ePub format launches at Fictionwise: 50% off all MultiFormat titles!

[Sweetpea]

Good, I had some multi-formats in my wish list... I will have to look at this tonight.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by John F

[Sarcasm]

How can Fictionwise stay in business? Multiple formats of ebooks? I thought that Ebook production costs were similar to pbooks?

[/Sarcasm]

eBook production costs are similar to pbooks. But those production costs mostly aren't per-format costs. Ebooks have the same costs as pbooks in terms of fixed overhead (editors, acquisition, slush-pile diving, etc.), and share many of the same per-book costs with pbooks (proof-reading, art-work, editorial attention to purchased story, marketing, etc.). Ebooks avoid a minority of the production costs of paper (printing, shipping, warehousing, inventory). But ebooks also bring some new costs of their own -- format conversions (including making sure that the automatic conversion didn't completely hose some important aspect of the book), managing electronic data (well known in the tech world, but new to most of publishing; not too expensive once you know what you are doing), and tech support (e.g. "why doesn't this book work on my device?") to name a few.

Note that the fixed costs are, in essence, shared across all publications from a given company whether P or E. Many per-book costs are shared between dead-tree and ebook editions of each book. There are some dead-tree only costs; there are also ebook-only costs. See above for some examples of each.

I suspect that Fictionwise is doing what I do with books I buy -- use Calibre to convert to the desired set of formats, and don't even bother looking to see whether there's a problem until someone gets around to reading the book. It's the cheap approach. Some customers (or family members, in my case) may encounter unfortunate problems introduced during the conversion process.

Xenophon

P.S. The really BIG win with eBooks is the opportunity to knock an entire level of distribution out of the chain between author and reader. That's a place to get 30%-50% price improvements.

[John F]

Thanks Xeno, you gave me something to think about.

[sirbruce]

What I wonder is how much money Fictionwise is making when they're constantly giving big discounts. It seems that the $10 ebook may still not be the best price point and something closer to $5 may maximize profits.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by John F

[Sarcasm]

How can Fictionwise stay in business? Multiple formats of ebooks? I thought that Ebook production costs were similar to pbooks?

[/Sarcasm]

To enlarge a bit on what Xeno said, and to affirm it:

I just finished an extensive proofing of nine of my books, in preparation for distribution through fictionwise and other outlets. (E-reads is the publisher.) It required many, many, many hours of close work--and truthfully, I couldn't have justified that on the basis of expected income if I hadn't had an enthusiastic volunteer helper. And that was just to produce clean RTFs that I hope will survive the formatting. Note that five of these books will be reissues of books presently on sale, and in some of those the formatting indeed got hosed by the previous ebook conversion.

I suspect Xeno is right that there will be cursory inspection, if any, of the converted files. There's no mechanism for the author to get copies of the ebooks, unless he/she wants to buy copies for quality control purposes. I never saw the current versions of my ebooks until a kind person gave me copies of the books she had bought. (Which was the first time I saw the formatting problems.)

And while everyone thinks it should be simple to fix errors once they're found--and really, ideally, it should be--in practice, at present, it's not. How I wish it were! I wouldn't have had ghastly first-draft covers attached to my ebooks on Amazon for the last four years, if it were.

So I am waiting with fingers crossed, to see what comes out of the pipeline.

Oh--and I hope all the good folk who passionately argue for lower prices will prove the economic validity of that argument by snapping up my books once they're on sale!

[JSWolf]

ePub added to Fictionwise MultiFormat option—plus, 50 percent off on all MultiFormat titles

Teleread is reporting on Fictionwise's ePub and Bookeen's ePub for the Gen3.

http://www.teleread.org/2009/04/28/e...format-titles/

[Lemurion]

There is one huge advantage to Fictionwise Multi-Format over any DRM format: They only have to maintain one file for each format of each book. Every time someone buys a DRM ebook someone has to generate a new file that's DRM-encoded for that purchaser. Yes it's often automated, so there may be no labor cost, but there's usually a DRM licensing cost associated with creating each file.

[BinaryTB]

This 50% multiformat sale includes magazines, but not magazine subscriptions. Lame. I guess you could just buy whatever back issues they have for that magazine, but still, I'd rather have a subscription for half-off.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by BinaryTB

This 50% multiformat sale includes magazines, but not magazine subscriptions. Lame. I guess you could just buy whatever back issues they have for that magazine, but still, I'd rather have a subscription for half-off.

You've heard the saying about gift horses?

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by BinaryTB

This 50% multiformat sale includes magazines, but not magazine subscriptions. Lame. I guess you could just buy whatever back issues they have for that magazine, but still, I'd rather have a subscription for half-off.

Most of their sales don't include magazine subscriptions. It happens occasionally but it's not something to count on. This is a great sale and I've taken advantage of it.

[ficbot]

I noticed the magazine subscription non-sale too and was disappointed. I was waiting to buy Ellery Queen until it went on sale. I will keep waiting

Those who did buy stuff, what did you get? 50% off is a great deal and I have some micropay to use up...

[Dr. Drib]

I test-downloaded a Shell Scott book by Richard Prather. I own over 15 of them, with approximately 15 more to buy.

So I downloaded the ePub edition to see what it looked like and it was double-spaced between paragraphs. I was extremely disappointed. Imagine reading dialogue, for example, and flipping the pages one after another if there's a lot of dialogue.

So, at this time, I'm not very impressed with the ePub conversions.

But, hey! That's only my opinion and your mileage may differ.

Don

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I test-downloaded a Shell Scott book by Richard Prather. I own over 15 of them, with approximately 15 more to buy.

So I downloaded the ePub edition to see what it looked like and it was double-spaced between paragraphs. I was extremely disappointed. Imagine reading dialogue, for example, and flipping the pages one after another if there's a lot of dialogue.

So, at this time, I'm not very impressed with the ePub conversions.

But, hey! That's only my opinion and your mileage may differ.

Don

Might be worth sending them feedback on that. I imagine someone, in setting this up, scratched his/her head and said, "Space between paragraph? Or not? What do you think?"

[Renaldo]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Those who did buy stuff, what did you get? 50% off is a great deal and I have some micropay to use up...

I used up about $10 in micropay and $20 in cash. Picked up some horror I'd had my eye on and was interested in checking out when the right sale came along.

Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #12
Clickers by J. F. Gonzalez & Mark Williams
Journal: Judgment Card by Gail Smith
Bits of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology
The Screaming Season by Joseph Armstead
The Ice Downstream by Melanie Tem
Dark Whispers: An Anthology in Terror by Ivan S. Graves
Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel by A.P. Fuchs
Something Wicked SF & Horror Magazine #9
Pit and the Pendulum ['Pit-Bull' Peter Geller Mystery Series Book 1] by John Gregory Betancourt
Dead End Street by Rick R. Reed
Black Static Horror Magazine #3
Sympathy for Monsters by John Gregory Betancourt

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

ePub added to Fictionwise MultiFormat option—plus, 50 percent off on all MultiFormat titles

Teleread is reporting on Fictionwise's ePub and Bookeen's ePub for the Gen3.

http://www.teleread.org/2009/04/28/e...format-titles/

Bookeen on their blogs make no mention of this development, at all ......