Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: dreed on March 09, 2011, 11:14:42 am
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To follow up on the post about pricing of electronic files vs physical books comes this:
"And yet, when I lowered the price of The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, I started selling 20x as many copies--about 800 a day. My loss lead became my biggest earner."
A Newbie's guide to Publishing (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/guest-post-by-john-locke.html)
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To follow up on the post about pricing of electronic files vs physical books comes this:
"And yet, when I lowered the price of The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, I started selling 20x as many copies--about 800 a day. My loss lead became my biggest earner."
A Newbie's guide to Publishing (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/guest-post-by-john-locke.html)
Good to see someone has the busines sense to price to the market, and not for prestige. There's only so long book publishers can get away with asking same or even higher prices as paperbacks - people understand that there are immense savings in manufacturing and distribution.
Perhaps more importantly, he (and some others) have seen their profits surge as they have slashed the per-unit price of their books - even when it means that Amazon takes a much bigger cut of their earnings (30% of $3 vs. 70% of $1 or thereabouts IIRC).
Business 101 but unfortunately poorly understood by artists.
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... Business 101...
If it were only that simple. The cute story is yet another example of the survivorship bias. We are hearing only about a guy who took that path (i.e., slashing prices), hit a sweet spot (on the demand curve), and succeeded (survived). We do not hear anything about similar attempts that ended without success. We also do not hear (or at least not at the same time) about opposite success stories, i.e., someone raising their prices, say tenfold, thus escaping the perception of a cheap crap, finding their value-driven audience, and increasing sales volumes as a result.
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If it were only that simple. The cute story is yet another example of the survivorship bias. We are hearing only about a guy who took that path (i.e., slashing prices), hit a sweet spot (on the demand curve), and succeeded (survived). We do not hear anything about similar attempts that ended without success. We also do not hear (or at least not at the same time) about opposite success stories, i.e., someone raising their prices, say tenfold, thus escaping the perception of a cheap crap, finding their value-driven audience, and increasing sales volumes as a result.
Good points throughout, but my points were that people are slowly realizing they are taken to the cleaners when a ebooks are priced on par with its dead tree edition, and that the equation high price = high profit isn't necessarily (or even most of the time) true.
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If it were only that simple. The cute story is yet another example of the survivorship bias. We are hearing only about a guy who took that path (i.e., slashing prices), hit a sweet spot (on the demand curve), and succeeded (survived). We do not hear anything about similar attempts that ended without success. We also do not hear (or at least not at the same time) about opposite success stories, i.e., someone raising their prices, say tenfold, thus escaping the perception of a cheap crap, finding their value-driven audience, and increasing sales volumes as a result.
Agreed 100%. Also lots of negative reviews on Amazon. Some saying they would give the book less than 1 star if it was possible...
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We also do not hear (or at least not at the same time) about opposite success stories, i.e., someone raising their prices, say tenfold, thus escaping the perception of a cheap crap, finding their value-driven audience, and increasing sales volumes as a result.
eBooks aren't exactly luxury/prestige item, I think the notion of charging premium prices to attract a high-end clientele doesn't really make any sense there. And even if it were possible I'm not sure why it would be desirable. With an ebook there are no real production costs associated with each individual sale; so what advantage is there to the author to sell 100 books at $100, versus 10,000 at $1? If anything, the latter approach is a lot more appealing because it means gaining more name recognition in the market.
The real revolution with ebooks is self-publishing. The big publishing houses are going to find themselves obsolete once authors realize they don't need them in the ebook model.
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eBooks aren't exactly luxury/prestige item, I think the notion of charging premium prices to attract a high-end clientele doesn't really make any sense there. And even if it were possible I'm not sure why it would be desirable.
The ebook market is very different than fine art print market: the potential clientele is much smaller in the latter even when selling prints at cost. Going for such $1 prices makes sense when the market is large, but for a smaller market and/or luxury product pricing has to be higher due to manufacturing costs alone.
With an ebook there are no real production costs associated with each individual sale; so what advantage is there to the author to sell 100 books at $100, versus 10,000 at $1? If anything, the latter approach is a lot more appealing because it means gaining more name recognition in the market.
