By now, it’s unlikely you haven’t heard of the dispute between Amazon and Macmillan. That dispute and its resolution is important, but a larger issue has come to light: namely the sense of entitlement some readers have with regard to getting e-books dirt-cheap. Part and parcel of this attitude is a basic misunderstanding of the breakdown of costs associated with publishing a book.
For example, one of the biggest faux bits of logic I’ve been seeing is that “If the mass market paperback is $7.99, why can’t I get the e-book version from the get-go at that price?” Well, the fact is $7.99 for mass market paperbacks only works if you’re printing tons of books. It’s also important to note that many authors never get their books published in mass market format because the publishers rightly have estimated that based on hardcover and trade paperback sales, that particular book won’t sell enough copies in mass market. So they don’t reach the $7.99-a-book threshold, which includes the print-a-crapload-of-copies threshold.
Other examples show a basic misunderstanding of distribution, or of the fact that the actual physical printing of a book is a fraction of the cost of producing a book.
But what I find most inexplicable is the level of venom directed by some readers at publishers, and by extension writers, like some kind of scam is being perpetrated upon them. It’s especially ironic given that the book industry is usually dealing in unit sales of an individual book of under 20,000 copies, whereas other forms of entertainment like movies and music are dealing in unit sales of over 100,000 copies. In other words, there’s not much room for price discounts.
What’s led to this sense of entitlement? Here are some possible factors, beyond the basic fact of there being lots of free content on the internet.
—The proliferation of free book downloads offered by publishers and writers.
—The constant attacks on copyright, and thus the overall idea of “ownership”, on highprofile blogging platforms and websites.
—General attacks on software limiting a user’s ability to copy an e-book, especially attacks that don’t do so in the context of respect for the creator’s wishes or need to make money from their work.
—Deep discount pricing of e-books by entities like Amazon to encourage the sale of e-books.
—Google’s book scanning project, which, under the guise of “fair use”, has made significant portions of hundreds of thousands of books available online with no regard for the rights of the writers of those books.
Have these factors led to this sense of entitlement? I don’t know, but it’s worth thinking about. It’s also worth noting that we often cause problems for ourselves as authors by thoughtlessly adopting whatever hot new media idea pops up on the internet. In some cases, I think we begin to contribute to our own disenfranchisement in doing so.
If this sense of reader entitlement proves to be pervasive or becomes the norm, then writers will be in a tough position, and the only way to make money on e-books will be to retain the rights yourself and self-publish–meaning you will also have to become your own editor, your own typesetter, your own distributor, etc.
Although you can self-publish more easily today than in the past, it’s not going to help you that much unless you are a celebrity like Wil Wheaton, someone with an existing high-profile platform like John Scalzi or Cory Doctorow, someone who is already a bestselling author, or unless you are prepared to basically become your own publishing house (involving a series of skillsets that most people don’t have).
In such a scenario, if e-books do eventually dominate the marketplace and physical books have only a fraction of their current market share, it’s entirely possible that unless this situation resolves itself into a compromise whereby readers actually show respect for the creators of the stories they love that we will see one of the largest mass extinctions of published writers in the history of literature. They’ll still be writing–but they’ll be largely invisible, and also unable to even dream of writing full-time.
My feeling is that it won’t get that bad, but we as writers have to do our best to make sure it doesn’t–by educating readers and doing our part as writers to make sure that our actions don’t contribute to the problem.
(For the best series of posts on the subject, including the Amazon-Macmillan fracas, visit Jay Lake’s livejournal.)
"For example, one of the biggest faux bits of logic I’ve been seeing is that “If the mass market paperback is $7.99, why can’t I get the e-book version from the get-go at that price?” Well, the fact is $7.99 for mass market paperbacks only works if you’re printing tons of books. It’s also important to note that many authors never get their books published in mass market format because the publishers rightly have estimated that based on hardcover and trade paperback sales, that particular book won’t sell enough copies in mass market. So they don’t reach the $7.99-a-book threshold, which includes the print-a-crapload-of-copies threshold."
