Friday News: Agency pricing returns with a vengeance, Etsy goes public, the trouble with Jon Ronson, and The Left Hand of Darkness radio play
Publishing NewsAgency pricing / Easy / Ebooks / IPO / online speech / public shaming / publishing / radio play / SFF / Ursula Le Guin28 Comments
Best-Selling Ebook Prices Rise Before HarperCollins Restores Agency – And so it begins. Readers reported seeing higher prices for Harlequin ebooks in Wednesday’s news report on HC’s deal with Amazon, and now we have even more confirmation of rising prices in the form of the Digital Book World’s tracking of the Ebook Best-Seller List for the week of April 5th. And it’s important to note that prices began to rise before the restoration of Agency pricing. This is not helping my general sadness over the sale of Harlequin to HC and what that means for the grande dame of Romance publishers.
But since all six HarperCollins titles on this week’s rankings are currently selling on Amazon at prices noticeably higher than those listed below (five of them already with the telltale label, “This price was set by the publisher”), it seems a fair bet that the overall uptick will continue. –Digital Book World
Etsy Closes Up 86 Percent On First Day Of Trading – I didn’t realize that Easy was going public, but in their initial IPO today, the company did very well, with shares initially set at $16 dollars, shooting up to $35, and settling at $30 by the end of trading. The company now boasts a valuation of $3.5 billion.
The question now is how Etsy plans to maintain its small craft, artisanal identity. The company has a loyal base of buyers and sellers who go to the site to buy unique items. Etsy will face challenges in competing with what it counts as its larger rivals Alibaba, eBay and Amazon, without losing its key base of homemade goods enthusiasts.
If the company were to see interest in its core marketplace slip, the firm might be forced to diversify its product mix through rules changes that could lead to customers becoming disenchanted with its marketplace. The firm has to weigh the importance of its now diverse and public shareholders, as well as its users that bought and sold enough craft items to let the company execute its IPO. –Tech Crunch
So You’ve Been Publicly Scapegoated: Why We Must Speak Out on Call-Out Culture – You may be following the recent controversy over Jon Ronson’s new book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, and if so, Katherine Cross’s article on Ronson’s book (and the trend it represents) is a good analysis of the fundamental problems with what Cross refers to as the “shallow handwringing” of the socially privileged. That Ronson’s book, in particular, has captured so much public support may be due, in part, to ignorance about the context in which he’s storytelling, as well as real frustration over the consequences of brute democracy. Either way, it’s ironic and troubling, given the issues at stake.
It joins a growing pantheon of articles that are distinguished by their one-dimensional treatment of a genuine social problem: Michelle Goldberg’s Nation essay on “Toxic Twitter Feminism” (full disclosure: I was interviewed for that piece) and Jonathan Chait’s recent effort in New York Magazine being two clear examples thereof.
What these works all have in common is that they attempted to address something that has exorcised radical activists for years: the mob mentality that grabs ahold of us when we use social media, where we lose ourselves in the censorious crowd eager to punish someone (almost always a single individual) who gave great offense. In other words, the screaming, directionless crowds on the internet who descend onto someone unlucky enough to get their attention.
What they also have in common is that they paid next to no attention to the complicated discourse that has emerged around what has come to be known as “call out culture,” and opted instead for easy scapegoats, false equivalences, and inexpertly mashing together often contradictory and uncited arguments. –Feministing
Hear Ursula K. Le Guin’s Pioneering Sci-Fi Novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, as a BBC Radio Play – In the midst of all the controversy around this year’s Hugo Awards, the BBC has turned Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness into a radio play. Still immensely popular, Le Guin’s book draws heavily on cultural anthropology and mythology, and received the Hugo Award in 1970.
The first episode of the BBC’s Left Hand of Darkness has already aired, and you can hear it free online for about a month at the show’s site. (It runs almost an hour.) Episode two will come available on its own page shortly after being broadcast this Sunday. You can get a taste of the production from the promotional video at the top of the post; the one just above gives a scrap of insight as to how Le Guin came to envision the novel’s world. –Open Culture
All the publishers have done is push me to utilize my library and Scribd more. My budget will no longer accommodate their inflated prices. At the rate I read, I just can’t afford to subsidize their business model any more.
