Note to NY: You Can’t Muscle out Ebooks. Nice Try Though.
Over on Dear Author there was a post about how many of the larger trade publishers seem to want to make ebooks the same price as hardcover editions, even if they have a cheaper mass market edition.
No. Epic fail.
I’m not exactly sure what is going on here, but the economy is in the toilet, ebooks are the future (at least in the sense of becoming a much bigger piece of the reading pie), and NY publishers can’t stop it.
I know there is a fear of piracy. But really, you can’t “make” everybody charge outrageous prices for their ebooks. Sure, the big dogs can charge insane prices, but readers won’t buy them. You’re missing out on an entire new demographic of readers. And lest publishers think that somehow they will force readers to buy print books of what they’re releasing … not necessarily. I know the idea is: “If we have a $14 ebook, they’ll just go ahead and buy the $7.99 mass market book.” Not if they prefer ebooks they won’t. They just won’t buy your authors.
I personally hate ebooks. I loathe them with a firey passion that is hard to match. Because books to me are about getting away from technology and participating in magic. And in my opinion magic isn’t about bits and bytes. But what *I* personally like and dislike only matters when it comes to my personal buying decisions. And I’m not going to dictate to my reader how they should consume my books. There is an entire demographic out there that wants ebooks. And I will serve that demographic as well as those like me who are “pervy about paper.” (wish I could take credit for that line, but I can’t, and I can’t remember who said it. Maybe Cory Doctorow, but I’m not totally sure.)
A few people actually read very little but ebooks. And so when major publishers decide they want to charge out the whazoo for ebook copies, what they’re really doing is ensuring that at least a certain demographic won’t ever buy any book they release in any format. They may steal it, but you aren’t selling them the mass market version. Give up the dream. You’ve already pissed them off.
Also, lose the DRM. I know it’s comforting to believe DRM stops piracy, but it doesn’t. And it treats honest readers (the majority) like they are thieves. That’s a tad bit offensive.
Further, because you won’t lower your prices to something reasonable, indie authors and small presses will do it for you. Sure, they can’t change the price of your ebooks, but they can lower the price of their own, and readers will buy elsewhere. Big publishers: You’re losing an entire demographic of readers who might not come back to you when you finally get with the program with ebooks.
Large publishers have been going on and on about how poor ebook sales are and how they haven’t “taken off.” Well of course not, you’ve rigged the system. You’ve used crazy DRM, refused to move to one standardized format that everyone can agree upon, (much like mp3 with music), and you’ve overcharged for the few formats you have made available. It’s not shocking when ebooks don’t pan out after that.
We don’t live in the same Draconian system anymore. You can’t snap your fingers and expect the world to oooh and aaaah and follow your game plan. We have the internet now. We have POD, we have ebooks, we have Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com and that’s only the big things we have.
It’s ludicrous to act like charging $14 for an ebook and then crooking your finger is going to bring us running to you, grateful for the chance to gobble up your overpriced wares. But nice try. And thanks for making it easier for the indies to play this game. Keep believing you can stop the tide with ebooks, and we’ll all laugh on our way to the bank because we understand the concept of “impulse purchase.”
I find the whole “pirating” issue to be just as lame as the attempt to blame UBSs for the failure of both authors and the publishing model.
1) When you look at the music industry, people are still buying songs legitimately–granted, they aren’t moving whole albums the way they used to (remember the late 90s, when pop artists were selling a million copies in one day?), but the industry isn’t dead. If it were, then everyone who listened to music would pirate all the time–who’s still buying CDs and songs?
2) Who wants a pirated e-book? If people need to be nudged out of their assumption that reading on the computer is the same as reading a book on an e-reader, why would they seek badly-formatted, pirated e-books?
3) As with the reader rebuttal against author’s blaming UBS’s for their poor sales, most people who download music end up buying the album legitimately if they feel it’s worth purchasing (aka, if I love that used copy, I’ll seek your backlist and purchase your new releases). Ahem *cough*–the reason why offering a book for free is so vital for a new author (whether it be e-book or a book giveaway): if it’s free, readers can ‘test drive’ the author before making a commitment to buy a book that could fall apart after chapter three. Plus, if it’s free, a reader might be more inclined to push past a lackluster chapter or two because they didn’t spend any money and they don’t have to worry about the hassle of getting a refund (::delete!::).
The way I see, by pricing e-books so high, NY is attempting to staunch a hemorrhaging system with one tiny band-aid. The issue isn’t controlling consumer flow to bookstores, and it isn’t even about the quality of books–the surge of interest in e-books is about a brand new way of consuming a product or service. We went through this when Cable came out and squashed the traditional networks; when MTV made the music industry think further than finding a nice singer/songwriter and just handing their album to radio stations; when cell phones replaced beepers; when the DVD slaughtered the VHS; when MySpace, YouTube and blogging and twitter changed the way we receive our news and entertainment.
