E-Book Price Increase May Stir Readers’ Passions

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by MrBlueSky

Whose name is it on the book?

Who is it who has been given the lifetime + 70 monopoly?

Who is it who shares all the royalties?

Who is it who 'creates' such a shoddy product that the editor is supposedly forced to spend a small fortune to make readable?

Who indeed!

Wow, that's really harsh. Do you even know any authors? After an author sells a book to a publisher, beyond getting to review the galleys, has just about no say about the various editions of the work at all. No say over the pricing, or when the editions are released. I know authors who weren't even aware that their books had been released in ebook editions until readers told them. In addition, many authors are under contract to a publisher and can't switch publishers until the contract is fulfilled. I don't know if the publishers still write this into their contracts, but the story is that Jack Chalker had a clause in his contract that gave Ballatine first right of refusal on his books until they turned one down, and that he wrote several novels in the attempt to get Betty Ballantine to reject one.

Personally, I don't have an objection to the publishers charging more for an ebook when it first comes out, but I'm tired of them not ever releasing them in ebook form, or leaving them at hardcover prices long after they've released cheaper editions (trade or mass market paperback). I already wait until I can buy ebooks at or below MMPB prices. That won't change.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid I disagree with you. It makes excellent sense to introduce a book at a relatively high price, and then to discount it as time passes. It's what Baen have done very successfully - offering people a chance to buy a book early for $15, and then re-release it for $6 a few months later. I don't see too many people moaning at Baen for this.

That's because Baen actually lowers the price. We can go find plenty of McMillan eBooks that are more expensive then the current cheapest paper copies. So really, we have little to no faith that the publishers will actually lower the prices at the same time the paperback comes out. Plus, I do expect a trade paperback first just so they don't have to lower prices that much. And then maybe a mass market paperback will come out. So really, the time it will take to go from hardcover to mass market could be years if ever.

[RJ_Cruze_Jr]

JSWolf -- has anyone told you that you have some of the most awesome avatars ever?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RJ_Cruze_Jr

Actually, the book they're releasing is an eARC -- electronic Advance Reader Copy. What that $15 buys you is the chance to read the book months before it hits the shelves. Case in point: about a week ago, Baen made the eARC for David Weber's Mission of Honor available. The book won't even be in stores until July, and if you're willing to part with $15, you get to read it six months before anyone else. That's the main reason people aren't moaning at Baen.

On the downside, because it is an advance copy, it's still in the process of being edited, so you're going to run across typos, grammatical errors, continuity errors, etc. But, if you're one of those hardcore fans who absolutely must have it now, it's the proverbial "bees knees."

However, once the book is ready to hit the shelves, the finished e-book is released at the usual $6 street price, and is usually available for download about a week or two before the hardcopy edition hits stores. So, in this case, eARC is not coming out at a higher price the same time as the hardcover like most publishers are proposing -- it's coming out at a higher price months before the hardcover even hits stores.

Yes, I'm well aware of how it works; I'm just making the point that $15 is not an "outrageous" price to charge for an eBook that someone really wants to read. There is a market at the price point.

[maggie*]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's because Baen actually lowers the price. We can go find plenty of McMillan eBooks that are more expensive then the current cheapest paper copies. So really, we have little to no faith that the publishers will actually lower the prices at the same time the paperback comes out. Plus, I do expect a trade paperback first just so they don't have to lower prices that much. And then maybe a mass market paperback will come out. So really, the time it will take to go from hardcover to mass market could be years if ever.

"Years" is a long, long time in the digital media business... Lots of competition during that time for my attention span...

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, I'm well aware of how it works; I'm just making the point that $15 is not an "outrageous" price to charge for an eBook that someone really wants to read. There is a market at the price point.

I pay $25 for each new release of the Starfist series. Hardcover prices without question. I won't pay prices similar for other works though.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid I disagree with you. It makes excellent sense to introduce a book at a relatively high price, and then to discount it as time passes. It's what Baen have done very successfully - offering people a chance to buy a book early for $15, and then re-release it for $6 a few months later. I don't see too many people moaning at Baen for this.

Nope, The other publishers would be sensible to try and sell books BEFORE RELEASE at high prices.

However, they are too hopeless to do this.

Baen of course do not have any 'hardback priced ebook' and 'paperback priced ebook' rubbish.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Baen of course do not have any 'hardback priced ebook' and 'paperback priced ebook' rubbish.

But they do have dual pricing: $15 if you want to read it as soon as it's available; $6 if you're willing to wait for 6 months. It's really not that much different from HB/PB pricing.

[maggie*]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But they do have dual pricing: $15 if you want to read it as soon as it's available; $6 if you're willing to wait for 6 months. It's really not that much different from HB/PB pricing.

