Publishers still missing the point on e-book prices

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Patronage? Seriously? You want authors to be controlled by some rich guy somewhere? I expected better of you, DD.

Didn't say that. Just pointing out that the current system is not the only way. It's just that... the "current way." I'm not willing to stake my life on it being the "best" or even the "only feasible" way.

Originally Posted by stonetools

Only a small percentage of books and authors make money for their publishers, and those best sellers fund the flops and the experiments.

Thank you for proving my point. Publishers never "lose." Because what they do is not gambling.

And besides...

You want authors to be controlled by some rich guy somewhere?

Are you seriously going to argue that that's not exactly what's happening now with traditional publishing?

[TechnoCat]

Originally Posted by stonetools

No one here has yet mentioned one of the major costs of the publisher- author advances. This is huge because without author advances, much quality nonfiction and fiction could not be written. Without those advances authors would simplyly not have the wherewithal to do research ( which might involve travel and lots of time going through archives) and to pay living expenses while writing their book.

I think that depends more on the author than the genre. Entrepreneurs exist in all businesses. Including books. Harry Potter (Rowling) was written without any deal or advance. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit over roughly seven years with no publishing deal or advance. So many writers had their breaks with work they'd written before getting a contract or advance.

The real purpose of the advance is not to enable the writing, but to ensure that the publication house owns rights to publish it when it's ready.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I don't see any other institution being to fill this essential role of a publisher, and unless someone can come up with an alternative , I for one am rooting for the continued existence of the major publishing houses.

Well, J.K. Rowling famously lived on the UK equivalent of welfare and some sort of arts grant while writing her early novels. So the government could step into the patronage role (as happens in Canada, as we have both federal and provincial funding for supporting our promising artists while they produce art).

Of course, this is not practical for large numbers of potentially unpromising persons, so something new that might happen in greater numbers is the fan-patronage solicitation such as Lawrence Watt-Evans uses for his new books in popular but apparently no longer commercially-viable-to-the-big-publishers series.

Both of his old publishers (Del Rey and Tor, IIRC) dropped his Ethshar fantasies about 8 books in.

But he has managed to be fairly successful at writing new Ethshar tales by doing them as online serials with chapters released after receiving a particular donation goal from his interested readers via Paypal to cover his expenses while writing, and the finished book is taken to his backlist re-publisher, small press Wildside, which then produces a print and e-book version to sell in stores (but is small enough they can't pay what LWE considers a sufficient advance to cover his costs upfront for writing a brand-new novel while he has other Big 6 writing commitments going on).

And the donating fans who give over a certain amount are considered subscribers and get a free print copy of the book once it's published (and an e-copy as well, I believe).

He's managed to do fairly well, with three new Ethshar novels funded and completed this way thus far. I missed out on donating to the last serial while it was running because I wasn't really reading him at the time, but I'll certainly do the next.

In a similar fashion, Barbara Hambly writes new novellas set in her now-considered-unsaleable-but-with-a-good-fan-following fantasy worlds, in between keeping up her writing commitments for her new mystery novels (and teaching history at the local community college).

She does not offer them on a subscription basis like LWE does, but once she has a finished story, she sells it on her website for $5, which is a little pricey for a casual reader, but worth it for the hardcore fans. I am hoping once she has enough related stories she offers discount bundles for ones set in a particular "world", the better to introduce new readers to her old works (which are now happily almost all available in e-reprint).

So far she has produced 6 new tie-in novellas in the past year or two, and they seem to be doing well as she thanks the readers for their response and support of the stories.

I am not arguing about the fact that traditional publishing house have advantages re: advances and editing and such. In fact, many of my favourite authors were published and thus nurtured for many years by specialty imprints that either were or later became absorbed into the Big 6 and were able to build the fanbase which sustains them now that they've gone semi-solo.

But there are increasingly viable alternatives, IMHO.

[pdurrant]

I was very pleased to hear that Barbara Hambley's work was now available as ebooks. Until I saw the price... RRP of £11.49 discounted to about £7.50!

At £4.99 I would have bought one or two of the ones I haven't read in paper. At £3.99 I might have bought half a dozen. At £2.99 I would have probably bought her entire backlist.

At £7.50 I won't be buying any.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by TechnoCat

I think that depends more on the author than the genre. Entrepreneurs exist in all businesses. Including books. Harry Potter (Rowling) was written without any deal or advance. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit over roughly seven years with no publishing deal or advance. So many writers had their breaks with work they'd written before getting a contract or advance.

The real purpose of the advance is not to enable the writing, but to ensure that the publication house owns rights to publish it when it's ready.

