Did anyone actually defect to ebooks from hardcovers?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by astra

If they don't want to loose money on hardback edition sales, they should start to publish ebooks in DRM-free formats and for decent prices, no more than paperback editions.

What they are afraid of is that people will buy the ebook, at lower margins, instead of the hardcover.

Publishers are unhappy at Amazon because they feel Amazon's pricing has set the bar on ebook prices at $9.99, and they won't be able to charge more.

Whether they could get more is another matter. I think most folks feel the ebook price should not exceed the MMPB price. In that case, Amazon is doing them a favor, as $9.99 is higher than the average MMPB proce, but Amazon customers pay it.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by charleski

http://www.carolynjewel.com/craft/warnings.shtml
http://answers.google.com/answers/th...id/136883.html
The threshold to membership of the RWA's Published Author's Network is an advance of $1000.

Thanks for the links. Interesting stuff in there.

Carolyn talked about a $500 advance for Regencies, but didn't say what publisher paid that low.

The other commentary was interesting, but talked about a publisher in the Australian market. It's a smaller market with lower unit sales, so I'd expect lower advances. I think a writer might expect a bit better in the US, if thay can get published in the first place.

Baen has a highly-stratified publishing strategy. They put out full-price hardbacks for authors with established selling-power and trade PBs for those who sell at a lower level. Their ARC program is a canny way to get the more avid fans to pay for a book twice, and do so with a smile. As you yourself noted, they're actively looking for ways to add value to their books in order to attract customers at a premium price-point.

I'd say Baen's strategy is about as far as you can get from the typical genre-fiction race to the bottom. And it shows in the quality of the work that they publish.

I think Baen is smart. One discovery they've made is that more people buy hardcovers. The original intent of the Free Library was to promore the paper books, and they discovered that people would download from the Free Library, decide they liked the author, and buy the author's next in hardcover. I can't be certain, but I suspect that Baen ebook sales may cannibalize MMPB sales, but that Baen will not be unhappy about that.

Self-publishing is a serious option for some genre writers, take a look at J.A. Konrath's breakdown. It's instructive to see how exquisitely price-sensitive his sales are, demonstrating the extent to which this has become a commodity market. If all the books on the shelf are much the same, then you might as well go for the cheapest one.

Self publishing might be a good option for a write with an established name and following. Whether it's an option for a new author is another matter.

You can write, self-publish, and sell your own books, but the challenge still remains of letting the audience that might like your stuff know you exist. If you hope to make your living as a writer, self-publishing is not likely to get you there.

Konrath, for example, has interesting numbers, but he's an established author with a track record and a following. He's built an audience for his Jack Daniels series. Would a new unknown author have his experience? I doubt it.
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Dennis

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I think Baen is smart. One discovery they've made is that more people buy hardcovers. The original intent of the Free Library was to promore the paper books, and they discovered that people would download from the Free Library, decide they liked the author, and buy the author's next in hardcover. I can't be certain, but I suspect that Baen ebook sales may cannibalize MMPB sales, but that Baen will not be unhappy about that.

That's me. As a result of the free library I discovered a couple of Baen authors that I had never read before and now I buy their hardcovers when released.

[PieOPah]

I used to buy all of my books brand new in Hardback (occasionally I would buy a paper back, but this was rare). If a new book was released that I wanted, I would buy it rather than wait for the PB version...

I have no had my Sony E-book Reader for just over a year and since then I haven't purchased a single physical book for myself - I have bought one or two for my children or wife. I still don't see how anybody is losing money from my change of format since the majority of the time the E-book is the same price or more expensive (due to discounts on the physical) than the Hardback that I would have bought...

[MaggieScratch]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I keep hearing about how worried the publishers are about the ebooks because they think the people who bought ebook readers are the people who used to buy the hardbacks, but I have yet to encounter a single reader for whom this is true.

I picked the third choice, but I didn't buy a LOT of full-price hardbacks. I bought them when I wanted to read something badly enough to pay full price for it. I often picked them up second-hand or from the remainder table. I also bought paperbacks, both mass-market and the larger format. For a year or two before buying my first ebook reader (Jan. 2008) I was making heavy use of the public library and just not buying a lot of stuff for casual reading. I was reading more and more on my Treo, but mostly public domain books. I think since buying an ebook reader, I've spent more on average per book that I actually purchase (not including free public domain stuff) than I did before.

I still buy a lot of research books and scholarly books from university presses. Some are hardback, some not; it's not a consideration. The softbacks can be $50 or more. Some of them, if they were available as ebooks I would buy them, but they often are not.

Reasons they have for buying ebooks are either the convenience (I can buy it right now at midnight from home etc.) or for archival/storage (don't need three houses worth of shelves to store them).

Both here.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I agree that things can overlap. For example, I read a Doctorow book in ebook and then bought the paper version for someone else as a gift.

I talked to Cory a bit back in November. He has no idea what effect one way or the other Creative Commons licensed ebook editions of all his work are having on his paper sales. He did state he's making a comfortable middle class living, which is what he desired, so I have to assume the free ebook editions aren't hurting his sales terribly.