By "only works if" you mean that the act of printing tons of books acts as a cost-cutting measure, i.e., printing so much, in so much bulk, allows printers to do so with less expense, so they charge the publisher less, but it's got to reach that threshold?
Because I think there's an error in logic there. First, publishers don't estimate that sort of thing; they make predictions based on profit & loss (P&L) sheets, and yes, you're right–if a hardcover hasn't sold a certain number of books at a higher price point, most assume that it will not sell more books if listed at a lower price point. Which may or may not be a valid assumption, but either way includes a cost for printing.
I think what you're neglecting, though, is the fact that there is no cost to an e-book, or at least, for a publisher, no cost beyond what is already necessary for a hardcover. There is no cost of printing/manufacture. There may be a cost for man-hours for coding, but compared to the cost of printing actual books, it's negligible.
An error in wording between "estimate" and "predict" perhaps. I don't see how that equates to an error in logic.
Re the other part–I'm not saying the e-book should cost the same as the hardcover, but I am saying that the e-book price has to be profitable for the writer and publisher.
Jeff
I've argued in a few places that there's two sides to this, perhaps to the extent that it's not clear that I'm on the authors' side on the whole, but it is clear to me that there are huge flaws in what Macmillan is trying to do from a business ethics point of view, especially if they really insist that Amazon aren't even allowed to sell at a loss for the price they've said they would sell eBooks (i.e. they can't buy at a wholesale price and then sell at $9.99, a loss, but with the benefit of keeping their promise to consumers). Even Apple don't go that far (they just leave very small margins) and Macmillan hardly have as much justification as Apple* for that kind of behaviour anyway.
On the whole, Amazon behaved dickishly, and on the whole, a lot of what people are saying and blogging on this subject is true and correct, but I do find it very strange that it's so acceptable to suggest this is completely one-sided.
* I'm of the opinion that a lot of Apple's actions on various things are related to ensuring quality control – that's another argument, but just to explain what I mean.
Also, it does make me laugh how many of the people I've seen arguing strenuously on the behalf of Macmillan and the authors are amongst the same people who I see arguing that musicians and filmmakers giving away their work for free (or, y'know, not suing people who illegally download) is beneficial to their careers and doesn't harm anyone. I'd suggest this means they either have very flexible ethics or just a lack of common sense, coupled with a complete lack of understanding of what goes into producing and making music and films.
One response to the Author's Guild regarding Macmillan v Amazon
http://writersrainbow.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/on…
Listen, as a competent published writer and professional independent editor who sees great writers passed over by agents and editors of big houses because they aren't sufficiently "branded," I see this as a battle between 2 vultures over one piece of rabbit flesh.
In the end, it's the author who needs to have more options for getting their work into the world. Let them have the choice.
The big print house is hardly a new author's savior, these days: the gatekeeping in publishing has never seen a tighter bottleneck. So let's not go feeling sorry for print publishers who are already taking the lion's share of the profits away from their own authors (and who have been doing so since the 1970s… this is the story of a failed business model blaming technology for what it didn't get right 30+ years ago).
Let's call this cat fight what it is: two shrewd business platforms duking it out on the backs of creative writers. My money's on Amazon because it's business model belongs to this century.
I understand that authors and publishers need to make their share to stay in business (though it's hard to sympathize with the publisher when you hear about million dollar celebrity advances that don't earn out, or when they are delaying ebook releases, jacking the price above hard back prices, and not carefully formatting the files to encourage people to buy print instead.) What I don't understand is the pricing model. I rarely buy hardcovers (and then usually just used) and only occasionally buy trade. I'm a paperback girl and always have been. So if publishers can make enough of a profit to stay alive off paperbacks (and some authors put out many books in paperback before "earning" hard back releases, especially in SF/F) why can't they make a profit off ebooks priced similarly? I don't mean starting at paperback prices, but Macmillan's pricing range seems feasible.
Personally I buy ebooks that are priced close to paperback prices, so I'd still hold off of $12-15 ebooks, but I understand how that range fits in with the already establish pricing practices. I do, also, think that pricing ebooks above paperback prices (which includes Amazon's $9.99), or worse, above hard back prices when the paperback is for sale on the shelves is silly.
