Angry Robot Books Want Your Opinion on Ebook Pricing

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by LeeH

[SNIP lots of good stuff addressing comments from others]

A few people have brought up the issue of DRM. My opinion? It's Evil. It serves no-one.

Say Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! Another publisher has seen the light!!

Originally Posted by LeeH

Oh, and we won't be producing e-versions of original novels from scanned texts. All our eBooks will be produced from original text files - likely to be in ePub and Mobi versions, though I'd be interested to hear your views on the matter.

If you make a clean ePub, it should be no problem to produce quality LRF (e.g. Sony Reader) output from it as well.

Originally Posted by LeeH

from Xenophon: "if you do it right, the eBooks should not add much (if anything) to the marginal cost of producing a book. Yes, you still have all the fixed overhead and the per-book variable costs of editors, copy-editors, etc. -- but you had exactly the same costs without eBooks"
That's certainly true in the short term, but that would mean that you are producing an eBook as an afterthought to the production of the physical copy. For us, the eBook is an essential and integral part of the publishing model. It would be doing the format a disservice to say "you've produced the pBook, now do the electronic version". In future, as the gap between eBook and pBook numbers decreases, this will become even more evident. The eBook shares the fixed costs, it doesn't bypass them.

Actually, I'm not suggesting eBooks as an afterthought at all! Rather, if you build your workflow correctly the eBook should pop out with little-to-no human intervention. This really isn't rocket science -- we've been doing it over in the software world since the early 80s (for manuals and marketing material) using old-school tools like Scribe and TeX. All you need is to start with both clean text and semantic markup of the structure (that is, identification of sections, ToC, emphasis, footnotes, headers, captions, and the like).

I've rarely seen a work of fiction that requires more complicated layout than what we've been doing for over 25 years in the Tech world (there are certainly some exceptions, but this is broadly true). So I have a very hard time believing that a reasonable publishing work-flow can't handle automatic production of (for example) ePub, html and Mobipocket eBooks starting from clean input. Lots of folks from the fiction publishing world tell me that standard practice doesn't support this -- which just leaves me wondering why they tolerate a broken workflow in the first place! Unless you're doing really crazy things with layout it just isn't (or needn't be) rocket science to automate this stuff.

But I digress.

If your typesetting folks are seriously sweating issues like kerning, widow-and-orphan-control and other typographic stuff that really does lead to a better-looking book... that's great! More power to you (and them)! But it has no impact on the eBooks. After all, the various eBook formats and viewers don't support any of those features anyway!

Of course the eBook shares the fixed costs -- and must pay for its pro rata share of them, too! But the eBook also brings in additional sales at the margin (you really don't lose a paper sale for each eSale), so you'll be spreading those fixed costs over are larger number of sales.

Originally Posted by LeeH

and also from Xenophon: "Sales through your own site let you cut out the retailer"
Absolutely, but let's be realistic, here - the percentage of eBooks we sell from our own site (at least initially) will be far lower than those we sell through retail channels.

What percentages are you expecting? I don't expect you to tell US that, but rather want to get you thinking. Baen's doing ~20% of all sales through their web-site -- and growth there is outpacing paper sales by a lot. Do you really expect the total of all the other eBook outlets to exceed that number? If not, I strongly suggest that you consider cutting out the other layers of the market, and split the savings with your authors and customers. Disintermediation is one of the great benefits of the Internet.

Originally Posted by LeeH

I'm not going to comment on the rights issue, [...]

