Why e-books?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

HarryT,
I think some people are trying to make mountains out of ant hills. Sugar ants not fire ants.
It is nothing new or different that new releases and best sellers are almost always priced higher.
The only conspiracy is that the companies are capitalizing on PROFITS, because they know the average consumer will pay their prices.
Oh wait, that isn't a conspiracy. It is smartly running a business.

That would be a reasonable explanation...if their revenues were in fact growing. They aren't. It might be a reasonable move if it improved their competitive position in the market but it isn't.

What they are seeing is double digit revenue declines in their higgest margin format and no offsetting increases in their lower margin format...
...and the market is still growing and they aren't growing with it, so their share of sales (and market power) is declining...
...and their suppliers are seeing less income and are starting to (oh so quietly) ask for a bigger share of the declining pie...
...and they are publicly complaining they aren't getting as many good manuscripts to choose from...
...and they are publicly complaining about having to dish out bigger advances for the "good" manuscripts they do see...
...and the one good bit of news keeping them from truly dismal financial results is the (faddish?) boom in adult coloring books...

These aren't supposed to be stupid people so when they engage in clearly self-defeating behavior against all advice, one has to wonder what they could possibly be thinking. And, lets face it, they do have a track record of conspiracies.

(Shrug)

I'm not about to speculate about why they are behaving as they are. I have my own ideas of what drives them but it really doesn't matter. The facts and trends are the only things that matter. And those are public knowledge.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

That would be a reasonable explanation...if their revenues were in fact growing. They aren't. It might be a reasonable move if it improved their competitive position in the market but it isn't.

What they are seeing is double digit revenue declines in their higgest margin format and no offsetting increases in their lower margin format...
...and the market is still growing and they aren't growing with it, so their share of sales (and market power) is declining...
...and their suppliers are seeing less income and are starting to (oh so quietly) ask for a bigger share of the declining pie...
...and they are publicly complaining they aren't getting as many good manuscripts to choose from...
...and they are publicly complaining about having to dish out bigger advances for the "good" manuscripts they do see...
...and the one good bit of news keeping them from truly dismal financial results is the (faddish?) boom in adult coloring books...

These aren't supposed to be stupid people so when they engage in clearly self-defeating behavior against all advice, one has to wonder what they could possibly be thinking. And, lets face it, they do have a track record of conspiracies.

(Shrug)

I'm not about to speculate about why they are behaving as they are. I have my own ideas of what drives them but it really doesn't matter. The facts and trends are the only things that matter. And those are public knowledge.

Revenues are not growing because of the economy.
Are you saying that if they priced lower they would make more money?
So this particular group would make less if they priced lower.
Here is the question to ask.
Are there more or less people buying books in general?
Last year, how many people bought books?
Make that 2 years ago.
How many people this year?
Little fact. When people have good jobs, people spend money. When half the jobs go away, people don't buy luxurious items.
Even the people that still have jobs spend less, due to not knowing what their income is going to do.
See two years ago out here, you could not find a one bedroom apartment on the bad side of town for under $750 a month. Heck companies like Halliburton were building their own lodging for their employees due to a severe shortage of housing. Everyone had money. Jobs were plentiful. RV parks on darn near every vacant lot within 100 miles.
Do note that gas prices were a bit high.
Now gas prices are dropping (except for Spring Break and Easter). The RV parks are less than half full. Rent has dropped to $99 move in specials or a month free. No more waiting lists there. Half the jobs are gone too just from last year.
Our region doubled the population with people coming from all over with jobs. Now we are about back to where we started but with way too many people unemployed or underemployed.
I saw an oilfield worker working at a local thrift store. His paycheck if he is lucky will be 1/3 what it was. So no luxuries there.

[Cinisajoy]

Ok. For those using author earnings for the loss of revenue argument.
This is only at Amazon and only covers less than 10% of the ebooks offered there.
Note: they only look at the top 200,000 ebooks.
So this does not cover all the BPH books offered.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Thank you for the very nice article on what ONE independent author thinks that the Big 5 is doing.
Now can you find an article from one of the BIG 5 saying that they are pricing so people will buy hardbacks.

Firstly, not hardbacks particularly. Paper Books in general. And I can even point you to evidence of Big 5 executives in a Court Judgement. But of course I don't have to. I'm sure you know the case. And yes, this was before the current epidemic of agency, but the actions of the Big 5 have been perfectly consistent with this goal.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I think the reason all that "inflating" prices started was because of Amazon payouts.
We do not know what percentage the big 5 gets off the sale of ebooks.
We do know that self and small publishers get 70% less a small delivery fee for books priced between $2.99 & $9.99. They get 35% for books priced under $2.99 or over $9.99.

I have never heard any readers complain that ebooks were inflated.
The only ones I have ever heard complain were independent authors that generally were not making much anyway. But it is so much easier to blame someone else's pricing for your misfortune.
Or they blame the bigger sellers because no one can find their book.
Hey, if one just puts a book out with no thought to cover art, editing or anything else then yes your book will sink to the bottom like a stone.
Ok rant over.

