Quote:
Originally Posted by dmaul1114
Yep, costs are front loaded into hardcovers and always have been.
The question is whether people are ok with front loading the costs into e-books as well when only the hardcover is out in print?
Are people ok paying $10-15 or whatever for an e-book when the hardcover comes out and then getting price cuts in the ebook when the paperback is out (so it costs the same or less as the cheapest paperback version)?
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I'm OK with that, as long as the publishers consistently follow that pricing model, and don't leave the prices at hardcover prices forever, like MacMillan often does.
My biggest problem with the Agent model is that if the retail stores are choosing to heavily discount certain hardcovers (e.g., NY Times bestseller list), and the publisher doesn't like it, they'll just leave the ebook price at their hardcover MSRP equivalent ebook price, and the ebook will end up priced higher than the discounted hardcovers. I think this will slow the adoption of ebooks, and the publishers know it and want it that way. They still haven't figured out the optimal pricing strategies for ebooks, and don't know for sure whether ebooks will primarily cannibalize hardcover sales, paperback sales, or both.