Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
I was in sympathy with the publishers over Amazon's "sell every NYT Bestseller for a loss" policy. It's one thing for a Wal-Mart or a Costco to buy a million Harry Potter books and sell them as a loss leader. It's another thing to have Amazon set the "value" of all books to $9.99.
I'm glad that Amazon caved because had they not, then ebooks would not be released until later -- like paperbacks. I like reading ebooks over hardbacks and like to have the OPTION to "buy now and pay more" or "wait and pay less".
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I don't know that Amazon set the "value" of all ebooks to $9.99, as much as they set the "value" of all ebooks to be at or below the price of the lowest cost print edition. After all, they, and all of the other big book retailers were already discounting the NYT bestseller list hardcovers to prices between $8 and $15, and they've mainly been ensuring that the ebook price is less than the paper editions, even if they've been taking a loss on it because the publishers don't bother adjusting the price of their ebooks, ever.
I've got hundreds of books on my to be read list and even more on my to be reread list, so there are very few authors for which I would every consider paying hardcover price for their ebook for the privilege of reading their book sooner. On the other hand, if MacMillan is committing to releasing
EVERY title as an ebook, that's a good thing, because they're certainly not doing it now.
I've never been into the Amazon boycott movement because I buy very few ebooks from them, but I intend to tag every MacMillan ebook that I look at that is priced above MMPB (when one is available) after the agent model goes into effect. I don't know if I'll give them all 1 star ratings as well, except for Doug Preston (just because I think he's a whiner).
I understand that John Sargent is trying to do what's best for his company in the short run and maybe even in the long run, but I believe that MacMillan could have been just as successful with the existing wholesale model if they had been willing to release all ebooks at the same time as the hardcovers, with a price comparable to the hardcover, and lowered the ebook price to match the subsequent lower price paperback editions. Amazon would have continued to subsidize the same loss-leader best-sellers that they're doing in print, and ebook buyers would be conditioned to wait for the paper edition to come out if they are cost conscious. As it stands now, if the ebook isn't released with the hardcover, we don't know if it ever will be, and we don't know if they'll ever drop the price when it's priced like a hardcover. Either way, I've always felt that the publishers don't really get ebooks, and just want them to go away, even though a sizable chuck of their steady readership has switched to ebooks.
In this last blog from Mr. Sargent, he's already made it clear that he's unwilling to guarantee parity between low cost print editions and ebook edition, and has hinted that the cost of the ebook might rise if the print editions go out of print (gouge the long tail, I guess). I fear that the ebook will end up becoming the new mid-list paperback, but at trade paperback prices.