Then I am afraid you are not listening. We are on Mobileread. I am a reader. I imagine everyone on here is a reader, even those who are writers. I'm said this, and so have many others.

And yes, there are many whingers amongst authors, both independent and otherwise. And, being human, some will blame anything but themselves. Attacking the motives of one class of critics does not change the objective facts.

Is there an article you can link to which summarises your own views on what the Big 5 are doing and why? Why did they want agency? Why did they raise their prices so significantly when their new agency agreements started?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by darryl

Why did they raise their prices so significantly when their new agency agreements started?

They didn't, as far as I'm concerned. They just put their prices back to where they were during the first (conspiracy) agency period, and where they were before the Amazon $9.99 period. Don't get me wrong... I dislike agency pricing as a concept intensely, but the prices seen during the first (and current) agency period are very similar to what early-adopter ebook buyers were already used to paying before Amazon instituted the $9.99 bestseller.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by darryl

Firstly, not hardbacks particularly. Paper Books in general. And I can even point you to evidence of Big 5 executives in a Court Judgement. But of course I don't have to. I'm sure you know the case. And yes, this was before the current epidemic of agency, but the actions of the Big 5 have been perfectly consistent with this goal.



Then I am afraid you are not listening. We are on Mobileread. I am a reader. I imagine everyone on here is a reader, even those who are writers. I'm said this, and so have many others.

And yes, there are many whingers amongst authors, both independent and otherwise. And, being human, some will blame anything but themselves. Attacking the motives of one class of critics does not change the objective facts.

Is there an article you can link to which summarises your own views on what the Big 5 are doing and why? Why did they want agency? Why did they raise their prices so significantly when their new agency agreements started?

I don't need an article to determine that the Big 5 is doing what they think is best to make money.
Now yes, some readers do whine about the high price of books, paper and ebooks.
But except for certain places, the average reader may complain about the high prices but they don't go around accusing the publisher of falsely inflating a price to get the customer to buy something else.
I have only heard that from a very small group of people.
Now can you link me any article where the people running the big 5 say that they are marking up ebooks so the consumer will buy a paper book.
And I mean someone that can actually make that decision, not a former employee.

As I understand agency, it just means the publisher not the distributor sets the price.
That is fair if the sales are based on a percentage.

I don't know what you do for a living but how would you like it if your boss decided he could just pay you whatever he thought was best.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I don't need an article to determine that the Big 5 is doing what they think is best to make money.
Now yes, some readers do whine about the high price of books, paper and ebooks.
But except for certain places, the average reader may complain about the high prices but they don't go around accusing the publisher of falsely inflating a price to get the customer to buy something else.
I have only heard that from a very small group of people.
Now can you link me any article where the people running the big 5 say that they are marking up ebooks so the consumer will buy a paper book.
And I mean someone that can actually make that decision, not a former employee.

As I understand agency, it just means the publisher not the distributor sets the price.
That is fair if the sales are based on a percentage.

I don't know what you do for a living but how would you like it if your boss decided he could just pay you whatever he thought was best.

The Big 5 is of course doing what they think is best for their business. This encompasses attempting to divert sales to print, even if it means taking a lower profit now, which it does. Of course I don't think it is going to succeed, and there are already signs that it is not.

I don't think I need say anymore about the reasoning of "Except for certain places" where they do the rest they don't? My views on this matter are not obscure and in fact are quite common on the net, whether or not you have seen them.

I'm afraid Big 5 publishers don't usually explain there business decisions on the internet, any more than Amazon does, or virtually all commercial businesses, for that matter. The Price Fixing conspiracy litigation gave us a somewhat rare glimpse into their thinking at the time as the Conspirators and some of their executives forced to produce documents and give evidence. There behaviour since is consistent with their ideas at the time.

What I am giving you here is my own interpretation of the facts, which is shared by many others, both on this site and on the internet generally. It is not the only interpretation nor it is 100% certain that it is correct. To invoke the scientific method it is a hypothesis which has not, at least so far, been disproven.

As to your conclusion, I am fortunate enough not to have to answer to a boss. But the analogy is in any event worthless. Under the wholesale model the Publishers were selling the books to Amazon at a negotiated price. Amazon was then free to sell its property at whatever price it chose. The present system eliminates third party retailers and replaces them with "agents" who are not able to set prices. There is never a situation where payment is totally discretionary as per the analogy.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

They didn't, as far as I'm concerned. They just put their prices back to where they were during the first (conspiracy) agency period, and where they were before the Amazon $9.99 period. Don't get me wrong... I dislike agency pricing as a concept intensely, but the prices seen during the first (and current) agency period are very similar to what early-adopter ebook buyers were already used to paying before Amazon instituted the $9.99 bestseller.

That does seem to be what has happened. But I think the first period of agency had similar motivations prompted of course by the $9.99 period. It is also interesting that the supply of ebooks has exploded without a correspondingly large increase in demand. One would expect prices to come down in those circumstances.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by darryl

That does seem to be what has happened. But I think the first period of agency had similar motivations prompted of course by the $9.99 period. It is also interesting that the supply of ebooks has exploded without a correspondingly large increase in demand. One would expect prices to come down in those circumstances.