Jeff, I must agree with this WHOLEHEARTEDLY:
"In such a scenario, if e-books do eventually dominate the marketplace and physical books have only a fraction of their current market share, it’s entirely possible that unless this situation resolves itself into a compromise whereby readers actually show respect for the creators of the stories they love that we will see one of the largest mass extinctions of published writers in the history of literature. They’ll still be writing–but they’ll be largely invisible, and also unable to even dream of writing full-time.
"My feeling is that it won’t get that bad, but we as writers have to do our best to make sure it doesn’t–by educating readers and doing our part as writers to make sure that our actions don’t contribute to the problem."
—–
And what of all those brilliant writers who have yet to even be published? Genre writers have a little bit of a leg up because they have "niche" working for them, but for mainstream and literary writers who are not part of the academic machine, this extinction is already in full force.
—–
I'm not sure we can educate readers, though. I think they are always going to go for the sparkle of media and therein lies the biggest challenge of all.
I think consumer concerns are valid when expressed the way you've expressed them, Michele. It's the attitude of entitlement at the expense of logic I am concerned about.
Tamara–I also see lots of interesting and difficult work published by editors at commercial houses. You can dismiss all of that if you like, but I don't think it's fair to the individual editors who, despite market pressures, keep doing their best to get interesting books published. Not to mention that indie publishers are affected by these decisions, too.
It's also true that a new writer, with no sales record, has a better chance of getting a book published than an established writer with a few books out who has a bad or mediocre sales record, so I don't believe it's necessarily true that new writers are being left out in the cold. We have to be careful about generalizations–about writers, about publishers, about editors. Although it can appear there's a monolith, it's not always true.
That there may be better business models is a separate issue. Things do need to change, but in what way? As I stated above, self-publishing may not move enough units to be viable for most midlist writers. And the idea of a higher royalty rate but smaller advance is a recipe for disaster for most full-time writers.
Tamara: I hope it's clear from the prior comment that I'm not necessarily arguing with you, just trying to apply some specificity of detail. It's possible I'm stating exceptions to the rule, but…
Re the later comment–I totally agree with you about the mainstream. Without that genre hook it's very difficult, and even within genre, if you're writing "literary fantasy" or anything outside of very particular categories it can be difficult. Part of that, though, is publishers running scared because of the collapses of 2008, and may change.
I like that you're looking at it in a wider context of all writers and books, and it's important to remember that genre is in a sense a protected niche. It's almost like a movie pitch–it's still easier to tell readers what most genre books are about than many mainstream books.
Case in point–I'm reading Tove Jansson's wonderful, wonderful The True Deceiver. All sorts of things happen in it, but I'd be hard-pressed to describe it to someone because on the surface very little happens.
BTW, Tamara, drop me a line at vanderworld@hotmail.com if you'd like to guest blog here at some point.
I think the logic error is one of analogy (and it may be on both your end and that of the people making the mmp/e-book sale argument); you say "Well, the fact is $7.99 for mass market paperbacks only works if you’re printing tons of books." Which is correct, but what about when you're producing tons of books you don't actually have to print? That's where I sense an error in logic. Besides some coding and formatting, neither of which take altogether that long, it should cost basically nothing at all to produce a digital file of a book. Publishers might complain that they have to produce multiple formats, but they wouldn't have to if only the industry could agree on a standard (even one with some copy protection; there are reasons nobody ended up using Betamax or HD-DVD).
"but I am saying that the e-book price has to be profitable for the writer and publisher."
And pricing similar to a mass market paperback wouldn't be profitable? Maybe publishers need to rethink their business model and production costs if it costs them as much to produce a digital file as a physical book.
Will–I agree something may be off there. I've asked Andrew Wheeler, who is an industry expert, to stop by to see if he can untangle whatever might need to be untangled.
Thanks all, btw, for the tone of civility here. Elsewhere, all kinds of trollery is occurring.
