Lee Child - BBC Newsnight interview and discussion on The Passive Voice.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Yes, there are good authors who do not require a village to produce their books. But I think they are far rarer than sometimes supposed. I wouldn't want to read a police procedural if the author didn't spend a lot of time not just with editors, but also with actual police, prosecutors, and defense attorneys.

Poor research will lead to poor sales and poor sales will find these wanna be authors back punching a time clock. If they can't do it right to begin with, then they shouldn't start. As to funding, that should come from the private sector - personal wealth, grants, foundations, etc - not the publishers.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

What the authors and publishers don't understand is that their most lucrative base-the voracious readers, who bought hardcovers and paid to join frequent buyer clubs at B&N to get discounts on those hardcovers, have moved on. I am so over hardcover books. They are expensive, unwieldy, hard to read in the dark, and dirty if I borrow them from the library. I will not pay $15 for your ebook that I cannot lend to a friend.

It's really a mixed bag. Unlike you, I do not ever borrow from the library (although I always agree to pay more in taxes to support the library); I prefer to buy for my personal library the books that interest me. And those books I always buy in hardcover, and I buy a lot of books (I spent nearly $500 on hardcovers in July alone).

The ebooks I buy tend to be from indie authors and inexpensive. I consider ebooks read-once-and-throwaway books, so I am not willing to spend much on them. I also pretty much limit ebook buying to fiction. On occasion I will buy both the hardcover and ebook versions of a nonfiction book, but usually I just buy hardcover nonfiction.

My point is that the avid-reader market remains unsettled. Print still outsells ebooks by at least 2:1 and the greatest profit margin for publishers remains hardcovers. Will ebooks dominate? Perhaps someday in some categories, but I doubt it will be soon and doubt it will be very soon in anything but certain fiction categories.

Although some of the "voracious readers" have moved on, many have not. I am one who has not.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by crossi

I would like to see some statistics. Like those who buy <5 books/yr buy what percent of yearly book sales, 5-10 books/yr, 10-20 books, ect. It seems strange to me the concept that customers who buy the most aren't important customers to a business. I easily buy over 100 books/yr and at that rate price matters.

I don't think the question is whether the buyer is important to the business; I expect that all buyers are important. Like you, I buy well over 100 books a year. Most of my book purchases are nonfiction hardcover. I admit I am atypical, but for me price is not a key factor. For example, just last week I bought 3 books that combined cost me more than $200. Last year I bought a 2-volume book for $350. Quality of the book is more important than price.

As I said, I am atypical -- but I am not unusual.

Past surveys have indicated that most "readers" buy 1-2 books a year. Accepting that as true would indicate to me that price would be of some consideration but not primary.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by rhadin

It's really a mixed bag. Unlike you, I do not ever borrow from the library (although I always agree to pay more in taxes to support the library); I prefer to buy for my personal library the books that interest me. And those books I always buy in hardcover, and I buy a lot of books (I spent nearly $500 on hardcovers in July alone).

Although some of the "voracious readers" have moved on, many have not. I am one who has not.

I didn't mean to say all voracious readers have moved on--just those who haven't a single square inch available for books. I still love books, and have at least 300 paperback and hardcover mysteries in 3 bookcases in the basement. But I can't add anything more, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the first time I reach in there (they are double stacked) I will see a spider, and that will be the end of that.

I understand the publishers make their money with hardcovers. But my point is I would still like to buy from them, but hardcovers are out of the question. I think it is rational that an ebook cost more than a paperback, but less than a hardcover. Since it can neither be loaned, sold, donated or displayed, I would think much less. JMHO

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

As to funding, that should come from the private sector - personal wealth, grants, foundations, etc - not the publishers.

Aren't the big publishers more "private sector" than givers of grants, and foundations?

Most books published nowadays did not receive any upfront money. Besides self-publishers, there are thousands of small publishers out there, and I don't think they often finance visits to research libraries, or extensive structural edits. If you want to read books that were not, may I say, monkeyed with by the alleged Manhattan mafia, there are hundreds of new indie titles a day to pick from.

I'm not against people reading those. I just don't think the government, or Amazon, should be pressuring the few publishers who do, sometimes, pay decent advances, to shift to the Amazonian royalty-heavy model. And sensible publishers will charge what their own marketing researchers tell them are the optimum prices, not the optimum prices Amazon finds helpful in driving sales of general merchandise.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

If the initial price of a book is beyond my means, I am willing to wait for the price to drop to a level I can afford. I figure the people who are impatient and/or wealthy enough to buy all the books they want when they first hit the market help keep authors in business. I don't begrudge authors wanting to make money at their chosen career.

But does this model make author's more money? By the time that book drops in price, there are 20 other books I can buy that are within my price range. There is a vast ocean of competition. If an author makes me wait, his book will disappear into that ocean.

[crossi]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

But does this model make author's more money? By the time that book drops in price, there are 20 other books I can buy that are within my price range. There is a vast ocean of competition. If an author makes me wait, his book will disappear into that ocean.

