Waterstones and ebook prices

[Adele Ward]

It's good to hear the big 6 are making errors. I'm glad to know we're taking the need for a professional job more seriously! We're no doubt making errors too as we're still learning, but we do take editing ebooks very seriously. I hate any typo I see after a book has been sold.

The big 6 no doubt pay others to do this work for them, and it sounds as if they aren't getting the work they pay for.

[Adele Ward]

With the prices in Australia, all I can say is that Amazon give us only 35% of the price of the ebook there.They keep 65%. This is really annoying and hasn't made us change the price in Australia. Our prices are consistent across the world. Australia is actually important to us as we have a following there for reasons I won't go into here.

We only realised it over Christmas during our first promotion of ebooks. People tend to buy ebooks as a last-minute present. Suddenly I saw the really low 'royalties' as Amazon call them, even though we're the publisher. They have clauses that let them pay us commission at all sorts of varying levels. If prices have gone up in Australia I can only imagine that's the reason. It might be impossible for some publishers to recuperate costs when they only get 35%.

We do our editing and ebook conversions so, at the very worst, we would have to have done that for no income, and be able to give the author a royalty, which we can still do at 35%. If a publisher is paying somebody to do the ebook conversion, the editing and proofreading, they would need to recuperate that. By doing a lot of the work for free on these low income books in Australia and other countries we're still running at a loss because we could be doing paid work in that time, but authors do count and their books should be available everywhere.

There are problems with the way Amazon is paying. I think we'll see changes to this over the coming year - hopefully. They also ask us to put our books exclusively on the Kindle platform if we want to be in their lending library or taking part in special promotions, like giving the books away at times. This makes it even harder to offer the books at a competitive price for other ereaders and on other websites. Or to let authors sell their books on their own websites too using another format.

Amazon does dictate the terms at the moment because most ebooks are bought or downloaded free from them. We do need more freedom to be able to sell or give ebooks away from other websites in order to get past some of the problems mentioned in this discussion.

It's terrible that such large sections of the world are affected by a different pricing structure.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Adele Ward

There are no shortcuts to doing a good edit on a book. A good editor and publisher will work with an author in a way that may well not be cost effective. It makes no difference whether the end result is an ebook or a print book. This is the expensive part of the process. The lengthy time spent working with the author and working on the edit.

Why is it then that we get eBooks that have errors that are not in the print editions? This is for new books where they do have the electronic version from the author.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you believe that it's justifiable to illegally download a book, simply because you consider it to be too expensive?

I believe Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans have far more justification than anyone else to do so.

If the publishers say 'readers, [profane language edit - moderation] you, wear these massive price hikes' then obviously the response will be greatly increased snagging for free.

Or buying it from the Americans, because this is mostly driven by the poms. Australian readers would have been better off if the yanks took over and crushed the poms, because books would be cheaper because the rump publishing offshoots here would then be American with their book prices as the baseline.

And here, the dead tree prices have actually come down a little, because of forced competition.....so there is zero justification for large price rises.

Now, of course, trying to protect the remaining Australian bookshops is a different story - because if there aren't any then dead tree middlemen are not required and most of the large publisher jobs here could be removed.
'Reprinting' (e.g. putting sticker on, often) a book in small numbers is very economically inefficient. Retailers could buy paperbacks from The Book Depository at $6 rather than the $12 or whatever the local version wants to charge them. And get them several weeks faster than at the moment, too!

And obviously foreign ebooks in their original language need zero input from other countries.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Adele Ward

With the prices in Australia, all I can say is that Amazon give us only 35% of the price of the ebook there.They keep 65%. This is really annoying and hasn't made us change the price in Australia. Our prices are consistent across the world. Australia is actually important to us as we have a following there for reasons I won't go into here.

We only realised it over Christmas during our first promotion of ebooks. People tend to buy ebooks as a last-minute present. Suddenly I saw the really low 'royalties' as Amazon call them, even though we're the publisher. They have clauses that let them pay us commission at all sorts of varying levels. If prices have gone up in Australia I can only imagine that's the reason. It might be impossible for some publishers to recuperate costs when they only get 35%.

We do our editing and ebook conversions so, at the very worst, we would have to have done that for no income, and be able to give the author a royalty, which we can still do at 35%. If a publisher is paying somebody to do the ebook conversion, the editing and proofreading, they would need to recuperate that. By doing a lot of the work for free on these low income books in Australia and other countries we're still running at a loss because we could be doing paid work in that time, but authors do count and their books should be available everywhere.

There are problems with the way Amazon is paying. I think we'll see changes to this over the coming year - hopefully. They also ask us to put our books exclusively on the Kindle platform if we want to be in their lending library or taking part in special promotions, like giving the books away at times. This makes it even harder to offer the books at a competitive price for other ereaders and on other websites. Or to let authors sell their books on their own websites too using another format.

