[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kazbates

Isn't that the risk a publisher takes when they choose to publish a book? It's kind of the same as producing a movie. Even a movie made by a proven director, actor, screen writer can bomb for any number of reasons. I think the same can be applied to publishing books. A proven author with a strong following could very easily write a book that doesn't appeal and doesn't sell as well as expected. Publishers and editors are supposed to be experienced enough to know what will sell but if they are off the mark, they have to accept the consequences of poor sales. It hardly seems fair to a successful book sales to be expected to support the unsuccessful ones.

Correct. Publishing a book is like greenlighting a film or releasing a record album. The publisher is making a bet the book will sell. How big the bet is depends upon how great the sales potential is perceived to be. Hot titles go to auction, and the hungriest publisher offers the best deal and wins.

Well, when you place bets, sometimes you lose. In publishing, you lose more often than not, but you are making a larger bet that you will win big enough on the winning bets to cover the loses on the losing ones. Unlike films, publishers don't normally go belly up if they make wrong bets. Films are so extraordinarily expensive to make that a studio can go out of business if they have too many bombs. The last publisher I recall doing that was Lyle Stuart. They published "unauthorized biographies", exposes and the like, printed a lot of them, and promoted them heavily, gambling that a few would become bestsellers and cover the losses on the ones that tanked. They got away with it for years, but finally hit a bad patch where none of their picks sold and had to fold.

The CEO of Thomas Nelson had me chuckling bitterly not that long ago, wondering why no one was upset at all the authors ripping off publishers because their books didn't earn out their advances? Gee, fella - it's not like someone held a gun to your head in contract negotiations. Why did you offer advances that high? Don't blame the author for your bad bet...

As far as HC subsidizing MMPB, I would think the increase in volume sales when the MMPB is distributed would easily over take HC sales. Not to mention that once the MMPB is released, the HC is seriously discounted while the bookstores are able to keep the MMPB at the same release price for however long it exists on the shelf. MMPB are rarely, if ever, discounted. Thinking from a consumer's viewpoint, the whole thing seems completely backward and arcane. Trying to apply the same archaic thinking to the release of something as innovative as ebooks shows me that publishers have no foresight.

What you describe is why MMPB editions are released a year after the HC. And MMPB editions are sometimes discounted, but not by as large an amount. The discount is applied by the retailer, who chooses to accept a lower margin to spur sales. With MMPB books, there isn't as much room to discount without leaving yourself with no margin.

The "however long it remains on the shelf" is the sticky part. Shelf space is finite, and older books must be cleared to make room to hold new titles. Generally, unless they fly off the shelves, MMPB editions are not reordered. the initial order is it. The shelf space is needed for newer titles.

Another issue bedeviling publishing is that it has traditionally been a "100% returns" industry. Unsold books can be returned for full credit. Hardcovers are actually returned. Paperbacks have the covers stripped off and returned while the body of the book is (theoretically) thrown out in the trash to become landfill. (Many such volumes actually wind up being sold by enterprising street vendors at a fraction of the retail price, to folks who just want to read the book, and don't care about the missing cover.)

It's like the issue of "too many books chasing too few readers". Everyone knew too many books were being published, but no one wanted to be the first to trim their lines. They were all afraid they'd lose display space. Likewise, everyone is aware that 100% returns is deadly, and the retailer really should be expected to know their market and accept some responsibility fo0r how much of what they order, but no one wanted to be the first to try to change the terms. Now we are seeing publishers offering deeper discounts to retailers in exchange for not being able to return unsold copies.

By the way, Dennis, I like your idea of a "Director's (or Author's) Cut. Now that's innovation and forward thinking.

It's not really original to me. I was shown something like it as an example of what could be done by Paolo Defendini, who runs Tor.com.

The underlying question is "How do you add value to an ebook to provide something the reader will pay a higher price for?" What I mentioned is a possible approach.
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Dennis