“But since all six HarperCollins titles on this week’s rankings are currently selling on Amazon at prices noticeably higher than those listed below (five of them already with the telltale label, “This price was set by the publisher”), it seems a fair bet that the overall uptick will continue.”
Before we get too upset, we should check to see whether there is validity in this. I went to Amazon and found the current numbers do not reflect this statement.
The six HarperCollins books are:
11 (n/a) The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower – $14.44
Current price on Amazon: $14.99
12 (10) Allegiant (Divergent Trilogy Book 3) by Veronica Roth – $3.99 (obviously this was a sale)
Current price on Amazon: $10.99
13 (16) The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad – $0.99 (obviously another sale)
Current price on Amazon: $2.99 (still on sale, it seems; just a touch higher)
14 (12) Insurgent (Divergent Trilogy Book 2) by Veronica Roth – $3.99 (another sale)
Current price on Amazon: $8.99
18 (n/a) Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill; Lisa Pulitzer – $1.99 (another sale)
Current price on Amazon: $11.79
20 (13) Divergent (Divergent Trilogy Book 1) by Veronica Roth – $2.99 (another sale)
Current price on Amazon: $6.99
—
In summary, none of these price hikes are alarming. At all. Four out of six are raised from vastly low sale prices to normal prices, a fifth is raised two dollars more, still offering a damned good sale price, and the other was raised 55 cents. Three out of six see a price hike because, I would assume, the sale on the Divergent trilogy was finished, and all three made the list due to the sale. Likely others made the list also because of the sales they offered.
Really? There is zero reason to complain here. That linked article was shoddy reporting at best and alarmist whining at worst. Straight-up.
@Suzanne:
Let’s look at some pre-order pricing, across pubs –
Hell’s Foundations Quiver – D Weber, Macmillan – 14.99
The Change – Stirling, ROC – 14.99
Staked – Hearne, RH – 13.99
Shadows of Self – Sanderson, Macmillan – 14.99
The Price of Valor – Wexler, ROC – 12.99
You don’t find anything alarming about those prices?? Hardcover pricing is ridiculous, and I had to stop purchasing those. I won’t pay 15 bucks for a digital file that I don’t even own, can’t share with my friends, or donate to the library when I’m finished with it.
I’ve read almost all of Jon Ronson’s books and I got So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed on release day. It was definitely not the book I was expecting and I was disappointed in it over all. I was really uncomfortable with how he wrote about the black female who called out the white males making comments about the guys at the tech conference. She came off really bad in that story and the white guys came off as the true victims. I couldn’t tell if the woman really was as unsympathetic as Ronson wrote her or that was his take on the story. There was nothing redeeming about the woman in his writing and I felt like she got trounced all over again. I’ve worked in tech for over 20 years and if nothing else, that topic gave me some good lunchtime conversation with my female coworker.
The really controversial comment about women’s feelings about being raped vs men’s feelings about being fired is another strange thing. Articles I’ve read say that line isn’t in the final book but only the advance copies but I’m sure it was in the audiobook because I remember having a real eyebrow-raising moment over it when I heard it. Maybe it was easier to remove from the print version than the audio?
@Julie @ Manga Maniac Cafe:
It doesn’t matter whether I like those prices or not, because the article wasn’t about those prices. The article was a stern dressing-down to HarperCollins for all of a sudden having these steep pricing hikes just to be jerks, and if you look at the relevant HarperCollins books and their pricing, you will see there is nothing of the kind happening.
@Julie @ Manga Maniac Cafe: I saw that Hearne preorder price last week and choked. Books 1-6 were preorders at $7.99, book 7 jumped to $12.99 and now we have book 8 at $13.99.
Dear Random House- I’m not buying.
