Death of the agency model?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by crossi

No one buys something just because it's cheap.

I think you forgot about Tubemonkey!

[dkperez]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Miniscule? Less certainly, but how much less? Much of a books production cost comes before it is printed, warehoused and shipped.

YES, and the publishers charge more than enough that in a reasonable run of hard covers THEY MAKE MONEY.

Then, they take the same book and put it out in paperback. And make MORE money.

With the advent of e-books, hardcover and paperback prices fer SHER haven't come down...

Agreed, but the question is how much less.

I don't care if it's $.01 less, but I WILL NOT pay more for an e-book that I can't sell or share than for a paperback I can.

Have you got numbers to say they are?

Not my job to prove there's NOT a problem. It's there's to prove there is one that'll justify charging higher prices than for other media. I have a REALLY hard time believing any of the publisher's (OK, impossible) incessant claims of poverty, and I find it nearly as difficult to believe the cries of poverty from authors. When James Patterson or John Sandford or Vince Flynn or any other reasonably popular author starts crying foul, and shows numbers that indicate selling e-books for significantly less than DTBs, I'll be more inclined to believe it. Until then, nope.

[Wasgo]

Is anyone else now waiting before buying any Agency model eBooks?

[crossi]

I wait for all fiction that is over $6.99 which means most though not all Agency books.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

Actually, Amazon did a brilliant thing setting the price of best-sellers are $9.99 -- even if it didn't last. With the passage of a couple of years, $10 sounds pretty reasonable and it also helps support $12+ for the "hot off the press" window.

I hope Amazon's attack at $4.99 -- where they released forty odd Ed McBain back catalog -- has a similar impact. I'd like to see a lot more 20 year old back catalogue series stuff turning up in the $5 to $7 range instead of being treated -- as Penguin treats Georges Simenon -- like its brand new stuff at $13.

I second that emotion - I can understand trying to price your goods as high as the market will bear, but it just makes me shake my head when publishers decide to release a writer's 20 year old backlist of, what are agruably pot-boilers - entertaining, yes, but nonetheless - at new release prices.

There are pirates and then there are pirates. One type wouldn't pay for a book under any circumstances, but I think there may be a noticeable number that would be willing to pay for the convenience of a well-formatted, proofread back title, provided the cost is in the sub $5 range. Whether there are enough such hardy souls to offset the gross sales lost when reducing the price - well that I don't know.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by dkperez

YES, and the publishers charge more than enough that in a reasonable run of hard covers THEY MAKE MONEY.

Then, they take the same book and put it out in paperback. And make MORE money.

With the advent of e-books, hardcover and paperback prices fer SHER haven't come down...



I don't care if it's $.01 less, but I WILL NOT pay more for an e-book that I can't sell or share than for a paperback I can.



Not my job to prove there's NOT a problem. It's there's to prove there is one that'll justify charging higher prices than for other media. I have a REALLY hard time believing any of the publisher's (OK, impossible) incessant claims of poverty, and I find it nearly as difficult to believe the cries of poverty from authors. When James Patterson or John Sandford or Vince Flynn or any other reasonably popular author starts crying foul, and shows numbers that indicate selling e-books for significantly less than DTBs, I'll be more inclined to believe it. Until then, nope.

I'm all for cheap ebooks, and generally refuse to pay for any ebook that sells for more than the lowest available new DTB edition, but I will say that the perception that ebooks are oodles cheaper to produce is not quite true. Ebooks have seriously impacted the hardcover market, the publishers long standing "cash crop" ( or cash cow, if you prefer ) through which those outrageous advances are financed.

Frankly, the "star" authors with zombi-like followers (and I include myself as a zombie) aren't always raking in the sales enough now to offset their advance. Janet Evanovich is a case in point - her old publisher was struggling just to meet her $10 million a book advance, and when she wanted $12.5 million, they had to let her go. Now her new publisher is pushing her to turn out 2 titles a year (and they'd already been declining in writing quality) since they have no backlist of her titles to offset the costs.

It's but a short step until you hit Stuart Woods territory: contracted to delivery three books a year of aggressively diminishing quality.

Where all this impacts ebook costs is, of course, those advances have to be spread around all copies sold in all formats as a distributed cost.

Not to make them out as altruistic entities, but they aren't entirely the rapacious, money-grubbing breed we all tend to make them out to be.

[crossi]

Then the publishers should stop with the huge advances and give larger royalties instead. It would mean less risk for them of not getting their investment back which would mean they could take on more authors and the authors whose books decline in quality would lose by it.

