"Friction" is why e-books adoption is slow

[astra]

Originally Posted by petermillard

Seriously, if there's a book you want to read now and it's only available in a certain format, your choice is to pay the price, or not read it (ok, there's borrowing from friends or libraries, but we're talking about purchases here, right?) - would you really not read something you want to, just because the price was too high?

I would not buy it then.

There are many things I would like to have in my life but they are way too expensive. If I live my life with an approach such as Well I really want it, so I buy it doesn't matter the price is high, I will get my family into debts. I believe I should live accordingly to my salary and if a book costs too much, I simply cannot afford it. This approach is a general approach in my life. I covers books, dvds, houses, cars etc.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

It can't be. There will be fixed costs that will be the same for Joe Bestseller and Manny Midlist. (For a similar sized manuscript, line-editing, copy editing, proofreading, typesetting, and pre-press should be about the same.)

I understand all that, but it's not the point. All else being equal, you're still faced with a difference of, say, a $1 million dollar advance plus promo budget vs. a $3,000 advance and none. On a first printing of 250k, that's at least $4 each. My point is that the mass market doesn't care. It's a $22 hardback and the blurb looks interesting. Fine.

The real difference in perceived value is, as phrodod pointed out, that e-books are playerless media. CDs and DVDs are playerless media, too, but there's never been an all-in-one solution to those, so the market never learned to expect it.

Through the life of this thread, I've seen at least four different ways in which the e-book concept could win market acceptance. Any one of them would work for a different segment of the potential market (with some overlap, I assume). None of them would work for the entire potential market. Just looking at the past conversations on convergence vs. stand-alone readers demonstrates that point.

But that's okay. If any of them works, someone will try others. I don't care if it's one vendor end-to-end, a Mobipocket-like middleman solution, or cheap disposable media. Whatever gets the market moving is fine with me.

[petermillard]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

People who understand that the costs of an ebook are considerably lower than for a paper edition, and expect those lower costs to be reflected in a lower price. That is, most of us.

And I would include myself in the 'most of us' who understand this; in fact, if the publishers are still in the business of publishing dead tree books, I'd say the added cost of producing a title as an eBook is approximately zero - the other costs are already absorbed in the publication of pBooks. My point is that despite this, it's not 'most of us' that set the prices - it's the publishers. As avid readers (as I'm sure most people on this site are) I'd be very surprised (seriously, genuinely shocked) if we chose not to read a book we really wanted to read, just because of price or format. Maybe I'm weird, but to me, books are just words; if I really want to read something, little will stop me!

iTunes is based on the idea that you don't want the whole CD -- you want to cherry pick specific songs. This is not an option for novels.

Fair enough, but the cost of a whole CDs-worth of songs from iTunes Music Store comes out at pretty much exactly the same as a store-bought CD. And just speaking personally, I can think of any number of books that I wish I'd only bought the first chapter of...

But publishing has historically been stupid. I've heard a speculation that part of that is a carryover from the old days, when publishing was a trade a gentleman could engage in. Those folks had money and didn't care if they actually made money on books - publishing was a respectable occupation for folks in their social class. Old habits die hard.

If that's just speculation, I'd be happy to confirm it. I knocked about the fringes of educational publishing (as a photographer/illustrator) here in London all through the nineties, and coming from an advertising background the leisurely pace of the whole process had to be seen to be believed.

As mentioned, Baen books does roughly that with their "Webscriptions" program. It's doing well enough that the chap who set it up and runs it is making a nice living.

No doubt. As a consumer, I wish they published something I wanted to read. As a co-'content provider', I'm left wondering how the authors feel about seeing the value of their work reduced effectively to zero after a couple of years?

Best, Pete.

[nekokami]

I agree with astra_lestat. There are books I haven't been able to own because I can't afford them -- both fiction and non-fiction. Sometimes I can borrow them from a library or friend, and sometimes I just have to go without.

My primary motivation for getting into ebooks was simply space. I live in a smaller house than I used to, and I now have two kids who seem to need a lot of space of their own (whoda thought?) so I don't have enough room to shelve all my books anymore. They're in boxes in the basement, inaccessable, and I have to be careful about buying any more. But I tend to re-read many or most of my books, so I really value being able to store them all on a reader upstairs.

I also have notebooks with handwritten scrawls and sketches dating back through years that I wish I had the same access to. That's why I went with the iLiad, hoping that it could replace those as well. I'm still not quite there yet.