An author featured in a similar story from UK (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/27/kindle-ebooks-amazon-stephen-leather)has exactly the same reasoning:
Yet while he is making significant sums just through ebook sales – "up to £11,000 a month" – he still only sees it as a sideline to his main writing career. "I never went into this to make money. I went into it as a way of widening my readership. My hope was that readers would read my book on Kindle, say, 'I really enjoyed that', then when my new thriller came out with Hodder, they'd remember it and buy that too."
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The great attraction of the e-book concept for me is not only the lower cost but the significantly reduced bulk and weight which can be major advantages when travelling.
I've just downloaded 3 e-books in PDF format for free. They are the user's manuals for the Nikon D700, D7000, and SB-700 Speedlight flash unit.
The D700 manual is 444 pages; the D7000 is 326 slightly larger pages, and the SB-700 manual 164 pages. These 3 manuals together, in paper book format, weigh more than my Kindle DX with carrying case and power cord/charger.
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All of this is much more complicated that a .99 model. The .99 cent model basically is for amateurs, people who are trying to break in, get something viral going, so they can raise their prices. A physical paperback book basically costs a buck (depending) to produce and deliver. Everything else is sales costs and overhead. On a $9 paperback, about $4 (depending) will go to the store. The other $5 goes to the publisher -- but of that $5, about 15% (depending) will go to the author. The rest goes for producing the book, including editorial, delivery, advertising, artwork, and profit.
Once the .99 market is saturated with, say, about ten or fifteen million or fifty million self-published books (and those numbers are not imaginary -- around a half-million books are submitted to NY publishers every year; and that's only the US, and there's a huge backlog of unpublished stuff) how will you find what you want to read? Probably through publishers, who'll provide advertising, editorial support, an implicit guarantee that a book meets certain quality standards, etc. All that will be gone from the model is the relatively insignificant cost of the paperback. The publisher, seller and author are still going to want to get as much as they can -- why would that change? So there are *not* huge savings in on-line books.
One big difference is that certain bestselling authors may be able to make direct deals with Amazon and B&N and take, say, 25 percent of the proceeds...but they have to become bestsellers first.
If a book is good enough, it will find a traditional publisher. Most of the .99 cent books haven't -- because they're not good enough. So, you can pay .99 for crap which you wouldn't spend anything on in a store, or, you can pay more for something good. I already waste enough time, and I don't really plan to waste even more reading somebody who can't get published, just because it's cheap.
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All of this is much more complicated that a .99 model. The .99 cent model basically is for amateurs, people who are
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That's a very simplistic and statist view of the business. Just because publishers provide a valuable service now doesn't mean it can't and won't be crowd-sourced, distributed, or shaken to the core by an upstart with a novel business idea.
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John is absolutely right. A publisher is a lot more than someone who foots the bill for printing. Without good promotion no one will know about your book. It's no different than any other product, photographs included. Right now offering ebooks at 99c is a form of promotion, but it won't last long. Plus, some of the ebooks offered at that price are not very good. Just look at the reviews on Amazon. As I pointed earlier many reviewers would give these books less than 1 star if it was possible.
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That's a very simplistic and statist view of the business.
Which part?
Just because publishers provide a valuable service now doesn't mean it can't and won't be crowd-sourced, distributed, or shaken to the core by an upstart with a novel business idea.
I'm not saying it won't be -- just the idea that a few very large authors could step outside the publishing model potentially means a big loss of business to publishers -- and if that happens, publisher's will suffer a large loss of revenue, which will engender further changes. The way that would happen, is this: Barnes and Noble, with the fall of Borders, winds up controlling most of the paper-publishing business, as well as a good share of the e-book business, along with Amazon and Apple. So, the author cuts a deal with B&N -- he'll deliver a fully edited book, ready to go to the printer, with cover art and everything else, for 25% royalties; B&N will publish the paper editions, and the author reserves the right to sell the eBooks to B&N, Amazon and Apple, for, say 30% royalties. But to do this...ah, you need to get to the place where people will pay attention to you, and that's neither easy nor cheap.
