Cheaper e-books will kill us, says publisher

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Her post compares per-book costs for pbooks (card catalog info, print-on-demand setup costs) with one-time costs for ebooks (photshop upgrade, eBook studio software). She includes proofing & editing costs as the same for both--which they are, if they're done separately; if both are combined, one of those numbers plummets. I've no idea if a single ISBN covers both a pbook & ebook released at the same time.

Generally no, you want a new isbn for each format.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

From there, the inequity grows; each pbook sold costs more in print, storage, and shipping; each ebook sold costs none of those. If sold online, both have the same accounting hassles.

There are distribution costs for eBooks, especially if they have DRM.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

(Lack of security: Unwillingness to attempt to find & prosecute book pirates--surely if someone were distributing several thousand "stolen" pbooks, they'd try to track the person down. Lack of PR skills: publishers/authors that customers like, are less likely to get ripped off.)

That's fine, but then you have to add the cost of finding and prosecuting the pirates to the fixed costs of the title. Lawyers don't work for free.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by starrigger

But most writers' Word files don't have the final editing changes in them, because until now there's been little reason to go to that extra work. Plus, there's a whole slew of things that have to be changed from manuscript format to book format: em-dashes, paragraphs tabs, underline to italic, proper centering (which doesn't always hold with conversion), sorting out Word "styles" which can be very useful to a writer but which can screw up the conversion, extra spaces, straight quotes to curly quotes (if you care), etc.

One of the process changes I brought up in one of my old, buried posts is style guides. Stipulate the format submissions must arrive in. Ideally, publishers would endeavor to agree on the format. If they're using the same kind of tools, likely it would evolve that way. Publishers could even make a Word template and tutorial available to the agents and public.

[BuddyBoy]

Ok, I just made a completely non-scientific and exhustive browse through some of the titles available for the Kindle on Amazon and the ebook price for every title I looked at was the lowest price of all formats, and lower by more than 10% in each case.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Ok, I just made a completely non-scientific and exhustive browse through some of the titles available for the Kindle on Amazon and the ebook price for every title I looked at was the lowest price of all formats, and lower by more than 10% in each case.

Then you don't acknowledge the resale market at all - easily tallied at Amazon.
And it is this market which neither authors nor the original publisher get a cut of which I have used for probably 85 percent of my book purchases all of my life. Textbooks included.

Instead of worrying about piracy, writers have a chance to capture the biggest portion of the second hand pie. By superseding it economically.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Alisa

One of the process changes I brought up in one of my old, buried posts is style guides. Stipulate the format submissions must arrive in. Ideally, publishers would endeavor to agree on the format. If they're using the same kind of tools, likely it would evolve that way. Publishers could even make a Word template and tutorial available to the agents and public.

You could try that--although I'm skeptical of how successful you'd be. But there are reasons for manuscript format being different from book format. And that is that ms. format is easier to edit.

And before you say, well, do all the editing right in the digital file...I'd say, no thank you. I think most writers and editors would agree. And it's not just because the tools aren't up to the job. It's because you see a lot on the paper edit that you don't see on the screen. I can't explain it, except that it's just different. Things jump out at you that you'd miss otherwise. It's an important part of the editing process, for me at least.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Alisa

One of the process changes I brought up in one of my old, buried posts is style guides. Stipulate the format submissions must arrive in. Ideally, publishers would endeavor to agree on the format. If they're using the same kind of tools, likely it would evolve that way. Publishers could even make a Word template and tutorial available to the agents and public.

Word is probably unsuitable for that. But the correct approach is to convert what you get from the author to a format that can be used to automatically create all other formats. That was what I hinted at when I mentioned that SGML was designed for this task.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

But most writers' Word files don't have the final editing changes in them, because until now there's been little reason to go to that extra work. Plus, there's a whole slew of things that have to be changed from manuscript format to book format: em-dashes, paragraphs tabs, underline to italic, proper centering (which doesn't always hold with conversion), sorting out Word "styles" which can be very useful to a writer but which can screw up the conversion, extra spaces, straight quotes to curly quotes (if you care), etc.

I agree that it should be made simple to take the typesetter's output and convert that. But it isn't--yet. I hope it will be soon.

In the last week, people not on this board have pointed out about half a dozen typos still in the Neptune Crossing ebooks. (#@$%$#@!) I'm debating whether it's worth the effort to go in and fix them. I'm thinking not--because it'll take hours to redo all the conversions, plus trying to get corrected versions to manybooks, feedbooks, and Baen Free Library. I hate not fixing something, but that would be a poor use of my time, I think.