NY dragging their heels over the e-book issue only alienates them from present and coming generations of people who want only e-books, and those who want the freedom to choose between e-books and traditional print. And I find it baffling that both writers and the publishing industry balk at the change–in any other sector, keeping abreast and apace with new developments in the field is required–otherwise your company is left in the dust (I’m looking at the AMD sticker on my laptop, where formerly, Intel had the corner-market on processors).
Hey Evangeline, good points! THe thing about the music industry is that artists were being so screwed over it didn’t matter if they sold millions of copies, they could still die bankrupt.
But I think the thing about not buying whole albums is fair. Used to musicians could get away with a few breakaway hits and the rest was crap filler and people had to buy it anyway. Now people can choose to buy only the songs they like. So they really all have to be great.
Also, even with pirated ebooks, you still have people who GET what piracy does to the artists, and even if they got it for free somewhere, if they like it they will find a way to financially support the artist. The first problem any artist has to overcome is obscurity.
And there is always that massive contingent of people who prefer paper books, and if you write something good enough, you’ll always have that market.
And I agree totally with your point number three! NY has started treating books like commodities. Well, if you’re going to do that, then books are product and readers are customers and you always serve the customer first.
The way NY has handled ebooks is not in service to the customer. They’ve stopped producing art, and they don’t seem capable of handling products. So where does this leave us?
I agree that the publishers are undermining themselves with inflated prices and making too big a deal about piracy. It seems so futile and illogical that it makes you wonder who’s running the publishing show.
There will always be the good doobies who want to support artists and pay for the products they receive. My itunes account is proof of my good doobiness.
The thing about the big NY publishers of course is that they’re all publicly traded companies that need to protect their revenue (and grow it by 5-7% every year). If the people making these decisions threw caution to the wind, forgot all about DRM and started charging $5 per ebook to those conscientious enough to pay for it, they’d all be fired. Not an excuse–just the reason. What I think the big pubs need to do if they are to survive is move away from the blockbuster model to more of a long tail model. If they choose to do that, ebooks are their means to that end. They’d better get their flabby butts in gear if they’re going to do it, though…otherwise the rest of the world will just move on without them.
I don’t believe they’re going to survive at all, particularly once Borders bites the dust. For one, they’re not going to be able to absorb the returns. Right now, those books are listed on their A/R sheets and counted as assets.
Something will grow out of the ashes with those same names, but no, they aren’t going to survive this and look anything like they do now.
hehehe Robin
Hey David, I tend to agree with you.
And I really think NY pubs have no business being publicly traded companies. They don’t run their businesses with any level of common sense or business sense by any definition I’ve seen.
If they were privately held companies they could run things in the way they need to run them to stay in business. But if they want to make the big bucks, they need to get out of publishing and move on to something else.
Because publishing is about passion. And all these cookie cutter books that are starting to be turned out, really show a lack of that, and the readers are starting to feel it.
And I don’t want people to stop reading and go do other things based on the fact that NY wants to make publishing something it’s not supposed to be.
Whatever happened to good taste?
Whatever happened to Maxwell Perkins?
Mojo,
I really don’t think they’ll survive either. And while indies like us today may to some still look like something worth turning your nose up at, In the not too distant future, what we’re doing is going to start to look downright legit.
I don’t agree. I think they have the right to do business any way they want. The market will sift them out and if they don’t adapt, they’ll die.
Those cookie cutter books *do* make the money so in that respect, they are serving their market. Publishing is *not* about passion; nobody goes into business to lose money.
On the other hand, the market will decide which customers are passionate about what books and that it what it is doing right now. There is a seismic shift going on because while people *will* buy the cookie cutter books, they *might* want something different and they *will* go looking for it as new avenues for distribution become available.
I know a lot of extremely intelligent people who want to not think after their work is done. They *want* cookie cutter books so that they can escape and not think. There is a place for cookie cutter books.
But there are now places for the original books and ways for authors to get their work to the people who want them and crave them.
Publishing as it stands has worked to make money since the Depression. Their only problem now is adapting to the availability of technology to people who don’t mind striking out on their own and will become their competition. I’m eager to see how it will weather a Borders bankruptcy.
Mojo, I have some business sense, and naturally want to make money writing, so I’ll try to make the least goofy choices toward that end.
But art is not, IMO a commodity. And shouldn’t be. Books are about the art to me. I don’t think publishing EVER should have become “big business.”
Not in the way that it has.
I don’t really think any form of entertainment should become big business if art gets sacrificed on the altar of money.