With all due respect, alternatives such as patronage , whether private or government, commission, or fan involvement, are far more problematic than the publishers. Self publication doesn't work except for certain types f fiction. Without publishers, I don't see great works of historical biography or of investigative journalism into an industry ( like "Four Fish" ) or corrupt political institutions ( like "All the President's Men").
You need someone more than one person sitting down to type on their computer after their day job to do the kind of work needed to write books like that.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I was very pleased to hear that Barbara Hambley's work was now available as ebooks. Until I saw the price... RRP of £11.49 discounted to about £7.50!

I blame her re-publisher (which fun fact, happens to be Open Road Media). They're 9.99 list in the US, discounted to 7.99 (and further discountable via coupon) regularly.

In Canada via Kobo, 19.99 list, 12.3x discounted. And they seem to have given that 19.99 in-local-currency list price to the overseas stores.

I did scoop up the entire lot (minus the 2 I'd already bought with Sony's rare 50% off coupons) for a mere $1.99 a pop during Amazon's Cyber Monday sale (and OR was offering 60% off all their titles in all the stores).

But yeah, the pricing discrepancy is really messed up and surely impacting her sales.

At least you can read some of the new stuff buying direct from the author's website? And her mystery novels which went from Random House to Severn House are fairly reasonably priced in all locales and complete up to the newest book, I believe. (And very good indeed, if you like historical sleuths.)

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I was very pleased to hear that Barbara Hambley's work was now available as ebooks. Until I saw the price... RRP of £11.49 discounted to about £7.50!

At £4.99 I would have bought one or two of the ones I haven't read in paper. At £3.99 I might have bought half a dozen. At £2.99 I would have probably bought her entire backlist.

At £7.50 I won't be buying any.

Then don't. Either

A. The book will go back out of publication because it's not worth the publisher's time and expense to publish it at lesser price.
B. Enough people buy it at the higher price that the publisher doesn't have to lower the price, thus justifying the publishe's decision to set the higher price, in which case you have to reconsider your objection to the price.
C. Because of lack of demand , the publisher lowers the price till its in your comfort zone.

That's how markets work. In the real world, I rarely buy items at full price, whether it be clothes, electronic goods, furniture or food. I don't see why ebooks should be any different.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I blame her re-publisher (which fun fact, happens to be Open Road Media). They're 9.99 list in the US, discounted to 7.99 (and further discountable via coupon) regularly.

In Canada via Kobo, 19.99 list, 12.3x discounted. And they seem to have given that 19.99 in-local-currency list price to the overseas stores.

I did scoop up the entire lot (minus the 2 I'd already bought with Sony's rare 50% off coupons) for a mere $1.99 a pop during Amazon's Cyber Monday sale (and OR was offering 60% off all their titles in all the stores).

But yeah, the pricing discrepancy is really messed up and surely impacting her sales.

At least you can read some of the new stuff buying direct from the author's website? And her mystery novels which went from Random House to Severn House are fairly reasonably priced in all locales and complete up to the newest book, I believe. (And very good indeed, if you like historical sleuths.)

Well, there you go. You looked for a sale and were able to buy her books at a discount. Smart shopping wins again.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Patronage and commissioning seemed to work fairly well for hundreds of years.

Yeah, if you're satisfied with choosing from 1000 novels a year written in the taste of the patron, it worked great. Is that really what you're looking for? Heck, in the 1600's in Germany, people used to complain that they had a hard time reading the *one* novel a year that was produced. (Plays and poetry were more popular).

You really, really, really, should learn about how this worked in practice before suggesting that it is at all viable. (And of course if a patron pays Lee Child to produce one Jack Reacher novel a year, why should the patron care if the novel is released to the general populace?

Over 200,000 titles are released in the US every year. I would prefer that degree of choice; I also like that the author's interest is aligned with the public's.

And publishers haven't "gambled" for quite some time. The hype machine makes sure they will at least recoup their investment. I mean, when was the last time you heard of a publisher losing their ass on an author they were "betting" on? So it's not so much "picking a winner" as it is "manufacturing a winner." Unless you believe that best seller lists strictly represent what readers are asking for.

If they decide to publish someone's book, it will succeed... but not necessarily due to their trained artistic eye for great literature.

Sorry, no. Even cursory research will show you that 70-80% of books don't earn back their advance. This is well understood and has been the case for many years.

Of course, when a book hits it really big, it makes up for a lot of losers.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Without publishers, I don't see great works of historical biography or of investigative journalism into an industry ( like "Four Fish" ) or corrupt political institutions ( like "All the President's Men").

As for the first example, it seems that university presses generally don't offer advances, but still some fairly good historical/biography/etc. works get written and published. They may be a bit drier than what the general public prefers to read, but the research quality is generally there.

