[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I agree that things can overlap. For example, I read a Doctorow book in ebook and then bought the paper version for someone else as a gift.

I talked to Cory a bit back in November. He has no idea what effect one way or the other Creative Commons licensed ebook editions of all his work are having on his paper sales. He did state he's making a comfortable middle class living, which is what he desired, so I have to assume the free ebook editions aren't hurting his sales terribly.

I guess when I refer to what the publishers call 'cannibalizing' I don't mean art books, cookbooks and the like. I mean (and I think they mean too) that in the past you would have bought the hardback of that particular book, and you are buying the ebook instead of this hardback you otherwise would have bought. So, if there is no snowballs's chance you ever would have bought the hardback, it is not a cannibalized sale. And likewise, if there is no way you would have bought the ebook, great, enjoy your art books and cookbooks and whatever

Agreed. And there are things like the ones you mentioned I don't think are good fits for ebooks. Art books are a prime example, as the ones I get need color and a big page, neither of which ebook readers suport.

I just wonder for something that hasn't got pictures and is just plain mass-market words, how serious the 'problem' of 'I would have spent $40 on the hardback and now I am not' really is. It seems like a lot of us get our books---e and otherwise---used, on sale, in remainder bins etc. I just wonder how many people truly are in the position where they actually used to buy full-price hardbacks and are now buying the ebook version instead.

Enough people buy hardcovers that publishers make money on them, and they make more money on the hardcover than on a mass market PB or an ebook edition. I don't think we're representative. Somebody is buying the books that please hardcovers on the New York Times best seller list. They may be buying them heavily discounted, but the discount is applied by the retailer, and comes out of their cut. The publisher has gotten the full wholesale price.

The publisher's problem is that they don't know what the effect of ebooks on hardcover sales will be, and they are worried that for enough people, the ebook may well cannibalize the hardcover sale. They won't make as much money on the ebook edition, and they may not make it up on volume. Given that, they want to be able to charge more for an ebook and get a higher margin, and they are afraid Amazon's $9.99 price has made that difficult or impossible. They don't seem to have considered that the mass market PB price point is the one they probably have to match.

Meanwhile, the possible delay in releasing the ebook edition to give better sales opportunity to the hardcover is a non-issue for me. There are some books I'll buy in hardcover in any case. For the rest, there are no books I want so badly I'll buy the hardcover instead of an ebook, just to get and read it sooner.
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Dennis