A culture of reading, or a culture of buying?
Last week’s post on digital book prices for commercial fiction engendered a lot of great responses, reflecting some really passionate opinions on how books are priced and how readers make their purchasing decisions. Judging from that completely anecdotal, self-selecting, limited sample, it seems like $12.99 is out of reach for the vast majority of readers who responded, and even $9.99 is on the very high side of affordable and/or reasonable.
In the wake of that discussion, it was brought to my attention that in some quarters my post was being referred to as “entitled,” and as contributing to a market where authors cannot afford to write and culture is killed dead. In case you didn’t read the post, here’s the quick and dirty summary of my argument:
- I have no problem paying $9.99 for a digital book of commercial fiction, since I get fewer rights than I do buying a paper book (resale, licensing, lending and borrowing, DRM, etc.).
- I understand that digital books cost money to produce, believe that intellectual property should be valued independently, and know that creators deserve to be paid for their creative content.
- I refuse to pay $12.99 for a digital book of commercial fiction, especially when I can buy a discounted hardcover for almost the same price, and my rights with digital books are significantly reduced.
- Being charged $12.99 by traditional publishers who were sued for collusion in ebook pricing pisses me off, makes me feel disrespected, and ensures I will either borrow the book or buy a used paper copy in protest.
- Especially when I can now find more than a few professionally (self, indie, small press, etc.) published books for under $5.00. This is one of the reasons I love Harlequin categories. Also, many self-published authors are now using professional editors, cover artists, and formatters to produce their books.
- I buy hundreds of books a year, and recommended read under $4 or $5 is an automatic “buy” for me (note: this translates into thousands of dollars a year that I spend on books).
In the few minutes during which I contemplated the implications of this line of criticism toward my post, I was talking with friends, one of whom suggested that there’s a difference between caring about whether readers actually read books, or whether they simply buy books. Do publishers care if I read a book, or does their interest end when I hit that “buy” button?
Because there are some important differences between a culture of reading and a culture of buying, and when they’re out of balance, book culture (and industry) as a whole suffers.
Publishers are clearly in the business of selling books. This is also true of self-published authors, whose discussions of income, on how to increase sales, and on references like “churning out books” indicate a definite focus on income. As do the many references to authors deserving to be paid for their work, even in the absence of contrary assertions from readers. This is not a bad thing, in and of itself. As we know, publishers need to sell books to remain viable, and many self-published authors do not have their books available for lending in libraries or even in digital subscription services like Kindle Unlimited or Scribd. The affordability for an author of continuing to write is a reasonable consideration, and for each author, that calculation will be different (as will the definition of profitability).
At the same time, if readers don’t read the books they are buying, then how will they know to buy more from the authors they like? We see this in the arguments against the .99 book. How many of us have downloaded a bunch of .99 books and never read them? Books that are so affordable that they can be purchased by many readers with little specific desire to read them can have a similar effect as books that are priced so high that they push readers out of the market, namely that readers turn away from them.
But encouraging reading is as important as effective pricing, because the free or .99 book is often used as a gateway to acquiring new readers, and new readers who love the glom are even more desirable, especially for the author with a large, affordable, and accessible backlist. As a standard, I don’t think .99 serves the digital book market, but it definitely has its place for some authors, especially when those books actually get read.
Reading also leads to enthusiastic recommendation, which, in turn, can lead to book acquisition, which can occur through many different avenues, e.g. purchase (new and used), library lending, or legal sharing among friends. The culture of reading depends on some level of book buying, but it is also friendly to any legal means by which a reader can acquire a book (note: both the culture of buying and the culture of reading suffer from geo-restrictions, but that’s another discussion). The culture of reading is much bigger than the book “market,” because it relies on access and affordability and engagement with books that does not depend on a commercial transaction. And it’s sensitive to the fact that for many, if not most readers, books are a luxury item and therefore subject to purchase limits.
For how many readers is a $3.99 ebook a splurge? And if questioning the fairness and affordability of a $12.99 ebook is “entitled,” what does that make the reader who cannot afford to pay MMPB prices for a book in any format?
Here’s what I do think readers are entitled to: respect for any legal way we acquire a book, regardless of format.
To what are authors entitled beyond the freedom to legally offer their original written work for sale? I think some of the pressure around book prices is related to the idea of paying authors and publishers independent of a robust culture of reading. And while there is overlap between the culture of reading and the culture of buying, reader and author interests in these cultures are not always identical, or even in sync.
When it comes to reading, however, if we’re really concerned with the production and persistence of “culture,” then people need access to cultural products, including books. I don’t see how $12.99 ebooks enhance that goal.
