John Grisham speaks out on the future of pbooks and ebooks

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Anyone with an ear can tell that mp3 is not the same as the music on a CD. The MP3 is a second hand copy. The CD is the original. You don't get the same quality of sound from an MP3 file as you do with all the bits in tact.

Heh. My husband sneers at CD music, insists it can't capture the harmonics that vinyl can have.

Me? I used to record songs by putting the tape player next to the radio speakers. Sound quality is not one of my concerns.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Shiren

Before ebooks you needed : an author, an editor, a publisher and bookstores.

Now you just need : an author and an online store.

Not quite. You still need an editor. Very few authors can produce a manuscript that doesn't need editing by a trained, experienced, professional editor.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Anyone with an ear can tell that mp3 is not the same as the music on a CD. The MP3 is a second hand copy. The CD is the original. You don't get the same quality of sound from an MP3 file as you do with all the bits in tact.

No, the CD is SAMPLED it is not the original. If we want to talk audiophile -- the vinyl captures the ORIGINAL. An MP3 Sampled at the same rate as the CD is for all practical purposes the same.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Heh. My husband sneers at CD music, insists it can't capture the harmonics that vinyl can have.

Me? I used to record songs by putting the tape player next to the radio speakers. Sound quality is not one of my concerns.

+++ At a certain point it begins to bug me, but the diff (if there is any) between vinyl and CD's is only between the listener's ears.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by CallOfCth'reader

I'm not sure what you mean there. What has happened to newspapers?

They are closing down right and left....

Magazines are in the same boat...

[charleski]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Not quite. You still need an editor. Very few authors can produce a manuscript that doesn't need editing by a trained, experienced, professional editor.

You also need a layout artist who can ensure the text is consistently rendered and can add the stylistic touches that readers expect from a professional product. This is perhaps even more true for eBooks than paper ones, as they need tricky CSS coding for anything out of the ordinary.

Originally Posted by kennyc

+++ At a certain point it begins to bug me, but the diff (if there is any) between vinyl and CD's is only between the listener's ears.

Vinyl definitely does sound different - it's been distorted through 2 sets of equalisation, it's got surface hiss, it's got rumble, it's got scratches and warp and the top end fades away over 16kHz. And every time you play it you wear it out so it sounds a little worse.

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by kennyc

They are closing down right and left....

Magazines are in the same boat...

Over here in the UK most of the newspapers seem stable, although I have no doubt that readership levels have dropped for various reasons.

Magazines that fold are much easier to understand - most are relatively expensive for the luxury item that they are, and are an unneeded expense that can be cut when money is tight.

[Jack Tingle]

Originally Posted by eGeezer

First of all, the book has been put into some electronic format in order to feed the book-printing machine. Other than a little formating at the touch of a button, there probably isn't any real human involvement in prepping for the paperback edition other than loading the paper into the book-printer. That's probably done by a machine, too.

So the prevalent $9.99 (US) pback retail price which is routinely discounted to between $4 and $7 still represents an acceptable income for the ubiquitous author/editor/publisher/distributor/retailer family.

So. Now let's remove the cost of converting a tree to a book, whatever gallons of ink might cost, the shipping costs to get the tree books to the stores, and the cost of actual people to unpack and shelve the books. All we now have left is the electronic file that was originally created to send to the printing device.

At the cost of maintaining a server and a hard drive to store the file, the book can be sold to anyone who wants to download it (for a fee).

So lets acknowledge that the author still has a right to the same income per book -- no argument from me on that. And the editor/publisher guys/gals should make about the same amount of income as they do from the pback just because it wouldn't have finally appeared as an ebook without their efforts.

Now we get to the head-scratching part. The distributor and retailer don't need to pay for anything except a few pennies for maintaining the servers/harddrive. Actually, I guess the distributor might have a complaint because by now he should be completely out of the loop.

If pbacks can be routinely discounted 20-50% with everyone happy with their profit, how come ebooks can't be permanently sold at that 20-50% reduction from pbacks? I don't see where the author, let alone every other link in the distribution chain has a complaint.

Like I said. I'm old, and perhaps my brain just isn't working. But it seems pretty simple to me.

No, but the flaw in your assumptions is that making a treebook and making an ebook are nearly identical processes, with a big cost saving if you skip some of the treebook steps. That's just not true. Omitting the printing steps saves (as best anyone can account for) about $1.

The camera-ready copy for a printing process, and a good ebook are not anywhere near identical. The ebook needs to be created from the copyeditor and proofreader's final output in a separate process than that which creates the camera ready copy. That costs $0.?? per book. The cost of servers and retail order processing (whoever does it) eats up another small part of that $1. It's no different than any other retail transaction fee. So the ebook has a unique production step, and unique distribution costs, that mostly eliminate its cost advantage.

