Cheaper e-books will kill us, says publisher

[tdavie]

This is not necessarily going to be popular, but it is my honest opinion, and it is one that I stand by.

1) Unless there is no DRM, I will NOT buy an ebook. A physical book doesn't have DRM
2) Unless the prices come down, or are reasonable, I will not buy an ebook.
3) Unless the book/magazine/newspaper I want to buy is in an open format I will NOT buy it.

I've owned my PRS-505 for 4 months, love it and yet haven't bought anything from the Sony bookstore, nor will I. We are seeing now, with digital books, whatr has already happened to music and video. You see how successful iTunes store is? Guess what they did to DRM?

Ah well, I don't expect the publishers to listen.

Tom

[ProDigit]

Same goes here!
I enjoy my PRS reader to read pdf files, and help out the Mobileread community with now and then uploading a book I like to read!
I make my own books, have more of them (which are in copyright) home for personal use.

That's probably one of the best reasons why I bought the PRS-505. If I could not read my books on it (Eg: if it was limited to read DRMed LRX files) I'd never even buy it!

[astra]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

If I could not read my books on it (Eg: if it was limited to read DRMed LRX files) I'd never even buy it!

Ditto.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Same goes here!
That's probably one of the best reasons why I bought the PRS-505. If I could not read my books on it (Eg: if it was limited to read DRMed LRX files) I'd never even buy it!

I am not sure that anyone would buy it. See the failure of the original Librie

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by jridley

Is this work that does not have to be done for normal print? Is it work that has to be done separately for each ebook format?

Unfortunately, any conversion from one format to another needs proofing done to it, although not necessarily at the same level for each step. Content proofing should be done and completed before format-conversion, always. Format or layout proofing can be a lot less strenuous than content proofing, but some formats can even alter content as well as layout (depending on the conversion method, the original format and the software used).

[Penforhire]

The funny thing about proofing is how many printed novels I read with one or more errors that are locked in for the entire print run. An e-book file can be updated so much easier. It doesn't HAVE to be as well proofed to start with. Heck, crowdsource it!

I can understand a publisher wanting us to believe e-books cost just as much to prepare and distribute as p-books. But I can't see many of us swallowing that one, knowing the price of paper versus bits. The best argument I read in the thread was how the task of converting galley-ready p-book files for e-book use just hasn't been properly abstracted yet. That's a one-time task akin to a complier change.

The paper model is sinking and the CEO's without enough vision are going to be just as rudely shocked as they were in the music business.

[jridley]

Originally Posted by tdavie

1) Unless there is no DRM, I will NOT buy an ebook. A physical book doesn't have DRM
2) Unless the prices come down, or are reasonable, I will not buy an ebook.
3) Unless the book/magazine/newspaper I want to buy is in an open format I will NOT buy it.

I've owned my PRS-505 for 4 months, love it and yet haven't bought anything from the Sony bookstore, nor will I.

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 even download the free ebooks that the Sony store would have given me for free, because it has DRM on it. Besides, it's all PD stuff, and honestly, I looked at a few that a friend DL'd from Sony for his reader, and the free versions here that forum members have edited are actually FAR BETTER than the versions that Sony has supposedly professionally edited and is charging money for (sans the free intro giveaway).

Just yesterday I wanted a current book, it's < $20 in hardcover, but $30.00 in DRM'd eBook. I would have paid $10 for sure, perhaps even $15 for a DRM-free ebook, but instead I went and got a pbook copy from the library. Congratulations, publishers.

[gmvasco]

"Cheaper e-books will kill us, says publisher"
I don't know if that is necessarily true. I for one feel that the greater peril lies in the more expensive e-books, the ones with lasers attached to their chainsaw-wielding-kevlar-coated bodies.

On another tone (or note, I like acronyms), if he thinks cheaper e-books will destroy the industry, we enter the CD vs MP3 discussion all over again. As far as I'm concerned, the so-called "industry" is nothing but a necessary evil to get authors (musicians, writers) in contact with their audiences. If one is capitalistic about it, the elimination of middle-men whenever possible is always a desirable goal. Or if one takes a more communist stance, culture is something to be spread around for free.

Shakira and Co are still filthy rich, despite illegal mp3 downloading. If NOBODY bought any songs they would still be rich, albeit not so filthy. They would just have to be able to sing in live concerts (unlike our dear miss Spears).
Granted, writers don't have concerts to monetize from, so I am not in favor of paying them nothing. But that doesn't mean that I still want to support lumber mills, paper factories, printers, brick and mortar houses with their staff, and most of all, editing companies.
Major writers do have some benefits (tenure, movie deals, symposiums all over the globe, etc), so if we pay a more moderate fee for our books the whole system is not going to crash on account of lack of writers initiative. The other problems (editing, reviewing, publicizing, distribution) at least as far as e-books are concerned, the internets solve them. The internets + cheaper e-books = more books for the buck.