If, on the other hand, the primary concern is one of profitability, then I’m wondering whether the strategy of pricing ebooks at $12.99 is intended to serve another goal – pushing readers back toward the paper hardcover, which has long been traditional publishing’s North Star.
For high volume readers and authors working on a long-term market presence, there is a mutual benefit in promoting both purchase and reading through reasonably priced, well-produced books. However, I sometimes feel that the culture of buying is gaining more and more traction, both from the flood of super-cheap books aimed at grabbing short-term attention, and from high-priced books that are not necessarily any better written or produced than any number of small and indie published works.
My hope as a reader is that more authors use the current diversity in publishing options to bring a more affordable, professionally published products to market, because by eliminating the corporate publisher’s take, they can actually make more money by charging significantly less per book. And I still hold out hope that traditional publishing will adapt to more avenues of competition from self-published authors (beyond merely contracting with those authors or mining fan fiction communities). Ideally, more opportunities for authors to write and sell their work fosters both a culture of book buying and a culture of reading, although it can also result in a flood of cheap, poorly produced books that are trained more narrowly on capturing customer dollars than on expanding reader loyalty.
Why is any of this important? For one thing, books are currently in competition for all sorts of affordable entertainment alternatives, from streaming services like Netflix, to gaming, to any number of app-centric diversions. It’s no longer just book v. book; now it’s book v. other, possibly more affordable hobbies. I know it seems hard to believe, given the sheer number of books in the market, but that may be part of the problem (too much competition for authors, a indistinct glut for readers).
If we’re going to have a healthy culture of reading commercial fiction, there has to be a balance between promoting reading regardless of buying, and incentivizing creators to continue to produce valuable content. And the escalating battle between producers (including publishers and authors) and readers over book pricing is not currently nourishing that balance. We see the accumulated resentments flare almost instantly with incidents like the Great Kickstarter Debacle. And the growing mistrust between authors and readers threatens to undermine our mutual interest in sustaining a vibrant book culture (inclusive of buying and reading).
I don’t think that mutual interest is served well by either the $12.99 ebook or the ubiquitous .99 ebook. On one end, readers are paying almost twice MMPB prices for exactly the same content and more limitations than a print MMPB. And on the other end, how can such a consistently low price support professional production values? I don’t know where the sweet spot is, and it’s obviously not a single price point for all books, but if we want quality books that remain accessible in multiple formats, I suspect that MMPB prices are probably the start of the high end of the range for affordability, while $4-5 is probably closer to the low end.
Ultimately, I think that most readers are just looking to be able to read and enjoy the most books possible within our personal budgets. And I assume that most authors are looking to be able to continue writing in a way that’s satisfying to them – financially, creatively, etc. And somewhere in the middle is a lot of shared interest in making sure that readers have books to read and writers have the means to write. Now if we can only focus on ways to best facilitate that.
A good post and I agree with your points, but there are a few things I wanted to throw in to the mix here.
Even e-books need advertising and a chunk of the cost goes in to the full page adverts, the bus station posters, etc. for both physical and e-book.
I have done, as you, bought used paper copy in protest, but how many actually find alternative methods? My publisher offers non-DRM downloads where you can grab more than one format at the same time, as opposed to the single format on some major platforms.
To a degree, the current situation of the “single click” purchase on some stores, matched to tied-in reviewers who only push one retailer, has strait-jacketed the buyer, IMHO.
And a question for you to consider, when would a work of fiction be worth more than $12.99 to you? When it changes lives and engenders understanding? http://msknight.booklikes.com/post/1121724/when-information-helps
It does seem to me that there are works produced for different purposes, to different standards, with different values; and customers that have different wants, be it cheap escapism, be it an adventure in to another world, or in to one of those works which, as you have detailed; treads on eggs.
The problem is that all these different causes and customers are coming together in the one market place. There is very little differentiation. This won’t really be solved until there is a change in the whole culture because as it stands, a 99p escapism book can be rated 5* by someone who wants that kind of thing, but 1* by someone who wants something more … and vice versa with a more expensive read.
The market has got to change first; to the point where it is possible to point to the big guns and tell them straight that their advertising expenditure has just pushed the product to the price point where it isn’t worth it. (and the mark-ups) But to do that, the market itself has got to change.
Who’ll blink first? Haven’t got a clue.
That’s a very thought-provoking article. As an indie author I want to sell my books, sure, but above all I want people to read them. Since libraries and bookstores are reluctant to stock indie titles, this means falling back on the free or 99c promo, which can produce a nice surge in rankings and thus sales but does, ultimately, promote that culture of buying rather than reading you’re talking about.
Perhaps subscription services (how about curated genre-specific ones?) where the author receives a royalty and the reader gets as many books as they can comfortably consume will be the answer. I honestly don’t know. The market seems to be changing almost by the minute as readers, writers and publishers try to figure it out.