I guess when I refer to what the publishers call 'cannibalizing' I don't mean art books, cookbooks and the like. I mean (and I think they mean too) that in the past you would have bought the hardback of that particular book, and you are buying the ebook instead of this hardback you otherwise would have bought. So, if there is no snowballs's chance you ever would have bought the hardback, it is not a cannibalized sale. And likewise, if there is no way you would have bought the ebook, great, enjoy your art books and cookbooks and whatever

Agreed. And there are things like the ones you mentioned I don't think are good fits for ebooks. Art books are a prime example, as the ones I get need color and a big page, neither of which ebook readers suport.

I just wonder for something that hasn't got pictures and is just plain mass-market words, how serious the 'problem' of 'I would have spent $40 on the hardback and now I am not' really is. It seems like a lot of us get our books---e and otherwise---used, on sale, in remainder bins etc. I just wonder how many people truly are in the position where they actually used to buy full-price hardbacks and are now buying the ebook version instead.

Enough people buy hardcovers that publishers make money on them, and they make more money on the hardcover than on a mass market PB or an ebook edition. I don't think we're representative. Somebody is buying the books that please hardcovers on the New York Times best seller list. They may be buying them heavily discounted, but the discount is applied by the retailer, and comes out of their cut. The publisher has gotten the full wholesale price.

The publisher's problem is that they don't know what the effect of ebooks on hardcover sales will be, and they are worried that for enough people, the ebook may well cannibalize the hardcover sale. They won't make as much money on the ebook edition, and they may not make it up on volume. Given that, they want to be able to charge more for an ebook and get a higher margin, and they are afraid Amazon's $9.99 price has made that difficult or impossible. They don't seem to have considered that the mass market PB price point is the one they probably have to match.

Meanwhile, the possible delay in releasing the ebook edition to give better sales opportunity to the hardcover is a non-issue for me. There are some books I'll buy in hardcover in any case. For the rest, there are no books I want so badly I'll buy the hardcover instead of an ebook, just to get and read it sooner.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rhadin

That's me. As a result of the free library I discovered a couple of Baen authors that I had never read before and now I buy their hardcovers when released.

That's me, too.

One of the things I point out to people is that Baen is not promoting books, they are promoting authors. You download one or more complete novels by an author, decide you like what they do, and add them to your "Buy when a new one appears" list. And Baen discovered that their market has the money, and is willing to buy the hardcover editions of books by authors they really like.

If the download doesn't result in a sale of that author's work, no matter. The book(s) just didn't do it for you, and chances are good that you wouldn't have bought the book(s) in any case. Baen and the author haven't lost anything.

And in Baen's case, I think a fair number of readers are buying the hardcover and the ebook edition.

It wouldn't surprise me if Baen's ebooks were cannibalizing their MMPB sales, but I suspect Baen doesn't care. They were struggling as an MMPB house, and if the Free Library hadn't been instituted, I suspect they wouldn't exist now. Paperbacks are a very difficult market in which to make any money. I've heard tales of MMPB releases with press runs as low as 15,000 copies, which I find hard to believe. Given what's normally needed to fill the distribution channels, and the normal level of returns, I have a hard time understanding how that sort of press run can make money.

I would not be surprised down the road to see Baen publish hardcovers and ebooks, and drop the mass market paperback editions entirely.
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Dennis

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by ficbot

So, does such a mythical reader exist? Can we, in what is arguably the biggest ebook readers gathering place on-line find a single reader who actually has defected to the e-side from Fullpricehardbackland?

I bought hardbacks before my kindle. I have two full 6-ft bookcases of hardbacks I bought in the year before I got my kindle, still waiting to be read. Since I got my kindle, I have not bought one hardback book. I read on the train and in bed, both of which are very uncomfortable with hardback books, even paperbacks. There are still things I miss about hardbacks - seeing how much I had left to read is the biggest. But as far as the act of reading goes, my ebooks are much easier to get lost in compared with hardbacks.

This single horn in the middle of my forehead was a great hook for hardback books, though.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by omk3

I'm guilty of having bought two or five hardcovers, if they were on offer, and then only because of convenience. I have friends back in greece who love particular authors and are anxious to get their hands on their latest books, but it's not certain that these books will even come to greece, and if they order online there are the postage costs to consider. So if my visit to greece coincides with a new publication, I may pick the hardcover for them as a present. I'm always angry when I'm forced to do so however. Hardcovers are unreasonably expensive, bulky and difficult to hold, take up too much self space, and don't even have the outstanding quality that would give a meaning to their existence.

Have you considered buying 'trade paperback' instead? It's the same paper- and print quality as a newly published hardback, but with a soft binding and published at the same time - I presume...

I hardly ever bought books before ebooks. They were just too expensive, so I always used the library. Now that I can get away with paying about 10-15 USD for a book it's quite a different situation. I might have been able to buy cheap books from England, but I guess I've just never been in the habit of buying p-books, except when I was on holiday. Once I brought 14 books back from a trip to London 5-8 GBP per book (cheap paperbacks of course) was a steal.