However, there is no one novel business idea that will shake the business to the core -- a lot of very smart people have been obsessing over this for a long time, ever since (and even before) the CD business crumbled. Speaking of which...what .99 cent freelancers have made it huge in the music business? Uh, none. They ALL require things that publishers (or their equivalent) provide: exposure, advertising, support, licensing, agents, lawyers, etc. Those things exist for a reason, which I'm sure you can work out for yourself...and they cost money, which boosts the costs of the book, in whatever form. The idea of the .99 cent outsider making a fortune is romantic, but essentially fatuous, just as the idea of hitting it rich in the lottery is romantic but fatuous. Some people do it, just not you.
What happened in the music business, by the way, is what I see happening in publishing -- there will remain a large paper-book business, but eBooks will become a large business as well. Essentially, it'll be just another format, like recorded books.
The biggest danger to publishing, IMHO, is the possibility that people simply stop reading novels. That the 'net creates a culture of short-form readers, and that novels are simply passing out of fashion, because they take too long to read, and are too subtle.
JC
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... The biggest danger to publishing, IMHO, is the possibility that people simply stop reading novels. That the 'net creates a culture of short-form readers, and that novels are simply passing out of fashion, because they take too long to read, and are too subtle...
What!? In the age of YouTube and reality shows, someone is still reading!?
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John is absolutely right. A publisher is a lot more than someone who foots the bill for printing. Without good promotion no one will know about your book. It's no different than any other product, photographs included. Right now offering ebooks at 99c is a form of promotion, but it won't last long. Plus, some of the ebooks offered at that price are not very good. Just look at the reviews on Amazon. As I pointed earlier many reviewers would give these books less than 1 star if it was possible.
I looked at the Amazon reviews, and it appears that 99 cents price level is about right for this literal jewel. Some readers even said that 99 cents was too much.
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All of this is much more complicated that a .99 model. The .99 cent model basically is for amateurs, people who are trying to break in, get something viral going, so they can raise their prices.
I disagree.
I think that Apple has set the tone for the market by making downloaded songs $0.99 via iTunes. The music that they're selling online via iTunes is not from amateurs trying to break into the market.
If you're buying apps for the iPhone or iPad, you expect a similar price for most apps. But some high quality apps are much higher. For example, The Photographer's Ephemeris ($8.99).
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I think that Apple has set the tone for the market by making downloaded songs $0.99 via iTunes. The music that they're selling online via iTunes is not from amateurs trying to break into the market.
I don't think that experience carries over well. A 3 minute long pop song, even from the Beatles or the Stones, is not quite the same as a 250 page literate well-research novel (or nonfiction work) that took 3 years to write and edit. There may be millions of people worldwide who want that tune on their ipods, but are there that many that will read the Matt Minogue novels of John Brady, say. Looking at it from a pure entertainment-per-minute point of view, I may listen to that song, say, 20 to 30 times in my life, maybe more if it's filler during a car trip, but I will get hours of pure pleasure from that novel. That's worth way more than 99 cents to me. And if it weren't for a publisher risking their money to put that novel on a shelf at my local bookstore, I may never have seen it. I've tried browsing online sites, it's awful, can't do it, but browsing in a store is fun. (And I wrote software for a living for 25 years, so I'm not a technology luddite.)
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(Sorry for the two separate posts, I clicked send too quickly.)
It strikes me as ironic that it was not that long ago that people on this site and elsewhere were decrying the advent of $1.00 micro-stock sites. Now some think that a 99 cent book is just fine. I guess buyers and sellers see things differently.
