Paulo Coelho to publishers: "Don't be greedy"

[fjtorres]

From Publisher's Weekly:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/h...be-greedy.html

At a standing room only session at the Frankfurt Book Fair, bestselling Brazilian author Paulo Coelho had a message for publishers: Embrace change. And, lower your e-book prices.

At the packed event, Coelho and fair director Jeurgen Boos talked about the future of the book business, with Coelho telling the audience that change could not be stopped.
"It is a lost case," Coelho said.
"Paulo, you're saying the war is lost?" Boos asked.
"I'm not saying the war is lost," Coelho replied "I'm saying we humans are still here because of our capacity of adapting ourselves. The war is not lost. It is the opposite. The war is won. Culture is now available all over the world. People can read."

Chief among Coelho's advice to the industry: embrace the lower prices digital enables. "The system believes that all pirates are not honest. They are not dishonest. They have a problem of accessing culture. I'm not here to defend piracy. But if you change the system of pricing books, that is one of the solutions."

He spoke of his own experience--lowering his e-book prices for a promotion--saying he ended up making the price differential in volume, ultimately netting more profit.

Oh, dear.
No much chance Coelho will be invited to Chez Preston or Maison Child any time soon.

More at PW

About Coelho:

As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with "My dear, your father is an engineer. He's a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?"[2]
After researching, which was common for him since he was a policy debater when he was in high school, Coelho concluded that a writer "always wears glasses and never combs his hair" and has a "duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation," amongst other things.[2]
At 16, Coelho's introversion and opposition to following a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20.[3][4] Coelho later remarked that "It wasn't that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn't know what to do... They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me."[5]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho

[rollei]

e-books cost the same, sometimes higher than printed books. e-books should be cheaper since it cost less and almost no cost, once the e-book is produced.

The music industry is fairer. A physical copy of new release music CD costs about $18 but if you buy the MP3 downloads (which is the e-book in the book's case), it costs about $10.

[crich70]

And there is no cost in postage to calculate either. When I buy a paper book I have to pay s/h costs but with ebooks there is perhaps a few cents sales tax and I can have the book in a minute or two depending on how quickly my computer can download the file. Paper can't compete there.

[bgalbrecht]

The cost of producing a hard cover book or a trade paperback is usually only a dollar or two more expensive to make than a mass market paperback. The real reason why the HC or TPB are more expensive is because you're getting them closer to the original publication date than you would a MMPB. In other words, they price the original edition to pay back the upfront costs of publishing a new book, and the secondary formats are cheaper because the upfront costs are mostly already paid for. That's why the publishers don't want ebooks to be priced comparable to a MMPB, because it steals sales away from the most lucrative edition. Unfortunately this also means that when the publishers reprintf classic novels which barely sell enough to break even in the TPB/HC format, they will price the ebook to be comparable to the expensive edition, even though the ebook may well have much higher sales at a lower price.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rollei

e-books cost the same, sometimes higher than printed books. e-books should be cheaper since it cost less and almost no cost, once the e-book is produced.

I don't know where you buy your ebooks, but my experience certainly doesn't match yours. I buy a fair number of ebooks (4 or 5 a week, typically) and rarely pay half the price of the paper book.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know where you buy your ebooks, but my experience certainly doesn't match yours. I buy a fair number of ebooks (4 or 5 a week, typically) and rarely pay half the price of the paper book.

That's my experience as well. I don't know if it's half since I haven't gone back and done an analyses, but it's almost always less than the posted price for the paper version. Situations where they price is the same stand out because they are so rare. I just double checked a couple of the most recent ebooks that I bought, both were less than half the dead tree edition.

Perhaps the original poster is confusing the "suggested list price" for the actual price being charged. The "suggested list price" is just there to make the consumer think they are getting a real bargain, it's not the price that most sellers are selling the book for. For example, Amazon says that the Digital List Price for the latest Rick Riordan book is $19.99 and they sell it for $8.99. However, B&N sells the same ebook for $11 and Kobo sells it for $12.39. (to avoid the expected - "See how much Amazon is saving us from what the publishers would have charged us if the Agency model was in place" comment, no. I tracked the prices during that time period and there was the same difference. Even with Agency, they didn't charge list price)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Perhaps the original poster is confusing the "suggested list price" for the actual price being charged. The "suggested list price" is just there to make the consumer think they are getting a real bargain, it's not the price that most sellers are selling the book for.

