they wouldn't get into it because there is no money. They received so many complaints that when I left (last year) they were setting up a whole ecommerce group for eBooks. I do know that they also have kindle versions they sell on amazon and other formats that they sell on the penguin site.
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I applaud them for getting into ebooks but I really wonder if starting a store is a good direction for most publishers to go. When I want a book, I go to a bookstore, physical or digital. I don't know who publishes many of the authors that I like. I'm not going to go to several different sites to buy books when I can go to one and find them as well as some authors I may not have known about yet. Very few publishers have a real brand identity: Baen's, Tor, Harlequin, the Rue Morgue that is the topic of this thread, maybe a few more I'm not familiar with. They're all genre publishers which I think gives them more visibility to their customers. They can get their loyal customers coming to them first before a general bookstore. I can't see Penguin being able to do that. If I were Penguin, I'd leave running an ecommerce store to the folks that know how to do it rather than add on a new division and deal with the growing pains of learning how to run it. Sure, they would get to charge retail, but if they can't run that store more cheaply than the established stores, they'll have to charge more. I doubt they can and folks really aren't likely to go to a store that offers both a smaller selection and higher prices.