@Suzanne: Thanks for the corresponding information. It makes sense. Also should be interesting to see what happens going forward. I maintain that anything over 9.99 is just too much to pay for an ebook, as the technology is currently implemented, but I know others don’t share my opinion.
By the way, your avatar… Is it from ‘It Happened One Night’? Love that movie. :)
The thing I thought that was so interesting about Ronson (and I’ve debated writing something up about this) was that the concept of rape as a fear was so completely foreign to him that he tried to contextualize it to make it something that he (and men like him) could understand. Robin, you and I talk a lot about paradigms and how understanding the paradigm can lead understanding about behavior within the paradigms.
Ronson as a white male lives inside a certain paradigm. He tried to fit the rape concept within his own paradigm using his own fears and conjectures. He was trying to empathize, just not doing it well. I think it speaks a great deal to the chasm between men and women on the subject of rape.
I’ve read a couple of Ronson’s books (The Psychopath Test, Lost at Sea) and I’ve just now started listening to So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.
I know the gist of what the controversy is about & I’m braced to come across something really objectionable in the book, but characterizing his entire oeuvre as “shallow handwringing” is dismissive and incorrect.
Most of what he writes about touches on the feeling of anxiety, in one way or another–he’s said more than once that he’s an exceptionally anxious person. He finds that point of sympathy and then expands on it in really interesting ways, and I think he mixes a sharp eye for human frailty with real empathy and fellow-feeling for same.
@Jane: I think Ronson really got into trouble when he basically doubled down after he was called out, which pretty much eclipsed any goodwill he might have won for ‘trying to empathize.’ And yes, I agree that this example demonstrates the gulf between men and women on rape, and I’d extend that to other forms of harassment, as well, as demonstrated by Ronson’s incredibly problematic treatment of Adria Richards.
@Kim W: I should have included this in the post, but here’s a piece that portrays Richards’s side of the story, with many additional links: http://www.shakesville.com/2015/02/the-falsest-of-false-equivalencies.html.
@Kim W:
Oh, this is disheartening. I was already a little bummed because it’s short. Well. Forewarned is forearmed.
@Erin Satie: You might want to check out the Shakesville post I just linked to in my comment re. the Adria Richards story.
@Erin Satie: The “shallow handwringing” comment doesn’t refer to Ronson’s oeuvre but to the public shaming oeuvre of which his latest book is a part. Cross talks not only about Ronson’s new book but about articles by Jonathan Chait and Michelle Goldberg on related topics.
I was shocked by the way he characterized the Adria Richards incident. I can’t understand how anyone who watched that go down in real time, let alone paid any attention to what happened to her afterward, could write about this and focus the shame aspect on the men involved.
It’s not just the higher prices on Harlequin titles. You can no longer use coupons at Kobo on Harlequin or Carina books which I know for some will be a huge deal.
Romance more than any other genre has a highly competitive self-pub and small pub market (Samhain, etc.) that was, if I’m not mistake, already huge competition for Harlequin. Those competitor books can still be couponed and also still work in the buy 10 get one free are ARe which seems to me one more disadvantage for Harlequin now that they’re Agency.
@Robin/Janet: I had not read this piece. Only the galley thing and his initial response to it.
Here’s a good review of the book at the Times -> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/books/review/jon-ronsons-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed.html?_r=0
The experience of women online is the great link between speech and violence, between offense and abuse. For women — and for all gender offenders, from gays to trans people — insult and the threat of murder are issued simultaneously. Like almost every other book, then, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” would probably have been handled better by a woman. Often we send a married, middle-aged man who makes $250,000 a year (half a million in a good year, apparently) to do the job. It’s fine! Ronson is a sweet and particularly talented man. But the actual problem with the Internet isn’t us hastily tweeting off about foolish people. The actual problem is that none of the men running those bazillion-dollar Internet companies can think of one single thing to do about all the men who send women death threats.
I think I will stay away from the Ronson book. I saw some discussion of something similar in the NYT a few months ago and was annoyed that misbehavior that adults should know better about is now being turned around to make them victims. Which they are not. Especially if you are in tech or PR and know the internet is forever and viral.
