Dear MacMillan...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

They make less and we pay more. Sounds like voodoo math to me. Or just outright dishonest.

BOb

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

[EowynCarter]

Unless it's amazon or apple making more money. How knows.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Alfy

"Dear Mr. XXX,

Please forgive the delay in responding to you.

Thank you for taking the time to write to Macmillan to express your concern about our e-book pricing. We appreciate hearing the point of view of our readers.

The change we are making to the pricing of our e-books is being done to enable us to continue to publish the range and quality of the books we offer both in print and as e-books. I assure you that we were not motivated by greed. We will actually be earning less money for each e-book sold under our new terms.

Beginning in mid-March you will find our e-books at a variety of price points with many at or below $9.99 and some above. The e-book market is still evolving and will continue to change over the coming months and years and we will change with it. Our goal is to offer great books at a fair price to our customers for all versions of our publications.

We respect whatever purchasing choices you make in the future and if you do purchase a title published by us, hope you find it enjoyable and feel it is fairly priced.


Sincerely,

Alison M. Lazarus
President, Sales Division
Macmillan"

Less money compared to what? I need to know before I reach for the tissue box.

[abookreader]

Sorry to say that is certainly a form letter. I've seen it posted in 3 or 4 different places now as a response over various issues.

Well, I'm guessing it isn't the authors who are getting the benefit from our higher pricing ... since Macmillan cut their eBook standard contract royalty rates from 25% to 20% last October.

So let's all say it together now. Customers pay more, authors make less ... who's getting the dough?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by abookreader

Sorry to say that is certainly a form letter. I've seen it posted in 3 or 4 different places now as a response over various issues.

Well, I'm guessing it isn't the authors who are getting the benefit from our higher pricing ... since Macmillan cut their eBook standard contract royalty rates from 25% to 20% last October.

So let's all say it together now. Customers pay more, authors make less ... who's getting the dough?

Let's do it in the form or a poem, eh?


We'll call it

"Kneeding Dough"

Customers pay more
authors make less.

Who's getting the dough?
I think we know

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by kacir

It looks like the person answering your email took a whooping 2 seconds to deal with your email and selected one of pre-fabricated responses.

Don't they always ? ....

Originally Posted by kennyc

Let's do it in the form or a poem, eh?


We'll call it

"Kneeding Dough"

Customers pay more
authors make less.

Who's getting the dough?
I think we know

Customers can't get
authors make less.

Why are they restricted?
We won't get addicted?

At this rate we'll go back
To paper and lack
bye bye my reader
gi'e the publisher the sack!

[tompe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Less money compared to what? I need to know before I reach for the tissue box.

The obvious answer is less than what they make now from an ebook sale. And that is consistent with what have been said in other thread about the price.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by RobbieClarken

Reads like a generic response composed for the flood of email they must have received regarding the agency model.

Sure. What do you expect, a custom letter from the CEO?

Originally Posted by RobbieClarken

Funny thing is, I would be more inclined to buy from Macmillan if they were honest that it is greed/profit seeking that drives their business decisions (nothing wrong with that IMO)....

Uh, they seem pretty straight-forward on that point. It's not like they claim to be a non-profit or a charity, and they have openly stated that their issue with the $10 price point is that it's devaluing their product and threatening their margins.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

They make less and we pay more. Sounds like voodoo math to me. Or just outright dishonesty.

Or that you aren't familiar with the changes.

Previously the publisher would charge Amazon a wholesale price (e.g. $12) per ebook. Amazon would then set whatever price they wanted. In some cases, Amazon was selling the ebooks at a loss -- i.e. subsidizing your ebook purchase in the pursuit of market share.

Under the new system, if a new ebook is $15, and the publisher gets 70%, Macmillan gets $10.50 per book ($1.50 less) and Amazon is guaranteed positive revenues. Macmillan has also floated the idea of increasing author royalties, to compensate for the reductions in the cover price, upon which the royalty percentage is based.

Ergo there is no "voodoo" or "dishonesty." Amazon is the entity that gains most of the increase in revenues from this arrangement, but loses the ability to apply discounts or have loss-leaders as a method of gaining a competitive edge.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

...


Uh, they seem pretty straight-forward on that point. It's not like they claim to be a non-profit or a charity, and they have openly stated that their issue with the $10 price point is that it's devaluing their product and threatening their margins.

Do you have a link to where they said that specifically?

Unless by product you and/or they are including print, which is a bogus perspective. The product is the ebook, not the corporation.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

...

Ergo there is no "voodoo" or "dishonesty." Amazon ... loses the ability to apply discounts or have loss-leaders as a method of gaining a competitive edge.

Which is certainly not of benefit to Amazon.

[AprilHare]

Originally Posted by Alfy

Today, I got mad enough to take the time to write an email to Mac Millan. I should do this every time I can angry at ebooks pricings, but then, they aren't enough hours in the day...

"Dear Madame, Sir,

It was advertised today that the book “The End of Eternity” by Isaac Asimov was recently made available in ebook format by your publishing company. Alas, I believe you must have made a mistake while pricing it: the best available price, not taking into account rebates towards future purchases, is 17,49$, as opposed to 7.84$ for the paperback version on Amazon.com.

This book was originally edited in 1955. That is, a very long time ago. Considering this is one of Asimov’s most successful standalone novels, I can fairly assume it has been extremely profitable several times over. Your ebook version proposes no additions that could justify a price increase, and one would believe that a more reasonnable pricing policy should be the rule here. This is why I assume some mistake has been made.

Sincerily yours"

Let's wait and see what kind of answer I'll get...

Hmmm... 1955.
2010-1955=55 years. Out of copyright in Australia?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by AprilHare

Hmmm... 1955.
2010-1955=55 years. Out of copyright in Australia?

No, AUS is L+50, and Asimov died in 1992.

However, if the copyright law *it was published under* remained in effect, it would now be in the public domain. The Sony Bono Act stole a lot of works from the public by retroactively extending copyright.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Less money compared to what? I need to know before I reach for the tissue box.

Some very rough figures:

Old model - $24 cover price. Get paid 50%, $12. ~10%, $1.2, to the author. Leaves $10.80 for the publisher. Some are sold for $10 to the public, or have other deals, but this has no relationship to what the publisher and author get paid.

New Model - $15 cover price. Get paid 70%, $10.50. ~7.5%, $0.8 to the author. Leaves $9.7 for the publisher, and this is invariant, disallowing deals - so a higher headline price and less general attraction due to inflexible pricing, which will push down sales.

So yea, 10% less per book for the publisher, 50% less for the author. Public will tend to pay marginally more (since the reality is that loss-leaders are a minority of books sold). The retailer gets a fixed cut, $4.50, rather than being able to be flexible.

[JSWolf]

My feeling is we'll just have to wait and see what happens come April when the new pricing goes into effect. Will all those overpriced eBook that are in paperback be reduced properly? That's when we know if this works or not.