Are you prepared to pay the same price for an ebook as for the print book?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by darryl

I'm going to take a moment here to again have a look at the results. As at the time of posting, about 33% of people would pay the same or more than for a print book, or actually buy the print book instead. The other roughly 67% would not. An overwhelming 81% of this latter group, comprising almost 56% of those responding, would at least consider buying the ebook later when the price comes down. I suspect, however, that virtually all of this 67% would at least consider a later purchase at a cheaper price. Because of my badly worded questions, some who said they would read something else may well also consider buying the ebook when the price later comes down. I suspect there are actually very few who would rule out later buying the ebook altogether, and probably the only ones who would categorically do so would be ideologically driven.

The unknown here is of course just how many sales a publisher actually loses forever because of initial high pricing. If these figures are broadly accurate then, as a poster pointed out earlier, a publisher has little to lose by initially pricing high. Unless a very large percentage of sales would in fact be permanently lost, which seems unlikely.

In the longer term, of course, there may be other considerations. Traditional publishing, as some commentators have suggested, may be well advised to price their books competitively for new authors and at least some mid-listers even initially. The blockbuster authors may garner significant sales at a higher price against Indies, but I suspect in the longer term there will be only one market. And traditional publishing will have to give authors a far more equitable share, as some of the smaller more innovative ones are already doing.

Hey Darryl,
Will giving the authors a more equitable share raise the price?

Little anecdote on services.
Back in the 1950's maybe early 60's, there was an unknown singer. A guy heard him. The guy thought he could go places. The guy approached the singer and said for 50% of what you make, I will take care of all the details. The singer thought that was a fair deal. No one was concerned at the time because 50% of $10 is only $5. It was only after the $10 turned into $1,000,000 that others tried to tell the singer his manager was making too much. The singer still stated I think it is a fair deal and he has earned every penny.
Moral of the story: it doesn't matter what the consumer thinks is fair, the creator of the product and the promoter decides that.

I personally think concert tickets are outrageous but the shows sell out. I mean for all the 70's and 80's bands still touring.

[ZodWallop]

I think, in the end, "Are you prepared to pay the same price for an ebook as for the print book?" is just the wrong question. Many (most?) of the respondents don't compare the print and e-book prices. Though I answered differently, I realized I don't compare the two myself.

The real question is "What are you willing to pay for a book?"

Of course there's a million different answers to that. Though for me, for a typical mid-list author's back catalog fiction ebook the sweet spot seems to be +/- $5.00. At that price I will buy the book. Above that price, I will hold off waiting for a sale.

I haven't bought or read a print book since I bought my first e-ink reader. So I wouldn't buy the print version even if it was cheaper.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I personally think concert tickets are outrageous but the shows sell out. I mean for all the 70's and 80's bands still touring.

I have seen The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs and Devo more times in the last ten years than I ever had before. Nostalgia is a powerful thing

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I have seen The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs and Devo more times in the last ten years than I ever had before. Nostalgia is a powerful thing

I understand you but if the ticket price is more than all their albums* put together, I would just get the albums. That is just me, so you were pop back in the day and I was rock.
*Album can mean vinyl, cd or digital. I don't think most have everything on 8-track or cassette and very few have anything on reel to reel.

As to the price I will pay for a book, it depends on the book.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I think, in the end, "Are you prepared to pay the same price for an ebook as for the print book?" is just the wrong question. Many (most?) of the respondents don't compare the print and e-book prices. Though I answered differently, I realized I don't compare the two myself.



...

39 people posted in this thread. Doing a quick review of the posts in this thread, I came up with 11 people said/strongly implied they didn't compare print/ebook prices. What did you come up with?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by John F

39 people posted in this thread. Doing a quick review of the posts in this thread, I came up with 11 people said/strongly implied they didn't compare print/ebook prices. What did you come up with?

That looks like almost 1/3.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

That looks like almost 1/3.

So 1/3 might be "many", but falls short of "most".