The only unique advantage ebooks have is in inventory and returns costs. Those, as I understand it, are well understood and accounted for in the current process, and don't add much cost.
______________________________

Now if you want to get incensed when someone charges _MORE_ for an ebook than a MMPB, I'm right behind you on the barricades, brother. Death to the Aristos! Up the Revolution.

Viva la Revolucion,
Jack Tingle

[eGeezer]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I don't think anyone said DRM free.

Actually, I thot about that, but since my understanding about DRM is very limited, my assumption was that since it wasn't mentioned, it wouldn't exist.

I pondered briefly on how one could get a DRM book out of a kiosk onto a CD that would then be limited to access by a single ereading device.

I don't have enuff knowledge on the subject to answer your observation.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No, the CD is SAMPLED it is not the original. If we want to talk audiophile -- the vinyl captures the ORIGINAL. An MP3 Sampled at the same rate as the CD is for all practical purposes the same.

Well, yes both are sampled so Magnetic Tape is the real master however there are problems with both CD and MP3. CD falls down on the quiet notes with the number of bits to record the volume is only 4 or 5 while MP3 is lossy and loses high frequencies first. A higher sample can improve the high end. At lower frequencies MP3 is basically perfect and doesn't decay as the volume gets lower.

Dale

[eGeezer]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Rowling isn't, but my friend who's a mid-list mystery author has stopped making sales, because her books on Amazon are offered right next to used ones for $2.00 + shipping.

Well, I hope I made it plain that I have no idea how the money flow works in publishing, so I am assuming that your friend's example is that it is more that the author is on a commission instead of the retailer.

I assumed the author would get a given amount of the wholesale price, and the retailer messing around with the gap between wholesale and suggested retail (or below) would have no effect on that, since once the retailer pays the price, they can't go back and say "I'm not going to pay that price because I chose to sell it for less."

Just as I assume if the ebook device manufacturer sells to Fry's at a given price, if Fry's decides to sell below what they paid for it, that's Fry's problem, not the manufacturer's.

But that is why we have this forum. To learn. In this case, consider my post a bit of brainstorming cuz I'm trying to understand.

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Don't forget, FormatC, that many of those white-haired, stoop-shouldered, friendly old book sellers we remember with a tear in our eye were often selling second-hand books with absolutely zero benefit to author, editor or publisher. It was the original book piracy. Neil

Uh, no, it was a step towards the democratization of knowledge, allowing those of us who aren't wealthy to build respectable libraries. And, of course, it no doubt contributed to the sales of recent published works as well, on the same principle which has driven many publishers to provide the first ebook in a series gratis.

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Don't forget, FormatC, that many of those white-haired, stoop-shouldered, friendly old book sellers we remember with a tear in our eye were often selling second-hand books with absolutely zero benefit to author, editor or publisher. It was the original book piracy. Neil

When I loved in the USA it was even worse. I got all my books at thrift stores for 25 cents to 1 dollar. Also is that really that much different then downloading for free. The only expense is the ebook reader etc.

[eGeezer]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

No, but the flaw in your assumptions is that making a treebook and making an ebook are nearly identical processes, with a big cost saving if you skip some of the treebook steps. That's just not true. Omitting the printing steps saves (as best anyone can account for) about $1.

The camera-ready copy for a printing process, and a good ebook are not anywhere near identical. The ebook needs to be created from the copyeditor and proofreader's final output in a separate process than that which creates the camera ready copy. That costs $0.?? per book. The cost of servers and retail order processing (whoever does it) eats up another small part of that $1. It's no different than any other retail transaction fee. So the ebook has a unique production step, and unique distribution costs, that mostly eliminate its cost advantage.

The only unique advantage ebooks have is in inventory and returns costs. Those, as I understand it, are well understood and accounted for in the current process, and don't add much cost.
______________________________

Now if you want to get incensed when someone charges _MORE_ for an ebook than a MMPB, I'm right behind you on the barricades, brother. Death to the Aristos! Up the Revolution.

Viva la Revolucion,
Jack Tingle

Thank you. I truly appreciate the clarification, and the detail of your explanation.

Now I won't feel I'm being ripped off if I pay as much for an ebook as I would have for the same pbook (which will STILL have to be less than the pbook retail price).

I had already concluded that $9.99 for a first printing is actually not so bad -- if I've been waiting for it to be published.

[Billjr13]

Actually most of the major printers are able to burn plates digitally and the camera process is a thing of the past for mass market printing. Some of the newer presses are even plateless now too.