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Actually, I am willing to bet the vast majority of those 99c books haven't been edited. I've bought a few low price novels and, usually, while the central ideas/plot structures weren't very different from mainstream stuff, the lack of editing was painfully obvious. Sometimes it is tolerable, sometimes it is unbearable. The difference is probably similar to the one that exists between an amateur photographer that will nail a great shot of the bride in 300 pictures and a professional that will deliver a book with 50 consistently good shots. Good point about the different perceptions from either the giving or the receiving end. And anyway, it's a bit hard to ruin oneself buying full price books, video tutorials, music, etc... Business models are shifting, that's all. Highly rated computer games are in general more expensive as a download than shipped as boxed DVDs for the first few months after their release. Then, after a year or so, they can virtually be downloaded for an incredibly low price from the download sites while their physical copy price has stabilized.
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I wonder why we are discussing on a photographic forum the quality and price/value of cheap thrillers and dumb pop songs at 99 cents.
The best literature that has ever been written, including even the Analects of Confucius (and needless to mention the entire works of William Shakespeare) and in fact any noteworthy book that has been out of copyright for 50 years, is available for free on sites duch as Project Gutenberg which employs volunteers to scan the classics for conversion to electronic format.
As I've mentioned before, e-books and the e-book reader is a revolution at least as great as the transition from film photography to digital, and just as with film diehards the same sorts of objections to the new e-book medium crop up, from those who are traditional, inflexible and apparently incapbale of recognising a good thing when they see it.
I'm very pleased with my Kindle DX which has a high resolution screen (for an e-book reader) of 1200x824, and a decent size screen of 9.7"x7.2". It has 4Gb of memory, which is sufficient to store about 3,000 average size novels, or 1,000 more serious tomes that might have a thousand pages on average. It weighs in total, with cord and recharger, about as much as a cropped-format DSLR body.
The fact that one can carry around on one's person, whether visiting the local doctor or dentist, or travelling to the Himalayas on a 3 month trek, a large personal library of 3,000 books, pdfs, camera manuals etc, that weigh in total just 800gms, is absolutely remarkable.
Thats what I call progress.
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As I've mentioned before, e-books and the e-book reader is a revolution at least as great as the transition from film photography to digital, and just as with film diehards the same sorts of objections to the new e-book medium crop up, from those who are traditional, inflexible and apparently incapbale of recognising a good thing when they see it. <snip>
The fact that one can carry around on one's person, whether visiting the local doctor or dentist, or travelling to the Himalayas on a 3 month trek, a large personal library of 3,000 books, pdfs, camera manuals etc, that weigh in total just 800gms, is absolutely remarkable.
Thats what I call progress.
I disagree. Digital photography actually changed everything, including process; not only did it greatly extend what cameras can do, the function of the camera, it greatly extended what people can do with resulting photographs. Despite what film enthusiasts say, film has almost *no* real advantage over digital. The case with e-books is quite different. After all the jumping up and down is done, you still read the book. E-readers didn't give us higher ISOs, or encourage us to manipulate the texts, or provide us with an easier way to make our own texts. All they did was provide us with another, and not always better, way to read - and some people, including me, will tell you that e-readers are not as good an experience as paper books. I read books on an iPad, and that's fine; and though I was really on-board with the idea of being able to carry dozens of books and manuals when I travel, and all the other things that make iPads handy, after having it for more than a year, I have five or six books on it, including one PDF manual. And that's about it. And of the several people I know who have iPads, we're all about the same. We might buy an e-book, but then we read it, and that's it. We don't read it again. So we have a few books, but they're essentially irrelevant, because we're done with them. If they'd been paperbacks, we would have given them away. When traveling, we use them to find Starbucks, or call up a map...but the last time I traveled across the country, I forgot mine, but it didn't make too much difference, because I had my laptop with me. I guess what I'm saying is, the iPad (and the Nook and the Kindle) are interesting innovations, but not critical innovations, as the digital camera was. Or the cell phone. Or the laptop. The innovations with those things was that they cut us free from various tethers -- but with books, we were already pretty much cut free. Didn't even need batteries.
But the thing about paper books...I have a large collection of art books. The color prints inside are far better than anything I can get on an iPad, which actually has a pretty great screen. Not only that, if I have, say, a history of Impressionism, but I want to look at a particular painting, but don't remember the name of it (which is pretty common), or if I want to look at certain kinds of paintings, I can just flip through the book in a few seconds and find it. I flip through by thinking, "Okay, Impressionism is going to be toward the end of this book, and I think that painting was on the left-hand page, but even if not, when I start seeing Impressionist paintings I'm close..." That experience does not exist with e-books. Looking at an index is not the same as browsing.
