Quote:
Originally Posted by BooksForABuck
The back list is a powerful asset and it's also something that the eBook world makes possible to fully use. That said, I don't understand why it should be offered at super-low prices.
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Reason 1: many people buying from the backlist have already read the book in another format, and there's a limit to how much they'll spend for repeat entertainment. They may want to share the book with a friend--but for that, you run into the wall of nontransferability; they have to convince the friend that she should pay full price for a book that, obviously, did not catch her attention when it was on the charts.
Reason 2: with the removal of several of the costs & risks involved in a first print run (editing the manuscript, promoting the book, finding a readership for this author/series), the books can be offered at a low price, low profit per sale, and long-term volume of sales can make them worth the hassle of converting & proofreading.
Obviously, publishers don't have infinite time & resources to convert their entire backlists. But publishers *should* be converting the most-wanted sections of it (whatever that is)--and should be advertising how they'll be doing so, to drive up sales. Publishers should be telling the public, "we'll convert 3 books/month from our 1985-1990 publications in [X] line," or "we're working to bring you the complete series of ____."