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Old 08-22-2011, 04:39 PM   #16
j.p.s
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Originally Posted by din155 View Post
You are not serious, are you? We wouldn't have seen days of agency 5 if the publishers were not bothered with ebooks.
I think that your questions would be better directed to publishers that moan and groan about the enormous expenses associated with publishing e-books, especially those that claim that the total cost for all aspects of publishing an e-book is greater than the total cost for all aspects of publishing a p-book.
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Old 08-22-2011, 04:44 PM   #17
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Originally Posted by JD Gumby View Post
Or this John Locke might actually be named that. Rare that someone writing under a pen name manages to hide it from Wikipedia these days.
I read in an interview a while ago that it is his real name.
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Old 08-22-2011, 04:55 PM   #18
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John Locke, philosopher.

Not American, English. Fairly influential, as far as philosophers go.
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Old 08-22-2011, 05:00 PM   #19
din155
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Originally Posted by j.p.s View Post
I think that your questions would be better directed to publishers that moan and groan about the enormous expenses associated with publishing e-books, especially those that claim that the total cost for all aspects of publishing an e-book is greater than the total cost for all aspects of publishing a p-book.
Sorry.. didn't read your post in the context..

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Old 08-22-2011, 05:58 PM   #20
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Originally Posted by j.p.s View Post
I think that your questions would be better directed to publishers that moan and groan about the enormous expenses associated with publishing e-books, especially those that claim that the total cost for all aspects of publishing an e-book is greater than the total cost for all aspects of publishing a p-book.
Yeah, that's not really a problem, nor do I recall many publishers saying that recently, especially in reference to new titles.

With new books, there isn't a lot of additional expenses any more, especially with larger and tech-savvy publishers; they almost certainly have a set workflow by now.

Older books are more problematic. In some cases, digital rights were not explicitly listed in the contracts, so you've got to get the agents and/or lawyers and/or estates involved. Older titles need to be scanned, proofread and put into at least two formats (mobi, epub). It's not an enormous expense, but most backlist titles don't sell much.

Thus: It might only cost, let's say, $2000 to format a backlisted book as an ebook. When you're selling it, 30% goes to the retailer, another 25% for the author's royalty. Sell it for $10 and that means the publisher is getting $4.50; let's say Uncle Sam's cut is 15% of that, so they get $3.85. That means they've got to sell around 520 copies to break even. If they convert 100 ebooks, they've got up-front costs of $200k and need to sell close to 52,000 ebooks just to break even. Do that once a month, and that's $2.4 million in up-front costs and 620,000 in ebook sales (off of 12,000 titles) to break even. That's assuming they do zero marketing, which is highly likely for backlist but also contributes to lower sales figures.

Now, I will say that in the long run, its almost certainly cheaper to do this than to do, say, a dozen 10k print runs where 3/4 of the books sit unread on shelves and in warehouses. But you've still got that big upfront cost, and it's only a bargain as long as the formats aren't obsoleted.

In short: Just because an ebook costs pennies to deliver doesn't mean they cost pennies to produce.
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Old 08-22-2011, 07:10 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by JD Gumby View Post
Rare that someone writing under a pen name manages to hide it from Wikipedia these days.
Rare, but not unheard of... I give you: K. J. Parker.
Eleven years is a pretty good run.

But I digress.
Authors retaining ebook rights for themselves—hell yes! Nothing insisted on, nothing gained!

Last edited by DiapDealer; 08-22-2011 at 07:14 PM.
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Old 08-23-2011, 06:28 AM   #22
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Yes, and you would be justified to judge his books by their covers, imho.
Is that good or bad? I've never seen the covers.

*runs over to Amazon*

Meh. Pretty bad.

Last edited by afa; 08-23-2011 at 06:31 AM.
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Old 08-23-2011, 10:47 AM   #23
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As to John Locke the philosopher, I remember learning about him in high school. His view of government held that the relationship between man and government was based on a "social contract" where men had natural rights. The question the colonist had to answer was whether or not the King had broken that contract and was violating their natural rights.

I paid way too much attention in school.
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Old 08-23-2011, 10:38 PM   #24
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Is that good or bad? I've never seen the covers.

*runs over to Amazon*

Meh. Pretty bad.
LOL, you know with the exception of a couple of them, i thought they were pretty decent.

I really like Saving Rachel, and Now and Then, the rest are kind of bland though.
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Old 08-24-2011, 04:27 AM   #25
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This isn't really a new stance for Simon & Schuster anyway, they have been doing the print distribution for Baen while having no eBook rights for years.
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