Do some publishers have any idea?

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That's really the point of what I'm saying. Major publishers have a specific business model. If you are only willing to pay $3 a book, then you aren't a customer they care about. Other posters carry on about how evil publishers are for not putting out books at super cheap prices, but really book prices have nothing to do with publishers being evil or consumers being cheap. It has to do with sustainable business models.

Given the frequency of one day $1.99 and $2.99 ebook sales I would say that the publishers do spare some thought for those of us who want the most books for the least cost, if only as a useful way to push ebooks higher up the rankings.

As someone who has wide tastes and little money such sales have been a useful way to fill out my library particularly particularly when it comes to non-fiction which is normally priced outside my budget.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

Elaborating, if you buy a full priced hardcover the author will get perhaps 15% if they have earned out. Otherwise, of course, they get nothing unless and until they do earn out. A full priced tradpub ebook the royalty rate will be about 25%. ff you buy a full price Indie e-book from Amazon the author usually gets 70%. Quite a difference in incentives. And there are wide variations. The last I looked, for instance, Bookouture, a more innovative traditional publisher now acquired by Hachette paid 50% royalty on its e-books.



But of course libraries do themselves buy the books, often in substantial numbers and at higher prices than direct sales to consumers. What a library buys is of course heavily influenced by the demand or expected demand from its patrons for particular authors and books. Simply by borrowing a book or successfully requesting that a library purchase a book a library patron is contributing to the profits of the publisher and, to a lesser extent, the author. The money is the same whether it arrives directly or indirectly.

You do understand that the term earn out means that authors are actually paid an advance, i.e. money up front, the amount of which is dependent on how many books they are expected to sell, so it's not like the author doesn't get the money from the book I buy.

I really don't care if an author is tradition publisher or indie, I just care if I like their books. Of course, the downside to indies is that they sell mostly digital books, with little or no paper sales. Most paper sales seem to be on demand are are quite expensive. For example, a book I just purchased as an ebook cost $4 as an ebook, $25 as a hard back and $15 as a paper back. Yea, those traditional publisher prices ($7 ebook, $17 hard back, $7 paper back) don't look quite so bad in comparison.

That 70% sounds good until you realize that the indie is going to have to sell a lot more ebooks than the traditional publisher author to make the same money in total sales.

I suspect that the vast majority here buy ebooks rather than paper. Yet, digital books (both ebooks and audiobooks) is still a much lower percentage of sales than paper books overall.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ekbell

Given the frequency of one day $1.99 and $2.99 ebook sales I would say that the publishers do spare some thought for those of us who want the most books for the least cost, if only as a useful way to push ebooks higher up the rankings.

As someone who has wide tastes and little money such sales have been a useful way to fill out my library particularly particularly when it comes to non-fiction which is normally priced outside my budget.

And how many of those $2 and $3 ebook sales are traditional publishers and how many are either indie or mid-tier authors selling their own books? I can't really say that I've seen very many (i.e. I don't recall seeing any) ebooks at that price that were not indie or backlist. I have seen first in a series sales like that (or for free) but usually that first in the series tends to be 10 or 20 years old (i.e. backlist)

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

And how many of those $2 and $3 ebook sales are traditional publishers and how many are either indie or mid-tier authors selling their own books? I can't really say that I've seen very many (i.e. I don't recall seeing any) ebooks at that price that were not indie or backlist. I have seen first in a series sales like that (or for free) but usually that first in the series tends to be 10 or 20 years old (i.e. backlist)

It really depends on the author and publisher. LE Modesitt, for example, generally has an entire series on sale prior to the release of a new one. I picked up most of his Recluce and Imager series that way. Sometimes it's just good marketing to put backlist books on sale to generate interest for a new one.

Edit: Sites like ereaderIQ are your friend for these sales. In fact, I've occasionally found out about a new book release by an author because I got notification that an earlier book was on sale.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

And how many of those $2 and $3 ebook sales are traditional publishers and how many are either indie or mid-tier authors selling their own books? I can't really say that I've seen very many (i.e. I don't recall seeing any) ebooks at that price that were not indie or backlist. I have seen first in a series sales like that (or for free) but usually that first in the series tends to be 10 or 20 years old (i.e. backlist)

I bought a John D. MacDonald book published by Random House for $1.99 on sale last week. I've gotten many of those. I bought a Jefferson Bass book published by Harper Collins a few weeks ago for $1.99. I got a Heinlein book published by Penguin for $1.99 a month or so ago. These books are all backlist titles, but they're being sold by the publisher, not by the author.

