Agency pricing (almost) 1 year on...how many e-books have you NOT bought?

[wyndslash]

I don't mind paying a certain price for an ebook. I think that ebook prices have a chance to be priced perhaps according to the quality of their content rather than the process? Since it seems we all agree that they do not have as much costs in publishing as paperbacks. I certainly would not feel good either if they were priced too low, cheating the author and disregarding the content altogether.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

I don't mind paying a certain price for an ebook. I think that ebook prices have a chance to be priced perhaps according to the quality of their content rather than the process? Since it seems we all agree that they do not have as much costs in publishing as paperbacks. I certainly would not feel good either if they were priced too low, cheating the author and disregarding the content altogether.

Are you posting with your iPod? Can it do that?

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Are you posting with your iPod? Can it do that?

yeah. how did you know i posted with my ipod? (now i'm not, but when i made that post, yeah).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

yeah. how did you know i posted with my ipod? (now i'm not, but when i made that post, yeah).

How to explain. The forum does something weird when people post from mobile devices but it's not definitive as to when/why it happens. It used to happen all the time with Marc and I've seen it with others.

If the last post was made by a(some?) mobile device it shows up as a mobileread.mobi domain instead of mobileread.com and does not display correctly in the browser.

So like instead of: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...66#post1431666

it will be like http://www.mobileread.mobi/forums/sh...66#post1431666

I have to either wait until someone else posts or manually change the "mobi" to "com" and then go to the last post.

I'm not sure if it is doing the same when I post from my Xoom or DroidX but I don't think so as I've tried to "catch it" doing it.

[wyndslash]

ah, didn't notice that

thanks for the info

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I would actually argue that the publishers are taking a longer view than Amazon. I don't think they're always making the right decisions, but I don't think they're as short-sighted as some think.

The problem is that their margins are very tight and they can't afford to experiment with things that might cut into hardcover bestseller sales - as they're the engine that keeps everything running.

The eBook of a paperback should not cost any more than that paperback - and really should be cheaper. However, the eBook of a brand-new hardcover, while indistinguishable from the eBook of a paperback, needs to be priced higher than the eventual paperback edition because otherwise it will cannibalize the sales of the hardcover to an extent that may be unsustainable.

They can't cut their own throats to support eBooks - so they're being very cautious.

The way I see it, most people who read eBooks, one reason they do so is a lower price. They don't buy hardcover books. They don't pay hardcover prices. So, pricing an eBook at hardcover priced is just going to piss people off. I did like the idea of an eBook (pBook still in hardcover) at $10. And the next release to be priced at say $5. That would be reasonable pricing and sales (IMHO) would skyrocket.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The way I see it, most people who read eBooks, one reason they do so is a lower price. They don't buy hardcover books. They don't pay hardcover prices. So, pricing an eBook at hardcover priced is just going to piss people off. I did like the idea of an eBook (pBook still in hardcover) at $10. And the next release to be priced at say $5. That would be reasonable pricing and sales (IMHO) would skyrocket.

I see where you're going with this, but I think you're looking at it from the opposite direction from the publishers. The way the market is these days they're less interested in getting the price-conscious eBook buyers to buy the latest books than preserving their revenue from the time-conscious hardcover buyers.

If Patrick Rothfuss' new book was to come out as a $10 eBook on launch day, a certain number of the "gotta have it now" crowd who would have happily bought the hardcover would buy the eBook instead. There would also be a number of price-conscious buyers who would buy the $10 eBook immediately, rather than waiting for the cheap eBook, discount hardcover, or mass-market paperback.

The question is whether they would gain more revenue from the people buying the slightly more expensive eBook version now in preference to lower cost options later, than they would lose from people buying the significantly less expensive eBook version now in preference to the hardcover option now.

The key point here is that lowering prices like that is going to to do more to modify the buying habits of existing customers rather than adding new customers to the mix - so the overall sales increase won't be as significant.

Your suggestion would increase the sales of books that don't have a built-in audience, which is good, but they're not the ones the publishers survive on. This model would disproportionately lower the publisher's revenue from their best-selling books - and could put some of them out of business.

Once eBooks become the main sales channel, prices are going to have to be revisited, and brought lower. But until that happens, the publishers are going to have to play things cautiously now so they can still be here later.

[sufue]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Once eBooks become the main sales channel, prices are going to have to be revisited, and brought lower. But until that happens, the publishers are going to have to play things cautiously now so they can still be here later.

I wonder if that's really the case, or whether being cautious and reactive, rather than proactive, in the face of a technological frame-break is the way to slow death?

For one thing, by keeping prices of even old old backlist titles at the price of a new paperback (or worse!), I suspect that they are missing big chunks of potential additional revenue from avid readers who would like to "format-shift". I have many authors whose complete backlists I would happily buy in e-book at a modest price, just to be able to re-read at a whim since I can carry all my e-books around with me...and also, I admit, to be able to clear some space off my shelves.