I do think that e-books will be an important format, especially in certain niches. Guidebooks, for one. Guides in general. Reference books, perhaps. Scholarly journals may quickly move to all-electronic formats. But those are relatively minor categories of books...and I can tell you, neither Confucius nor Shakespeare is really burning up the best-seller lists...So it'll be an important format, but basically, just another one. In 20 years, we'll still be reading be reading paperbacks, because they're cheap and sturdy and disposable. But in twenty years, you'll be hard-pressed to find a film camera, a wired phone, or a typewriter.
JC
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- and some people, including me, will tell you that e-readers are not as good an experience as paper books.
John,
I get the impression that you don't actually own or use an e-reader. It is different from an iPad. For a start, the screen is not transmissive. The e-ink screen is as easy on the eyes as a printed page. In fact, it's easier because one can change the font size to suit one's eyesight.
I admit there will probably always be a few marginal and trivial advantages the old-fashioned book will retain. You can drop a book on a hard surface without expecting it to be damaged, and you can quickly flip through dozens of pages in search of the page with a particular photograph. With an e-reader you really need to know the page number to get there quickly.
On the other hand, if we're talking about trivial advantages, the e-reader also has at least an equal number as well as many major advantages.
An example of a trivial advantage, which I find quite appealing nevertheless, is the fact you can place a e-book reader on any flat surface and turn pages with one finger whilst supping a glass of wine or eating a bag of chips.
After all the jumping up and down is done, you still read the book. E-readers didn't give us higher ISOs.
Yes they do. Some e-book readers have illuminated screens which allow you to read in the dark. The Kindle DX doesn't, but it does have an audio mode with a computerised voice, which one can switch to any time.
In fact, this is the equivalent of the ultimate high ISO. Even with the Nikon D3s, image quality is somewhat degraded at high ISO, whereas the e-reader provides total clarity of every word in total darkness, whether by eyesight or hearing.
Of course, I already hear the knee-jerk objections to the computerised voice. However, the Kindle DX also accepts audio books narrated by your favourite actor. You've got the choice, and sufficient memory to store the choices.
But the thing about paper books...I have a large collection of art books. The color prints inside are far better than anything I can get on an iPad, which actually has a pretty great screen.
Art books are in a different category. They are usually even heavier than an MFDB system. They are not easily portable and I think it unlikely you would carry your large format art book of the paintings of Picasso to the doctor's or dentist's waiting room, or take it with you when trekking in the Himalayas.
However, as technology advances, I see no reason why a large format, high resolution e-reader could not be produced which would be half the weight of a single, large art book, display color images of equal or better quality to the paper equivalent, and store 1,000 of such books covering the entire history of art.
..and I can tell you, neither Confucius nor Shakespeare is really burning up the best-seller lists...
A quick search on Google reveals that 'A Tale of Two Cities' by Charles Dickens is one of the all-time best sellers, but sales of the Bible beat it.
Since China is now embracing Confucianism again, after having rejected it under Mao, I expect sales (or at least the distribution) of the Analects will increase dramatically in the future.
I imagine in the future the old-fashioned, tree-consuming, inefficient paper book will become a niche market for those suffering from technophobia.
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Ray,
You forgot another important advantage of a good e-reader: You can do a search for a specific word or phrase if you don't remember the page number. This has already saved me a few hours of page-flipping on my wife's kindle.
We have the Pevear translation of Anna Karenina in both kindle and real book versions, and I wouldn't want to get rif of either of them.
Eric
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Ray,
You forgot another important advantage of a good e-reader: You can do a search for a specific word or phrase if you don't remember the page number. This has already saved me a few hours of page-flipping on my wife's kindle.