Separately, the prices that are being quoted of late are seriously making me appreciate that I have recently picked up Scribd. 13.99 for an ebook I can’t do anything with. I would say the only authors who I would perhaps consider at that price are Michelle Sagara and Ilona Andrews. I think the prices they are offering are definitely not going to bring in new readers and possibly some old readers will drop them. I might have to learn to be patient until the paperback comes out.
@Jane: Choire Sicha is absolutely the best when it comes to criticism. His touch is light but he cuts deep.
In addition to Ronson’s treatment of Adria Richards, the reviews of the book suggest he’s bending over backwards to make Jonah Lehrer seem sympathetic. As a writer, Ronson should be as sensitive as anyone to the ramifications of Lehrer’s actions. As Sicha points out, most of the men have been able to move on. The women, not so much, and the POC women least of all.
@Diana:
Yup, it’s from It Happened One Night. One of my favorite movies. :)
For fiction, I would very, very rarely pay over $7.99 for a ebook myself, and even then it would have to be for one of my very favorite authors. I’ve done it, but only when I knew it’d be worth it. Without blinking an eye, I paid $12.99 on release day for Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance and considered it a bargain.
For non-fiction, I have not hesitated to pay up to $20 or even more, depending on the subject. I paid $45 for a historical linguistics textbook in ebook form once, just because it was a book I loved and would reread often. I bought a brilliant book on Abraham Lincoln’s speeches analyzed and presented through the context of Euclid’s elements; it was about $18 and well worth it. The business ebooks I buy are usually $9.99; it seems like a genre standard. I buy history books every so often that are $10-25 for the ebook. I will also, without hesitation, pay any price Donald Maass sets for his writing instruction books. If he set his next ebook at $35, I would stare in agony at that price and then I would pay it, because the content of his books are invaluable.
So really, it depends on the book. I work a whole lot for a decent job and I don’t have any spouse or children, so I run a single household. If I find a specific book to fill the twelve seconds of free time I get each week, I am fine with buying it if it’s not available through other immediate venues (Scribd etc.). I’m happy to support a talented author.
I do like the aspects we’ve seen grow from the expansion and validation of the self-publishing market over the last five years especially. It’s had an effect on pricing for sure, and I think we’re going in a good direction.
In the end, publishers will set a price, and if it sells well, they have no practical motivation to lower prices. We shouldn’t expect them to lower the prices out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s business, and if someone is buying for the price they set, why should they set it lower? If it doesn’t sell well, they can adjust accordingly. Until then, it’s more in their interest that fewer people buy at a higher price than more people buy at a lower price that doesn’t deliver as much total revenue.
In the end, I think we need to understand that we are consumers and the industry is created for us, but more than that, it’s created to make money from us, or it wouldn’t exist. More power to anyone who can get someone to pay a premium price for whatever reason. I have full respect for anyone who supplies an excellent product and prices it accordingly. I want to support the writers I appreciate. It pleases me most when they are self-published, because I know they’ll see much more of my money, but I’m okay supporting the publishing industry as well with traditional publishers. I’ve never been too bothered by someone out to make a buck if they deliver a solid product.
@Suzanne: You are absolutely right that the publishers will charge what the market will bear and consumers will buy or not. The problem I see with charging the high prices they are, particularly for new authors, is that consumers will look at the price and simply walk away and that author isn’t going to get another chance because they “didn’t sell well”. Most readers also aren’t in a position that they have the discretionary income to pay any price for a book they want. I am in a double-professional income-no-kids household and I still won’t pay those prices – I’m looking at my own retirement fund, not some CEO’s salary and bonus. What I fear is that more and more readers are simply going to find other things to do and that is going to further erode the book industry. The challenge for the book industry, as I see it, is that there are so many other forms of entertainment that are now more cost effective than buying books and give as much pleasure. The prices that publishers are charging for Y.A. books and ebooks is also concerning – how many young people that might be the next generation of readers are they driving away to other more cost-effective activities (like Netflix, games, social media etc.)?