But then again, if e-books become cheap, who will pay for the lasers? What good is accessible culture in comparison to novel-fights? I for one would pay to see the Iliad (the one from Homer, not the Dutch one) have at it with The Lord of the Rings. Achilles with his kevlar-covered heel fighting packs of Wargs with head-mounted lasers. Now that is worth paying for!

[Alisa]

I think the services side of publishing can actually provide value. Not all authors are good editors of their own work. A good editor can really polish a book. They can't necessarily fix a bad one but they can make a really good one something great.

Publishing houses also serve as a filtering mechanism. There's a lot of bad writing out there. Sure, some good writing gets overlooked by the publishers and some bad stuff makes it through, but they also keep a lot of really horrible writing from clogging up the bookshelves. When they have a book they think will sell, they invest some time and money into publicizing it with the idea that they make it back through selling the book. If everybody self published and had to handle their own publicity, we'd have a handful of great books that would hopefully be able to generate enough buzz for us to hear about and a whole lot of crap and spam on any community that enjoyed reading. Filtering through bad music is a lot faster than filtering through bad books. You could have something like reddit for books, but that would take a lot of time and effort on the part of the participants.

Still, I see the publishing houses giving way to smaller professional services companies and the authors having more control and compensation if we can find a way for them to get compensated. I'd like to think that folks would voluntarily pay the authors directly if they liked a book. I know I would. I don't know if that's a common sentiment, though.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

The funny thing about proofing is how many printed novels I read with one or more errors that are locked in for the entire print run.

Printed novels have errors because the humans who proof them are fallible. Usually at least two people read and correct galley proofs, but mistakes still get by. And sometimes mistakes are introduced in the process of making corrections. The first page of chapter one of Sunborn has a typo that was introduced when the final corrections went in!

As Steve said, every conversion requires a new proofing job. It is astounding how many glitches creep into these processes. And different ebook formats sometimes reveal glitches that were previously invisible.

Originally Posted by Penforhire

An e-book file can be updated so much easier. It doesn't HAVE to be as well proofed to start with. Heck, crowdsource it!

True in theory. But not in real life. Oh sure, if I correct something in one of my free downloads, I can just repost the corrected file. (After redoing all the format conversions, if I've fixed something in the source file.) But in the commercial world, it is vastly more difficult. New versions have to be sent out through distribution channels that are far more convoluted than you would think, and it's slow and even costly.

Here's an example:

Look at my novel Down the Stream of Stars on fictionwise.

Now look at Down the Stream of Stars on Amazon.

One has a nice cover image, one has a ghastly cover. It was a production error made something like five years ago, and I have been trying to get it corrected ever since. The production guy at ereads has been trying to get it corrected for me. Turns out the only way they can get it fixed is to issue the book with a new ISBN, paying associated fees, and put it out through the distribution system as a new title!

That's to correct an error in cover image.

So don't make assumptions about how easy it is to correct errors in ebooks just because they're electronic. Because it ain't.

It should be, you'd think. But it just isn't.

[jridley]

Originally Posted by starrigger

New versions have to be sent out through distribution channels that are far more convoluted than you would think, and it's slow and even costly.

(etc, etc)

I don't doubt that everything that you say is true.

However, it's true because the publishers have built ridiculous labyrinthine structures of management. Any that don't adjust will eventually be replaced by more progressive and agile distributors. This has happened many times and the publishing industry is just setting itself up for it. They need to find ways to eliminate all those extra steps. It will be difficult, because I don't doubt that many of those steps are the only reason for some management to even be employed there, and they're going to fight it. And people don't like change, especially change that threatens what they know. But eventually they're going to have to move or get plowed under.

I noticed in the original article from this thread that the publisher was talking about how to move ebooks through "distribution" and how expensive it was to set up electronic distribution. I'm sure that's true too, but again, it's true because they're trying to do the new stuff in the old ways. I've been involved with several cases where goods have been moved from physical distribution to online, electronic copies being distributed, and if the company is willing to make a clean break and sidestep now-unnecessary layers of management and employees, electronic distribution has always cost a tiny fraction of what physical distribution did. The entire infrastructure for distribution usually costs less than a year's salary for a couple of now-unnecessary people. Yes, people will lose their jobs. Others will be hired, though not as many, because YES, it's cheaper. Cheaper means less people get paid.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by starrigger

So don't make assumptions about how easy it is to correct errors in ebooks just because they're electronic. Because it ain't.

It should be, you'd think. But it just isn't.

I think that's the point many folks are trying to make: It should be. There's a process problem and addressing it would make things quicker and cheaper in the long run. For that CEO to say that cheaper ebooks are impossible means he's assuming they're doing things right.

[gmvasco]

Alisa, I did not mention editors, but editing companies. However, as I think about it, I should have said publishing houses. In my native language we say "editoras" so I got my false friends mixed up.