We have the Pevear translation of Anna Karenina in both kindle and real book versions, and I wouldn't want to get rif of either of them.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Yes, there are lots of advantages I haven't mentioned. I particularly like the fact when I open a book it automatically resumes at the precise page I was previously at. I don't have to worry about physical bookmarks falling out. I also like the fact the Kindle DX includes a dictionary I can refer to any time using the small keyboard, and make notes and highlights of any text I'm reading.
E-readers are truly wonderful devices.
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I wonder why we are discussing on a photographic forum the quality and price/value of cheap thrillers and dumb pop songs at 99 cents.
The reason that I brought this subject up is that there will be (if not already is) an unmistakable shift from producing material for photographers that is delivered with physical media vs in electronic form that is downloaded.
For example, LLVJs are no longer made on DVDs, they're downloaded. Another different type of subject matter was the photography guide to Grand Teton National Park.
In selling physical items, there is an established idea that you get something tangible and of value. It is obvious to the buyer that it must cost "something."
In selling electronic wares, it becomes increasingly apparent that it is harder to get a feel for what something should cost.
What is thus far apparent is that the wider public is quite willing to throw down $1 or less on an electronic book or song. Will that pattern continue into the future or will it fail? How low will authors gamble in bringing the price down for electronic media in the hope of increasing volume now that the distribution costs have changed from being producing the object to allowing it to be downloaded? Are the challenges for selling video substantially different from eBooks/ePaper and music?
There's also an aspect of volume: electronic goods are available in unbounded volume because you can keep copying those digital bits over and over, whereas there won't be any more LLVJ DVDs. I suppose this is the rarity part of the equation.
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The reason that I brought this subject up is that there will be (if not already is) an unmistakable shift from producing material for photographers that is delivered with physical media vs in electronic form that is downloaded.
For example, LLVJs are no longer made on DVDs, they're downloaded. Another different type of subject matter was the photography guide to Grand Teton National Park.
In selling physical items, there is an established idea that you get something tangible and of value. It is obvious to the buyer that it must cost "something."
In selling electronic wares, it becomes increasingly apparent that it is harder to get a feel for what something should cost.
What is thus far apparent is that the wider public is quite willing to throw down $1 or less on an electronic book or song. Will that pattern continue into the future or will it fail? How low will authors gamble in bringing the price down for electronic media in the hope of increasing volume now that the distribution costs have changed from being producing the object to allowing it to be downloaded? Are the challenges for selling video substantially different from eBooks/ePaper and music?
There's also an aspect of volume: electronic goods are available in unbounded volume because you can keep copying those digital bits over and over, whereas there won't be any more LLVJ DVDs. I suppose this is the rarity part of the equation.
Dreed,
I'm not an economist, but my understanding of the term value is that it is based upon an individual's comparison of the relative desirability of other items he/she could buy for the same amount of money. It's a very subjective term.
For me, a printable guide in PDF format is more valuable than the same information in paper book format, provided the quality of any images the guide may contain is the same, and provided there are no restrictions to printing or copying.
The reason I value the PDF more, provided it's printable, is because it's easier for me to print out the PDF guide, if I choose to do so, than it is to turn a paper book into an e-book, which would require the scanning of each page.
Your original complaint in another thread that the Grand Teton PDF guide was not as good value as another Yosemite guide in paper book format at the same price, reflects this principle of 'Opportunity Cost'.
Unfortunately, this example is a deeply flawed comparison because these two guides are practical items used for different purposes. It would be very foolish of you to visit the Grand Teton National Park with a Yosemite guide on the basis that a paper book guide is better value than a PDF guide at the same price. A Yosemite guide has little or no value in a different park....
which brings me to another economic principle.
Items which do not have universal appeal, such as guides to particular national parks, or any publication on any relatively abstruse topic, have a limited demand. People who have no intention of visiting the Grand Teton are unlikely to buy a guide to the Grand Teton simply because it's cheap. Lowering the price substantially may increase sales slightly, but not necessarily significantly, as lowering the price of bananas, or plasma TV sets, may increase sales significantly.