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by John F

So 1/3 might be "many", but falls short of "most".

Of the 11 people, how many exclusively read ebooks?
We may can get an accurate (somewhat) figure on usage and pricing.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Hey Darryl,
Will giving the authors a more equitable share raise the price?

Little anecdote on services.
Back in the 1950's maybe early 60's, there was an unknown singer. A guy heard him. The guy thought he could go places. The guy approached the singer and said for 50% of what you make, I will take care of all the details. The singer thought that was a fair deal. No one was concerned at the time because 50% of $10 is only $5. It was only after the $10 turned into $1,000,000 that others tried to tell the singer his manager was making too much. The singer still stated I think it is a fair deal and he has earned every penny.
Moral of the story: it doesn't matter what the consumer thinks is fair, the creator of the product and the promoter decides that.

I personally think concert tickets are outrageous but the shows sell out. I mean for all the 70's and 80's bands still touring.

I can never hear of that story without thinking of Johnny Fontaine and the Bandleader in the Godfather! I think competition will keep the prices down. The large traditional publishing houses seem to be mostly clinging to compensation models to authors when they were, collectively, the only game in town. There was no price competition. Though I'm sure some will disagree, I think it is fairly plain that traditional publishing contracts heavily favour the publisher. Indies and smaller traditional publishers already offer much better royalty rates and conditions to authors, and sell their books at far more competitive prices.

I think Indies now are generally getting an equitable share, but of course are responsible for their own promotion etc. Those authors who want more help and are accepted earn a much fairer proportion from some of the more innovative Indie publishers than with traditional publishers. I think the large traditional pub

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by darryl

I can never hear of that story without thinking of Johnny Fontaine and the Bandleader in the Godfather! I think competition will keep the prices down. The large traditional publishing houses seem to be mostly clinging to compensation models to authors when they were, collectively, the only game in town. There was no price competition. Though I'm sure some will disagree, I think it is fairly plain that traditional publishing contracts heavily favour the publisher. Indies and smaller traditional publishers already offer much better royalty rates and conditions to authors, and sell their books at far more competitive prices.

I think Indies now are generally getting an equitable share, but of course are responsible for their own promotion etc. Those authors who want more help and are accepted earn a much fairer proportion from some of the more innovative Indie publishers than with traditional publishers. I think the large traditional pub

I tend to agree with you sort of.
Better royalty rates, yes. Now at what cost?
Trad Pub you get editors and cover designers and assorted other behind the scenes people.
Innovative Indie publishers: I think the authors better read the fine print before clicking yes. There are some good ones and some bad ones.
As far as totally self-published there should be some out of pocket expenses before uploading. Some authors tend to think it means DIY completely.

This reminds me I need to write a short book for my adopted granddaughter. It will be the ultimate guide to taking care of a baby.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

I can never hear of that story without thinking of Johnny Fontaine and the Bandleader in the Godfather! I think competition will keep the prices down. The large traditional publishing houses seem to be mostly clinging to compensation models to authors when they were, collectively, the only game in town. There was no price competition. Though I'm sure some will disagree, I think it is fairly plain that traditional publishing contracts heavily favour the publisher. Indies and smaller traditional publishers already offer much better royalty rates and conditions to authors, and sell their books at far more competitive prices.

I think Indies now are generally getting an equitable share, but of course are responsible for their own promotion etc. Those authors who want more help and are accepted earn a much fairer proportion from some of the more innovative Indie publishers than with traditional publishers. I think the large traditional pub

I think that what you fail to take into account is all the books that don't earn out their advance. It's a bit like complaining that an investor gets too much money for a company that makes it big, without considering the other 100 investments in which the investor makes that loses money.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I think that what you fail to take into account is all the books that don't earn out their advance. It's a bit like complaining that an investor gets too much money for a company that makes it big, without considering the other 100 investments in which the investor makes that loses money.

