John Grisham speaks out on the future of pbooks and ebooks

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by MikeRo

Neil, I respectfully disagree with you about this. If someone recommends an author to me I almost always buy a second-hand copy of one of their books first and if I like it I tend to buy their latest books new.

Plus, without second-hand book stores my basement would have exploded years ago. I am incapable of throwing out a book; giving them away or selling them to second-hand book stores is the only way for me.

Advertising! Same argument as loaning/sharing/freebies/loss leaders to get other sales.

[kindlekitten]

oh very well put zachary! that was certainly a karma worthy post!

Grisham's points of putting the pbook industry into peril to include all of the publishing houses, bookstores and so on is not very far thinking. we have been watching the newspaper industry tank over the last few years, and this was done primarily through online reading and access. did *we* feel bad? were there people made redundant? most certainly. but that did not obligate us to return to purchasing and reading paper newspapers in a fashion made redundant by change and modern technology. it also did not obligate us to spending the same amount as we had previously on the obsolete paper subscriptions

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

I don't know anyone who feels the slightest guilt at making a copy of a CD for a friend.

Sure. But let's not forget we're also in an era where Jane Doe in Anytown USA can share her entire music collection with millions of her closest Internet Buddies.

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

I think it's ridiculous that communication and storytelling is such a huge industry as it is. I think it's ridiculous to make business models based around ARTIFICIAL SUPPLY CONSTRAINTS.

It isn't. It's a business model based around the reality that it takes a fair amount of resources to write and distribute a book, even in an electronic format.

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

If you modeled the perception of paying for the copying process of pbooks to the same work for ebooks, of course nobody is going to think an ebook should cost anywhere near as much as a pbook. They know very well it costs almost nothing to make a 2mb file copy, even over the internet.

Then their "knowledge" is flat wrong. In most cases, an ebook only costs 10-12% less to make than a paper book.

Why? Because whether in paper or electronic form, costs include: Author's advance and royalties; research; editing; proofreading; design and layout; agents' fees; legal fees; marketing and PR; international costs (e.g. translations and rights); retailer's cut; payment processing costs; customer service; taxes; and other overhead costs for publishers and retailers.

Most books don't even make a profit, it's the blockbusters that pay the bills.

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Nobody is worried about how much time and effort went into creating a book except for the hard core literates out there.

That's nice, but it doesn't make the fundamental costs of producing and selling books go away.

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

the industry has to completely indoctrinate the non-ownership ideal to the whole book-buying market, including your grandmothers who are older than currently copyright law.

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Still... I'd much rather have the pay-for library model. I don't care about owning a book or not. I just want to read it once.

I have no problem with you having that approach to reading -- for yourself -- but it's a very narrow vision. Plenty of people (including yours truly) re-read books, or read large books that take a great deal of time to finish. You really need to account for a variety of reading styles and reader's behavior when developing a theory of how to make over an entire industry....

Besides, subscription services for electronic goods are not always a home run. Netflix may do fairly well, but Rhapsody has not taken the market by storm. I don't necessarily object to a subscription service, but I don't think you will change enough people's minds on it to make it work. I suspect it would also be a contractual nightmare, since all the contracts would need to be re-written (again...) to cover subscription royalties.

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

One thing is for sure. All of this nonsense, battling over pricing and rights, and anti-consumer practices like DRM and format-based pricing disparities. It all makes me wish there were more Cory Doctorows and Peter Wattses in the world. It makes me quite grateful for project gutenberg and feedbooks.

I fully support public domain. But you can't just release all books for free without utterly decimating the industry.

And finally, I don't see a problem with treating ebooks like any other market. The price is what the market will bear. If Grisham has to learn to live with that reality, perhaps others do as well.

[Janet54]

In my case, I purchase many more books now than I did before I got my Kindle. Where I use to read "a" book a month. I now read several books a month and have purchased many that realistically will problably not be read for years. But they are there when I am in the mood.
All that extra money I have been spending is going into somebody's pocket: Publishers, Authors, Book Stores.
I believe in the long run, the more people reading is more money being spent.
I am stunned that Authors do not see this!

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Bill: I agree with you one hundred percent ... and I make my living as a publisher. A publisher's role is (secondary to the author) as creator. We're approaching the point where we can cut out the non-creative ancillary workers and get straight to the reader. When folks moan about high street bookstores going broke, I always remember how change bureaux cashed in on selling money in Europe before the Euro put them out of business. I don't weep for those who take a ride. Book sellers are shopkeepers. That's all. They offer a few inches of shelf space and demand four, five, six ... whatever ... times more than the author in return. Bloody cheek. A disgrace! Neil

I guess, then, no one should weep for you when publishers are found to be superfluous because a writer can bypass the publisher as easily as the writer can bypass the bookseller.

Contrary to you, I will weep when there are no more bricks-and-mortar booksellers because they often do something that no publisher has yet done -- lead me to discover new writers and new topics to pursue.