Each publication is directed at a potential audience. In the case of a pop song, romance novel or thriller, that potential audience my be huge. Reducing the price substantially may well increase total net profits for both the publisher and the author.
With other types of publications, reducing the price may reduce net profits. I wonder what the effect on Adobe's net profit would be if they were to reduce their next iteration of CS to 1/3rd of the current price.
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With other types of publications, reducing the price may reduce net profits. I wonder what the effect on Adobe's net profit would be if they were to reduce their next iteration of CS to 1/3rd of the current price.
CS is software and for which the market and price seems somewhat established. Furthermore, it can only come in one format: electronic. To use it in this thread is not an apples and apples comparison.
Otherwise, your points are well made.
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CS is software and for which the market and price seems somewhat established. Furthermore, it can only come in one format: electronic. To use it in this thread is not an apples and apples comparison.
Otherwise, your points are well made.
CS software can come in two formats; on a DVD disc like the LLVJ used to, or only downloadable.
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On a related note: Best Selling Author Turns Down Half A Million Dollar Publishing Contract To Self-Publish (http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20110321/00183913568/best-selling-author-turns-down-half-million-dollar-publishing-contract-to-self-publish.shtml). According to him "it makes a lot more sense to retain 70% of your earnings on ebooks priced cheaply, rather than 14.9% on expensive books put out by publishers."
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It will be interesting to see how this turns out, and what he means by "low-priced," and I'd be *very* interested to know who is going to give him 70%. The major e-book distributors (Amazon, B&N, Apple) are just as greedy as any other publisher -- that's what they are -- AND they have a far tighter lock on distribution than any paper publisher ever did. There have always been dozens of publishers, but there are only three big American e-book sources, or four, if you count the newly bankrupt and probably doomed Borders.
There's a story in the weekend Wall Street Journal, an interview with Mary Higgens Clark, in which it says that 20% of her last best-seller was sold in e-book form.Overall, e-books in January 2011 were a little less than 10% of the market (~$69 million in ebooks vs. ~$809 million for the total market.) I would expect, though, that in the bestseller world, ebooks would hold a higher percentage.
If Barry Eisler was offered $500,000 for a book, in a hard-soft deal, I'd estimate that the publisher was expecting to sell no more than 50-60 thousand hardcovers and maybe 200,000-250,000 softcovers. At .99 a copy, keeping 70%, Eisler would just about have to double his readership to break even. But, perhaps he's looking to sell at the bestseller rate, which is $9.99 at Amazon...but then, I don't think he'd keep 70%. I can't think of any reason Amazon would do that...The goodness of their hearts, maybe?
An equally interesting question is how people are going to know that Eisler is selling his book. Maybe he'll advertise? One big problem for all writers is simply getting the audience to know that the book is out there...even if the audience WANTS to know that, it's hard. Advertising is back-breakingly expensive, and, for books, terribly inefficient. But, Eisler is (or was) a genuine bestselling author; maybe he's really worked through this and knows what he's doing. It'll be interesting.
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It will be interesting to see how this turns out, and what he means by "low-priced," and I'd be *very* interested to know who is going to give him 70%. The major e-book distributors (Amazon, B&N, Apple) are just as greedy as any other publisher -- that's what they are -- AND they have a far tighter lock on distribution than any paper publisher ever did.
Amazon pays the publisher (meaning author in the case of self-published), 70% on books priced $2.99 or higher (I think it's 30% for books under that price).
If Barry Eisler was offered $500,000 for a book, in a hard-soft deal, I'd estimate that the publisher was expecting to sell no more than 50-60 thousand hardcovers and maybe 200,000-250,000 softcovers. At .99 a copy, keeping 70%, Eisler would just about have to double his readership to break even. But, perhaps he's looking to sell at the bestseller rate, which is $9.99 at Amazon...but then, I don't think he'd keep 70%. I can't think of any reason Amazon would do that...The goodness of their hearts, maybe?
I doubt he will price it at $9.99, that doesn't really qualify as "cheap" for e-books. But if he did he would still get 70%. My guess is it will be priced under $5.