And I don't really expect you to, but I do want you (collectively) to think about it. I brought it up because it's relevant from several different points of view, to wit:

• Universal rights means that anyone in the world can buy the book with no issues of "you don't live in the right country, so you can't buy from us." The Internet is, after all, a global phenomenon! Message traffic here at Mobileread shows that would-be eBook buyers are baffled (and furious!) when told they can't buy an eBook because they don't live in the right place.
• Non-exclusive rights is how Baen avoids issues of competing on price with their retailers. Baen doesn't sell eBooks to Fictionwise or Amazon or Sony. Baen sells eBooks to the public! When one of their books shows up at Fictionwise (for example) it's there because the author's agent cut a separate deal with FW. Many of Baen's authors have reported that their eBook sales through Baen are several (even many) times higher than the grand total of all other electronic outlets combined. We've not yet seen the impact of the Kindle. But little tiny Baen absolutely trounced Sony's store in terms of sales of the (not many) books available in both places.
• Non-exclusive rights is an expression of Baen's confidence in their business model for electronic sales. All evidence to date suggests that it's worked stunningly well for them. I see no reason why it couldn't work stunningly well for you.

Those first two issues -- and especially the relative sales numbers! -- constitute good reason to consider running your own store

Originally Posted by LeeH

but in terms of bundling books - that's something we're certainly hoping to address once we have a bit more of a backlist.

Bundles aren't just a matter for the backlist. Baen bundles the frontlist! Their typical output is between 4 and 8 new books each month. They sell monthly bundles of all N books for $15; these bundles remain available more-or-less forever. They also do temporary bundles of single-author or single-series electronic re-issues. These latter bundles provide a temporary discount to kick off sales; the bundle discount ends a few months after release.

Originally Posted by LeeH

Selling eARCs? That's an interesting idea. We currently make eARCs available to all our reviewers before the physical ARC is available, but I can confidently state we have not considered selling this version. First impressions are, I'm not 100% comfortable with this idea - the ARC, after all, is supposed to be a review tool, and selling it means you are making available via retail an imperfect item. Interesting, though, and I'll certainly bring the idea up.

They started selling eARCs when David Weber mentioned that he'd turned in a new book, and then (several months later) folks saw an ARC sell for... $200 (?? more??? I can't remember) on eBay. They grumbled to Jim Baen, and Jim saw a profit opportunity. The eARCs are clearly labelled as raw uncut, unfiltered, not yet proofed or copy-edited, not-necessarily final on all plot points, etc. But even with all that, what they are is early. Often 3 to 6 months before publication. And some fans will pay for that. Enough that Baen and their authors are happy to continue.

Originally Posted by LeeH

and from mjh215: "Treat your customers with respect".
Well, for us this is a given, and the main reason we started asking these questions in the first place.
[SNIP the rest of the message]

Once again, welcome to MobileRead! And good for you (and Angry Robot Books) for soliciting opinions and advice from your customers.

Xenophon

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

One problem with your analysis, Elfwreck, is you're missing the assumption -- not a necessarily true assumption, mind you, but one which must be made for business reasons -- that every ebook sale is one less pbook sale. So you can't just ignore the pbook overhead. If ebook sales were purely additive, then you could. There's no doubt that ebook does stimulate demand and that ebooks are bought by people who would never buy the pbook. But nevertheless, you can't just assume the cost of overhead doesn't exist; Angry Robot doesn't want ebooks to be an afterthought. *If* you were going to treat them as such, then it would mean higher pbook prices to cover the falling demand (since people start buying the cheaper ebooks rather than the pbooks), or fewer ebook titles (only those ebooks that had large enough pbook sales would be offered, since ebooks wouldn't be covering their share of overhead).

True and Elfwreck also assumed that the pbooks should pay all the preproduction, advertising, and other costs associated with a new book. The eBooks should get a free ride. This also adds overhead to the pbooks with the reduced demand. eBooks must carry their fair share or the system doesn't work and the publisher goes under. You just can't say that copying an ebook has totally no overhead but I will be nice and pay you $1 for it.

Dale

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

The eARCs are clearly labelled as raw uncut, unfiltered, not yet proofed or copy-edited, not-necessarily final on all plot points, etc. But even with all that, what they are is early. Often 3 to 6 months before publication. And some fans will pay for that. Enough that Baen and their authors are happy to continue.

