Literary agent Nathan Bransford has an article on his blog, E-Book Pricing and Publication Debate Erupts, and the points that I take away from his piece are; 1) pricing e-books over $9.99 is a bad idea; 2) Simultaneous publication is the only way to go; and 3) delayed release dates for e-books means lost sales.
I agree with his first point, but I think his other points ignore long standing consumer trends. Instead, he makes demands that he would like to see, even if they are unrealistic.
First, I agree that the 9.99 price is the cap that most consumers are willing to pay for an e-book, and I know that I would not buy a book over that price. In fact, if I have to pay over $10 for an e-book, I usually just spring for the paper version instead. (I don’t buy anything over $20, shipping not included.)
Part of the pull of e-books is supposed to be the lower cost of maintaining the files. If you make the e-books just as expensive as a hardcover, then you are pushing readers away for no good reason. It’s damned hard to justify a high cost when there’s less cost in producing and maintaining the digital book, and I’ve yet to see a compelling argument for why e-books need to go over the $10 limit.
But the next point he makes, that simultaneous release of print and e-books copies is the only way to go, ignores an already established model of releasing content in a premium format first. The products are later released to lower price brackets, and this is a model with a long history of successes. A movie goes to the theater first, and then it goes to DVD. A book has a hardcover run, and then six months later, the mass market paperback comes out.
This is a standard model, and e-book readers demanding that they get served now is just an overfed sense of entitlement. Sorry, but the book publishers do not need to give in to your demands to release the material sooner. You can either wait to pick up the title in your preferred format, or you can plunk down the cash to pick up the hardcover edition if you just have to read the book NOW. Or you can complain about how unfair it is that you have to wait. I suspect only a few of you will resort to the last option.
Finally, Nathan claims that if he can’t get the book right now, the very instant it comes out, he will never get it. I don’t believe he’s sincere on this point, and I need to use a tangent to explain. I don’t buy hardcover books. I never have, and I do not see a point to spending over a certain amount for a print copy. But like most people, I just wait until the book comes out in paperback to buy it at a lower price. I know I’m not alone in this behavior, and I feel fairly confident that if the publishers adopted a schedule of a hardcover release followed by an e-book release six months later, it would lead to a similar buying trend.
If someone really does consider it a problem that they can’t have the e-book at the same time, I can’t see why they would refuse to get the book if it came out in their preferred format six months later. I mean, readers can’t really be so petty that they’re saying, “I didn’t get served first, so I’m boycotting the title forever!” (if you are, you’re also punishing your favorite writers without considering how childish your demands are.)
I love e-books, and I’m always griping that the major publishers need to get their butts in gear on releasing more e-book formats. But I see no problem with a staggered release, and if this became a standard procedure, I can predict my buying behavior. I wouldn’t buy a hardcover copy of my favorite author’s book, but I would buy an e-book copy a few months later, so long as it was under the $10 price range. Whether they offer that file six months or one year after the hardcover, I don’t care. I’ll just be glad to have an e-book in a price range that won’t break me.
As a final note, I’m disappointed with how Kindle-centric the e-book market discussions have become. It’s true that Amazon controls the vast majority of e-book content. But for us folks outside the US, the Kindle is a fucking brick.
Outside of the US, the Bookeen CyBook is starting to take off with readers, and here again, Amazon makes out like a bandit because of the Cybook’s native support for the Mobipocket format. But then there are other devices that could potentially cut Amazon out of the deal, like the Sony e-reader, the iPhone and the Palm Pre. So what I’m saying is, the Kindle is not the only game in town. Outside of the US, the Kindle isn’t even a competitor. To focus solely on the Kindle as an e-book bellwether is to ignore the English speaking markets of the rest of the world.
That’s not a small number of readers. It’s a viable market of millions being ignored while people focus on a micromarket that belongs almost exclusively to Amazon. That strikes me as a foolhardy mistake, to treat a micromarket as the bellweather for the global reading market. So before you quote only the Kindle data, maybe you should also research the e-book buying habits of the rest of the planet?
I am a bisexual transsexual with bigender tendencies. I'm a former resident of Texas, but now live in Milan with my husband. I write in a variety of genres and have self-published ebooks through my 
I agree with your pricing comments. I’m on social security and my budget is really tight, so buying hardcover doesn’t make sense unless I want that book no matter what. I love being able to read a book on my computer screen but can’t see me buying an e-book reader until the prices are more manageable.
I collect books and buy used books when they are out of print. I try for first editions. I have paid over $100 for some books. I do not like the feel smell or screens of electronic books. Besides it is all a marketing ploy and they have many upgrades planned over the next few years that will make the old ones obsolete. They will have those that read to you, then in the voice of your choice, then color pictures then moving pictures, etc.
Each time the old formate will be obsolete.
Besides many books are free on google anyway.
I love the smell and feel of a paper book but I know that e-books also have their charms. I’m glad to have both in my library.
