Another great piece by Konrath. He has a real grasp on the situation.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/0...erception.html
Quote:
Now publishers want the price of ebooks to be high, for several obvious reasons.
First, they don't want ebooks to cannibalize print sales.
Second, because they make a larger profit on high priced ebooks.
Third, because if ebooks fully take over, their role in the publishing process could become greatly diminished.
But ebooks aren't subject to the rules of supply and demand, because they can be copied and shared by pressing a button. And because the consumers have a lower perception of an ebook's value, but still want the experience, I predict they won't pay what the publishers are asking.
The consumers will go elsewhere.
One growing option is piracy.
Downloading a 4.7 gigabite DVD movie, at 1mb per second, takes over an hour.
Downloading 30 ebooks in .txt format takes 8 seconds.
Downloading 1300 ebooks in various formats (epub, mobi, pdf, doc) takes 13 minutes.
Is it really in publishers' best interest to price ebooks at $14.99?
Is it in authors' best interests?
Is it in readers' best interests?
One of the headlines in Publisher's Weekly today was "Agent Community Happy With Macmillan Move."
Well-known and respected agent Richard Curtis called it a "terrific thing." Curtis said the move “restores control of book pricing—on both e-books and print—to the publishers,” and that this is the healthiest thing for the industry.
You're free to draw your own conclusions. I've drawn mine. I believe that people won't pay $14.99 for ebooks. It will lead to fewer sales and more piracy. I believe the way to fight piracy is with cost and convenience. I believe a cheap, or free, ebook model is coming in the future, no matter how much the entire industry seems to be hoping otherwise.
But then, who am I?
I'm a writer.
The reason the publishing industry even exists is because of writers.
We create the content. And in most cases, we get paid very little for this.
Now Amazon and Apple are offering writers 70% royalty rates on ebooks, and the ability to set our own prices.
"A terrific thing"?
Indeed it may be. For the writers
But not for the publishers and the agents.
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