Publishers 'completely divided' over e-book pricing

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

As you can see, they are trying hard to get into the ebook business. Physical bookstores will be a niche market for specialty and collectors' items in the not too distant future.

I don't see it. Trying to make sure they can counter Amazon and the like on all fronts, yeah. Trying to save themselves from extinction. Not so much.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

I don't see it. Trying to make sure they can counter Amazon and the like on all fronts, yeah. Trying to save themselves from extinction. Not so much.

I predict pbooks will go the way of horses (sure we love them, but we don't use them to get from A to B) and non-digital photography some day. I am not saying it will be next year. But 5 years from now, ebooks will far outsell pbooks in developed and many up and coming developing countries. And more newspapers will be delivered in digital form than in paper form.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

Wow... Didn't know this. I frequent these stores for Graphic novels, quick picks and the like. Plus, I'm always getting coupons from both BN and Borders. There's also the Starbucks in BN that I like to read and study in. I just never seen the life blood leaving these stores yet. With Borders, I can, but mainly because their prices are higher and the atmosphere isn't as... I can't describe it.

If you could, I'm sure Borders would like to know.

Looking at the Market Cap, I don't think BN would have much problem acquiring Borders. Also didn't they just announce a deal with Plastic Logic and Irex to start offering readers of their own? Also didn't they acquire Fictionwise. I think they have a lot more life left than you give them credit for.

To make an acquisition of Borders, B&N would need to obtain financing. Who would provide funding for a B&N acquisition of Borders? Lenders would see it as "Can two sick companies combine to make a healthy one?" and be unlikely to bite.

Bookstores have been having problems for years. The independents have been struggling against the big chains, who can offer better pricing. The ones surviving are largely in specific niches. (A couple in my area are specialists in travel books and children's books, respectively, and have retained a customer base.)

The big chains, meanwhile, have been battling people like Costco and Amazon, and are in the same position relative to them that independent bookstores were to them. And ultimately, everybody is coping with book sales that are flat or down. In recent years, revenue has remained at least flat due to higher prices, not increased sales.

Yes, B&N still has signs of life, and the acquisition and moves into ebooks are signs that it's trying to adapt. I'd say the jury is out on whether it will.
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Dennis

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

If you could, I'm sure Borders would like to know.

I don't think anything could save the poor store, except becoming BN. And you believe that'll be the death of them both. I think like someone else mentioned, being more lounge-esque would be cool. Sometimes all the tables are taking up to study. But I like the atmosphere and the fraps to study. It's sort of like the University library, although now ours is over crowded and students aren't there meeting and discussing. There is also a lot of lollygagging.

Ummm where was I... Borders. For one the normally seem darker to start with. And their books aren't ideally stocked. No these are small nitpicks. Prices would probably be the big thing I guess. Sure they give you refund credit, but it's ruled by a odd system. Coupons barely lower prices to competitive prices. Amazon and BN seem IN the race to me. Amazon brought a online store, BN brought a just as decent online bookstore. Amazon got ebooks popular to some degree, BN is trying to get in there to some degree. They have the pieces but now they are trying to form into Voltron. All and all Borders on the other hand just seems like the hurt dog in the race. Limping along. Still trying to get the website to matter when they still can't compete price wise. And when I go in there... <shrug>

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

I don't think anything could save the poor store, except becoming BN. And you believe that'll be the death of them both.

Let's just say I don't see a combination benefiting them. I can see why Borders might welcome acquisition by a better heeled partner, but I don't see the benefit for B&N.

I think like someone else mentioned, being more lounge-esque would be cool. Sometimes all the tables are taking up to study. But I like the atmosphere and the fraps to study. It's sort of like the University library, although now ours is over crowded and students aren't there meeting and discussing. There is also a lot of lollygagging.

It certainly would help. Anything you can do to make shopping a pleasant experience is a good idea.

Ummm where was I... Borders. For one the normally seem darker to start with. And their books aren't ideally stocked. No these are small nitpicks.

No, they aren't small. They're Retailing 101.

Your first problem is how do you get the customer into the store. Your second is what you do once they are. You want it to be as easy as possible for the customer to find what they want and give you money.

This means brightly lit, well arranged selling space, with proper stocking.

Prices would probably be the big thing I guess. Sure they give you refund credit, but it's ruled by a odd system. Coupons barely lower prices to competitive prices.

Prices are a big thing. Convenience may be bigger.

