Quote:
Originally Posted by asjogren
Randolph LaLonde & BearMountainBooks -
I posted earlier that I like the SmashWords model.
What I want IN ADDITION is the option to rent. Rent at 25% of purchase price. I don't need a collection of eBooks that I have no legal right to share nor to sell. I seldom reread books.
With rental the seller MUST have DRM. And for rental for up to 2 weeks - I don't care. In 2 weeks I am unlikely to change software or hardware. With purchase I DO CARE about DRM - and I don't want it.
Yes, I know this is moot with respect to SmashWords.com, but, rental and purchase models work well together with video. Why not eBooks? Why not subscription models too?
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It's possible that it would work--but I charge very little for my work NOW. Rental wouldn't get much cheaper. I charge under 2 dollars for each of the books. That's a far cry from 9.99. So as an author, I'm not much interested in a subscription or rental. My pricing model is to start low and get books into the 5 dollar range over time. Perhaps if the cost of the book were higher (for rental or read) it would make sense.
Here's where I see the problem for the author though--magazines (online or not) are basically subscriptions and very, very few make it. Baen's Universe is one example of a magazine deciding to go away (at least for a while because the current subscription model wasn't working--and this for a very well respected company.) If that model doesn't work for a magazine, I'm not sure it would work or pay the bills for very many authors.
I am also on
www.Anthologybuilder.com -- again, you pay for what you read. It nets me almost no income over 2 years. We are talking pennies per copy sold--not much incentive to work to get my product on there (that won't stop me as it cost nothing to put it there, but...it doesn't work financially.)
All that said, it's possible that such a model would work and work well for large selling authors--but for midlist and nolist authors...how do we get to that stage where we can offer multiple ways to buy our products?
It is true that many readers resent the fact that they cannot "resell" a product as they did in the past. Of course, many authors resent that we can't protect the number of copies (pirating). So both have to come to a middle ground to find out what will sell.
For me, low prices seem to be working. Like any author, I have to grow my audience FIRST--before I can worry about multiple ways to sell the book. And in my case, as I said, subscription or rental probably isn't something I'd consider at this point unless it could be a growth revenue stream and from watching newspapers, magazines...I don't have a lot of trust that it would work out for me in my situation.