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Old 02-03-2010, 05:20 AM   #209
zerospinboson
"Assume a can opener..."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion View Post
I also don't think that ebook only versions to "test the waters" would lead to prices that are that much lower. In fact I think the reverse. Even if I accepted the idea that ebook sales are a "gimme" with no added cost to that of a paper edition and thus do not have to cover their share of the sunk costs from before the two editions fork, that would only apply if there was a paper edition. Without firm plans for a paper edition, the ebook would have to bear all those costs such as the author's advance, the cost of cover art, editing and everything else involved in acquisition.
If there is a way to get a representative sample of 'paper' buyers to read the things on e-readers, I don't see why you couldn't use ebook 'sales' (or ratings) as an indicating for whether or not to do a paper run. After seeing how indicative ebook sales/ratings are for paper sales, they can then decide whether or not to invest additional money in the book or not.. It's not really rational to become more risk-acceptant if expected value is lower than the expected cost. (Yes, they will have a different EV calculated when they decide to do so anyway, but that's only because they don't trust the statistics/sample then.)
Of course, this all requires flexible thinking, and some risk-taking, which may be unrealistic for those status quo thinkers, but that's what being a company in a free-market society is all about.
Still, I don't really see what they have to lose. If they're losing money on most of the titles anyway, the possibility of losing some money on a small-ish pilot project shouldn't matter too much.
Explore/exploit. Landscapes shift. ;-)

Last edited by zerospinboson; 02-03-2010 at 05:24 AM.
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