Publishers still missing the point on e-book prices

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One very good reason for this is so the existing works or any forthcoming works can help support the family. If you die and leave behind a wife and kids, your books can help support them.

But I do feel that 50 years is too long. I would go for 25 years and be fine with that.

But no other form of work (even I.P work - see patents) does that. It's sold as being for the benefit of the author's family, but if you look closely, it's for the benefit of the middleman.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Put it this way: If you were a major publisher, and you read through this thread... would you be willing to take any steps at all to appease this group?

Some, yes. All, no. Some of the suggestions simply don't make sense, or they only make sense in certain circumstances.

I mean, there are some very real concerns here. Some are in terms of pricing, and others are in terms of perceived value. It is also quite probable that the people who post here are a reflection of things to come. We are, after all, early adopters. We also tend to be heavy readers. If there are problems, we will be among the first to run into them.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Yes, because making the customers that buy the most from you give you the arse and/or hate you = accelerating decline, especially when combined with deliberate (or incompetent) retardation of new formats and sales channels.

Again, you seem to think, despite all evidence to the contrary, that publishers are declining. Or even that their decline is accelerating. They aren't and it isn't.

Publisher revenues are up, publisher sales are up, and publisher profits are up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/bo...pagewanted=all

Now of course things might change, but right now publishers seem to be doing very well, and it seems to be happening because people are buying their e-books.

[EscapeVelocity]

What is going to be around in a 150 years, that Deluxe Hard Back edition of Lord of the Rings, or that FB2 file of Lord of the Rings, which even if it was laying around no one would have a device to read or decode it.

Next...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

But no other form of work (even I.P work - see patents) does that. It's sold as being for the benefit of the author's family, but if you look closely, it's for the benefit of the middleman.

Actually, it's for the benefit of Disney. If we were life+0, Mickey Mouse would be public domain.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Again, you seem to think, despite all evidence to the contrary, that publishers are declining. Or even that their decline is accelerating. They aren't and it isn't.

Publisher revenues are up, publisher sales are up, and publisher profits are up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/bo...pagewanted=all

Now of course things might change, but right now publishers seem to be doing very well, and it seems to be happening because people are buying their e-books.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-n...udio-growing-/

Well down on last year with ebook growth slowed....

So if they are making more money, apparently not from book sales, overall.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's discrimination to think she doesn't know about the Internet due to her age.

No it isn't.

Do a survey of the whole population, you will find that octogenarian internet knowledge is less than the rest of the population. Therefore pick one of them, it is more likely they know less. Note that I did not say it is definitely absolutely true in her case. So people's reading comprehension is lacking.

It is also more likely that someone with an arts degree knows less than someone with a computer science education.

And if you still don't get it, it is also not discrimination to say that octogenarians are more likely to know more about pre-internet communications than teenagers.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-n...udio-growing-/

Well down on last year with ebook growth slowed....

So if they are making more money, apparently not from book sales, overall.

Difficult to say.

Andrew's link has sales figures from 1,693 publishers while yours from PaidContent list 80 with 17 of them supplying ebook sales figures. And we know there are at least 4000 publishers in the US (mostly small indie ones) so we probably can expect the true figures to be higher.

[Blue Tyson]

Right, but I wasn't talking about the whole shebang. It is extremely likely that publishers without additional restrictions and that haven't raised prices significantly are doing better - Amazon I believe said they were taking business away from the biggest ones, recently.

Not to mention individuals doing it from themselves.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

We are, after all, early adopters. We also tend to be heavy readers. If there are problems, we will be among the first to run into them.

Yes, most of us are early adopters. I'd say some of us are heavy readers, most are average readers, few are light readers. But being early adopters, the problems we identify may not be as important to most readers (which would be those who don't hang around this site) as they are to us.

I'm sure publishers are looking at many of the problems we discuss here and consider them to be important only to "a few geeks"... that's us. They are also looking at the profit of making changes for "a few geeks," and seeing it as more profitable to let us sit and spin.

In short, they'll make changes where they see it as doing the most good (ie, being the most profitable), and the rest will be ignored. I'd bet a lot of things we MR members would like to see are on their "ignored" list.