Books from traditional publishers actually go on sale for $1.99-$2.99 often...I get notified of sales by many different means...sometimes from here, sometimes from other groups I belong to, and sometimes from eReader IQ.

Shari

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You do understand that the term earn out means that authors are actually paid an advance, i.e. money up front, the amount of which is dependent on how many books they are expected to sell, so it's not like the author doesn't get the money from the book I buy.

I really don't care if an author is tradition publisher or indie, I just care if I like their books. Of course, the downside to indies is that they sell mostly digital books, with little or no paper sales. Most paper sales seem to be on demand are are quite expensive. For example, a book I just purchased as an ebook cost $4 as an ebook, $25 as a hard back and $15 as a paper back. Yea, those traditional publisher prices ($7 ebook, $17 hard back, $7 paper back) don't look quite so bad in comparison.

That 70% sounds good until you realize that the indie is going to have to sell a lot more ebooks than the traditional publisher author to make the same money in total sales.

I suspect that the vast majority here buy ebooks rather than paper. Yet, digital books (both ebooks and audiobooks) is still a much lower percentage of sales than paper books overall.

Indeed. Sometimes the advance is all a tradpub author gets. In which case the incentive in you paying top price is pretty well non-existent. Of course, since books do not have to earn out to be profitable to a publisher you may help indirectly in a small way by enhancing the prospects of the author again being published in the future. So yes, the author does get some money from the book you buy, at least on paper. But not very much. It's value as a financial incentive to write more books is debatable in most cases.

Of course, at a 15% royalty rate as opposed to a 70% one, the tradpup paper author must sell 4.66 books to make the same amount as an Indie would on a single sale. This, of course, assumes the same price which is not usually correct. But what it does mean is that an indie e-book author selling a book for $3.22 will receive the same royalty as a tradpub paperback author selling a book for $15. So in fact Indie authors usually need to sell less books to make the same money. Though of course the lower price points for Indies are I suspect more promotional than profitable.

What I find interesting about the POD prices you quote is how close the prices are to tradpub books. The savings from the massive economies of scale achieved by a tradpub print run are obviously ending up in someone's pocket. And not the readers or the authors.

I haven't seen recent figures, but the last I did see paper sales were still much higher, with tradpub e-book sales static and Indie e-book sales rising. I think there will be a market for paper books for the foreseeable future. And Indies are not prominent in paper books, with book stores often refusing to stock either Indies or Amazon imprint books. I suspect this is why some Indie authors do take tradpub contracts. I suspect they are usually for print rights only and for higher royalty rates than standard. But for Indies the print market is largely untapped.

[fjtorres]

The more things change, the more they stay the same (overpriced) way:

Salon, circa 2003:
https://www.salon.com/2002/12/03/prices/

According to Bowker, the average price for mass-market paperback fiction has gone up a whopping 328 percent (from $1.35 in 1975 to $5.78 in 2000), poetry and drama have increased by 252 percent, and juvenile titles cost a staggering 387 percent more now than they did in 1975. (No figures were available for nonfiction mass-market paperbacks.) Adjusting for inflation, Sahr found that the average price of mass-market paperbacks has gone up almost 40 percent, poetry and drama almost 15 percent, and juvenile titles just under 60 percent.

But what's taken a huge bite out of America's book budget is the rise of the trade paperback, those larger paperbacks of better quality that can now be found occupying prime real estate on tables at the front of bookstores. Since the 1980s, publishers have increasingly kept their backlist in trade paperback, and used this format to publish the paperback versions of books that don't have a mass-market appeal or million-copy sales potential, such as more-literary or specialized titles. Right now the price of most trade paperbacks hovers between $12 and $16, although nonfiction titles often cost more. (For example, this week's No. 1 New York Times bestseller, "John Adams," by David McCullough, costs $18.95, which makes you wonder how soon trade paperbacks will begin to regularly creep past the $20 barrier.)

Main difference is MMPBs now go for $9 instead of $5.78 .

[fjtorres]

Btw, if paying as much as possible to support the publisher is a virtuous thing, then buying ebooks is bad. Bad, boy, bad...

Even a heavily discounted hardcover ($17) with a 15% royalty will deliver $2.55 to the author and their agent.
But even the agency ebooks at $13 will only deliver $2.28.

Those extra $0.25 will really make a difference.
Of course, the truly virtuous will pay full list, right?
That's $30 and return a whole $4.50. That's twice what the ebook lover pays.