Just because the traditional publishers would never pay that kind of royalty doesn't mean it's unthinkable. That's the whole reason the traditional publishers are fumbling so badly with ebooks; they just don't get that the rules have changed.
An equally interesting question is how people are going to know that Eisler is selling his book. Maybe he'll advertise? One big problem for all writers is simply getting the audience to know that the book is out there...even if the audience WANTS to know that, it's hard. Advertising is back-breakingly expensive, and, for books, terribly inefficient. But, Eisler is (or was) a genuine bestselling author; maybe he's really worked through this and knows what he's doing. It'll be interesting.
For an author who already has a following, blogging and social media can be a very effective means of marketing, and then there's the review system at Amazon and other etailers. (I've found more a few new authors I like strictly due to the reviews and recommendations at Amazon, that I would have never found via traditional marketing). And there are still places he can do advertising (online especially) that would target potential readers and probably have a better return than the traditional methods of marketing.
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It will be interesting to see how this turns out, and what he means by "low-priced," and I'd be *very* interested to know who is going to give him 70%. The major e-book distributors (Amazon, B&N, Apple) are just as greedy as any other publisher -- that's what they are -- AND they have a far tighter lock on distribution than any paper publisher ever did. There have always been dozens of publishers, but there are only three big American e-book sources, or four, if you count the newly bankrupt and probably doomed Borders.
There's a story in the weekend Wall Street Journal, an interview with Mary Higgens Clark, in which it says that 20% of her last best-seller was sold in e-book form.Overall, e-books in January 2011 were a little less than 10% of the market (~$69 million in ebooks vs. ~$809 million for the total market.) I would expect, though, that in the bestseller world, ebooks would hold a higher percentage.
If Barry Eisler was offered $500,000 for a book, in a hard-soft deal, I'd estimate that the publisher was expecting to sell no more than 50-60 thousand hardcovers and maybe 200,000-250,000 softcovers. At .99 a copy, keeping 70%, Eisler would just about have to double his readership to break even. But, perhaps he's looking to sell at the bestseller rate, which is $9.99 at Amazon...but then, I don't think he'd keep 70%. I can't think of any reason Amazon would do that...The goodness of their hearts, maybe?
An equally interesting question is how people are going to know that Eisler is selling his book. Maybe he'll advertise? One big problem for all writers is simply getting the audience to know that the book is out there...even if the audience WANTS to know that, it's hard. Advertising is back-breakingly expensive, and, for books, terribly inefficient. But, Eisler is (or was) a genuine bestselling author; maybe he's really worked through this and knows what he's doing. It'll be interesting.
Amazon gives 70% royalties on ebooks to authors (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/jan/20/amazon-ebook-royalty-deal) (minus delivery) on books priced 2.99 to 9.99 USD - I'm not an author and haven't read the fine print, though. It is in their interest to push ebooks since they produce Kindle and (presumably) retain a higher cut than on dead-tree books. They sell more ebooks than paperbacks (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2011/jan/28/amazon-kindle-ebook-paperback-sales) these days and it's only going to grow. It will be interesting to see how that percentage will be affected by their market share: they face stiff competition from B&N, Sony and others.
Kindle (and Nook) is crippled by DRM and Amazon has some very questionable policies regarding their right to delete or alter customers' books, but people don't seem to care.
It's much easier for established authors to do these kinds of deals in writing and music - they already have a fan base who are looking forward to their future work. Still, there's no reason why a distributed model of finding great authors or musicians wouldn't work. It's already happening on a small scale, with stories about youtube stars making it and of course the continued barrage of TV shows Idol This and [country's] Best That.
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Looks like there already is a self-published author-millionaire who made it from nothing, without the support of traditional publishing (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/books/amanda-hocking-sells-book-series-to-st-martins-press.html).
Interestingly she is only now signing a seven-figure contract with a legacy publisher, after becoming a best-selling author. As a further sign of reversal of roles, she says about the deal in her blog (http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog.html) "Part of the reason I'm taking [the publishing deal] now is because I have made enough of my name for myself that I had the leverage to get the kind of deal I wanted."