More than 20. Amazon publishes more than 2000/month in fiction alone. I throw too high priced books into my wish list and from time to time, less often recently, copy the wishlist to ereaderiq for notification of price drops. But I'm so backed up with books I already bought that I've been ignoring most of the emails about price drops. They should have grabbed my purchase when I was first interested. Who knows if I will ever get back to them.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

But does this model make author's more money? By the time that book drops in price, there are 20 other books I can buy that are within my price range. There is a vast ocean of competition. If an author makes me wait, his book will disappear into that ocean.

Why is the competition any different when the price drops?
If it is initially priced lower then it is still competing with the 20 other books you mention in your price range.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Why is the competition any different when the price drops?
If it is initially priced lower then it is still competing with the 20 other books you mention in your price range.

Because it has our attention and impulse buy RIGHT then. I'm another one who often decides I can live without a certain book. Some of it is because my mood has changed. Maybe I'm reading mysteries instead of urban fantasy. Maybe I'm reading cozies by the time that next Ilona Andrews comes out. Maybe I've just decided I've timed out on those characters because I've found a series I like better at the moment.

Shrug. It does happen. It used to happen in the old days even more when I'd be waiting on a paperback and had to schlepp to the bookstore to check and see if it was out yet. By the time a year had passed, I'd very often moved on to different series or different genres. Sometimes I'd get the book for old time's sake...but a lot of the time, something else now held my attention.

That's not to say that it doesn't work out for publishers. Maybe it does. They have the right to sell books at any price, in any format they want. I don't have to cater to them and they must think it works because they keep selling that way!

[pwalker8]

IMPO, there has been a lot of good discussion in this thread, a lot of good points.

How successful the hardback first, paperback in a year model works depends on what type of reader you are and who the author is, IMPO. There are a lot of different reader types out there.

Personally, I have some authors whom I like enough that I will pay the hardback prices to get the book as early as possible. Heck, there are some whom I've paid extra for an ARC just to get the book a couple of months early via Baen Books. So if the publishers went right to paperback prices they would lose that money. Other authors, I tend to wait for the paperback. I also tend to not spend hard back money on new authors unless there is something really, really compelling about the book.

I tend to agree with the earlier poster that most of the downsides to waiting a year to release at paperback prices also exists if you initially start at paperback prices.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Because it has our attention and impulse buy RIGHT then. I'm another one who often decides I can live without a certain book. Some of it is because my mood has changed. Maybe I'm reading mysteries instead of urban fantasy. Maybe I'm reading cozies by the time that next Ilona Andrews comes out. Maybe I've just decided I've timed out on those characters because I've found a series I like better at the moment.

Shrug. It does happen. It used to happen in the old days even more when I'd be waiting on a paperback and had to schlepp to the bookstore to check and see if it was out yet. By the time a year had passed, I'd very often moved on to different series or different genres. Sometimes I'd get the book for old time's sake...but a lot of the time, something else now held my attention.

That's not to say that it doesn't work out for publishers. Maybe it does. They have the right to sell books at any price, in any format they want. I don't have to cater to them and they must think it works because they keep selling that way!

Hmmm, I must be less impulsive . If I'm following a series then the next book comes out a year or so after the last one, 6 months here or there isn't going to bother me, so I may as well wait. I'm currently about 5 years behind on Robert Sawyer's latest but I'll get round to them eventually, I've not read Jim Butchers latest Dresden novel yet, I can wait

I tend to side with the publishers on this one, if someone has to read it now then they will pay the higher price, if not they will get it eventually (or possibly not, but the higher price paid by some will make up for it). If something is flavour of the month and is something people are not likely to go back to then they drop the price sooner to get more $$$/£££ (Girl with the dragon tattoo dropped in price pretty quickly if I recall correctly).

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So if the publishers went right to paperback prices they would lose that money.

Publishers should've treated ebooks like less expensive* versions of the least expensive paper book currently available. So if hardcover was the only format on the shelves, then ebook prices should be based on that price. When paperbacks get released, the ebook prices should drop accordingly.

Very simple to implement; yet the publishers screwed themselves over by being too greedy. They tried to justify some insane idea that ebooks were very different and should be priced on a different model.

* less expensive = paper book production costs - ebook production costs

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Publishers should've treated ebooks like less expensive* versions of the least expensive paper book currently available. So if hardcover was the only format on the shelves, then ebook prices should be based on that price. When paperbacks get released, the ebook prices should drop accordingly.

Very simple to implement; yet the publishers screwed themselves over by being too greedy. They tried to justify some insane idea that ebooks were very different and should be priced on a different model.

* less expensive = paper book production costs - ebook production costs

But I am getting less, too. So add -ability to loan or sell +convenience factor.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

But I am getting less, too. So add -ability to loan or sell +convenience factor.

I agree that licensing restrictions should be factored in, but not convenience.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I agree that licensing restrictions should be factored in, but not convenience.

I believe there are several benefits to eBooks over paper that are perfectly reasonable to expect the market to pay for if they want those benefits, like cloud access, loss replacement, instant delivery, etc.

Ebooks offer value to those of us who want them, and I don't see any problem with the sellers charging for that value.

I've listed them before in other threads. I even did a poll about it.
Also, as I've said before, these are not charities or public utilities. They are allowed to make profit that's not directly attributable to a cost. If the public market doesn't want to pay the cost, it won't, and the sellers will adjust.

Regardless of all that, I'm still against the ways the publishers are attempting to handle pricing.