Most people probably don't want or need immediate access to a few thousand books at a time, though. It takes a reading nut (like me, or like many of the other people on this site) to want that kind of functionality. I think lower cost (which can be tracked to lower resource usage, hence a more environmentally-friendly format) will win the day in the long run-- if publishers have any sense.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I agree with astra_lestat. There are books I haven't been able to own because I can't afford them -- both fiction and non-fiction. Sometimes I can borrow them from a library or friend, and sometimes I just have to go without.

I'd love to have an Oxford English Dictionary (I think I've mentioned before that I collect dictionaries), but the things cost upwards of a grand, so ... not gonna happen.

[petermillard]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

I would not buy it then.... This approach is a general approach in my life. I covers books, dvds, houses, cars etc.

My approach also, but with respect, I'm talking about £15 hardbacks and £7 paperbacks, not £15,000 cars and £500,000 houses.

Best, Pete

[NatCh]

Yeah, but they can add up. The way I buy books, there are times I just have to say to myself, "nope, you can't buy that one right now." The more they cost, the more often it happens. Although, for me, I'm likely to buy the book and do without something else that's less important to me, but even still ....

[nekokami]

I read about 3 books a week. At US$18 each (discounted hardcover price), that would be US$3008/year. At typical paperback prices of about US$8 each, that would be US$1248, and at the common Baen price of US$4 ea, US$624/year. We're talking about a difference of well over US$2000 per year, here. That IS the price of an inexpensive car, factored over the typical term of a car loan.

Yes, I need to keep an eye on book prices, and the Baen price point would be a huge incentive toward me buying more books (as opposed to borrowing new books from the library or a friend, or re-reading books I already have).

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by petermillard

And I would include myself in the 'most of us' who understand this; in fact, if the publishers are still in the business of publishing dead tree books, I'd say the added cost of producing a title as an eBook is approximately zero - the other costs are already absorbed in the publication of pBooks.

Largely. It won't be zero -- there is some work involved in producing alternate formats for ebooks, and costs involved in setting up the infrastructure to sell them -- but it's a small enough amount that it's shouldn't be all that significant.

My point is that despite this, it's not 'most of us' that set the prices - it's the publishers. As avid readers (as I'm sure most people on this site are) I'd be very surprised (seriously, genuinely shocked) if we chose not to read a book we really wanted to read, just because of price or format. Maybe I'm weird, but to me, books are just words; if I really want to read something, little will stop me!

What I read is determined by two factors: the time I have available to read the books, and the money I have available to buy them.

Of those, the time is the scarcer resource. There is far more that I want to read, even in freely available stuff like Project Gutenberg editions, than I have time for. As mentioned before, if I could read one book with each eye, I might someday catch up.

And I think that's another point worth considering. Books, whether electronic or paper, are competing for the reader's discretionary time. The time they spend reading a book is time that could be spent watching TV or a movie, or viewing a sports event, or playing a game, or...

But meanwhile, there have been books I've delayed purchasing because available cash flow had other demands on it at the moment.

Fair enough, but the cost of a whole CDs-worth of songs from iTunes Music Store comes out at pretty much exactly the same as a store-bought CD. And just speaking personally, I can think of any number of books that I wish I'd only bought the first chapter of...

Oh, me too. Agreed that the cost of an entire CD's worth of tunes from iTunes would likely equal the cost of a CD. the point was that iTunes is based on a model not directly applicable to ebooks unless you count something like Fictionwise which sells short fiction.

If that's just speculation, I'd be happy to confirm it. I knocked about the fringes of educational publishing (as a photographer/illustrator) here in London all through the nineties, and coming from an advertising background the leisurely pace of the whole process had to be seen to be believed.

Oh, I can well believe it. I know some folks across the pond involved in the process. Some of the stories I hear are boggling. "And they are still in business how, exactly?"

No doubt. As a consumer, I wish they published something I wanted to read.

They publish mid-level action/adventure SF and fantasy. If that's not to your taste...

As a co-'content provider', I'm left wondering how the authors feel about seeing the value of their work reduced effectively to zero after a couple of years?

The authors don't see it that way, and the ones that participate are happy.

Cory Doctorow said something to the effect that "the writers problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity". He makes all of his work freely available in electronic format under a Creative Commons license (and is blessed with a publisher that allows him to do so.) He feels this promotes sales of his paper books, and since he quit his regular job to go full time freelance a couple of years ago, it appears he's correct.