But I’ll make one observation as a reader: the more heavily publicized a book (by an author I don’t know), the less likely I am to actually buy it, as I know the library will have it and I’m prepared to wait. That’s the culture of reading in action, but from a business standpoint it’s highly puzzling.
This was really thought provoking. I do have a slew of $.99 books on my ereader I haven’t read yet, but I have found a few new authors through the $.99 offerings, which results in me then buying more $5-$7 ebooks by them. This happened most recently with some of Jo Goodman’s older Western novels I hadn’t read.
I still haven’t paid more than paperback prices (+/- $7.99) for ebooks except for 1 or 2 extremely rare cases. I can get it from my public library in print or digital, then decide if I want to have a forever copy in hardcover. I’d rather spend $19 for a hardcover I want to keep than $12 for an ebook that could become obsolete in a few years.
So proud- haven’t had caffeine yet and I figured out what MMPB stands for without having to look it up.
I have always been more of “borrow it from the library” type reader, borrowing several hundred a year at one point. So I am actually buying more books now than I ever did. I wish I could afford to help support the industry and authors more but I don’t see that happening. I like hard copy, would pay $10-12 if I really, really wanted to read one- for example one of the Harry Potter books. For the most part, though, if it isn’t an ebook or at the library, I won’t be buying it, regardless. I love discovering new authors but there are still plenty of old or classic books that I haven’t read that I can read if it comes down to cost.
Bottom line is I like to read and I am frugal.
For me the issue remains the issue of being charged $12.99 for a book that I cannot own. I refuse to pay that much for what is essentially the rental of a book. I much prefer to read ebooks, but the specter of shifting platforms and formats looms large. Until publishers make actual ownership of digital books possible, I won’t pay more than I once did to rent videos back in the day.
As a reader, the only consideration I give to authors in purchasing their works is that I acquire legal copies from reputable vendors. That’s my only obligation. When it comes to ebooks–they can go on and on about quality, advertising budgets, living wage, could change my life, your (insert deity of choice) is definitely revealed within and among these pages–I am not, have not, and have no intention to pay paper copy price for a glorified license on a device that may no longer exist (this many) years from now, in a format that the creator may dump at any time. I do not do this even for my favourite authors but then I tend to get my favourites in a tangible format anyway. As someone who still loves paper, I have happily spent over $13USD on new to me authors, once the pages grab me. I never do that for e-copy.
Lisa Kleypas is one of my top five romance authors of all time. I can tell you the place and time of day I bought my first Kleypas. I’ve read through her backlist a bajillion times. I purchased even her time travel title. (I avoid them like the plague, usually.) I don’t really have to watch my book budget from month to month. You would have to lay a geas to get me to pre-order an ebook for $12.99.
As far as ebooks go, I do buy the $0.99 titles but only if DA or SBTB bring them to my attention, because I only buy romance ebooks via the two sites. In that case, it’s not so much the price but Jane’s and other readers’ comments that get me to click. There’s so much out there that I need the filter. Otherwise, I’m happy to pay around $10, which is what the more “literary” titles go for. I think it’s a fair price for any kind of ebook, genre or not, in comparison to how publishers price paper.
@Imani: “As a reader, the only consideration I give to authors in purchasing their works is that I acquire legal copies from reputable vendors.”
Thank you.
Re: ebook formatting potentially becoming obsolete. I’ve been taking the position (at least in my head, anyway) that since the Kindle has become so popular, and led to so many ebook sales, that even if (or, more likely, *when*) the next big format comes along, there will inevitably be software to convert my Kindle books to the Next New Thing, the way you could get VHS tapes copied to DVD. If enough people have a particular format, there will always be interest in ensuring continued readability, so it would be in someone’s capitalist best interest to take us from one to the other.
Sorry, that got broken off. I had another paragraph about understanding the “once burned, twice shy” idea since early adopters watched the first ebook formats poof out of existence, but what I’m wondering is whether or not the Kindle/Nook coverage of the market will ensure that someone will always be creating format bridges. With that in mind, I’ve been buying ebooks with the view that I *will* always own them, in some format–but I’m totally aware that I might be wrong about this, for either market- or tech-related reasons. Can anyone give me more info or insight on this?
@Imani: “As a reader, the only consideration I give to authors in purchasing their works is that I acquire legal copies from reputable vendors. That’s my only obligation. When it comes to ebooks–they can go on and on about quality, advertising budgets, living wage, could change my life, your (insert deity of choice) is definitely revealed within and among these pages–I am not, have not, and have no intention to pay paper copy price for a glorified license on a device that may no longer exist (this many) years from now, in a format that the creator may dump at any time. ”
This!