Anyhoo, editors are good. So are sound technicians. Publicists and other marketing devices such as brick and mortar sales points or catalogs are not. I understand that there is a lot of crap out there. But I don't agree that we need filtering. I can buy crappy paper books if that is what I like. Some of them are best-sellers (ask Oprah). So why shouldn't I be able to download my neighbor's crappy space-opera?
The internet is here to stay for the good and the bad. So what if most of the posts in forums are crappy (does not apply to MR, of course)? So what if facebook pages suck and those flickr accounts are full of pictures taken on "auto"?
I still get more value now than I did before.
I went to see 2 photo exhibits before the whole flickr thing happened. Didn't like one of them. Other than that, I just saw (when I couldn't avoid) pictures of flashed babies and summer vacations.
Now, I have the opportunity to see the best photographers in the world and I visit those sites regularly. Some of them have been on galleries for decades, some were born as artists on the internet. I still get filtering. There are photography forums I visit to know this. There are tagging and voting tools. Not before. Before, I had to see what someone deemed "good photography".
Right now, I read what someone deems "good literature". But I'm starting to see some new authors (specially on the short-story market) appearing in the internet. And I like some of them. I will vote for them. They will rise above the crap. And we know some of them would not before the internet. The internet is more. More good stuff, more crap, more choice, more responsibility, and more convenient/available.

So, I don't like the whole idea of the publishing industry although it did served us well in the past century. Nowadays, with the internet, a book should stand on its own merit (with writer, editors and revisers duly credited), and not because it is endorsed by a big corporation. That is the filtering we still have at the moment. Publishing houses are businesses and they have an obligation to their share holders. To make as much money as possible. What they most definitely are not is benevolent unbiased overseers of our cultural interests. That's why they publish both the good stuff and the crap, and they advertise both, in the way they believe will bring them the most money.

Sorry about the lengthy rant.

[starrigger]

It's not management at the publisher that's the problem in the example I cited. This was an example of a small, agile company trying to deal with the distribution network. A publisher can't make that go away. We're talking Amazon, which is supposed to be on the leading edge. And I think Ingram (Lightning Source) may be involved in there, too.

I agree it's a process problem, and it should change. But it's a process that spans many different companies and types of company, and that's one reason it's so hard to change.

I also agree that this does not excuse high prices. I'm all for lower prices, and I've told the people at ereads that anytime they want to experiment with lower prices, I'm ready to be a guinea pig.

[Alisa]

Having books that you pay for doesn't mean that the free ones (good or crappy) go away. People do still choose to self publish and to give away books for free. My point about the editors and publicists is that there is some value that publishing houses currently add to the book world and it's not free. It should be far less expensive than the whole paper process in a strictly epublishing world but there is still value there. If I want to pay to have a vetted, edited, and organized collection to browse, then why not? I'm not saying you have to. I just think it's a viable market.

Originally Posted by gmvasco

Alisa, I did not mention editors, but editing companies. However, as I think about it, I should have said publishing houses. In my native language we say "editoras" so I got my false friends mixed up.

Anyhoo, editors are good. So are sound technicians. Publicists and other marketing devices such as brick and mortar sales points or catalogs are not. I understand that there is a lot of crap out there. But I don't agree that we need filtering. I can buy crappy paper books if that is what I like. Some of them are best-sellers (ask Oprah). So why shouldn't I be able to download my neighbor's crappy space-opera?
The internet is here to stay for the good and the bad. So what if most of the posts in forums are crappy (does not apply to MR, of course)? So what if facebook pages suck and those flickr accounts are full of pictures taken on "auto"?
I still get more value now than I did before.
I went to see 2 photo exhibits before the whole flickr thing happened. Didn't like one of them. Other than that, I just saw (when I couldn't avoid) pictures of flashed babies and summer vacations.
Now, I have the opportunity to see the best photographers in the world and I visit those sites regularly. Some of them have been on galleries for decades, some were born as artists on the internet. I still get filtering. There are photography forums I visit to know this. There are tagging and voting tools. Not before. Before, I had to see what someone deemed "good photography".
Right now, I read what someone deems "good literature". But I'm starting to see some new authors (specially on the short-story market) appearing in the internet. And I like some of them. I will vote for them. They will rise above the crap. And we know some of them would not before the internet. The internet is more. More good stuff, more crap, more choice, more responsibility, and more convenient/available.

So, I don't like the whole idea of the publishing industry although it did served us well in the past century. Nowadays, with the internet, a book should stand on its own merit (with writer, editors and revisers duly credited), and not because it is endorsed by a big corporation. That is the filtering we still have at the moment. Publishing houses are businesses and they have an obligation to their share holders. To make as much money as possible. What they most definitely are not is benevolent unbiased overseers of our cultural interests. That's why they publish both the good stuff and the crap, and they advertise both, in the way they believe will bring them the most money.

Sorry about the lengthy rant.