I know that I am reading less and using the money that I used to spend on books to buy really nice yarn for knitting (which I’m finding is giving me as much pleasure as reading AND while I’m knitting, I can watch excellent T.V. on Netflix which costs me less per month than the average cost of one ebook). Like others here, I have also discovered Scrbd and I expect that I will not be cancelling my subscription after my three month trial, and I continue to use my public library (and the money I’m saving because I refuse to pay ridiculous prices now being charged for ebooks allows me to make a really nice donation to my library each year). When avid readers in a privileged position like me stop buying books, what does that bode for the overall health of the book industry?
@Sunita: Jacob Silverman’s review at Slate, which is linked in the post Robin included here, makes similar points about the lack of a political (race, class, gender) framework in Ronson’s approach. I thought this point was especially good:
“Ronson is seeking to get out of the public shaming mindset, to be empathic and nonjudgmental. But that leads him to indulge in a roving sentimentality that produces some false conclusions. . . .
This gender gap is key to understanding public shaming. At one point in the book, Ronson signs up to do a story where he dresses as a woman and goes out into the world to see how women are treated. But it shouldn’t take such a stunt to empathize with another person’s point of view. One way of finding out what it’s like to be a woman walking down the street is to talk to actual women.
The conceptual mistake that Ronson makes here is one that dogs the book: He foregrounds his own epiphanic understanding over the pain of his subjects and the issues they stir up. It causes him to seem rather guileless. The point of the kind of identity politics that Adria Richards gestures at is not to be ad hominem, as Ronson accuses her of being, but to recognize that different identities produce vastly different experiences and ways of being treated by others. And we come to understand these different experiences and their unique hardships not by simulating them, minstrellike, but by honestly reckoning with the testimony of others.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2015/04/jon_ronson_s_so_you_ve_been_publicly_shamed_reviewed.single.html
@Suzanne: In the end, I think we need to understand that we are consumers and the industry is created for us, but more than that, it’s created to make money from us, or it wouldn’t exist.
While I agree that the publishing industry exists to make money, I completely disagree that it exists for readers as consumers. In fact, the long-term disconnect between corporate publishing (and I don’t include individual editors and others who work directly with authors and books) and readers/consumers doesn’t seem to have gotten better in the past few years — years that I kind of expected publishers to be more responsive to market changes and reader concerns. Because publishers have historically looked at retailers as their customers, in that sense it makes sense that they would be so fixated on Amazon. But it has also kept them alienated from what readers want and how we read and buy books.
Harlequin’s sale to HC is to me an example of how screwed readers are in this, because Harlequin was the one major publisher that not only sold direct to readers but also did actual market research with readers. That prices on HQN books are going up (re. comments on Wednesday’s news post) is already a bad sign, but I’m actually way more worried about whether (when? how?) Harlequin is going to get ground up into the corporate machinery of Big Five publishing. When the genre’s defining publisher becomes alienated from readers, I frankly think we’re all going to be screwed, and not in the pleasurable HEA kind of way.
@Lynnd: I definitely agree that first-time authors are likely getting a hard deal on this, being swallowed in the crowd at traditional publishing companies with other priorities. They might not be marketed too well, or editors might decide to give different books a push for the major distributors who purchase from the catalogs. So they don’t sell too well, so the publisher doesn’t want to back them at all on their next book, so it sells even worse than the first, so they don’t get a new contract. Catch-22, for sure.
I would assume that’s why so many are looking toward self-publishing now that it’s a much more viable option. It’s a very exciting time to follow the publishing industry. They can choose the marketing machine of a traditional publisher or they can be in charge of everything related to their novel, retaining all proprietary rights. It’s a very personal decision each author needs to make for themselves. They could fail or succeed with either option; with both, I’d think it’s up to that author’s determination, talent, and stamina.