Quote so. I've bought one or two eARCs in the past. And Baen/Webscriptions are refreshingly honest in their advertising:

SPECIAL OFFER from Baen WebScriptions

$15. NO WAITING!

You can do better ($6.00) by waiting, but if you are a true Ringo addict we want to take advantage of you.

(emphasis added)

[Gaurnim]

I just wanted to chime in and add my voice to the others in saying that what we read here from you, LeeH, seems very promising for my future business with Angry Robot Books.

And as it is promising, I'd be rather disappointed if territorial rights issues would prevent me from buying.

And Baen/Webscriptions are refreshingly honest in their advertising:

Oh yeah, that is also one thing that I think is widely appreciated about Baen : their communication is good and honest.
They don't hide the fact that they are here to make money and that their current model works, it's not because they're doing a kindness to us that they are pricing so aggressively, it's because it works.

[columbus]

LeeH:
I guess I am just repeating the comments of our more knowledgeable and experienced members here, but how refreshing, not only to find a publisher who seeks comments from their customers, but is prepared to listen to and interact with those comments.
I think continuing with this attitude you will quickly win a loyal customer base.
I did answer your questionnaire but may I add the following;

Absolutely NO DRM, - files to be portable between current & future e-readers
Supplied in multiple formats for the same reason, as the technology evolves.
Reasonable prices, reflecting the ease and low cost of distribution. See the efforts by Baen and Freemantle press.
NO geographic limitations on downloads.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Here is the real ending of Harry Potter:
http://bidalaka.com/picofarad/pf9/last.html

You are a sick, sick person. I may never get that tune out of my head now.

Also, it's not the real ending; I know 'cos Harry doesn't wind up married to Draco or Snape.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

You are a sick, sick person. I may never get that tune out of my head now.

Also, it's not the real ending; I know 'cos Harry doesn't wind up married to Draco or Snape.

Don't blame me; I didn't write it. Chris French is the one person I know who might have a more twisted mind than me.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

One problem with your analysis, Elfwreck, is you're missing the assumption -- not a necessarily true assumption, mind you, but one which must be made for business reasons -- that every ebook sale is one less pbook sale. So you can't just ignore the pbook overhead. If ebook sales were purely additive, then you could. There's no doubt that ebook does stimulate demand and that ebooks are bought by people who would never buy the pbook. But nevertheless, you can't just assume the cost of overhead doesn't exist; Angry Robot doesn't want ebooks to be an afterthought.

You lost me. (I don't actually speak "business;" I speak algebra, which almost substitutes for an awareness of business accounting. At least, I can thoroughly confuse the sales reps I work with by throwing numbers at them.)

What pbook overhead? (Not being sarcastic. Confused.) Is it something that only exists on the pbook side? Or something that has equivalent ebook costs?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Don't blame me; I didn't write it. Chris French is the one person I know who might have a more twisted mind than me.

For a minute I thought Harry had duplicated the "It's a Small World" ride. That would truly drive any man insane.

BOb

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

What pbook overhead? (Not being sarcastic. Confused.) Is it something that only exists on the pbook side? Or something that has equivalent ebook costs?

The same costs you were talking about. The costs that are the same whether you're making a pbook or an ebook. You were assuming that since one was making a pbook and an ebook, pbooks would absord the entire overhead and ebooks would have little additional. My point was you have to spread the overhead cost over both pbooks and ebooks; if you try to make pbooks cover the whole cost you run into other problems.

[Moejoe]

If Lee H is still around:

I've just been on your site looking at the offerings (very interested in Slights by Kaaron Warren) but I noticed a severe disparity in pricing on the pbook editions:

UK/Australia
1 July 2009 [UK], 1 Sept 2009 [Oz]
480pp mass-market paperback
£7.99 UK


US/Canada
1 Sept 2009
480ppmass-market paperback
$7.99 US


We're not going to see this same kind of geographical inequality in the pricing of the ebooks are we?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

The same costs you were talking about. The costs that are the same whether you're making a pbook or an ebook. You were assuming that since one was making a pbook and an ebook, pbooks would absord the entire overhead and ebooks would have little additional. My point was you have to spread the overhead cost over both pbooks and ebooks; if you try to make pbooks cover the whole cost you run into other problems.