[Ken Maltby]

Which "publishers" are you talking about? Sony? Apple? Amazon? The ones that made
dedicated eReaders available? Calling them publishers would be totally inaccurate,
except that they are adding certain elements to the ebooks. Elements that cause a
good deal of the discussion here on MR.

Now, the "real" publishers of books, seem to have found that making eBooks is a very
profitable way to sell the books they produce. For the most part, they are new to this
publishing method and have not been the ones to advance the eBook technology. For
now at least, they are still seeing the volume of their book sales from their paper books.
(Remember I'm talking here about the traditional publishing houses and the sale of the
books by their major contracted authors. [Amazon can be selling more <$10 ebooks than
their paper books, but they are not the major titles.]) What the publishing houses see
are sales of their ebooks as a minor, but growing segment of their book sales.

The publishing houses that pay attention and seek to optimize ebook production and
customer (us & your "most readers") acceptance/interest; will gain a competitive edge.
The issues that the "early adopters" take note of, are the very ones that may have a
real impact on what the company is prepared to offer, in the future. All business
decisions, corporate or otherwise, have a cost benefit component, but the least of that
relates to consumer segument.

Publishing has been around a long time and has gone through some changes, to be sure,
but many of these houses started when books were a luxury item. They may have come
to learn that they could make more money on "Penny Dreadfuls", but they maintained a
higher opinion of themselves that may still effect their thinking. At some point they will
see the value of the ebook, and seek to find an edge for their company, in terms of
their ebook products.

Luck;
Ken

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Which "publishers" are you talking about? Sony? Apple? Amazon? The ones that made dedicated eReaders available? Calling them publishers would be totally inaccurate, except that they are adding certain elements to the ebooks. Elements that cause a good deal of the discussion here on MR.

I never considered the device makers as publishers... not sure why you thought I did... but it is worth considering their place in this, as they are trying to create devices to please largely-slow publishers and largely-fickle readers, and so are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's no wonder they have taken steps to control one or (in Amazon and Apple's case) both sides, to create a more predictable and tractable market for its devices.

As you point out:

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

The issues that the "early adopters" take note of, are the very ones that may have a real impact on what the company is prepared to offer, in the future. (my emphasis)

That's a big "may," and the publishers aren't being very proactive about most of those issues, leading this consumer to believe they may hope most of those issues will blow over.

A survey cited at TeleRead this morning states that "70 percent of 411 respondents to a survey drawn from a cross section of the publishing industry cited ‘quality’ as the most important consideration when publishing an eBook."

"70 percent?" That's all?

I simply don't know how any publisher could consider anything to be more important than ebook quality. But apparently 30% of them do.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I never considered the device makers as publishers... not sure why you thought I did... but it is worth considering their place in this, as they are trying to create devices to please largely-slow publishers and largely-fickle readers, and so are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's no wonder they have taken steps to control one or (in Amazon and Apple's case) both sides, to create a more predictable and tractable market for its devices.

As you point out:



That's a big "may," and the publishers aren't being very proactive about most of those issues, leading this consumer to believe they may hope most of those issues will blow over.

A survey cited at TeleRead this morning states that "70 percent of 411 respondents to a survey drawn from a cross section of the publishing industry cited ‘quality’ as the most important consideration when publishing an eBook."

"70 percent?" That's all?

I simply don't know how any publisher could consider anything to be more important than ebook quality. But apparently 30% of them do.

I expect the 30% consider "piracy" the most important consideration...

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

No it isn't.

Do a survey of the whole population, you will find that octogenarian internet knowledge is less than the rest of the population. Therefore pick one of them, it is more likely they know less. Note that I did not say it is definitely absolutely true in her case. So people's reading comprehension is lacking.

It is stereotyping. Stereotyping is a form of discrimination. It doesn't matter if you are right statistically.

It is also more likely that someone with an arts degree knows less than someone with a computer science education.

It depends on the subject. I think Laurence Lessig knows more about the internet than an army of CS majors, despite merely having degrees in economics, management, philospophy, and law.

And if you still don't get it, it is also not discrimination to say that octogenarians are more likely to know more about pre-internet communications than teenagers.

In general, sure. But you were applying this general rule to assume that one octagenarian didn't know as much as a college student. Substitute race and criminality to see the problem.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

It is stereotyping. Stereotyping is a form of discrimination. It doesn't matter if you are right statistically.

THANK YOU.