For example, I bought all of Steven F. Havill's older backlist titles when they first came out, at a very reasonable price (then) of about $3 each - can't remember exactly now, and they've since gone up. And these sales were "pure additional income" to the publisher and author since I had already bought these books once in paper, and certainly wouldn't buy again in paper for any reason.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by sufue

I wonder if that's really the case, or whether being cautious and reactive, rather than proactive, in the face of a technological frame-break is the way to slow death?

For one thing, by keeping prices of even old old backlist titles at the price of a new paperback (or worse!), I suspect that they are missing big chunks of potential additional revenue from avid readers who would like to "format-shift". I have many authors whose complete backlists I would happily buy in e-book at a modest price, just to be able to re-read at a whim since I can carry all my e-books around with me...and also, I admit, to clear some space off my shelves.

For example, I bought all of Steven F. Havill's older backlist titles when they first came out, at a very reasonable price (then) of about $3 each - can't remember exactly now, and they've since gone up. And these sales were "pure additional income" to the publisher and author since I had already bought these books once in paper, and certainly wouldn't buy again in paper for any reason.

Too much conservatism in the face of a paradigm shift in the market is definitely the way to a slow death - and I think putting backlist at $3-5 in eBook format is something that has to happen. Tor's idea that the first Wheel of Time book which has been in paperback for 20 years should be $15 rather than $5 in eBook is ridiculous - most readers clamoring for low priced backlist have it completely right and the publishers have it totally wrong there.

The key here, though, is that the drive for low-priced backlist has been attached to the drive for drastic drops in current bestseller eBooks, and that's where the problem comes up.

While conservatism can lead to a slow death, making the wrong bold move will almost always lead to a fast death - and the people who run corporations have a fiduciary duty to avoid the moves that will lead to a fast death.

[sufue]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

While conservatism can lead to a slow death, making the wrong bold move will almost always lead to a fast death - and the people who run corporations have a fiduciary duty to avoid the moves that will lead to a fast death.

Sadly, they have to avoid both kinds of death, since in theory their stock price reflects both near- and long-term business potential. Although I LOVE to complain about (and boycott) the Big 6, I still don't know if I'd want to be in the shoes of their senior management!

In general, though, they seem to be more in a "running scared/protect the current business model" mode, rather than trying to figure out how to proactively shift their business models. I'm not sure that's going to be a successful approach. And it's very sad for those of us on the early edge of e-reading.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by sufue

Sadly, they have to avoid both kinds of death, since in theory their stock price reflects both near- and long-term business potential. Although I LOVE to complain about (and boycott) the Big 6, I still don't know if I'd want to be in the shoes of their senior management!

In general, though, they seem to be more in a "running scared/protect the current business model" mode, rather than trying to figure out how to proactively shift their business models. I'm not sure that's going to be a successful approach. And it's very sad for those of us on the early edge of e-reading.

Avoiding either death is important in the long run, but avoiding the fast death is most important in the short run as it doesn't provide a chance to recover.

I also think they're not so much trying to protect the current business model as to maintain a survivable revenue stream. They don't have the reserves (it's a tight margin business) to sustain them while a new model ramps up to sustain them - if they jump all the way it has to be able to sustain them immediately.

Their management really is trapped.

As for boycotting, I'm not boycotting any publishers because I really don't care how prices are determined. I simply don't buy any book that I think is overpriced. I do buy books that I think are priced reasonably.

I've been buying fewer books from the Big Six, but I'll happily take advantage of their freebies.

[crossi]

They have the opportunity to capture the people who used to shop used bookstores or use the library. Those people supplied no income to the publishers and authors. They are unlikely to be willing to pay current prices solely for the convenience of ebooks esp since they first need to buy the reader itself, but at a reasonable price, perhaps slightly less than MM paperback prices a lot of them would make the switch.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by crossi

They have the opportunity to capture the people who used to shop used bookstores or use the library. Those people supplied no income to the publishers and authors. They are unlikely to be willing to pay current prices solely for the convenience of ebooks esp since they first need to buy the reader itself, but at a reasonable price, perhaps slightly less than MM paperback prices a lot of them would make the switch.

They can catch those people with backlist in the $3-5 range and I think that's a great idea.

What wouldn't be a great idea would be bringing the eBooks of new hardcovers into that range.

[bgalbrecht]

I've always thought that the publishers are making a mistake by keeping the ebook price around that of a mass market paperback. Towards the end of the MMPB print run, the ebook is really starting to compete with the used books, so if they were to have one more price range, around half MMPB price, they'd get another bump about a year after the MMPB release. Likewise, ebooks with trade only paper editions need a price drop for the same reason.

Unfortunately, I don't expect the Big 6 to do this, because midlist authors' backlist books which don't go out of print are direct competition with new books. They don't want to kill the market for the new books, even though I believe it would boost the sales of most books overall because it would encourage the used book buyers to switch to ebooks, and until now, the publishers and authors never got any money from that market.

[kjk]

Looking forward to the earnings reports in the next couple quarters, not to mention this updated chart