No, I was assuming costs are the same for both--except that
1) Ebooks don't have a print cost, and probably no distribution/storage cost, or if they do, it's so tiny as to be ignorable,
2) If both a pbook & ebook are being produced, cost of editing, cover art, author advance, and potentially a few other aspects, should be considered split between them, not duplicated for both.

Cost for formatting-for-final-production is mostly duplicated; format to print is different from format to ebook. Cost of advertising may or may not be duplicated.

Unless there's a claim that ebook formatting is more expensive than pbook formatting (needing to make bookmarks and such), there's no way that ebooks can be expected to have the same cost to create as pbooks. There are a few production costs that just don't exist for ebooks, and the only one that exists for ebooks and not pbooks is DRM.

To which, the easy solution is "stop paying good money to make your products less useful to the customers!"

[ficbot]

I did a lengthy analysis of this issue for the Teleread and my conclusion was that for an ebook to be competitively priced for me, it needs to retail for 30% less than the cost of the print book. You've got to look at other sources the reader has to get the book. If I can get it easily for $6.99 in mass market or clearance hardback or at a second-hand store, why would I pay more than that for an ebook which I can't resell and can maybe only read on one of my multiple devices? You've also got to compete with Amazon sale prices, Fictionwise sale prices etc. The reader does not want to pay more if they know they can get it for less, and I understand that. I recently saw a book which retailed new for $11.99 in trade paperback, was available at a remainder wholesaler used book store near me for half that, and was for sale at Fictionwise for $21.99---almost FOUR TIMES THE COST of the cheapest paper version I could easily buy. What kind of crack do we think we are on to put up with that? I am all for fair compensation for the authors, but seriously, that is just insane. And the author's reply when I wrote him was 'wow, that *is* pretty shocking, unfortunately I have no say in these things.' NOT good enough for this reader (and buyer!) That author lost a customer over this. Somebody has to step up and bring some sensibility back into this!

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Unless there's a claim that ebook formatting is more expensive than pbook formatting (needing to make bookmarks and such), there's no way that ebooks can be expected to have the same cost to create as pbooks. There are a few production costs that just don't exist for ebooks, and the only one that exists for ebooks and not pbooks is DRM.

Well we all seem to be saying the same thing; in the post you previously objected to from LeeH, it was stipulated that *aside* from warehousing and printing, ebooks cost the same. Your response seemed to dispute that, but later in your math you did say "if", which I missed the first time, and now you're clearly saying you agree that the costs are shared between ebooks and pbooks, so there's really no disagreement here.

Ebooks do not cost as much as pbooks to produce, but they still cost a substantial amount, not $0. Ebook prices have to cover that cost in their pricing.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Well we all seem to be saying the same thing; in the post you previously objected to from LeeH, it was stipulated that *aside* from warehousing and printing, ebooks cost the same. Your response seemed to dispute that, but later in your math you did say "if", which I missed the first time, and now you're clearly saying you agree that the costs are shared between ebooks and pbooks, so there's really no disagreement here.

Ebooks do not cost as much as pbooks to produce, but they still cost a substantial amount, not $0. Ebook prices have to cover that cost in their pricing.

Certainly eBooks do have production costs. Typically these days there is a need to support multiple formats which means multiple tools and often they require difference in the source material which require maintaining multiple sources with source control tools to manage it. There are IT costs to maintain the computers and upgrade the software as features are added or changed. This may require rebuilding the books. There is manpower required to do the production and QA the results. There is even costs associated with saving all the files and maintaining the computers. It is certainly not zero. If DRM is present there are even more production costs. There are also support costs for dealers.

Dale