[jules52]

My purchases were roughly 50-50 hard cover to paperbacks. I still prefer some books in hardcover, but I've almost completely stopped buying paperbacks in favor of eBooks. For some reason I still want a hard copy of my favorite authors works and most nonfiction.

[Joerg_Mosthaf]

I used to buy paperbacks almost exclusively because of price and bulk. I only bought hardcovers of books I couldn't wait for the paperback (Terry Pratchett, I'm looking at you ) or of books I liked for their looks as well as the content.
Now I buy no more paperbacks and more hardcovers than ever before. I buy all new books of several authors in hardcover (even signed limited editions) and eBook and all of the books I used to buy in paperback only in ebooks.

[omk3]

Originally Posted by Ea

Have you considered buying 'trade paperback' instead? It's the same paper- and print quality as a newly published hardback, but with a soft binding and published at the same time - I presume.

I always buy the smallest size available (to which the ebook is the natural conclusion), because content is all that matters to me, especially with a library suffering from the weight of too many books. The reason I sometimes buy hardcovers as presents is not because they look better, but because they are the only option available at the time.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

It wouldn't surprise me if Baen's ebooks were cannibalizing their MMPB sales, but I suspect Baen doesn't care. They were struggling as an MMPB house, and if the Free Library hadn't been instituted, I suspect they wouldn't exist now. Paperbacks are a very difficult market in which to make any money. I've heard tales of MMPB releases with press runs as low as 15,000 copies, which I find hard to believe. Given what's normally needed to fill the distribution channels, and the normal level of returns, I have a hard time understanding how that sort of press run can make money.

Back when I was running a small publishing company we ultimately determined that it was impossible to make money on any size initial press run of an MMPB, unless it was a large run, returns didn't exceed 5%, and all the rest of the run was sold to consumers -- in other words, not possible. Instead, we tried to beat the pattern and do a small press run (5-10,000) and build enough interest for a backlist (there was no POD in those days). Unfortunately, that didn't work either because for a small press, which we were, distribution and warehousing costs ate up profits and returns killed us. Even backlist titles became problematic.

If I were doing it today, I would do a very small press run -- just large enough to put a book or two in most book retailers hands -- and then POD thereafter.

Ultimately, however, the difference between success and failure is the amount of money and effort put into marketing a title (assuming the writing is good), and even with the Internet, marketing costs are not cheap, which is why there is so much consolidation among publishers.

[bookfanmd]

I never bought hardback books except the Harry Potter series. If there was any other new release I just couldn't wait for the paperback version I would borrow from the library. Our public library system is very good with branches all over the county. You can reserve books online and they will send an email when available.

I did buy tons of paperbacks though, both new and used. I attempted to catalog them last year and have about 4,000 in the database and I don't know how many others not in the database. They are mostly romances and mysteries and I just don't have room in the house for any more books.

Since buying my Sony 505 in May I've kept up or more likely increased the pace of book buying, only in ebook form instead. It's really easy to go on a buying spree for ebooks, especially when Fictionwise is having a 60% off sale plus 25% coupon plus the 15% club discount.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Back when I was running a small publishing company we ultimately determined that it was impossible to make money on any size initial press run of an MMPB, unless it was a large run, returns didn't exceed 5%, and all the rest of the run was sold to consumers -- in other words, not possible. Instead, we tried to beat the pattern and do a small press run (5-10,000) and build enough interest for a backlist (there was no POD in those days). Unfortunately, that didn't work either because for a small press, which we were, distribution and warehousing costs ate up profits and returns killed us. Even backlist titles became problematic.

If you're a small publisher, I don't think you can make money on MMPB sales. You are undercapitalized, likely can't produce large enough press runs to properly feed the distribution channels, and almost certainly can't afford the losses on books that don't sell.

Add the fact that it can take 6 months for sales to be tallied and returns to come in to even know if you made money.

The bankruptcy of Advanced Marketing Services in 2007 also took down their Publisher's Group West subsidiary, which provided distribution for a number of small presses. The Perseus Books Group bought PGW, but a fair number of imprints were casualties. They simply couldn't handle the interruption in their cash flow, or the 70 cents on the dollar they got, if lucky, on what they were owed after bankruptcy. And those who survived seemed to largely drop fiction from their lines. Adieu, Four Walls, Eight Windows. Adeiu, Carroll and Graf. Adieu...

If I were doing it today, I would do a very small press run -- just large enough to put a book or two in most book retailers hands -- and then POD thereafter.

Which retailers? Depending on how you distribute, that may be more than a very small press run.

Ultimately, however, the difference between success and failure is the amount of money and effort put into marketing a title (assuming the writing is good), and even with the Internet, marketing costs are not cheap, which is why there is so much consolidation among publishers.

And the fact of life for most authors is that marketing is on them. Publisher reserve promotional dollars for the new Jonathan Kellerman or the like, to let the author's following know there is a new one available. Marketing devoted to new/midlist authors is negligible.
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Dennis