The Baen Free Library promotes authors. Complete novels by authors on Baen's list are made available through the library in a variety of formats, which people are encouraged to copy and share. It allows readers to sample an author's work with no financial investment. They discover they like a particular author's stuff, and buy the author's new one in hardcover. Authors also report nice increases in sales from their backlist as well.

Baen credits the Free Library with driving their transition from a struggling mass market PB house to a thriving hardcover publisher, with a 70% sell through rate.

I fail to see how it reduces the value of the author's work to zero.

Best, Pete.

______
Dennis

[watcha]

What does seem to be forgotten here is that paper is friction-free as far as powering it goes. Maybe at night time we need electricity for the reading lamp. Music (for those drawing on the iPod experience) has always needed power (even winding up the old gramaphones) to reproduce it. Why go to all the hassle of needing to switch on, power up, download and keep re-charging a device for a read when it's so easy to turn a page of paper? That's why there is no great take-up of e-books. Price is the only way to start a reading revolution. In fact, I reckon the experience will have to be virtually free - just like some of the newspapers now distributed in our UK cities.
PS I love my iLiad.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

I understand all that, but it's not the point. All else being equal, you're still faced with a difference of, say, a $1 million dollar advance plus promo budget vs. a $3,000 advance and none. On a first printing of 250k, that's at least $4 each. My point is that the mass market doesn't care. It's a $22 hardback and the blurb looks interesting. Fine.

The market may not care.

But Manny Midlist won't get a first printing of 250K. He'll be lucky if his first printing is 25K, and even luckier if he gets a second printing.

What the costs are will vary depending on advance. For instance, I've heard a convincing story from a friend who claims to have seen the numbers that no publisher has made money on Steven King. His contract is so good that what might have been their profit is his instead. They publish him for the status of doing so.

The friend in question has no reason to lie about this, and given the general stupidity of publishing, I can easily believe it. "Oh, yeah! We lose money on every copy sold, but we make it up on volume!"

The real difference in perceived value is, as phrodod pointed out, that e-books are playerless media. CDs and DVDs are playerless media, too, but there's never been an all-in-one solution to those, so the market never learned to expect it.

CDs and DVDs are standard formats. You can pop them into a player and expect to access the content.

Through the life of this thread, I've seen at least four different ways in which the e-book concept could win market acceptance. Any one of them would work for a different segment of the potential market (with some overlap, I assume). None of them would work for the entire potential market. Just looking at the past conversations on convergence vs. stand-alone readers demonstrates that point.

But that's okay. If any of them works, someone will try others. I don't care if it's one vendor end-to-end, a Mobipocket-like middleman solution, or cheap disposable media. Whatever gets the market moving is fine with me.

Oh, I concur. But I think we have to have a standard format and a streamlined delivery system. I also think we have to see pricing drop from the "early adopter" stage, but that will take a while.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

The impression I'm getting from your posts is that you think Canadian writers start by submitting to Canadian publishers and once they reach a certain degree of success they move into the US market with US publishers. That's not how it works there. People who write a certain kind of literary fiction (what's generally called CanLit) go to Canadian publishers. Just about everyone else starts with the US publishers, and there is very little crossover between the two groups. If a Canadian writer wants to sell to the mass market (in Canada) they go to the US publishers. The structure of the market is such that a Canadian writer looks at the US and Canada as essentially one market. So does the industry, that's why all the mass market paperbacks display both prices.

As a codicil, I managed a bookstore in Canada for a few years.

No, I don't think that. My points were simple. The Canadian market is not large enough by itself to support a writer solely on sales. Any writer that wishes to do it full time must qualify for government grants, sell to publishers outside of Canada, or both.

Writing for a living as a freelancer is a challenge in any market. For example, the late James Blish did not feel comfortable in going full time freelance till the income from royalties on books in print equaled his salary from his day job. (Ironically, he was a publicist for the tobacco industry, and lung cancer killed him.)

I know an assortment of writers, and most of the folks I hang out with are connected to publishing one way or another. I can think of half a dozen off hand from my immediate circle of friends who are published authors with an established track record and books in print. Four of them still have day jobs of one sort or another. The two that don't have spouses with steady incomes that cover the inevitable periods while waiting for a contract to be signed and an advance to be paid, or a royalty to arrive.