As for the second example, it seems that the authors of ATPM were only toying with the notion of putting it into book form until Robert Redford contacting them about acquiring the film rights and were assembling it from newspaper articles they'd previously written and published and were presumably paid for by their regular newspaper salaries.

So, patronage of a sort, and re-using pre-existing material instead of advance paying for a new commission.

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well, there you go. You looked for a sale and were able to buy her books at a discount. Smart shopping wins again.

I was only able to get her e-books* "on sale" because I happen to live in a country where they happened to be not-unreasonably priced (despite the Kobo Canada list price inflation WTFery, Amazon and Sony both base their "Canadian" store pricing directly off the "US" store list prices even if it leads to discrepancies, so my 50% coupon discount was on a sell price of $7.99) and they were offered for special sale in my region and the publisher allowed further customer-applied discount.

This is not the case for anyone else not fortunate enough to live in Canada, and when e-books are offered around the world in the very same edition by a publisher who has the rights to offer them around the world, then the books should be base-priced equivalently around the world, instead of privileging one region above the rest by basically doubling the list price in the rest with no currency-exchange-rate-based cause**.

But that's really a point for the geo-restrictions thread.

* I own all her paper stuff, so getting an e-book version was only a luxury and not a priority like it might have been for a new reader who hadn't read all her work.

** While the Canadian dollar is not quite at par anymore, I still don't think it's worth less than half the US one.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I was very pleased to hear that Barbara Hambley's work was now available as ebooks. Until I saw the price... RRP of £11.49 discounted to about £7.50!

At £4.99 I would have bought one or two of the ones I haven't read in paper. At £3.99 I might have bought half a dozen. At £2.99 I would have probably bought her entire backlist.

At £7.50 I won't be buying any.

It's on the pricey side, to be sure, but wouldn't be beyond my consideration if they were books that I wanted.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I was very pleased to hear that Barbara Hambley's work was now available as ebooks. Until I saw the price... RRP of £11.49 discounted to about £7.50!

At £4.99 I would have bought one or two of the ones I haven't read in paper. At £3.99 I might have bought half a dozen. At £2.99 I would have probably bought her entire backlist.

At £7.50 I won't be buying any.

If any book were £4.85 which I believe is the conversion for $7.50 then I would consider it, but at £7.50 which I believe converts to $11.60 - No way!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Sorry, no. Even cursory research will show you that 70-80% of books don't earn back their advance. This is well understood and has been the case for many years.

Of course, when a book hits it really big, it makes up for a lot of losers.

That a book doesn't earn out it's advance just means that the author won't see any additional royalties. It says nothing about the publisher's profit.

Let see: Advance of $5,000, royalty rate of 10%. Hard back print run of 2,500 at retail price of $25, wholesale $11.25. If all sold, that would be $6,000 in royalties. However, there's only a sell-through of 40% - 1,000 copies. Royalties due on 1,000 copies is only $2,500. Has the publisher lost money? Let's see.

Income: $11.25*1000 + $1 (remaindered)*1500 = $12,750
Less printing/shipping/handling: $3750
Less advance: $5000
Less cover art and typesetting: $1000

Gross profit: $3000.

Not too bad, for a short print run with low sales

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

You really, really, really, should learn about how this worked in practice before suggesting that it is at all viable. (And of course if a patron pays Lee Child to produce one Jack Reacher novel a year, why should the patron care if the novel is released to the general populace?

And you really, really, really should learn to read follow-up clarification posts. It's #481 in case you're interested.

Look. I'm not arguing for a whole-sale change to the current publishing system. In fact, I don't think I've ever argued for any change to the current publishing system. I just get tired of hearing that what we have now is the best it possibly could be and that there's no other possible viable systems/tweaks/hybrids that could possible satisfy readers, authors, and publishers alike. That's hogwash—pure and simple. The status quo is _GOING_ to change. Anybody that believes otherwise is deluding themselves. I'm just open to the possibility of that change resulting in something other than the death knell of literature.

So no... of course I don't think that the traditional one patron one artist system is something that would work in this day and age—I'm not an idiot. That doesn't mean a new hybrid system can't evolve where the concept of patronage plays a role.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

So no... of course I don't think that the traditional one patron one artist system is something that would work in this day and age—I'm not an idiot. That doesn't mean a new hybrid system can't evolve where the concept of patronage plays a role.

If we're weighing in, I'd rather have DiapDealer be my writing patron than any of the Agency 6.

ETA: For clarification, this is my way of agreeing with DD in general without getting down into the specifics. Since apparently my brand of zany humor can be confusing.