Study says ". a certain level of piracy or its threat might actually be beneficial ."

[darryl]

@DiapDealer. Whilst libraries do lend books at no cost they have and are subject to limitations which limit the value of "free", including increased purchase costs for books, limited numbers and selections and long waiting lists. As you say, we must wait and see. There are many hypothetical scenarios to answer your last question. One, of course, is if ebooks take over much of the print book market. Another is if the Big 5 have difficulties attracting quality authors in the future, which I think is quite likely. Yet another would be if Indie books make their way inti traditional book stores in large numbers. There are many such scenarios.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

@DiapDealer. Whilst libraries do lend books at no cost they have and are subject to limitations which limit the value of "free", including increased purchase costs for books, limited numbers and selections and long waiting lists. As you say, we must wait and see. There are many hypothetical scenarios to answer your last question. One, of course, is if ebooks take over much of the print book market. Another is if the Big 5 have difficulties attracting quality authors in the future, which I think is quite likely. Yet another would be if Indie books make their way inti traditional book stores in large numbers. There are many such scenarios.

Hum, as far as I can tell, the movement seems to be more from indie to publisher than from publisher to indie. For the most part, it appears that the indie verses traditional publisher situation has stabilized over the last several years. The predicted flood of authors moving from traditional publishers to indie hasn't happened yet.

Once again, I would point out that the indie movement really is a very different market than the traditional publishing market. It's really a lot closer to the old time pulp or magazine business model than it is to traditional publishing. That's one reason that there are two very different sets of price points.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Hum, as far as I can tell, the movement seems to be more from indie to publisher than from publisher to indie. For the most part, it appears that the indie verses traditional publisher situation has stabilized over the last several years. The predicted flood of authors moving from traditional publishers to indie hasn't happened yet.

Once again, I would point out that the indie movement really is a very different market than the traditional publishing market. It's really a lot closer to the old time pulp or magazine business model than it is to traditional publishing. That's one reason that there are two very different sets of price points.

I'm not sure what the data says about movements. Certainly some authors with huge Indie success are then signing traditional contracts, but often very limited ones. In the meantime many of the mid-list authors dumped by traditional publishing are going Indie.

I think the major reason for the different price points is that one focuses on ebooks with print books very much ancillary, whilst the other focuses on print books with ebooks very much ancillary. Another significant reason, of course, is that Indie pricing is subject to competition, whilst agency pricing is not. I think the two markets are in fact in competition. With Big 5 ebooks far more expensive what was happening when last properly reported on is what one would expect to happen in the absence of a price reduction. Increasing Indie ebook market share at the expense of the Big 5 and other Tradpubs which follow their pricing lead. There are of course some traditional publishers outside of the Big 5 who do compete with Indie's on both price and royalties.

Is is unfortunate that we no longer have the benefit of Author Earnings Reports to give us some reasonable idea of what is happening and whether the Indie share of the ebook market continues to increase. Also interesting would be to what extent the ebook market and print book market are growing (or otherwise)>

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

I'm not sure what the data says about movements. Certainly some authors with huge Indie success are then signing traditional contracts, but often very limited ones. In the meantime many of the mid-list authors dumped by traditional publishing are going Indie.

I think the major reason for the different price points is that one focuses on ebooks with print books very much ancillary, whilst the other focuses on print books with ebooks very much ancillary. Another significant reason, of course, is that Indie pricing is subject to competition, whilst agency pricing is not. I think the two markets are in fact in competition. With Big 5 ebooks far more expensive what was happening when last properly reported on is what one would expect to happen in the absence of a price reduction. Increasing Indie ebook market share at the expense of the Big 5 and other Tradpubs which follow their pricing lead. There are of course some traditional publishers outside of the Big 5 who do compete with Indie's on both price and royalties.

Is is unfortunate that we no longer have the benefit of Author Earnings Reports to give us some reasonable idea of what is happening and whether the Indie share of the ebook market continues to increase. Also interesting would be to what extent the ebook market and print book market are growing (or otherwise)>

I suppose it's possible there is a big flux of authors moving from traditional to indie in genres that I don't follow, but I haven't seen it in the SF&F genre. I do see backlist books showing up as indie, or at least with publishers who specialize in publishing backlist books, but I'm not seeing new books coming out as indie from writers who use to be traditional. There are some who had been dropped by their previous publishers due to drops in sales, but only a hand full that I can think of.

As far as Author Earnings goes, I know that some here take it as gospel, but when someone who actually knows the sales figures says they are orders of magnitude off for their specific sales, I figure it's likely that they are orders of magnitude off for other sales as well.

I suspect that the biggest growth market is audio rather than print or ebook.