Also, just a personal note: I am actively engaged in saving for retirement through multiple venues as well. :) I just don’t see the point in fussing over whether or not I should splurge on a book. The answer is yes: I should. I work very hard (60-70 hours a week) and I will spend some of that money right now; yes I will. If I didn’t get considerable benefit from it, I wouldn’t do it. For me at least, it’s not worth worrying over. I have tons to worry about already. This doesn’t reach the top hundred.
@Janet: For sure; I bet traditional publishers prefer to sell mainly to large distributors. That’s where the sure money is, and it can make or break a NYT bestseller before the release date. It’s a corrupted and mighty system in place for ages. All hail tradition.
But thankfully, it’s not the solid structure it was a decade ago. We’ve seen Waldenbooks and then Borders leave us (RIP) and it’s difficult to get people to buy hard copies with all these ebooks available for their mobile devices. Ebooks cater much more toward the individual consumer than a mighty enterprise, and that, I am sure, is super threatening, because the comfortable status quo is now merely how it used to be. Isn’t that awesome? I think it’s awesome. Amazon and iTunes and Kindles and Nooks and Kobo and anything with iOS or Android software changed everything. They have contracts with Amazon regarding pricing but ultimately, they’re paid what they sell. There are no remainders ebooks. I’m sure that scares the hell out of them. I’m not too broken up about it.
The music industry has had to rewrite itself completely and the book publishing industry is engaged in its own renaissance. We’re going back to what authors and publishers used to focus on before progress corrupted it: How many readers will buy my new book? What can I do to get the word out? What will my readers enjoy? What do I enjoy? There are so many more options today for authors, as opposed to even five years ago, and it’s exciting to watch the news every day as history changes around us.
Also, my apologies for blathering so long. I am so so so so relieved it is Friday night.
I haven’t read the book, but I read all related articles to the Adria Richards case when it happened including her own take. She clearly was in way beyond reason, and whilst the shitstorm hitting her wasn’t justified, it certainly was to be expected given what she did.
@Liz Mc2: Thanks, I hadn’t read that. It makes sense that if Ronson “foregrounds his own epiphanic understanding over the pain of his subjects and the issues they stir up,” he’s not likely to be able to get at some of the important elements of these cases. He doesn’t seem to have the necessary toolkit.
@Robin/Janet: I just read the article from Adria Richards point of view about the Ronson book. In a way, I think it’s worth reading Ronson’s book just to see how badly he portrayed her. She really couldn’t have come off as more unsympathetic than she did. She’s the only person treated this way in the entire book and the story includes a woman who made a tasteless joke about AIDS and another who flipped off a national monument.
I can still return his book on my audible account and I’m thinking of doing it now.
@Drano – Adria made the remarks and photo public without trying to resolve it with the guy in question first. For that she should expect that ferocious, vile attack and to be fired from her job?
If anything, it should be the guy’s employer that should be attacked, for overreacting to Adria’s call-out. But somehow that never seems to happen, it’s always the person who says ‘this isn’t cool’, ‘this is sexist/racist’, who gets attacked.
@Suzanne: I think that my concern is for the health of the publishing industry overall. But, you and I are privileged in that we have the disposable income to spend on books. Like you, if I really, really want a book, I will just buy it – life’s too short and I work too hard to fret over whether I will spend that money on a book that I really want by an author who I know will deliver. Where the question comes in is with books that I am on the fence about or books by new authors. How much am I willing to spend on a book that may or may not give me pleasure? Increasingly, the answer is “not what they are charging.” For those who aren’t in our privileged position, the answer is that they will be forced to buy fewer books or will just stop buying books altogether and will find other sources of entertainment. I did an informal survey of people I know and this is exactly what’s happening. These are also people who are reluctant to dip their toes into the world of self-publishing because they don’t have the time or the energy to wade through what they consider to be a really big slush pile to find the good books and they don’t have time to spend online reading reviews. Many of them are also reading less and finding other things to do with their time. I expect that things will all shake out at the end of the day, just as they did with the music industry, but it will be a bumpy ride for a number of years. I think that authors, particularly mid-listers and new authors, like musicians, are the ones who will be the most adversely affected until new business models come into existence.