[sbroome]

Somebody should do this to speculators about gas prices.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

I second that emotion - I can understand trying to price your goods as high as the market will bear, but it just makes me shake my head when publishers decide to release a writer's 20 year old backlist of, what are agruably pot-boilers - entertaining, yes, but nonetheless - at new release prices.

There are pirates and then there are pirates. One type wouldn't pay for a book under any circumstances, but I think there may be a noticeable number that would be willing to pay for the convenience of a well-formatted, proofread back title, provided the cost is in the sub $5 range. Whether there are enough such hardy souls to offset the gross sales lost when reducing the price - well that I don't know.

Unfortunately, it's a lot more expensive to produce a nice ebook edition of a 20-year-old book than a new one, because no electronic source will exist for the old book. It has to be OCR'd and proof-read, a time-consuming and expensive process.

[stonetools]

Everyone likes low book prices-until writers stop writing and publishers stop publishing
Then people start asking, "Why aren't there any quality books being written anymore?" or " Where are the good new authors?"
Products have to work both for the creators and for the consumers. If they work only for consumers , then producers will turn out fewer and lower quality products.
Its noteworthy that just about every supplier downstream from Amazon-MOST publishers, not just the Big Six- plus the Authors Guild -speaking through Scott Thurow- favor agency pricing. Most of Amazon's competitors also favor agency pricing . This is not to say the publishers and authors are perfect. But the fact is that just about everyone in the book industry not named Amazon came out against DOJ action . Thats boundto affect what anysettlement will look like.

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Janet Evanovich is a case in point - her old publisher was struggling just to meet her $10 million a book advance, and when she wanted $12.5 million, they had to let her go. Now her new publisher is pushing her to turn out 2 titles a year (and they'd already been declining in writing quality) since they have no backlist of her titles to offset the costs.

...

Not to make them out as altruistic entities, but they aren't entirely the rapacious, money-grubbing breed we all tend to make them out to be.

Wait a minute, publishers make an asinine business decision, and I'm supposed to feel sorry for them? Screw that, they can either figure out a way to deliver a product at a price point that the consumer wants (in sufficient volume to make a profit), or they can go out of business.

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Janet Evanovich is a case in point - her old publisher was struggling just to meet her $10 million a book advance, and when she wanted $12.5 million, they had to let her go. Now her new publisher is pushing her to turn out 2 titles a year (and they'd already been declining in writing quality) since they have no backlist of her titles to offset the costs.

I stopped reading Evanovich a long time ago - pretty much around the time she stopped writing her own stuff and started using co-authors.

[Wasgo]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Its noteworthy that just about every supplier downstream from Amazon-MOST publishers, not just the Big Six- plus the Authors Guild -speaking through Scott Thurow- favor agency pricing. Most of Amazon's competitors also favor agency pricing . This is not to say the publishers and authors are perfect. But the fact is that just about everyone in the book industry not named Amazon came out against DOJ action . Thats boundto affect what anysettlement will look like.

It's not that noteworthy. Most people in most industries support practices that artificially keep prices higher. In the oil industry, rationing production benefited suppliers, refiners and gas stations. Nobody within the diamond industry is against quotas as it keeps them in business. It's standard practice to be in favour of higher prices.

It's only noteworthy when a participant like Amazon favours practices which reduce prices.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Everyone likes low book prices-until writers stop writing and publishers stop publishing
Then people start asking, "Why aren't there any quality books being written anymore?" or " Where are the good new authors?"
Products have to work both for the creators and for the consumers. If they work only for consumers , then producers will turn out fewer and lower quality products.
Its noteworthy that just about every supplier downstream from Amazon-MOST publishers, not just the Big Six- plus the Authors Guild -speaking through Scott Thurow- favor agency pricing. Most of Amazon's competitors also favor agency pricing . This is not to say the publishers and authors are perfect. But the fact is that just about everyone in the book industry not named Amazon came out against DOJ action . Thats boundto affect what anysettlement will look like.

It's unfortunate for your point that there's no evidence that Amazon's price cutting had any negative impact on authors. In fact, the number of books published while Amazon was doing that increased. The big 6 feeling their control threatened doesn't particularly meaning much for consumers.

If the above makes you want to trot out the same tired blog posts by disaffected publisher, don't bother. Only real data need apply.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Most of Amazon's competitors also favor agency pricing .

Do you know this, or do you suppose this? Amazon and Kobo are against agency pricing. Apple is for. Where do the other retailers fall on this issue?