Yes, but ARCs are the only format available at that time, there is no "let's hold the ebook price high because we have to sell the hardback".
Once the book is published the ebook price is not related to the available paper edition.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But they do have dual pricing: $15 if you want to read it as soon as it's available; $6 if you're willing to wait for 6 months. It's really not that much different from HB/PB pricing.

Yes it is, because when those are out there is no paper book at all!

Plus, I would think that MOST people would say that $6 is a hell of a lot different to hardback pricing. As in, about 4 times different.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tapar

The thing I think most people are forgetting is that publishers would probably be perfectly happy if you never bought another ebook again. I would expect that they would rather have ebooks die out and stay out of the mainstream so they can continue on like they have in the past with paper books. If ebooks become honestly mainstream and people get used to all the convenience of reading ebooks, piracy will probably be a bigger issue/concern for them. It also disrupts their business model and will basically cause a big upheaval.

If ebooks are only a small percentage of their business now...sabotaging them might keep it that way so they can cling longer to the old models. I think that would be really shortsighted but it wouldn't surprise me if that kind of backwards thinking were at play here.

Exactly and that is in particular MacMillan's tact on this. They don't want their ebooks in libraries and they want the price to be the same as the hardback on release or to not release the ebook til later. They are doing everything they can to kill ebook sales and perpetuate the status quo of the hardback. This will increase piracy I have no doubt.

Oh and it's not the authors that have much control over this at the moment, it's the publishers, the author typically only gets a pittance of the money, most goes to the publishing corporation and the shareholders. It's ridiculous.

I think the one-star ratings and comments directed at the publisher, the refusal to buy higher-priced books, and email,forum,twitter,blog deriding this behavior is appropriate.

[CluelessN00b]

Well Interesting discussion guys, I just wanted to point out the Jim Baen Really wanted to move from paper to an e-format. If your into sci-Fi and haven't found it yet please drop by the Baen Free Library http://www.baen.com/library/ it really got me started when i was uploading e-books on to my old palm pilot. I've been going to the library for about oh 6 years now, and it's a wonderful place to get a Variety of science fiction books, and it does get updated 2 to 4 times a year (some books taken off some more put in). Also some of the hard cover books (Torch of freedom by david weber is one of em) published by Baen books come with cd roms chock full of 25+ ebooks some from the author and some from his friends. I think that the way Baen books is handling the ebook market is the way the industry should be following... But that is just me.


Clueless

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by dsvick

Very good article. The part that disturbs me the most are all of the negative comments directed at authors.

Why? It's completely predictable. Most people don't care who the publisher is, they care about who the author of a book is. Workers in some other industries would love to have that level of direct identification, but the drawback is you get blamed as well as praised.

On the same hand - I read about people deliberately leaving one star ratings and negative comments and I think that that is grossly unfair, and is certainly the wrong way to go about it.

It's perfectly appropriate. If a book is deliberately not being sold to you, or sold at an overly high price, then it's entirely appropriate to rate it as such when the system is set up to allow it. If there was a separate channel for that sort of complaints, then I'd encourage people to use that - but there is not.

The market, in general, is not "fair".


Harry - Sure. But. They are offering something which actually has an upside: You get the book well ahead of the print version. If Macmillian etc. were going to offer it a day ahead of the print version, I might be more inclined to listen to them: but they are not.

This is why I said in the $15 thread that in some cases I can and will pay that much: because the Publisher and the Author are offering me something which is worth the premium! Equally, Macmillan et al. are still insisting on things like the value-reducing, cost-adding DRM, and screwing around half the time with georestrictions, refusing to sell to me!


CluelessN00b - You mean these CD's. Free, legal ebooks etc... (And yes, THAT Joe Buckley...)

[chicory]

How many writers can actually earn a living writing? Did any of them before the big publishers and mass marketing? (I don't know the answer, I am honestly wondering). I would guess that most writers had other means of support (Jane Austen, Mark Twain)

Maybe an author could set up a paypal site and specify the amount in donations he must receive before he digitally publishes his book. He would get all the money, this way, and as he becomes more popular he can raise his prices to all the market will bear. Because he is paid in advance, DRM would be irrelevant. A new writer would earn his following with initially free offerings. Reviewers could earn trust in their reviews and recommendations, and charge writers/ readers for their recommendations.

There are authors I would personally hand 20$ if they would write another book. There are also books I wish I'd never bought.

[chicory]

After looking around mobileread some more, I see that I am behind the times.... MobileRead has introduced me to lots of new sites. Previously I was aware of Project Gutenberg, Amazon, and Fictionwise. MobileRead is an eyeopener. Thanks for the site.