Also, you'll note the pingback above. Here's a para from Cheryl Morgan's post: "Anyway, back with Amazonfail, many people are starting to wonder where these sorts of attitudes came from. Jeff VanderMeer has some thoughts here. Some of what he says is undoubtedly right, but it is all too easy to point the finger at things like freebies. I don’t think this is the fault of people like Cory Doctorow, and I don’t think Jeff does either. The notion that consumers should only have to pay what they think a product is worth, not the economic cost of production (plus a reasonable profit margin if you are a Capitalist) has been around a long time. The current UK government regularly uses it as a stick to beat companies like utilities and grocery chains. Mandy is currently using a very similar tactic on universities. The idea that economics is some sort of dishonest voodoo, wheeled out like evolution to try to kid people into believing something other than what common sense tells them, gets used all the time. And the media always takes the side of the consumer, because it is mostly the consumers who buy their newspapers."
Yep, absolutely. But I put forward those points because they all have to do with either giving fuel to those who want to devalue both the creation (book) and the creator's control over the book, regardless of whether the actions in question are intended to generate that kind of reaction.
…and the other possibility is simply that the readers ought to be ashamed of themselves for wanting something for nothing. I go back and forth on this.
"and the other possibility is simply that the readers ought to be ashamed of themselves for wanting something for nothing. I go back and forth on this."
Oh, yes. Speaking of pingbacks, I don't know if you caught my blogged response to your thoughts and others' (it's "The Real Digital Conflict," and it's the most recent post as of now), but the gist of it is that the real underlying tension is in valuable information without which culture cannot exist that 'wants' to be free. It's the basis of the idea that "Information wants to be free" propagated from remarks by Stewart Brand at a hacker conference, but what "information wants to be free" neglects is the first part of Brand's thought; that is, that information is quite possibly our most valuable resource and often the most powerful thing in the whole world.
Cheryl's points are cogent, but the problem becomes with placing blame on a media who is siding with the consumer, if only because "the media" is too vague a descriptor for the conversation. Media is any format by which information is disseminated, and journalism/newspapers, which I sense is what Cheryl means, are only part of a media that includes publishers.
I think my point is that you note how few copies of books sell as opposed to the media of other industries but neglect the pricing. Of course books sell fewer copies: even Blu-Rays cost less than a hardcover novel in most instances, and that's the most expensive media distribution format. You seem to argue that price needs to be high because books sell fewer copies; mightn't books sell more copies if they cost less? I'm not saying hardcovers would fly off the shelves at ten bucks a pop or anything like that, but I do think there may be some correlation there, and I also think it introduces a newer dilemma; is it better to sell a few copies at a higher price or more copies at a lower one?
I don't think I'm arguing anything other than that whatever the pricing on e-books, it has to make sense in terms of publisher profit and what the author gets.
Almost all of my books get released in trade paperback, usually priced at $14.95, the same price as a CD.
Jeff
I'm a bit bothered by the term "entitlement". Certainly some people do feel entitled to free/cheap stuff. We call them whiners. On the other hand, as a consumer I've had certain expectations set by the book trade over the last three decades. Those expectations have to do with the normal cost of a book (either HB or PB) and what it means to own one. Now I'm trying to reconcile a lifetime of expectations against e-books, which have greater limitations (can't sell them to used bookstores, can't easily loan them to friends) but in some cases cost more than their print rivals. (citation: http://flametoad.com/2009/book-price-disparities/ ). It is a wholly reasonable expectation that if I get less utility, I shouldn't pay *more*. If that's "entitlement" then so be it, but the market will speak. My fear is that if the market rejects e-books, publishers will blame piracy or retailers instead of their own business models.
"usually priced at $14.95, the same price as a CD."
A generation ago.
Albums cost $9.99 on iTunes, and that's only when you can't pick it up for five bucks on Amazon Marketplace. Which is about what Kindle charges. I'm still not convinced that's not a hair too much, but then, I'm one of those mass market paperback price point proponents, because I know the only albums I purchase for $9.99 are the ones I can't find anywhere else whatsoever. I'd like to knock a couple bucks off the Kindle, or at least offer more of an excerpt to readers for free; there's no way I'm dropping $10 on a book I haven't been able to sit down with for at least fifty pages. If I did, and I didn't like it, I'd feel cheated, and I think readers' feeling cheated is one big danger we need to try to avoid.