I know a couple of others less well for whom writing is their day job: they work in TV. That's a different sort of insanity, where it's possible to make a good living writing stuff that never gets produced.

But meanwhile, the Canadian market is a lot smaller than the US market, and I suspect Baen's sales there are a smaller percentage of their total volume than the percentage differences in the market themselves. (IE, if the Canadain market is ten percent of the size of the US market, I doubt it makes up anywhere near ten percent of Baen's sales) so no big surprise that Baen makes more money from Webscriptions than from Canada: their margin on Webscription's sales will be a good bit higher, and I don't think they had all that much in sales to Canada to begin with.
______
Dennis

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by petermillard

SNIP

No doubt. As a consumer, I wish they published something I wanted to read. As a co-'content provider', I'm left wondering how the authors feel about seeing the value of their work reduced effectively to zero after a couple of years?

Best, Pete.

Pete:

By and large, the authors love it. They volunteer their books for the Free Library. You see, sales of stuff that's in the Free Library go UP. Both in dead tree ware and in bits. And so do sales of other books by the same authors. Having your book in the Free Library means an increase in sales of the author's backlist, and that means more money in their pocket.

I won't claim that every (or even most) readers purchase books they've gotten for free from the Free Library. What they've seen empirically, however, is that some readers do -- viewing it as being like tossing some $$ in a tip jar. And the number is big enough to increase the sales of these books.

For my part, I've discovered authors through the free library, and wound up purchasing most of their backlist. Many of these were folks whose books I'd been passing up for years! What is it about this picture that they're supposed to not like? I've also had the experience of trying to order a book that's been out for several years (or more), and found that paper copies are unobtainable; they can't get a royalty on the sale that they can't make because I can't buy the book. But I can get the bits out of the free library, and toss some $$ in the jar (by buying the bits I've already read) if I decide I like it.

It's counter-intuitive, but the empirical results are that books put into the free library increase in value -- and boost the careers of the authors as well. This is very different from "seeing the value of their work reduced effectively to zero after a couple of years."

Xenophon

P.S. There's actually a rather broad range of stuff in the Free Library. I've heard people claim that Baen only publishes "military stuff" or "exploding spaceships," but that's not even the majority of their output. Plenty of thought-provoking and award-winning stuff too. I recommend you take another cruise through there. Perhaps a sample of "In the Mountains of Mourning" by Lois McMaster Bujold...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I really don't agree with you that DRM is the huge issue that some people make it out to be.

You decide you want a specific book. You go online to look for it to find out that it's only available in eReader format. You then cannot purchase this book as you have no device to read it with and no way to convert it. That's an issue.

If said book is out of print bt avalable as an ebook you cannot read, that's an issue.

If said ebook is available in BBeB & MobiPocket, but priced as a hardcover even when there is a paperback (mass market), that is an issue.

There are a LOT of issues with ebooks. These issues aren't going away anytime soon. Pricing is probably the biggest issue now. There are a lot of ebooks that are mistakenly left at the higher hardcover price after the book has hit paperback. Plus there are books you want that you cannot get because the format(s) you can deal with don't have it.

To say that DRM is not a huge issue is (IMHO) incorrect. If it wasn't for DRM, I could purchase any ebook available for sale even if I have to convert it.

Let's say I wanted to purchase a V9 because it does a nice job reading PDF, all my BBeb (LRX) books won't work on it. I'm stuck with two different devices. I'm sorry, but DRM is THE biggest issue there is for ebooks.

[Liviu_5]

Regarding Baen there are 2 very important factors that are not mentioned often, but to me are crucial to their success:

- they sell e-books directly so do not have to pay 50% or so markup to Fictionwise, Connect or whatever e-retailer

This leads to lower prices, higher payouts to authors, but and that's a big but, this is possible because they do not distribute their books directly but through S&S; when Random sold e-books directly and discounted them there was a big outcry from all the retailers (from Amazon, to B&N to ...), so they gave up; other big publishers still sell directly but do not discount...


-most of Baen's books and especially the big money makers (Weber, Ringo, Flint) are part of series, sometimes quite long series, and offering free ebooks directly through the library or indirectly through the included (and freely available online with Baen's permission) cd's brings new readers who otherwise may balk at investing in say 16 previous books in the HH series before buying At All Costs, and who would not really want to start a series with book 17...