Paper books to come with free e-copies?

[Halk]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

IMHO, it seems to me that expecting all books to be available in all formats is asking a lot from publishers. It would be an inventory nightmare! Such a system would practically require book orders to be processed individually to meet the desires of purchasers, which would be labor-intensive and cause the price of books in any format to skyrocket.

Not that I wouldn't personally love to have any book I desired in any format I wished for... ;-)

DixieGal

There's not that many formats though...

They have to have their own internal format. That's the basic one that they'll send to the printers etc.

From that to an eBook I would imagine is, well, 5 minutes work.

And after that there's paperback or hardback. If they don't want a hardback they don't have to have one. Not all books come out on hardback, and there's no real reason to change that.

And then there's audio books, again not all books come out in audio format. Generally audio formats trail paper formats, although there are exceptions for very popular books.

I'm not suggesting that publishers make more formats available, I'm suggesting they charge us for the content, and then charge us a second time for the costs (and only the costs) of our particular form of delivery.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

IMHO, it seems to me that expecting all books to be available in all formats is asking a lot from publishers. It would be an inventory nightmare! Such a system would practically require book orders to be processed individually to meet the desires of purchasers, which would be labor-intensive and cause the price of books in any format to skyrocket.

Not that I wouldn't personally love to have any book I desired in any format I wished for... ;-)

DixieGal

i don't know enough about the industry to really address that, but isn't that basically what Print on Demand does ? the way i see this model working is that probably at the very beginning they would print a certain number of books (but less than they do now, if they are really pulping 40% ), which can be sold through traditional bookstores. however at the same time, the ebook is available (content only) for an appropriately lower price. perhaps they will want to maintain the system of "expensive hardcover first, cheap paperback later" (i can't see them giving that up) in which case i assume the ebook would also have to be somewhat more expensive when first released.

after the stock has been depleted, depending on the demand, they could either print another (small) run, or publish the paperback on the same principle, or switch exclusively to a POD system which would be more or less like being able to create your own custom format (i don't know how POD works now, and if you can order hardcover / softcover, but if you can't i think it must be possible to put that in place).

what would be nice would be to make the paperback available from the beginning as well, even if only through POD, however as much as that would please some people (probably a lot, actually), i doubt publishers would accept that.

[Halk]

If they're going to charge 20 for a hardback, then charge 19 for a paperback. And then 12 months later when they would normally launch the paperback cut the prices back.

But we're getting into probably too much detail and well away from the original topic now

[pilotbob]

I think initial releases of some books being hard cover only is to justify selling them for $20-$25 rather than the $8-$12 a new paper back cost. I very much doubt it cost twice as much to product a hard cover.

I certainly think the price of a book should be, similar to digital movies, based on how long it has been released. "Back catalog" as they call it generally sells for less than new releases. The major advantage with "Back Catalog" of ebooks is that there really is nothing to stock. I think the "no stock cost" and "low shipping cost" and "low duplication cost" of ebooks are really lost on publishers. At lot of people would still pay $8-$10 for an ebook which is much more profitable to a publisher than selling an $8 paper back book due to the above mentioned eliminated costs.

Another advantage of the ebook wave to the publisher is that they can sell the books direct, via the web and cut out the middleman. I am pretty sure B&N and Borders take a cut of all the prices. The "retail" price is not the "price" the publisher gets from the book. Actually, all the middlemen go away, the printer, the warehouse, the distributor, the shipper, etc. Also, stock management becomes simple... a server farm and a nice SAN. Of course, copies are made on demand (POD?) as they are purchased.

BOb

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I think initial releases of some books being hard cover only is to justify selling them for $20-$25 rather than the $8-$12 a new paper back cost. I very much doubt it cost twice as much to product a hard cover.

I certainly think the price of a book should be, similar to digital movies, based on how long it has been released. "Back catalog" as they call it generally sells for less than new releases. The major advantage with "Back Catalog" of ebooks is that there really is nothing to stock. I think the "no stock cost" and "low shipping cost" and "low duplication cost" of ebooks are really lost on publishers. At lot of people would still pay $8-$10 for an ebook which is much more profitable to a publisher than selling an $8 paper back book due to the above mentioned eliminated costs.

Another advantage of the ebook wave to the publisher is that they can sell the books direct, via the web and cut out the middleman. I am pretty sure B&N and Borders take a cut of all the prices. The "retail" price is not the "price" the publisher gets from the book. Actually, all the middlemen go away, the printer, the warehouse, the distributor, the shipper, etc. Also, stock management becomes simple... a server farm and a nice SAN. Of course, copies are made on demand (POD?) as they are purchased.

BOb

i know, it all seems so obvious, doesn't it ?

[edembowski]

Originally Posted by Halk

...They have to have their own internal format.
...
I'm not suggesting that publishers make more formats available, I'm suggesting they charge us for the content, and then charge us a second time for the costs (and only the costs) of our particular form of delivery.

I agree completely. I'm going through digitizing a few books that I read when I was younger, and are currently out of print. If publishers follow your model, they can sell the physical copies, and then add a surcharge for a 'format shift' of the content. Doing it yourself is lots of work.