Some of the utter contempt for writers surprises me. Part it comes from the belief that anyone can write a novel, and that person's novel would be brilliant even if he can't write a note to his mom. Another part comes from the belief that most writers make piles of money for doing very little.
The only writers who get press are the superstar names with their expensive lifestyles. The fact that the rest of us would do better financially managing a local McDonalds seems to zoom right past these people.
One pundit of free ebooks suggested that authors should give their books away and earn their money the way bands do.
I could make a fortune giving concerts, but only if the audience pays me not to sing. A pity I can't figure out how to get them in the arena in the first place.
Preston–I think that's a legitimate concern.
Will–now you're being a bit snarky. No, CDs were not $14.95 a generation ago and you're being disingenuous to say so. They were $14.95 in many retail shops as of last week, sometimes $11.95.
Marilynn–most pundits have no idea what they're talking about because they can't possibly predict what's going to happen.
Jeff
Sorry, Jeff. I hadn't meant to be snarky. I haven't paid more than $12.99 for a CD since 2001. That's what I meant by "a generation ago." I meant no offense, but your Wikipedia page says you were born in '68. I was born a full decade later, in '78, and I'm on the cusp of two generations (X and Y, as I understand the generation thing. I could be wrong). I bought a desktop computer with Windows and AOL when I was in high school, and I've never not used the Internet to research a term paper, nor attended college without e-mail. I'm among the last of the generation who remembers CDs; in general, people born after 1980 don't even buy CDs anymore. Heck, the idea of an album is often foreign; they buy single songs from iTunes, and when they download the full album, they pay less than ten dollars for it.
That's the new pricing.
It's also worth noting that your analogy of CDs to a trade paperback holds up (though TPBs have less profit margin, because it costs far less to print a book than to "print" a CD, and I mean that in a purely manufacturing sense), but then shouldn't you be considering e-books as analogous to MP3 downloads, full albums of which are generally under ten dollars?
I notice you don't make a suggestion toward price, only maintain that $7.99 isn't enough. I can't agree or disagree there, but it seems to me that the cost of producing a digital download of an album's worth of music is inherently more expensive than that of producing a digital download of a novel. I don't know enough about the profits and loss breakdowns for the publishing industry with regard to retail versus digital, but is Amazon really asking for that much more a percentage of every novel than, say, Borders (to whom publishers sold at a steep discount in the first place, it's worth noting).
Consider the iPad. Based on an agency model and using the analogy of the app store, Apple's deal is it gets 30% of every download. This seems about right; they're after all making the distribution possible. If you price a digital download at the $7.99 price point you mention, Apple's take would be about $2.40, which means a publisher would still make $5.59 for every single digital download. Considering that the cost of a single digital download has absolutely no cost of manufacture beyond some coding/formatting, that's a helluva lot of profit for a single file, and that's on every single sale. There is no cost to print, no cost for materials, and no cost for a printer to actually make the thing. There is no cost to ship, no cost for display, and no cost for placement on shelves. So you're cutting out literally all the costs of printing, retail, and distribution, and more than that, there will be neither credits nor returns.
Now consider the author royalty. What's that, 10% of a retail sale if an author's lucky (against advances, no less). Even if the publisher gives the author 10% of its profit, that still leaves the publisher more than $5 for every book at a $7.99 price point. I've read a publisher makes about $5.83 for every $14.95 trade paperback a retailer sells, so $5.59 seems pretty good. And heck, at $9.99, a publisher would still get–what's that, a little more than $7 per book?
Heck, at that price point, with that profit, publishers might even float a little more to authors.
I'm getting blurry with the numbers. I'm going to leave that until the morrow.