Do you think that the number of well-written books has increased? I rather get the impressiom that it's simply the amount of dross that's massively increased, and that won't necessarily have much effect on what people are willing to pay for decent books.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you think that the number of well-written books has increased? I rather get the impressiom that it's simply the amount of dross that's massively increased, and that won't necessarily have much effect on what people are willing to pay for decent books.

There certainly is more "dross" now that absolutely anyone can publish. But I think there are also a lot of well written books too which would previously never see the light of day. Discovery, as it is now called, is of course much more of a challenge now, and there are some who avoid this challenge by only buying traditionally published books. But the fact that the Indie/Self Published market is gaining more market share at least indicates that not all of it is dross.

If someone can buy a good book for $15 and only dross or even a mediocre book for $8, we may as well be talking about separate markets. I think this thinking has figured in the Big 5's decisions. However, if you can buy a good book for $15 and a good book for $8? I suppose time will tell.

[John F]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

They didn't, as far as I'm concerned. They just put their prices back to where they were during the first (conspiracy) agency period, and where they were before the Amazon $9.99 period. Don't get me wrong... I dislike agency pricing as a concept intensely, but the prices seen during the first (and current) agency period are very similar to what early-adopter ebook buyers were already used to paying before Amazon instituted the $9.99 bestseller.

It looks to me like something changed with (at least some) BPH prices. It used to be that (almost always) the ebook was priced at the same price as the cheapest ebook. Now it seems like many ebooks are priced more than thier pbooks. I'm talking about older books by big U.S. authors from BPHs, so I believe these aren't considered "best sellers". I checked Lee Child, John Irving, and Stephen King's older books. Stephen King's prices seemed to be mixed.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you think that the number of well-written books has increased? I rather get the impressiom that it's simply the amount of dross that's massively increased, and that won't necessarily have much effect on what people are willing to pay for decent books.

Sturgeon's Law runs both ways: if 90% of everything is crap and the size of everything grows then it follows that the absolute number of non-crap items has grown.

The Kindle store is up to 4M ebooks, give or take a few hundred K.
And it is growing by some 300,000 indie titles alone each year, according to a recent report.
(And some 100k tradpub titles a year.)
There's bound to be at least a few that are objectively good. Statistically, you'd expect about 30,000 new good books a year from Indies alone.

Of course, since one person's treasure is another's junk the number of books considered subjectively "good" by somebody will be much larger and a function of the total number of buyers. (Fuzzy borders.)

I'd be willing to make a case that, across all genres, the fraction of books considered not-crap by enough people to be objectively non-crap is probably closer to 25% than to 10%. But even at the lower rate (or even half that) that is still a honking lot of new good books hitting the market.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Sturgeon's Law runs both ways: if 90% of everything is crap and the size of everything grows then it follows that the absolute number of non-crap items has grown.

The Kindle store is up to 4M ebooks, give or take a few hundred K.
And it is growing by some 300,000 indie titles alone each year, according to a recent report.
(And some 100k tradpub titles a year.)
There's bound to be at least a few that are objectively good. Statistically, you'd expect about 30,000 new good books a year from Indies alone.

Of course, since one person's treasure is another's junk the number of books considered subjectively "good" by somebody will be much larger and a function of the total number of buyers. (Fuzzy borders.)

I'd be willing to make a case that, across all genres, the fraction of books considered not-crap by enough people to be objectively non-crap is probably closer to 25% than to 10%. But even at the lower rate (or even half that) that is still a honking lot of new good books hitting the market.

Completely agreeing with your post.
As to the crap, I think it depends more on genre.
I think fiction has less crap than say household or finance or do it yourself or self-help.

My thinking on this is because it is easy to copy and paste in those categories so very little work involved. They get very easy to spot. The grammar usually does not match. Sorry but one is not going to go from broken English to the ideas are perfect English and then back to broken.
Also, the "author's" ideas are usually very well known from someone else. I found one the other day that had literally copied from Stephen Covey, Deepak Chopra, Norman Vincent Peale and assorted others.
It might have been a good book if the author had cleaned up his English and gave credit where credit was due.

And cookbooks are another crap field. It is hard to find a decent independent cookbook.
Now I don't mind the British cookbooks. I have found calculators than can do the conversions for me. I don't mind American cookbooks.
What I do mind is one like this: 120 grams flour, 1 cup sugar, 5 grams salt, 1 tsp baking powder.
Please use one or the other or do this 120 grams/1 cup flour.
Ok crap book rant over.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I see no evidence to support the idea that ebooks keep going down in price. I'm paying much the same for ebooks now that I was paying 15 years ago. What makes you think that ebook prices are falling?

I didn't say ebook prices are falling. What I said was that the price of a paper book goes down when it's no longer a newly published book. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I may have misunderstood Barry's post. I understood him to be saying that the prices of ebooks from BPH's is constantly falling. I see no evidence of that.

I already pointed that out before I saw this.

Barry (so misunderstood)