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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
Charleski - Well, no. not "all Publishers need to do". They need to engage me as a customer. Baen score very heavily on that. And they're not going to get me to pay $15 for everything, just the stuff I want most.
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Well, engaging the customers is certainly something that publishers need to keep working on, but most put a lot of time into doing just that (organising promotions, book signings, getting their authors to book fairs, etc). Baen might have a slightly more integrated approach, but it's slanted towards getting people to spend more buying books as part of a package (with the hopes that they'll spend even more on other books in the different series).
In terms of engaging the customer I'd say
Tor's website is about the best out there - they give away free stories, have a very active community and are always adding content. I'd say Macmillan is doing a pretty good job there.
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The entire "if you've paid for the device..." argument is nonsense...
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What's nonsense is the argument that paying for the device entitles you to a massive discount on the content. The
notes made by Mike Shatzkin are a far better representation of what Cader was saying than the gobbledegook from the Consumerist.
Publishers need to move ebooks to the same windowing and discount structure that's used for physical books and they need to apply consistently the ~30% discount that's reasonable given the efficiencies involved. But I don't think they should pander to unreasonable expectations fostered by one retailer.
Cader's actual argument was that all the debate about pricing has been completely hypothetical, and as such it's worthless. Those who have $300 of disposable income to spend on a reader aren't living hand-to-mouth and certainly
do have the ability to spend $15 (or far more) on an ebook. That doesn't mean they will, however. The actual sale is dependent on the value perceived by the individual customer. The price only makes sense when put in the context of the market conditions when the book is offered for sale.
In the long term, the more publishers are allowed to react to market conditions and the greater flexibility they have in pricing, the less they'll be charging at the low-end. You need only look at the past 20 years of publishing in the UK to see that.