ANOTHER "Why Do Ebooks Cost So Much?" ARTICLE

[SameOldStory]

"I guess in the end it will all come down to Cover design?"

Good ones attract my attention. Bad/cheap covers will often turn me away from a book. If I see another young girl/boy vampire cover, I think it'll toss my cookies.

MR members have been a very good source for books and authors.

Hardcover books, the golden goose for publishers, will over some period of time, be reduced to "Special Collectors Editions".

What is needed is a more sophisticated means of promoting books on the internet. If I go to a website over and over, that site should keep track of books that I NON"T want to see on its front page.

A check list would be nice.
Teenage Romance - Skip
Teenage Vampire Romance - Skip
Books by a certain genre - Skip
Books on gay Polynesian Jewish men about their sex change and conversion to Catholicism after a root canal while abducted by a flying saucer - Skip

If you buy online, merchants can track your reading preferences. If that bothers someone put a check box to exempt yourself from monitoring.

And a box to exempt yourself from email based on your reading preferences.

Once the webpage is cleared of what I consider junk, let them publicize to their hearts content.. What they do now is shotgun blast up into the night air hoping to hit a duck.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Post #135 written by dmcunney explains why Baen isnt your typical publisher and shouldnt be compared to others.

(added link to exact post)

The points he raises are
(1) Baen aren't in New York
(2) They use contractors for some functions
(3) They are a niche publisher
(4) Baen uses Simon and Schuster for printing, marketing and distribution.

(1) No publisher has to have expensive office space in New York
(2) Contractors or employees all need to be paid
(3) Yes, they're a niche publisher, but why is that relevant?
(4) Simon and Schuster are going to be charge Baen AT LEAST their fair share of Simon and Schuster's costs.

Big publishers ought to have economies of scale that aren't available to Baen, especially in the ebook field. I think it is reasonable to compare them to other publishers.

[Adjust]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

(added link to exact post)

The points he raises are
(1) Baen aren't in New York
(2) They use contractors for some functions
(3) They are a niche publisher
(4) Baen uses Simon and Schuster for printing, marketing and distribution.

(1) No publisher has to have expensive office space in New York
(2) Contractors or employees all need to be paid
(3) Yes, they're a niche publisher, but why is that relevant?
(4) Simon and Schuster are going to be charge Baen AT LEAST their fair share of Simon and Schuster's costs.

Big publishers ought to have economies of scale that aren't available to Baen, especially in the ebook field. I think it is reasonable to compare them to other publishers.

I think what they are getting is less overheads. Sure the contractors will need to paid, but not in the same way an employee needs to be paid, health insurance, 401K that sort of thing...the hidden extras...

(4) Simon and Schuster are going to be charge Baen AT LEAST their fair share of Simon and Schuster's costs.
Sure, but far less then if they did that themselves, warehousing distribution, networks, people to run these things... etc etc...

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

"I guess in the end it will all come down to Cover design?"

Good ones attract my attention. Bad/cheap covers will often turn me away from a book. If I see another young girl/boy vampire cover, I think it'll toss my cookies.

* hands to a barf bag * lol

Yeah, I've learned the hard way that cover is 99% of the sale. That became frightfully true with my original Oort Perimeter cover. Oddly enough though, I've seen people who actually like the retro-esque blue cover over my newer one. Honestly, that's fine by me, but the thought that the cover makes up so much of the buyers choice these days is kinda startling. I mean, look at covers from the 1800's and early 1900's. Bland, text based covers, and yet people still bought, but only because of the merits of the book itself.

[SameOldStory]

It may be a case of love/hate at first sight. I have the artistic ability of a smashed bug on a windshield so there's no way I can comment on what is a good cover, only if I like it or not.

But both cover and title can attract me to a book. In so far as covers from the 1800's and early 1900's go, remember that they had no TV to compete against. Today’s society is much more visually oriented re. advertising and appearances.

One of the reasons that I watch so little TV is how stupid the advertisers treat us. One that I heard as a walked by my wife’s TV was about a blood glucose meter "In fun colors! "

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

(added link to exact post)

The points he raises are
(1) Baen aren't in New York
(2) They use contractors for some functions
(3) They are a niche publisher
(4) Baen uses Simon and Schuster for printing, marketing and distribution.

(1) No publisher has to have expensive office space in New York
(2) Contractors or employees all need to be paid
(3) Yes, they're a niche publisher, but why is that relevant?
(4) Simon and Schuster are going to be charge Baen AT LEAST their fair share of Simon and Schuster's costs.

Big publishers ought to have economies of scale that aren't available to Baen, especially in the ebook field. I think it is reasonable to compare them to other publishers.

Without going into it point by point, what I read from that post #135 was, "Baen has proven that all of that stuff about costs that the other publishers are spewing is crap, so therefore Baen can't be compared to the other publishers".

Big publishing houses need to be big publishing houses because they've built a business model around the production of paper books that favours that. Once the proportion of ebook sales starts to get into the same order of magnitude as pbook sales, authors are going to start telling those publishers to pound sand. It's inevitable. If an author can sell 1/2 as many books, but get to keep 5 times as much of the take from each sale, and keep as much artistic control over the material as they want by simply not publishing on paper, why the hell wouldn't they?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Honestly, that's fine by me, but the thought that the cover makes up so much of the buyers choice these days is kinda startling. I mean, look at covers from the 1800's and early 1900's. Bland, text based covers, and yet people still bought, but only because of the merits of the book itself.

So many more books available nowadays, there is no way you have time to (physically or virtually) pick them all up and read the synopsis, maybe the first few pages. Something has to grab you to make this book worth looking at. And the first filter is genre, the second is title and cover.
Conversely a poor cover can deter you from ever picking the book up. I suppose subconciously there is the assumption that if so little effort has been put into the cover, there probably wasn't much put into the text either.

[DJHARKAVY]

Originally Posted by Adjust

Also there's nothing nicer then getting you first edition signed by the Author...

How's said author going to sign someone's Kindle...

You xerox the title page, have the author sign it, scan it and insert it into the ebook files.

[SameOldStory]

Don't you have a touch screen that they can sign?

[jes1]

You could have them sign your case or cove, if you use one.

[Steven Lake]

Per someone's recommendation around here I actually started using a flyer type system where the book cover is printed on the front, and signed on the back, whenever they've wanted a physically signed book (ie, ebook with a signed piece of paper) or a digitally signed one (ie, a graphic with my signature on it inserted into the book, and both seem to work well.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

And just imagine, they need a lot of programmers to adapt each title of each ebook to each format for each ereader device.

Or one teenager with calibre.

Thanks, SOS, for that wonderful unintentionally funny article!

[SameOldStory]

Who knew that putting out an ebook, after the paper book was published, was so labor intensive.

[Adjust]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Per someone's recommendation around here I actually started using a flyer type system where the book cover is printed on the front, and signed on the back, whenever they've wanted a physically signed book (ie, ebook with a signed piece of paper) or a digitally signed one (ie, a graphic with my signature on it inserted into the book, and both seem to work well.

I wonder how well those methods will translate over the world of collectors?

[Steven Lake]

Well, most "true" collectors I know only want signed print editions. The "fan" collectors will take nearly anything, but will often settle for things like what I mentioned for the ebooks.