Amazon and BN seem IN the race to me. Amazon brought a online store, BN brought a just as decent online bookstore. Amazon got ebooks popular to some degree, BN is trying to get in there to some degree. They have the pieces but now they are trying to form into Voltron. All and all Borders on the other hand just seems like the hurt dog in the race. Limping along. Still trying to get the website to matter when they still can't compete price wise. And when I go in there... <shrug>

I largely concur on Amazon vs B&N. Amazon is the 800lb gorilla of book retailing. If you know what you want, and can wait for delivery, Amazon has it, and probably has it at a better price than elsewhere. It's when you don't know what you want, and you feel like browsing, that someone like B&N can be competitive. Or when you want it now, not in a few days. There's a Barnes and Noble superstore in walking distance of me, covering a good bit of a block and with four stories of books. If it's a paper book, chances are they have it in stock.

I'm glad to see B&N trying. I think moving into ebooks and developing their web presence is a necessity. But I do expect the number of actual brick and mortar storefronts they operate to decrease.
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Dennis

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I'm glad to see B&N trying. I think moving into ebooks and developing their web presence is a necessity. But I do expect the number of actual brick and mortar storefronts they operate to decrease.
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Dennis

This I can agree on. I don't know about anyone else but in Houston, B&N sometimes feel about the as a Starbucks. If you aren't in the boondocks, there is probably a Barnes and Noble around. Not saying that's a bad thing, it's convenient. If they did buy Borders they'd probably end up shutting more of those down than using them. Like you said, Win-Lose. If BN keeps on, Borders will die, it's just that they keep grasping for air and trying to live. Only reason to merge is put them out of their memory.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

This I can agree on. I don't know about anyone else but in Houston, B&N sometimes feel about the as a Starbucks. If you aren't in the boondocks, there is probably a Barnes and Noble around. Not saying that's a bad thing, it's convenient. If they did buy Borders they'd probably end up shutting more of those down than using them. Like you said, Win-Lose. If BN keeps on, Borders will die, it's just that they keep grasping for air and trying to live. Only reason to merge is put them out of their memory.

Convenience rules.

If I'm B&N, and I'm seriously thinking about acquiring Borders and can get the funding, I'lll have done my due diligence, and my first action will be to close a number of stores. They may not all be Borders - I'll want the best stores in the best locations, so B&N outlets might get the chop. But ultimately, what I'm buying is some economies of scale, some penetration of geographical areas I'm not in, and a reduction in competition for increasingly scarce customer traffic. Bookselling has been in a state of consolidation for years, and this would be just one more example.
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Dennis

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Convenience rules.

If I'm B&N, and I'm seriously thinking about acquiring Borders and can get the funding, I'lll have done my due diligence, and my first action will be to close a number of stores. They may not all be Borders - I'll want the best stores in the best locations, so B&N outlets might get the chop. But ultimately, what I'm buying is some economies of scale, some penetration of geographical areas I'm not in, and a reduction in competition for increasingly scarce customer traffic. Bookselling has been in a state of consolidation for years, and this would be just one more example.
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Dennis

^_^ Convenience does rule. But I think I have 3 Starbucks on campus where I work. I would think that's too much, but they all always have lines. Seems crazy but if the sales are right...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

^_^ Convenience does rule. But I think I have 3 Starbucks on campus where I work. I would think that's too much, but they all always have lines. Seems crazy but if the sales are right...

Precisely. There is enough business to support three Starbucks outlets, so there are three Starbucks outlets.

There's a similar situation here with local discount drug chain. They are successfully competing with Walgreens, CVS et al because they are everywhere. I think there are three with walking distance of me, two of which are 24 hour operations.

The big national chains can't offer anything compelling enough to counter that presence.
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Dennis

[Lycoming]

The ridiculous situation with ebook pricing does not make sense, no matter how many placatory emails Waterstones send out.
Michael Connelly's "Nine Dragons" is unavailable to me in the UK from BoB due to geographical limitations.
Waterstones then further extract the urine by adopting the following sales technique.






If authors and publishers want royalties from purchasers then the anomalies between sellers, the restrictions of DRM and the huge embuggerance factor to the buyer, have all to be reconciled. Otherwise I'm going to find out how to use the torrents.

There is another thread about Google's intention to utilise cloud computing to make books available internationally. The example above makes me consider Google's initiative a sensible move which would get my support, and funds.

