e-Books and Profitability

[Barcey]

Teleread (Chris Meadows) had a link to this AARdvark blog with a slide from a recent HarperCollins Investment meeting.

http://aardvarknow.us/2013/06/04/e-b...always-denied/

The slide shows that publisher profitability is up with agency, author royalties are down and customer prices are up. Something we already knew but I found it interesting to see a publisher admit it with numbers.

I threw the numbers into a spreadsheet to expand the comparison in case anyone else is interested.

1. Added a column to show what the publishers claim pre-agency with Amazon losing money on each ebook.
2. Added a column to show a wholesale model if the BPH just dropped the artifical list price.
3. Added a column to show the likely fear of the BPH where Amazon tries to squeeze them for 30% and the authors ask for the same amount they were getting on hardcover sales