I take your point, but there is a further consideration. Not "earning out" is not the same thing as the Publisher losing money. Particularly at low royalty rates there should be a significant range where the Publisher has recouped expenses and is making money but the book has not yet earned out. I haven't seen any actual figures on this but I suspect that for the business model to succeed a lot of books that don't earn out fall into this category, and that whilst Publishers do lose money on some books it would be relatively rare for them to lose very large amounts.

If you are aware of any figures available I would be very interested to see them. Though I do suspect that such figures have always been closely guarded secrets, just as Amazon now keeps a lot of information to themselves.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

As to your last part, instead of saying publishers are living in the past, perhaps you should be telling the buyers to quit buying ebooks at those prices.

Based on (admittedly somewhat dodgy) sales figures of physical books vs. ebooks, most people don't pay the prices for ebooks.

Here is the thing: if I am selling something at $20 and have people willing to pay it, I really don't care if the one that wants it for $2 doesn't buy it. No, I am not going to reduce my price because the one thinks a person's time is worth nothing.

That's not the point. The point is that with zero cost to "print" another ebook, if you lower the price to $10 and sell four times the units, you make a lot more money. If you lower it to $5 and sell ten times the units, you make even more. You might even be able to drop the price to $2 and sell fifty times as many units and really make a killing (assuming the author doesn't get a fixed fee per unit, but instead gets a percentage).

Games and music have shown this is exactly what happens when the price is dropped dramatically. Publishers should do the same sort of sales that Steam and GOG do on older titles. So, basically, after a year or so, the e-book price should drop to 20-40% of the price on release date. Sure, you might lose some money due to people waiting to buy, but you'll likely make it back with the extra people buying who would never consider it at full price.

And, based on my eReaderIQ list of 134 books, publishers pretty much never discount ebooks except for those very few that seem to constantly be part of Kindle Daily Deals. None of the books on my list have dropped more than 8% in over a year. The list pretty well represents a good cross-section, too, as far as genre and publishers go, with the exception no romance or juvenile.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I have seen The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs and Devo more times in the last ten years than I ever had before. Nostalgia is a powerful thing

Nah, nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

I take your point, but there is a further consideration. Not "earning out" is not the same thing as the Publisher losing money. Particularly at low royalty rates there should be a significant range where the Publisher has recouped expenses and is making money but the book has not yet earned out. I haven't seen any actual figures on this but I suspect that for the business model to succeed a lot of books that don't earn out fall into this category, and that whilst Publishers do lose money on some books it would be relatively rare for them to lose very large amounts.

If you are aware of any figures available I would be very interested to see them. Though I do suspect that such figures have always been closely guarded secrets, just as Amazon now keeps a lot of information to themselves.

Pretty much all the sales figures are closely guarded secrets. Occasionally some authors are willing to write about their sales figures. That's why the various sales estimates that get posted here on a regular basis are simply some guy's swag based on whatever indicators he thinks is important. My point is based on what various publishers have said over the years when they talk about the business. Authors not earning out is a common theme.

In general, not earning out is equal to losing money for the publisher. The term means that the author didn't sale enough books to earn the advance that the publisher paid him or her. The advance is a reasonable indicator for how much the publisher expects to sell and how much resources the publisher puts into the book, in addition to the advance. There may be some boundary cases where the author sells almost enough to earn out and the publisher breaks even.

The average non indie book sells 3000 copies over it's lifetime. The average indie book sells 250 copies in it's lifetime.
(http://www.kameronhurley.com/the-col...tability-love/)

The ball park figure that I've read for the burdened cost for publishing a book is $50,000. That means that the average book doesn't quite break even assuming that everyone is paying list price. Publishing is very much a boom/bust sort of field. The article I linked to above also mentioned that sometimes even name authors have a book that only sells a few hundred. It was said that up to the day he died, you really didn't want to ask Jim Baen about a certain book co-written by a very famous politician. Apparently, Baen lost a lot of money on that book. I've read the book and thought it was a pretty good book. As mentioned in the article, sometimes that sort of thing happens.