[alecE]

I'd suggest that the debate on ebook pricing demonstrates the immature and changing nature of the market:
- yes, publishers are still treating ebooks as an add-on, rather than as an integral part of the production process. I wonder though if this is exacerbated by having to convert the backlist? I'd like to hope that in time ebook creation will be the starting point for the workflow.
- Quality - my impression is that too many ebooks are still not being proofed properly and contain many more typos than I would ever expect in a pbook. What I don't know is how the proportion of typos varies between pbooks converted to ebooks late in life and titles produced as ebooks from the very start.
- Hardware display - I love my 505, BUT, the quality of display for illustrations is poor. Until the hardware can do justice to graphic content, ebooks (at least in the non-fiction arena) are surely going to be the poor relations?
- Imagination (or lack therof) - the reference to a "Director's cut" version of ebooks is brilliant. Just think what could be done in terms of supporting material for a series, say LOTR or Discworld.
- Regional restrictions - these may make sense to a publisher, but to the consumer it's insane and looks like what it is - an outdated business model. Surely publishers need to start looking at the internet as a single (new) region?
Although the music industry is often quoted as an example of how to get it badly wrong, I'm struck by the similarity with IBM's agonies with the PC; the necessity for change is self-evident but the resistance to change is massive.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by alecE

I'd suggest that the debate on ebook pricing demonstrates the immature and changing nature of the market:
- yes, publishers are still treating ebooks as an add-on, rather than as an integral part of the production process. I wonder though if this is exacerbated by having to convert the backlist? I'd like to hope that in time ebook creation will be the starting point for the workflow.

You and me both, but it requires the tools to do it.

Most publishers these days use Adobe InDesign to do markup and typesetting, and generate the PDF files handed off the the printer to feed to an imagesetter and create plates to print from. InDesign currently has ePub as an output format, but does it badly. Good ePub starts with well-formed XML, but the tools to do typeset and markup and output to XML for conversion to ePub are still in development and not widespread.

ePub contains all the metadata, so once an ePub files exists, conversion to other desired ebook formats should be straight-forward and automated.

The trick is getting ebook files as part of the standard workflow.

- Quality - my impression is that too many ebooks are still not being proofed properly and contain many more typos than I would ever expect in a pbook. What I don't know is how the proportion of typos varies between pbooks converted to ebooks late in life and titles produced as ebooks from the very start.

One current problem is that proofing increasingly isn't done, for any book. Publishers are trying to cut costs and see proofreading as dispensable.

In the case of ebooks created from paper volumes it's worse. A lot of Amazon's Kindle editions didn't have electronic files available when the decision was made to offer a Kindle edition. The Kindle file was created by scan and OCR of a paper volume. Proofing was not done on them. It costs.

- Hardware display - I love my 505, BUT, the quality of display for illustrations is poor. Until the hardware can do justice to graphic content, ebooks (at least in the non-fiction arena) are surely going to be the poor relations?

Depends on the ebooks. I'm not in the market for a dedicated reader, among other reasons because I want color support, and eInk currently doesn't have it. Among other things, I'm accumulating children's books illustrated by folks like Caldecott and Rackham. No, a grey-scale conversion of a color original is not acceptable...

For technical books, I think we are pretty much stuck with PDF as the format, precisely to get the graphics quality.

- Imagination (or lack therof) - the reference to a "Director's cut" version of ebooks is brilliant. Just think what could be done in terms of supporting material for a series, say LOTR or Discworld.

*shrug*

ePub is a container. What it contains doesn't have to be text. I think we'll start seeing stuff along htis line, but it reqquires other issues to be dealt with first.

- Regional restrictions - these may make sense to a publisher, but to the consumer it's insane and looks like what it is - an outdated business model. Surely publishers need to start looking at the internet as a single (new) region?

I wish it were that simple. An old friend who was an executive editor are a major publisher, and is now a freelance writer made the following comment:

If the publisher offers enough money, we'll sell world (world English, anyway) rights... But that requires all arms of a multinational publisher to work together, not at cross-purposes, and that's almost impossible to manage, for both structural and market reasons.

It is a very large zip-lock bag of worms.

She's quite right, and that's if there is a multinational publisher interested who can handle world rights. If not, it gets more complex.

Although the music industry is often quoted as an example of how to get it badly wrong, I'm struck by the similarity with IBM's agonies with the PC; the necessity for change is self-evident but the resistance to change is massive.

IBM's agony with the PC had a different source. While IBM developed it and created the specs on which everyone based their own models, the PC became a commodity, with commodity pricing and razor thin margins. IBM eventually decided they didn't want to try to compete in that market, as they've never been a "lowest cost producer". They sold the operation to Lenovo. Note that Dell, who historically has tried to be the low cost producer, is now diversifying, a recently bought a big services outfit to diversify their revenue stream.
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Dennis