By the way, the books I'm converting are the 'Skaith' books by Leigh Brackett. There's a character in there with the same name as your screen name. Coincidence?

- Ed

[nekokami]

I'd be surprised to see audio books included in the hardcover, as there are extra expenses involved in producing them (voice talent, sound engineering, etc.) but the rest sounds great. I'm a big believer in paying for the content license, rather than having that inseparably bundled with the format. This reminds me of how software sales have gone lately, where you can download for one price or pay extra for a CDROM and/or box and/or printed documentation. As displays get better and more portable, I think we're going to start to see a lot of this for books.

Regarding hardcover vs. paperback production costs, don't forget the binding. Stitching signatures of pages together is more expensive than gluing a stack of pages into the spine, and lasts longer, too. But not everyone wants to pay for it, which is why we have paperbacks in the first place.

[Halk]

Originally Posted by edembowski

I agree completely. I'm going through digitizing a few books that I read when I was younger, and are currently out of print. If publishers follow your model, they can sell the physical copies, and then add a surcharge for a 'format shift' of the content. Doing it yourself is lots of work.

By the way, the books I'm converting are the 'Skaith' books by Leigh Brackett. There's a character in there with the same name as your screen name. Coincidence?

- Ed

It's sort of not. I've not read those books (are they worthwhile?). I took the name from a very old computer game I spent a lot of time playing around 20 years ago. I suspect the Skaith novels are where the name may have been nicked from.

[BooksForABuck]

When I do signings, I like to put a CD-ROM version of the book inside. As Neil points out in the quote at the top, it's one way to grow the eBook market and attract people who otherwise might not ever try eBooks.

Unfortunately, my experiments with author-signed eBooks have not (yet) been completely successful. Still, I'm always looking to improve this.

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by edembowski

I agree completely. I'm going through digitizing a few books that I read when I was younger, and are currently out of print. If publishers follow your model, they can sell the physical copies, and then add a surcharge for a 'format shift' of the content. Doing it yourself is lots of work.

By the way, the books I'm converting are the 'Skaith' books by Leigh Brackett. There's a character in there with the same name as your screen name. Coincidence?

- Ed

Why convert the Skaith books... just buy them from Baen's Webscriptions service here, already converted and formatted for you. Twenty bucks for the entire package.

Xenophon

[TheLongshot]

Another problem with hardbacks is that they are hard to get rid of. There are a lot of used bookstores that don't like taking hardbacks and some that don't accept them at all.

I tend to get hardbacks if I really like the books or if I plan on getting it signed by the author. Course, now I'm big on getting a lot of the books off the shelves because I'm out of room.

Jason

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by TheLongshot

Another problem with hardbacks is that they are hard to get rid of. There are a lot of used bookstores that don't like taking hardbacks and some that don't accept them at all.

I tend to get hardbacks if I really like the books or if I plan on getting it signed by the author. Course, now I'm big on getting a lot of the books off the shelves because I'm out of room.

Jason

i don't even try to sell my books anymore ; i find that no-one will pay very much for them, and the time it takes me to cart the heavy bag all the way to the shop is worth more to me than the few euros i might get. instead i just give them away, either to the library (for their collection, or to add to the free "book exchange" they hold every few months), or to a café which has an informal lending library. or to friends, obviously, if they want them. this is another reason why i am hoping to buy mainly ebooks from now on.

however, it is true that most of the books i would want to get rid of (and could therefore sell) are paperbacks which were not very expensive to begin with ; like you, i only buy a hardcover on very rare occasions.

i did not know that used bookstores don't like to buy hardcovers. i would have thought they would be *more* interested in them, on the contrary.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Why convert the Skaith books... just buy them from Baen's Webscriptions service here, already converted and formatted for you. Twenty bucks for the entire package.

Xenophon

THANKS...I missed the set on Webscriptions...not now...just nabbed them! I love Baen!!

[m-reader]

I think they are onto something here. How good would this be: You go to a bookstore (e.g. Dymocks down here), browse books, find the one you want, go to the register and say "I'd like this in e-book format please". They print out a little docket with your code which you then pay for and use to download your book ...
And you save a couple of trees over in Indonesia at the same! Instant karma points

[moz]

Originally Posted by m-reader

How good would this be: You go to a bookstore (e.g. Dymocks down here), browse books, find the one you want, go to the register and say "I'd like this in e-book format please".

Dymocks main shop in Sydney does a similar thing in places, but it's a bit labour intensive - the SF staff mark books that are available as ebooks. I whined about it and the ebook selling dude said they were trying to get manglement approval on the basis that it would help sell more iLiad's (which Dymocks also sell). Unfortunately I think manglement are following the number of "but ebooks are too expensive if I buy them from you" comments rather than just the $900 retail price of the iLiad.

Dymocks is a shocking seller of ebooks, they don't seem to realise that their competition is "anything on the internet" not "the pbookshop across the road". All my purchases so far have been from US bookshops.