Will…college students still buy CDs–yes, I saw a few of them yesterday when I was out pushing my walker. LOL. *Teens* still buy CDs. Some of them even buy vinyl. In other words, CDs still exist and are bought. And it seems somewhat irrelevant to the discussion, and neither is typecasting me as old fogey before making your point . We all do research on the internet. We all download music. Some of us still buy CDs. A lot of us still buy physical books.
And on that note, good night.
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Sorry Jeff, but I don't think you're going to win this one.
I know that the printing is just a fraction of the cost on the cover, but then so are the costs of shipping, distribution, storage, cataloging, inventory, returns and the endless piles of paperwork which go along with the matter of maintaining printed materials. When you consider the staffing involved (which I was once a part of) all of this adds up to one very big chunk of the cover price, a chunk that publishers seem intent on keeping as much of to themselves as possible. It's what businesses do.
With the price war, what I think is going on is nothing more than customer conditioning. You're right, people expect too much for too little, so publishers are tacking on high prices in hopes that they will get people used to paying print level prices for eBooks. Personally, I say let more power to them. Take it up to $18 per download. This will only make my privately produced eBooks seem all the more attractive to readers when I offer them from my website for 1/2 or 1/4 as much.
Actually, in a way I think this shines something of a bright light on the future. Maybe this is how it will all pan out. People will end up paying for celebrity. If you want the latest Dan Brown eBook (wow, my computer just shocked me for even suggesting it) then it will cost you $$$. But if you want to take a chance on a book by some no-name author who might actually be a lot more interesting then it will only cost you $ – which considering the recession could be very good news for the writers of the future.
Macmillan's approach makes sense in principle: sell the latest content for whatever the market will bear; reduce the price as time goes on. Let Mr. Gottahaveitfirst 'subsidize' Ms Illwaittilthepricecomesdown.
That's the pattern we're used to: hardcover, discounted hardcover, remaindered hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, secondhand paperback. Adding, at EACH stage, an ebook somewhat cheaper than that stage's deadtree book, fits the pattern. Apparently some people are willing to pay Amazon's $9.99, or Mac's $14.99, for an ebook that comes out the same day as the hardback. Those who think that's a ridiculous price for downloading a copy of a file, can wait till there's an ebook copy of the same title at Mac's low end, $5.99 (or less if the market won't bear it).
I don't think that labeling common sense as 'entitlement' is really going to help. The arguments for expensive ebooks could be used to justify a flimsy pulp paperback priced the same as a quality hardback.
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I hadn't meant to "typecast"; I was pointing out how generational differences might affect consumer perception with regard to pricing and distribution of digital content.
I just think it's possibly simplistic, Will, because, for example, some of the most avid users of social media are people in their thirties and forties. No worries. I think you missed a hint of humor in my response, too.
Jeff
I buy printing for things other than books; it's absolutely true that for any printed material the cost is in the set up. There's the setup done by the writer, the setup done by editor, the setup done by the designer, and the set up done by the printer. The actual printing – the part that isn’t a charge if what you have is an e-book – is by far the least expensive part of the whole deal.
For example –
In general, if you break it out in Grand Fenwickian shekels (the standard monetary unit for all publishing jobs*) costs for a paper book go something like this –
Fixed costs –
500 Shk – author
400 Shk – editor
250 Shk – designer (no one ever has money for the poor designer)
1260 Shk – overhead**
240 Shk – printer set up costs
plus printing costs
10 Shk – actual printing of 1,000 books urging the overthrow of the
current publishing system
Total – 2660 Shk for the job, or 2.66 Shk per copy.
The publisher prices it at 5.6 Shk a retail copy (wholesale 2.8 Shk), which covers her 5% profit and presumably, the retailer's expenses and profit. To cover the publisher’s costs she must sell 950 copies of the book.
With an e-pamphlet, the fixed costs stack up like this:
500 Shk – author
400 Shk – editor
250 Shk – designer (no one ever has money for the poor designer)
1260 Shk – overhead
Total – 2410 Shk for the job, or 2.41 Shk per copy
The publisher prices it at 5.12 Shk a retail copy (wholesale 2.56 Shk), which covers her 5% profit and presumably, the retailer's expenses and profit. To cover the publisher’s costs, she must sell 941 copies of the book.
