Claire Israel is the Director of Digital Content and Business Development of Simon & Schuster. S&S sells all of its ebooks 40% off the list price. She graciously answered some questions about S&S’s digital publishing business.
What is Simon & Schuster's mission for digital publishing?
Our mission is to turn every suitable book into a digital version at the time of publication.
S&S is doing some great initiatives in the ebook market such as pricing the books at 40% of the list price and providing one book a month as an advanced release. Can you share with us some of the decision making process as it related to these initiatives, particularly the pricing initiative?
We price our books at what the market will bear. Since we have operated an eBook store for years off of Simonsays.com, and have a dedicated customer service representative on staff, we have an unfiltered line of communication with the end consumer. We know what our readers want to pay.
Publishing in advance of publication is a great value add to the consumer. Since many book files are finished before the actual printing and shipping to stores, we can fill a need that rabid …
Loading ...
Open Threads at Dear Author. Want to know what new releases are out this month and what readers are excited about reading? Check out the threads below. 
We don’t like to censor comments nor do we endorse the comments of any poster. We do reserve the right to moderate comments but most of the time will not, believing, as Justice Brandeis did, that the greater good is in “more speech, not enforced silence.”