So we must conclude that even the most parsimonious pbook buyer is more virtuous than the most spendthrift ebook buyer, to say nothing of Bookbub subscribers.

Time to go ditch those kindles and Kobos ye sinners!
Repent and ye shall be healed.

(Of course all that requires the book to earn out the advance so publishers actually start paying royalties at all.)

Ps. That WAG actually uses the highest royalty.
Reality is closer to 8-12%:
https://www.alanjacobson.com/writers...of-publishing/

Hardback edition: 10% of the retail price on the first 5,000 copies; 12.5% for the next 5,000 copies sold, then 15% for all further copies sold.

Paperback: 8% of retail price on the first 150,000 copies sold, then 10% thereafter.

Exceptions to the above include sales to warehouse clubs (like Costco or Sam’s Club), book clubs, and special orders; the royalty percentages for these can be half the figures listed above.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by darryl

I suspect they are usually for print rights only and for higher royalty rates than standard.

Nope.
Publishers no longer do print-only deals.
(Few ever did.)
And they no longer agree to text-only deals.

Current "Industry Standard" deals require audio and global rights or it's no deal.
Unless you're Grisham, King, etc.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Current "Industry Standard" deals require audio and global rights or it's no deal.
Unless you're Grisham, King, etc.

Mainly curiosity, but do a portion of the publishers with global rights georestrict?

Do any of them not georestrict?

[Pizza_Cant_Read]

Originally Posted by crossi

I support authors by buying a LOT of books not just a few high priced ones. I'm a fast reader. I have frequently bought 10 books in a single week and read them all. One a day is quite common for me. At that rate paying hardback prices is not possible except for the very rare book I have to have Right Now. Anyway what would an author prefer, that I should buy one of their books for $15 or all thirty or forty of their books for $5 each? If they are a one book wonder, yeah maybe they should go for the $15, but if they write a lot go for the maximum number of sales to better spread word about their books and get even more customers.

Also there is the point that back when I was buying paper books, perhaps one in ten of those I bought turned out to be keepers. The rest were just chaff I had to go through to find the books I really liked. Wasted money. No way was I going to waste hardback money on the one in ten odds of getting a keeper. And now I can't even trade in or donate the chaff. I'm just stuck with them.

I have enjoyed following this conversation and it is stimulating to watch different sides hash it out. We know arguments don't usually change anyone's habits but it is satisfying to bring one's argument to its logical conclusion.

That being said, anyone else think of "Animorphs" when Crossi said they read up to ten books a week? I love it when people say things like that! I know many people do read that much but it is so far outside my own experience that my mind goes straight to "Animorphs" and "Boxcar Children" haha.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Nope.
Publishers no longer do print-only deals.
(Few ever did.)
And they no longer agree to text-only deals.

Current "Industry Standard" deals require audio and global rights or it's no deal.
Unless you're Grisham, King, etc.

Little different when rights revert back to the author. Dennis Mckiernan, for example, got ebook rights only reverted back to him for Iron Tower and Silver Call. First one he already published as ebook, second one he is currently formatting/editing for ebook release. Print rights remain with the old publisher, they never did release an ebook version.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Pizza_Cant_Read

That being said, anyone else think of "Animorphs" when Crossi said they read up to ten books a week? I love it when people say things like that! I know many people do read that much but it is so far outside my own experience that my mind goes straight to "Animorphs" and "Boxcar Children" haha.

What's odd about reading 10 books a week? That's a slow week in these parts.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

If you are a library patron and only get your books there, then you do not carry an author, unless of course you belong to a private library that is subscription based.

You seem to have a have a weird, passive, unrealistic idea of how libraries and library users work. Libraries aren't magically sent a pile of random free books every month that readers then passively browse and borrow. A reasonable percentage of the library books I borrow are books I requested the library purchase. This means (a) a sale, (b) other people being exposed to the author and their works, and (c) the library knowing that that author/subgenre/style is something that at least some of their patrons want, guiding further purchases.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Nope.
Publishers no longer do print-only deals.
(Few ever did.)
And they no longer agree to text-only deals.

Current "Industry Standard" deals require audio and global rights or it's no deal.
Unless you're Grisham, King, etc.

Thanks for correcting my speculation. What reasons do you believe some already successful Indie's have to go to tradpub? Is it pie in the sky optimism? Or are they doing non-standard deals? It is difficult to see why a successful Indie would sign an "Industry Standard" deal. It seems to me they would want higher royalty rates and a more restricted rights-grab than standard. Perhaps they match Amazon royalty rates on e-books? Of course we don't see the contracts either way, so can only speculate.