Amazon does dictate the terms at the moment because most ebooks are bought or downloaded free from them. We do need more freedom to be able to sell or give ebooks away from other websites in order to get past some of the problems mentioned in this discussion.

It's terrible that such large sections of the world are affected by a different pricing structure.

Pretty sure Murdoch's pommie minions and others of that ilk would negotiate set payments for their titles and that wouldn't apply.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

I believe Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans have far more justification than anyone else to do so.

If the publishers say 'readers, [profane language edit - moderation] you, wear these massive price hikes' then obviously the response will be greatly increased snagging for free.

Or buying it from the Americans, because this is mostly driven by the poms. Australian readers would have been better off if the yanks took over and crushed the poms, because books would be cheaper because the rump publishing offshoots here would then be American with their book prices as the baseline.

Well said and so very true. This is the same issue with movie and TV shows as well.

[Adele Ward]

Most UK book publishers aren't under Murdoch - are you talking about newspapers and media? I'm a bit confused by these replies. UK publishers feel they have their prices dictated by Amazon, who are American, and that it's hard to compete and sell books using ePub on other websites because the Amazon Kindle market dominates so much.

You can see by some of my other replies how furious publishers like me are that Amazon pays lower commission for Australia and other countries and would create a situation where some publishers would have to charge higher prices. If they pay for editing, proofreading, and the Kindle conversion, they couldn't recuperate it if Amazon only give them 35% in Australia.

So it's an American company causing this problem. My company doesn't charge a higher price in Australia despite the low commission Amazon gives us there because I feel our books should have a consistent price - but they are the seller so you'd need to tell me if you see a higher price on our books. We certainly didn't set it. They are the shop, not us. We set one price across all countries.

We have a great love of Australia. Are we really hated so much there?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Adele Ward

We have a great love of Australia. Are we really hated so much there?

Adele,

Having spent some time recently working in Australia, I can say that I encountered nothing but friendliness while I was there. Certainly no "hatred" of the British.

[Adele Ward]

Another problem caused by Amazon paying very low commission to publishers in some countries is separate to the issue of sales. I also consider good authors from other countries to publish as ebooks. For various reasons it's too hard to promote an author who can't be involved in regular events in the country where the publisher is based, and a debut author really needs to give events at least monthly to get established and noticed.

The cost of delivery also makes it impossible to do this by sending books to another country if the author is based there. We do have to do this to some extent as one of our authors is regularly in South East Asia, but she's quite a good seller. For a new author it's very difficult. Another of our authors is in Finland and the bookshops there are surprisingly supportive, so we manage.

But in general I have realised I can accept good authors from other countries if we start with an ebook. I have been considering authors in Australia, which is why I noticed the low commission we're paid. Authors submitting to me were getting our ebooks and I noticed the very low payment from Amazon.

I would still take authors from countries where Amazon only pays us 35%, even though I know the amount of work I do with an author over months leading up to the publication of the book, and in promotion afterwards, could never be recuperated at that rate. But I'm not sure many publishers could do that. I'm not honestly sure I should because I should be doing paid work to support my family, but I come at this from an author's perspective and I find it hard to turn down really good writing.

[Adele Ward]

@ Harry, I'm honestly shocked by this. I have been considering Australian authors. Discussion boards like this are such an eye opener but I can't believe the sentiments expressed are widespread. I certainly hope not.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Adele Ward

@ Harry, I'm honestly shocked by this. I have been considering Australian authors. Discussion boards like this are such an eye opener but I can't believe the sentiments expressed are widespread. I certainly hope not.

To "hate" someone simply because of their nationality is irrational. I'm sure it's not a widespread sentiment, any more than other forms of racism are.

[Adele Ward]

Thanks for commenting Harry. I'm very used to message boards but somehow found this upsetting. Publishers and booksellers work incredibly hard in a marketplace where there is now a real bookselling crisis, mostly because we believe in the importance of authors and books. The struggle to break even and keep publishing outlets going is one we meet as an exciting challenge. Somehow an insult really stings! But I shouldn't be so thin skinned.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Adele Ward

We have a great love of Australia. Are we really hated so much there?

UK Publishers? Well you have been charging Australians triple for books for a long, long time. And recent 65% and 90% across the board price hikes for several companies with no reason, explanation, etc. is certainly going to make them despised.

Charging 30.00 for a book that is 9.99 or 21.00 for one that is 7.00 isn't going to elicit sympathy from anyone, 35%, 25% or whatever.

[sabredog]

Not to mention still considering territorial restrictions an important part of your business model.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Adele Ward

We have a great love of Australia. Are we really hated so much there?

Originally Posted by HarryT

Having spent some time recently working in Australia, I can say that I encountered nothing but friendliness while I was there. Certainly no "hatred" of the British.

Definitely not.

Myself, I am married to a lady from the UK.