Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
I don't know about bad idea--it depends on what a person does with the book. If the goal is "read once, loan to spouse, then get rid of it," then hardcovers are a bad investment. If it's "use as a reference work, or reread several times, over the next decade or two," then the durability of a hardcover can be worth the extra $20-40.
I'm questioning the quote in the article: “If you as a consumer can look at a book and say: ‘I have two products; one is $27.95, and the other is $9.95. Which should I buy?’” Ms. Raccah said, “that’s not a difficult decision.” She seems to think people have decided they WILL buy the product, in whatever form it's available... and that nobody would choose hardcover over ebook. What, do hardcover sales end when the paperback comes out? I know they slow... but I've seen plenty of books where both versions were available at the same time. |
What I meant but didn't say very clearly is that hardcovers are a bad idea for most books that are just novels that would work fine as a MMPB. I do see the usefulness of hardcovers as reference works or other sorts of non-novel type books.
The thing is, that for the person to be deciding between the hardcover and the eBook, that would mean that said person would need a Kindle given that the article is focused on the Kindle (yeah like other devices don't exist). If said person owned a Kindle, then the only reason the person would be looking at the hardcover would be to decide if it was a book he/she might want to read and then go and see if it was available as an eBook with no intention of ever purchasing the hardcover. So we have two totally different audiences. That's where the publishers are losing focus. The people who buy eBooks aren't going to want
The Lost Symbol as a hardcover and will want it as an eBook. So delaying the eBook release will not get the eBook types to get the hardcover. In fact, it may just piss them off enough to go find a free copy on the darknet once it gets there. Delaying the eBook will (IMHO) cause a loss of sales. And rightly so. You cannot treat your customers like cheats and thieves and expect them not to respond in some unfavorable way.