The difference in price is .48 Shk – or about 12%.
But what if 2000 people want to buy the book? There’s no increase in fixed expenses for the e-book, so everything copy above 941 is pure profit right? Which would be 1059 times 2.56 or ~2711Shk.
Yes, but it’s pretty close to that for the paper book too. Publishers over the years have gotten pretty good at estimating how many copies a book will sell. Not infallible, but pretty good. So if the publisher thinks the book will sell 2000 copies, she’ll order 2000 copies from the get go which means the additional cost is another 10 Shk. That’s 1050 times 2.8, minus 10 Shk or 2930 Shk. Heck, the profit is higher, because the original wholesale price was greater.
But what if the publisher didn’t know that the demand would be so high? In that case, subtract 250 Shk (printer’s setup costs and actual printing) from the sales of 2800, and you have 2750. The paper book still beats the e-book in terms of profit.
*The real reason I'm using shekels is that people have emotional hang-ups with dollars. Shekels are tip-toeing past your (and mine) emo gatekeepers.
**Simple rule of thumb here – if you're the manufacturer, charge the retailer double what it cost you to make it – this covers your overhead and profit. The retailer doubles the price again, covering her overhead and profit.
Overhead is the publisher's salary, the secretary's salary, insurance, the accountant's fees, taxes, rent, office supplies, heat, light, other utilities, computers, software, etc.) This means that about 45% (this is a guess, and it’s probably more) of what she gets goes to paying stuff that she has to pay, but isn't a direct cost for any one book.
***Of course, if the publisher is wrong, and there aren’t at least 950 who want to buy the book, the publisher will lose money – which must be made up on another book or books – whether it’s a paper book or an e-book.
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Huh. I feel like an old fogey. I hit my teen years–and thus, got my first teen job with its first paycheck–during the mid 80s. What delight, to walk into Waldenbooks with a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket and know that I could spend the entire thing on books.
This is when I first started buying books for myself. But what they had on the shelves then is a far cry from what I see now. What you call "mass-market paperbacks" now were just "paperbacks" back then, and there really weren't many of the oversized, $15-a-pop softcovers you see in stores now. There were hardcovers and paperbacks, and that was it.
I love buying books, but I really don't like the bigger sized paperbacks. It looks uneven on the shelves of my bookcases.
When did that change? (I'm not asking why, because I know that. More profit.)
Well, I'll just chime in with some others here in saying that I don't mind paying for an ebook that has a price comparable to its paper edition, but I absolutely refuse to ever pay more for an ebook than a paperback – there's just no justification for it, in my opinion. I really think that on the whole the ebook version should be at least a LITTLE cheaper because there IS a much lower price for their production. So as to Amazon keeping the price of ebook at or below $9.99, I'm all for it when it comes to titles that are out on bookshelves in paperback, because no regular paperback should be costing more than that, as of now. If, however, a title is available in stores only in hardcopy, then I feel it's only right that the ebook versions be priced higher. T
I don't claim any professional knowledge of the book publishing industry, but if they're anything like the music and movie industries then there might be good reason to believe they're more responsible for anyone else in the game for authors getting shorted. If a movie studio can cook its books to make it look like a movie such as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, to name just one example, created a deficit for them of over two hundred millions dollars (which translates to less money for all involved in the making of the movie, EXCEPT the studio), but then on the end hand expend a tremendous amount of resources on trying to get news laws enacted to "protect" their artists from those evil file-sharers – well, it just goes to show that you have to take everything these big companies tell you with a grain of salt.
Ugh… and I wish it were possible to go back and edit your comments. Please excuse all spelling and/or syntax errors in my last post. ;)
James, why for example is Random House asking $16.00 for a ebook version of your City of Saints and Madmen, when I can get a paperback version of it from my local bookstore for less than $10? No disrespect to you, but that kind of pricing makes no sense to me.
Eh, sorry Jeff, didn't mean to call you James…