E-Book Price Increase May Stir Readers’ Passions

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by dsvick

Very good article. The part that disturbs me the most are all of the negative comments directed at authors. Yes, I'm sure in some cases it may be justified, but I'd bet in most it is completely up to the publishers and the authors have little if anything to do with the decisions that have angered the people making the comment.

Not true-except in those cases where the author has signed away all control over his work. Probably the case in many cases, but I still feel it's the author's fault for giving up the control. If the author him/herself cares about his/her work, then (s)he would make sure that the contract entitled them to a say in the marketing of their work.

Can it be done in the face of the publishers' resistance? Certainly-check out Hollywood contracts. Many of those cede partial control to the actor. Not always final control, but enough to give them a voice in the decision making. Based on comments such as yours, it appears the authors have signed away that voice-which means they really don't care & maybe deserve the negative comments & ratings.

[Rob G.]

“There are people who don’t always understand what goes into an author writing and an editor editing and a publishing house with hundreds of men and women working on these books,” said Mark Gompertz, executive vice president of digital publishing at Simon & Schuster. “If you want something that has no quality to it, fine, but we’re out to bring out things of quality, regardless of what type of book it is.”

This in one point I haven't seen mentioned much and frankly, as publishers are raising prices, it's really getting to me. Every single eBook I've purchased has had at least a dozen spelling or formatting errors, errors which lead me to believe these publishers are just doing an OCR scan of a pBook and uploading it to Amazon. Don't talk to me about quality when I can get things from the darknet that read better than what I'm paying for. And don't expect me to pay for hardback "quality" and then give me the kind of sloppy eBooks we've been getting.

[asjogren]

This price war IS going to effect authors. If something costs more, I expect more.
- restaurants
- hotels
- automobiles

A $15 eBook needs to be FANTASTIC to get even 4 stars from me. A $2 Indie author can get 4 stars much easier and can even get 5.

Author ratings will drop.

[MrBlueSky]

Originally Posted by dsvick

Very good article. The part that disturbs me the most are all of the negative comments directed at authors. Yes, I'm sure in some cases it may be justified, but I'd bet in most it is completely up to the publishers and the authors have little if anything to do with the decisions that have angered the people making the comment..

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!

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

“The sense of entitlement of the American consumer is absolutely astonishing,” said Douglas Preston, whose novel “Impact” reached as high as No. 4 on The New York Times’s hardcover fiction best-seller list earlier this month. “It’s the Wal-Mart mentality, which in my view is very unhealthy for our country. It’s this notion of not wanting to pay the real price of something.”

Wow, just wow. The American consumer certainly deserves this sense of entitlement, this is our country. Also, his sense of "real price" as he puts it may or may not be accurate. The consumer decides what something is worth, and either makes the purchase or doesn't.

I wasn't so sure about this - it seemed to me that it could be taken two ways.

In one sense, I agree with him that it is unreasonable to expect that everything should be instant and cheap - he should be entitled to try to earn a living from his efforts.

On the other hand, consumers have a right to expect a quality (proof-read!), fair priced (below paper, if not lots below), convenient-to-access ebook.

I took him to mean "people expect everything for free but I need to make a living", for which I have some sympathy, but I think that it's not, in fact, what people expect. People expect a quality, fair-priced, convenient service.

[Sydney's Mom]

I would be fine with a price reduction, but $9.99 after a year is just too high. I agree with the article - there are too many good books out there. So many books, so little time - I will just read something else.

[fugazied]

Great article and sums up what many consumers are thinking.

The problem for publishers is that consumers are spolit for choice. We expect the Internet to price goods competitively, so when we see ephemeral objects like ebooks (which are digital data a few MBs in size), we EXPECT them to be cheaper than a real world item. Some publishers want us to pay more for an e-book (with less rights) than a traditional paper book you might find discounted in the local walmart.

Consumers are smart enough to reject these publishers and their poor treatment of consumers. I can't quite fathom how publishers think we should pay more for DRMed e-books with incredibly low manufacturing costs and which give us less rights than a paper book.

[alvico]

Originally Posted by Mare of Earth

The ultimate solution to this is simple. Set yourself a price ceiling of what you are willing to pay for what variety of ebook, then if it costs more - DON'T BUY IT.

Sales figures will ultimately speak louder than all the irate emails we can send. Until it hits their bottom line, they won't listen.

Agreed. Simple economics: supply and demand.

[maggie*]

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.

I don't know Baen very well, but I was just checking the latest published by Eric Flint (The Sorceress of Karres) published in January 2010 and it has a price of 24$ for the hardback and 6$ for the ebook!
That's refreshing, looks like Baen is not worried that ebook sales will reduce hardback sales... I guess they realise ebooks is an altogether different concept...

What I also mean is that there are lots of options for good books out there, one way or another the publishers monopoly is weaker, unless you are a die-hard fan of some particular author there is always a cheaper option of an equally good book.

If ebooks thrive I wouldn't like to be in the publishers shoes for the next few years... It's gonna be very hard, but I must say that, considering the historical precedents, they aren't being very smart...

maggie*

[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.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by maggie*

I don't know Baen very well, but I was just checking the latest published by Eric Flint (The Sorceress of Karres) published in January 2010 and it has a price of 24$ for the hardback and 6$ for the ebook!

Yes, Baen have it right. Look at the January package.

http://www.baen.com/scheduleXML.asp#January%202010
http://www.webscription.net/p-1105-w...scription.aspx

They published six paperbooks in January - one hardback, two trade paperbacks and three mass market paperbacks. Total RRP: $74.97
They published the same six as ebooks, and also threw in one from their back catalogue, all for $15. Multiple formats. DRM-free.

So - available before (about two weeks) the paper books, and at 1/5th the price. It makes you wonder how they sell any paper books at all

And the ebooks aren't loss-leaders or marketing promotions. Baen make money from the ebooks too. Amazing.

[Guns4Hire]

“We may introduce a book at $14.95 for a year and then move the book to $9.99 when we would have put out the trade paperback edition,” said Dominique Raccah, chief executive of Sourcebooks, an independent publisher. “I suspect you’re going to see a fair amount of experimentation.”

If they release a eBook I want at $14.95 and then take a year to bring the price down under 10 dollars. There is too much to read out there to be waiting around in line for the proper and fair price (FOR AN EBOOK).

[SCION]

Originally Posted by Guns4Hire

If they release a eBook I want at $14.95 and then take a year to bring the price down under 10 dollars. There is too much to read out there to be waiting around in line for the proper and fair price (FOR AN EBOOK).

[RJ_Cruze_Jr]

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.

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.

[jgaiser]

I've got more pbooks than I can probably read/reread in what's left of my life.

With those and the ebooks I've already purchased and those available here and elsewhere for free, all it's going to take is self-control to not purchase another ebook for any price.

I intend on making a very strong effort to do just that. Thanks MacMillan for saving me money.