Comments on: HarperCollins E-Initiatives, an Interview with Ann Allessi

By: LinM

LinM — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:11:50 +0000

The interviewee (from RandomHouse) did invite me to revisit these issues with her in about six months and I will.

Oh good, I will look forward to that. At the moment the RandomHouse interview and the HarperCollins interview are both so non-committal that the company strategies sound the same. But your introductory comments about HarperCollins show that they have some interesting initiatives.

I’m glad that you are doing these series of interviews. With deteriorating eyesight, I find ebooks easier to read so I am cheering for every request for more digital books.

Thanks.

By: Jane

Jane — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 04:31:07 +0000

LinM – re: the random house interview, unfortunately, I had done the interview and had the answers and posted them on Sunday. The following day, I received an email asking for the post to be taken down and they sent me a revised version. I did take the post down because I didn’t want to get any one in trouble. The interviewee did invite me to revisit these issues with her in about six months and I will.

By: LinM

LinM — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 02:23:18 +0000

After reading this interview, I went back to the archives to read the articles from other publishers because this one sounds like PR – fluff without much substance. The Simon & Schuster interview had the wonderful comment about readers not needing a physical object on a shelf to feel ownership; the RandomHouse interview was featured during a difficult time for the ebook section of that company. I notice that 25% of that article has been deleted from the archive – if this is deliberate, it might be nice to finish this series of interviews by going back to RandomHouse.

My questions for Ann Allessi are the following:

1. What did happen with the Bujold “Beguilement” book? When almost every other title by this author is available in digital format, I am assuming that the decision did NOT originate with the author.

2. I am uncomfortable with your statement about author participation in ebooks: The more authors know about the format â€“ that it increases overall readership, rather than “poachingâ€�? from hardcover sales, for instance, the more motivated authors are to participate. What is HarperCollins doing in this area? What are author concerns? Specifically:

a) Royalties: I pay hardcover prices for ebooks when only the hardcover is out. Does HarperCollins pay authors the same royalities for both ebooks and hardcover during this period. Harlequin got slammed for their ebook royalty policy; what policy does HarperCollins have?

b) Rankings (eg: NYT bestseller list). Ebook sales are increasing; what are publishers doing to encourage and help the “reviewing” community to count ebook sales in the bestseller stats.

c) Piracy. Since I can buy almost any bestseller in digital format from black-market servers, do reasonably priced ebooks increase or decrease piracy? What lessons are book publishers learning from the music industry – both what to do and what not to do.

d) What other specific factors are discouraging author participation in ebook sales and what is HarperCollins doing to address these issues?

By: jmc

jmc — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:04:29 +0000

Bujold is an author that I buy in both formats, bound and electronic. I slightly prefer the bound version, in part because I pimp her books often and the bound copy is the hook; an e-book wouldn’t work as well, since most of my friends/family aren’t interested in e-books. Having said that, I do think it is odd that Beguilement is not available electronically. Harper/Eos did e-publish her fantasy trilogy. I wonder what changed between the last contract and the one for TSK?

I think the rest of her backlist, heinous covers and all, is availabe at Baen even though their intial publications date as far back as 1986. Of course, it isn’t fair to compare almost any other publisher to Baen, which seems to have been far ahead of the curve in terms of e-books.