I still think ebooks should be priced as low as possible, but not because making them is simple.

If you want to pass on the corrections, I'll fix up the LRF editions that I created. I don't mind at all.

I do agree that it should be a simple matter of taking the final electronic copy and converting it so it can then be imported into whatever programs are going to be used for the differing eBook formats. It's crazy that in this day and age, we cannot do that.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by starrigger

And before you say, well, do all the editing right in the digital file...I'd say, no thank you. I think most writers and editors would agree. And it's not just because the tools aren't up to the job. It's because you see a lot on the paper edit that you don't see on the screen. I can't explain it, except that it's just different. Things jump out at you that you'd miss otherwise. It's an important part of the editing process, for me at least.

I agree. I can't explain it, but I do know that I perceive a body of text differently when it is on paper instead of a screen.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I do agree that it should be a simple matter of taking the final electronic copy and converting it so it can then be imported into whatever programs are going to be used for the differing eBook formats. It's crazy that in this day and age, we cannot do that.

Can you not do that to a certain degree using HTML as base format?

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by tompe

Word is probably unsuitable for that. But the correct approach is to convert what you get from the author to a format that can be used to automatically create all other formats. That was what I hinted at when I mentioned that SGML was designed for this task.

Yes but it's likely what you will get the manuscript in. You'll have an easier time converting if it doesn't have any odd formatting.

As for editing, I often do that on paper, too. Then I put the changes back into the electronic copy.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Yes but it's likely what you will get the manuscript in. You'll have an easier time converting if it doesn't have any odd formatting.

Yes, but I do not think word format is the input to the typesetting. So you already now have to do a conversion from the format the author submits in. So just do this conversion to a format that is suitable for a base to transform to many different final formats.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, but I do not think word format is the input to the typesetting. So you already now have to do a conversion from the format the author submits in. So just do this conversion to a format that is suitable for a base to transform to many different final formats.

I know. That's what I just said. The first conversion to that base format would be easier if the submitters follow a style guide. That's my point. I am fully aware and have said several times that it needs to be converted afterward.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Actually Gudy, MMPBs do cannibalize hardcover sales, which is why they aren't usually released at the same time as the hardcover.

In order to maximize the profit for a title, the publishers may choose to release it first in hardcover, then about a year later as a MMPB once the hardcover sales have tapered off. Of course some titles start as MMPB right off and some never leave hardcover at all, though the perma-hardcovers are usually non-fiction.

Publishing houses aren't charities, you know.

They go to MMPB a year after they come off the New York Times bestseller list. If the publisher doesn't want to invest that much into the book, they go right to MMPB of trade paperback.

The DaVinci Code took several years to go into mass market. People would always ask me when it would, and I'd tell them when people actually stopped buying the hardcover.

[gandor62]

I feel sorry for all those people that manage to design a software program, code the program, test and debug, distribute the software for sale, bank the earnings, all on their lonesome. No one to help them..... must be so hard.

What really gets me is that the person actually got paid to think about how to convince the general public about why e-books are so expensive. He must of gone to the pub and had a beer while he wrote down every excuse he could think of. I doubt anyone actually verified the excuses, they sound so real so they must be true. The problem here is in my opinion most people that read books and buy them actually have a functional brain and must have a little snigger when they read his post. I mean does anyone actually believe a word that has dribbled from his mouth. I don't, and I am insulted that this person had the tenacity to try to think that his words would sound so convincing, that I would believe it.

I feel sorry for authors that would like to embrace technology and have their works published in a new electronic medium. The publishers are so scared of it, as they lose the total control over the print media that exists now. They cant have authors discovering that they can actually set up their own publishing center on the Internet for less than $500.00 and bypass the publisher completely. So keep the ebooks prices high and in line with the hardback price and then show the author that there are next to no sales electronically and "Oh Dear, look someone has posted your work on a pirate site, Oh no, we must stop doing this electronic thingy", and of course they are so convincing and the poor author believes them, or has to, they do pay him.

[tdavie]

Originally Posted by jridley

Tom, I agree 100%. Nothing with DRM on it will ever be loaded on my PRS-505. I have PD content from this forum, non-DRM stuff that I've paid for from Baen books and a few other places, etc.

I didn't know that Baen sold DRM free books. Are they compatible with the Sony Reader? Thanks for the heads up!!!!

Tom