Physical booksellers in the UK actually do generally charge the cover price for most books. Sure, they might have special offers on the latest bestseller, or have a "three for the price of two" offer for paperbacks, or something of the sort, but if you go in and buy a book, you will, generally speaking, pay the price that's printed on the cover.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

From Publisher's Weekly:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/h...be-greedy.html




Oh, dear.
No much chance Coelho will be invited to Chez Preston or Maison Child any time soon.

More at PW

About Coelho:



http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho

Coelho, my new hero!!!! I do think publishers are listening. When the first two books of Follet's Century Triology came out they were 19.99 as an ebook. He got plenty of 1 star reviews at Amazon for cost of the book. This time around vol 3 of the triology was 11.99 out of the gate.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Perhaps the original poster is confusing the "suggested list price" for the actual price being charged. The "suggested list price" is just there to make the consumer think they are getting a real bargain, it's not the price that most sellers are selling the book for. For example, Amazon says that the Digital List Price for the latest Rick Riordan book is $19.99 and they sell it for $8.99. However, B&N sells the same ebook for $11 and Kobo sells it for $12.39. (to avoid the expected - "See how much Amazon is saving us from what the publishers would have charged us if the Agency model was in place" comment, no. I tracked the prices during that time period and there was the same difference. Even with Agency, they didn't charge list price)

Hmmm...Do you have proof of that? Because I don't believe that's true at ALL. The whole point of Agency pricing was that the sellers weren't ALLOWED to change the price. The price was set by the publisher, and that was the price that was paid by the consumer. If you have proof, I would really truly love to see it.

Shari

[jhempel24]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know where you buy your ebooks, but my experience certainly doesn't match yours. I buy a fair number of ebooks (4 or 5 a week, typically) and rarely pay half the price of the paper book.

Is that for the same book (pback vs ebook) or a different book?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Is that for the same book (pback vs ebook) or a different book?

Same book: pback vs. ebook.

Eg, my most recent purchase was "Living Proof" by John Harvey. Amazon ebook price £3.49, Amazon paperback price £6.39. ie ebook price is 54% of paperback price. That's pretty typical.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Same book: pback vs. ebook.

Eg, my most recent purchase was "Living Proof" by John Harvey. Amazon ebook price £3.49, Amazon paperback price £6.39. ie ebook price is 54% of paperback price. That's pretty typical.

I see the same. My latest book I bought was Hawk by Steven Brust. Kindle book was $11.99 and hardcover $18.62.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Physical booksellers in the UK actually do generally charge the cover price for most books. Sure, they might have special offers on the latest bestseller, or have a "three for the price of two" offer for paperbacks, or something of the sort, but if you go in and buy a book, you will, generally speaking, pay the price that's printed on the cover.

Really? Maybe things have changed over the past several years (since I've gone all ebook, I haven't been to B&N in a couple of years. I did actually by a couple of dead tree books this year, both older books that didn't have ebook versions, both via Amazon), but it use to be a pretty rare book where one payed the cover price at the B&N where I use to shop, perhaps some of the more obscure history titles. I seem to remember way back when, before B&N and Amazon it was pretty common to pay list price in the indie book stores.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by shalym

Hmmm...Do you have proof of that? Because I don't believe that's true at ALL. The whole point of Agency pricing was that the sellers weren't ALLOWED to change the price. The price was set by the publisher, and that was the price that was paid by the consumer. If you have proof, I would really truly love to see it.

Shari

Perhaps pwalker8 was merely pointing out that List Price is and has always been a myth, and doesn't really have anything to do with prices as set by either Amazon OR the publishers...

[rollei]

Originally Posted by rollei

e-books cost the same, sometimes higher than printed books. e-books should be cheaper since it cost less and almost no cost, once the e-book is produced.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know where you buy your ebooks, but my experience certainly doesn't match yours. I buy a fair number of ebooks (4 or 5 a week, typically) and rarely pay half the price of the paper book.

Depends on what books you buy. e-books bestsellers and e-books from major publishers costs the same, sometimes higher than printed books.

Examples:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143034669
Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
Paperback $11.60
Kindle $19.89

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142001619
Salt: A World History
by Mark Kurlansky
Paperback $10.17
Kindle $10.28

Here are 2 examples, one each for e-book selling for $19.89 while the paperback version is selling for $11.60 and an e-book costs the same as paperback. There is hardly any bestsellers or books from major publishers (Simon & Schuster, Random House, Harper Collins, Penguin etc.) whose e-books are cheaper than paperback books.

From a consumer standpoint, if he wants the Steve Coll e-book, he pays $19.89. If he buys the paperback, it costs him $11.60. So it costs more to buy an e-book. The e-book should at the least costs the same as the printed books.