Lisa, no P, said:
“Besides it is all a marketing ploy and they have many upgrades planned over the next few years that will make the old ones obsolete. They will have those that read to you, then in the voice of your choice, then color pictures then moving pictures, etc.”
Lisa, what you’ve described is true of the Kindle only. To counter these opinions with facts, let me tell you about the Cybook Gen3. The Gen3 has been a standard model for well over a year now, and there are no plans to upgrade the platform at this time.
I’m sure that the company may eventually release a Gen 4 model, but it probably won’t happen until after they’ve perfected the color e-ink screens. This would allow for viewing color images, but moving pictures on an e-ink screen will be impractical for many years to come because e-ink screens “flash” to refresh the page. If a consumer wanted an all-in-one device to read e-books, surf the web and watch movies, they should look at a device with an LCD or OLED display instead of an e-ink screen. E-ink is a solution for avid readers who want to avoid eye-strain during extended sessions. It IS NOT meant to be a display used in an all-in-one device.
I digress, when a device upgrade comes out, the file formats of the books WILL NOT change. That’s the whole point of coding the books in XML format, a practice that’s been around for four or five years now. The decision was made so that the books were platform independent, and so they wouldn’t become obsolete with each new device upgrade.
And those free books on Google you mentioned? I can already download them onto my device and read them offline, because my device supports reading HTML files. If a book or file is in a format my device can’t support, I have a free software program that will convert the book into a native format.
I’m not trying to convert you to an e-reader, but if you’re going to air a negative opinion about the devices, maybe you should do more research on other models besides the Kindle.
Lisa, with P, said:
“I love being able to read a book on my computer screen but can’t see me buying an e-book reader until the prices are more manageable.”
Yeah, that was my stance too, but because of international shipping charges, the cost of my books is always high. I realized that a year’s worth of shipping charges was over the cost of the reader, so I took the plunge and bought one. I’ve owned it for a year now, and still love and use the device.
Having said that, I think the market for e-books won’t expand until some e-readers hit the sub-$99 price range. When they hit that stage, more people will come around to give them a chance. But right now, sticker shock is still putting off a lot of casual readers who can’t justify the cost.
“but if you’re going to air a negative opinion about the devices, maybe you should do more research on other models besides the Kindle.”
I am not talking 2 or 3 years. I am talking 50 to 100 years. Books have lasted 2000 years I doubt your battery design will.
Film is gone after 50 years, 78 to 45 to 33 to reel to 8 track to cassette to CD to MP3 etc. E-books will be long gone as the new is more that is called planned obsolescence practiced by most business.
Riiiiight, because books are still on clay tablets, just like they were 2000 years ago. I’m rolling my eyes now, just so you know.
Scrolls and pages. Epicurus work from 400 BC is not in stone. Many roman speeches are on scrolls. One page books were folded to create many pages. If you had a feel for history the country that you are in has a wealth. Take a trip to Rome and visit the Vatican. The Bible has many of Epicurus quotes and coined phrases. Roll eyes when you do the research, but then that is not what you like. You can download an E-book and I will buy the same thing in paper. By the time I die the paper will still be readable but your e-book will be in some trash dump. How many cell phones have you owned. I know mine only last about 4 years as well as computers. They do not last as long as TV’s. Now analog TV’s are obsolete in the U.S. It is all digital. Books need no batteries.
The durability of paper is proportional to the number of uses you put into the book. For instance, hubby has books from Terry Pratchett that he has had to replace because he wore out his copies. Hubby is also a book killer, one of those people who crack book spines by doubling them over aggressively. Even if you are a gentler reader, if you use a book frequently, it breaks down and does not last a lifetime.
Paper books require extra work to dust and keep safe from light exposure, or molds and mildews from excess humidity. You can lose your library in a flood or a fire. Only the grace of good fortune keeps your legacy intact. How many world libraries have gone up in flames over the centuries, taking with them all their accumulated knowledge?
I can keep my e-library backed up on a memory key that I can stick in my back pocket and take wherever. My key requires no power itself, but it works all over the world in every make and model of computer going back a full decade. Even the oldest library machines still have a USB port. That’s the portability of an entire library in my pocket. Your books will never do that.
By all means, keep pushing paper like it has no flaws. You have no chance of converting me back to being a paper purist, but you just might help convince someone else to avoid e-books. Perhaps you might also acknowledge that it is possible to use both print books and e-book simultaneously. I do it all the time, and the value of what I read doesn’t change based on the media it’s presented on. Paper or plastic, it’s all good.
My husband and I have had our t.v. since 2002 and have no plans to replace it anytime soon. My current computer? 6 years plus. Not everything has to give in to planned obsolescence. WE can change the plan. I have no plans to give up my books but I can appreciate new technology.
Owners of Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader have received a nasty surprise, after discovering that copies of books by George Orwell had been deleted from their gadgets without their knowledge…
In an ironic twist, one of the titles in question was Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984 – the book that introduced the concept of Big Brother.