I also wonder about what makes someone a "non-creative ancillary worker." A publisher does nothing for the creative writer; rather it is the editors and marketers who work for the publisher that do something. Of course if you mean publisher as encompassing all of the drone workers, too, then I have to ask, "How many of them are 'creative'?" Editors are not meant to be "creative"; they are meant to bring discipline to an unruly manuscript, so in your scenario the demise of editors would not be weep worthy. And the human resources folk that work for publishers are exactly creative and aren't adding to the author's original work. Well, you get the idea -- it is easy to work up the pyramid to discover that the demise of publishers is also not weep worthy.

So once we have gotten rid of all these non-creative nonweep-worthy denizens of the publishing world, who will be left to buy and appreciate the author's work? For the most part, no one.

I think I will weep for the demise of that you dream of and hope that change rather than demise becomes the path of the publishing industry and its retail chain.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Don't forget, FormatC, that many of those white-haired, stoop-shouldered, friendly old book sellers we remember with a tear in our eye were often selling second-hand books with absolutely zero benefit to author, editor or publisher. It was the original book piracy. Neil

Neil, the original book piracy was the creation of the publisher, not the bookseller, not even the second-hand bookseller. The original publishers were the guilds and they required the author to pay for the privilege of getting published and with rare exception paid anything to the author.

Modern publishers are a bit piratical themselves. Again, with the rare exception of the Dan Browns, few authors get contracts beneficial to them as opposed to beneficial to the publisher.

And the second-hand book dealer in fact does provide a significant benefit to authors, albeit an indirect one. They provide an affordable means for people to get introduced to an author. Although authors love money, I suspect that most would fear obscurity and lack of readers more than lack of royalty.

[gigercounter]

Originally Posted by kennyc

This is not true. You "pay" for it by being "forced" to listen to commercials which are the ones physically paying for it.

Well let the nook offer ads on the color screen to keep book prices down then.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by gigercounter

Well let the nook offer ads on the color screen to keep book prices down then.

I got a feeling....

[neilmarr]

***A publisher does nothing for the creative writer; rather it is the editors and marketers who work for the publisher***

Those involved at tyhe sharp end, Rhadin, are known collectively as 'the publisher' in the same way as the chap who turns over the potato patch or milks the cows is known as 'the farmer'. N

[Mr. Goodbar]

You would think people would learn from history, but they never seem to. Ebooks are here to stay and the business model will need to adapt to that change just as the music industry has had to adapt to digital media. That will mean part of the model will become obsolete and another part will grow.

I will personally miss the small bookstore, the knowledge they had and the atmosphere they created, but the mega-retailer doesn't offer me anything more than I can get from the web. The value they brought was more titles under one roof, but with that the expertise, customer service and atmosphere vanished. They're value proposition has been eroded with the web and ebooks.

[neilmarr]

With you, Mr Goodbar. And I miss the corner shop -- thankful for the local supermarket, though: Cheaper, faster and a hugely greater choice. N

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Billjr13

Thanks Neil, Love the kilt. I just dont see how not selling a book can be better for business than selling a book. I know Grisham may not need the money but I am sure a lot of other authors would love to see their books sell aditional copies in digital format. This will keep me from buying SK's new book too, and I have most of his books in HardBack editions. I would probably bought his book on release day as well

You don't think like they do. They believe an eBook sale is not an additional sale but a lost pbook sale. In your case it might be additional but they believe in the majority of cases it cuts into their 'current' business model.

Dale

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by LoganK

He does have an interesting point that I hadn't considered. If half of all book buyers switched from B&M sales to online/electronic sales, and we assume that the other half of the customers will never do this and that the remaining customers will not be sufficient to support those stores, then we could in fact see a short-term collapse of the publishing industry as most of the customers no longer have a market available to them.

Of course, this isn't specific to e-books as online sales create the same issue in every market.

It also ignores that customers have alternatives that also involve books (such purchasing at multi-purpose stores (Target/Walmart) or online). It's a fairly big leap to assume that the loss of bookstores would lead the population away from buying books.

I wonder if this is the primary concern driving B&N's attempt to bring e-book readers back to the stores...

Many years ago, when home computer software was mostly supplied on cassette tape, there was an automated system that appeared in many software chains in the UK (Game was one of them). You chose the game/software, paid the sales assistant, and the machine then produced a copy on cassette for you.

Something similar could easily be put in place in any retailer's store: choose the ebook, machine produces a CD with said ebook recorded on to it (and possibly a printed cover for the case), and off you go. That way people are still coming into the bricks and morter store, there are more stores that can use the machine to sell ebooks, and ebook readers have less need to shop online (well, except for pricing and Kindle readers).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

You don't think like they do. They believe an eBook sale is not an additional sale but a lost pbook sale. In your case it might be additional but they believe in the majority of cases it cuts into their 'current' business model.

Dale

Yep, they are looking at it as a zero-sum game and it's not.

I've already bought several books in both ebook and pbook format.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by CallOfCth'reader

You chose the game/software, paid the sales assistant, and the machine then produced a copy on cassette for you.

Something similar could easily be put in place in any retailer's store: choose the ebook, machine produces a CD with said ebook recorded on to it (and possibly a printed cover for the case), and off you go.

Or bypass the CD (and a related fee) by bringing in your own USB flash drive. No physical costs at all.

Printed covers with CD cases often cost more than the CDs themselves.