If refusing to pay $13.99 – $14.99 (the current Canadian equivalent of $12.99 U.S.) for an ebook (or refusing to pay more for an ebook than the print hard copy) makes me “entitled” then so be it. I work damn hard for my money, and I will spend it anyway I please. I believe in paying a fair price for goods, but I will not pay a price that I do not believe reflects the value of a good (I don’t buy designer clothes, purses etc. for exactly that reason – the “name” has absolutely no value to me).
I am also a good example of the people who are finding other things to do and to spend money on. I have found myself reading less and less over the past couple of years, and I have a TBR that will last me for at least the next five years at the rate I’m going (yeah, I got into the “buying culture” rather than the “reading culture”). A few years ago, I bought 5 -6 books a month and borrowed the others from the library. At this point, I read an average of 4 books a month and I am buying one or two. The others I borrow from the library or am using Scrbd (which I find I am liking quite a bit – if I don’t like a book, no feelings of having wasted my money when I DNF and no anxiety about having a whole bunch of books in my TBR which sounded good at the time, but which I am no longer interested in reading). I find that I would rather spend my time and money on wool and knitting supplies and watch my favourite television shows (which I stream from Netflix) while doing that knitting rather than read.
If authors and the publishing industry want a robust industry that pays a living wage, alienating readers by pricing books at rates that readers aren’t prepared to accept (or can’t afford) and then criticizing readers because of their refusal to buy books at said prices isn’t the way to do it. All that strategy is doing is annoying readers and leading us to look at their other options for entertainment.
Robin you brought up a great point do the extremes of price points help? Not if we don’t read them only buy them. Not if the price makes loyal readers feel disrespected. Seriously what is the reader to believe when the hard back price is the same as an ebook price? It feels like publishers are like gas companies they will ride the market wave of consumption regardless of supply or consumers. Are they pushing hardback sales? Yes! If numbers are up they will gauge us.. The .99$ sale is just a marketing tactic. It’s the equivalent of the end cap sale item. It brings you to the store. It’s up to the buyer to be more discriminating. Wait for a sale, check it out from the library, or just buy the paperback.
@Imani: ” the only consideration I give to authors in purchasing their works is that I acquire legal copies from reputable vendors” Yes, this! I have no idea how to buy pirated copies of books, movies, songs, etc. and I’m happy in my ignorance.
@Laurie – Fear not, there are already mechanisms to de-DRM e-books and convert them. I had to do this as I switched from Kindle to Kobo a few months ago. I’m not going to state how, here, for fear of upsetting someone… however, I was going to be damned if I was going to leave validly purchased e-books behind on my kindle when I left the system … or have to actually buy them twice.
There is no point to DRM. All it does is hack off the legitimate customer. I speak as someone who has been a career IT person for a few decades and has had to deal with, “vendor lock in” throughout … companies that try to keep you on their system and your money going in their pocket.
It’s fine as long as you like the service you’re getting, but eventually most of us will hit that brick wall of wanting or needing to change. As it is, with Amazon after 5 downloads, I think, and you have to re-purchase.
I don’t buy from Amazon any more; I get from Smashwords or an indie publisher’s own site, and DRM is an immediate deal breaker for me.
But the 99p and freebie stuff happily got trashed. I had no care for most of them as they were opportunistic things anyway. The author got their statistics and … well …
I, personally, don’t believe that it is realistic to believe that you will always own your e-books. To try and put this concisely, there was a broohah in Australia over the Sony Play Station 3. It had a feature on it which allowed people to use the machine in a certain way. Sony later decided to change its mind and subsequently issued a remote update to everyone’s machines that disabled that feature…
So people bought a machine capable of X, Y and Z … but were then later denied Z. That, as you can understand, created one heck of a stink.
The net result now is that when you buy a console, you don’t actually buy the console, merely a license to USE the console; the terms of that license can change at any time.
The corporate technology industry is an insidious bunch. Sony aren’t the only ones by a long chalk.
I can’t actually get at this URL from work but it might work for you – http://analogindex.com/news/sony-is-now-actually-removing-features-from-playstation-vita_124479.html – and if the cache copy is correct, they’re actually at it again.
How do we cultivate a culture of reading, not purchasing?
For me, talking about it (online mostly) has helped me shift back to focusing on reading, not just purchasing. After I bought my first Nook, I went through an “OMG, so many books” buying phase – even on a limited budget I managed to accumulate a lot of books, including many, many that I didn’t actually read. Jane’s book hording post inspired me to make some changes and now I’m much less likely to buy a cheap or sale book unless I actually intend to read it.
Things like the TBR challenge and misc online discussions about giving up buying books have also helped me think about how I buy and how I read and how I want to do both.
I personally don’t buy hardcover books or $12.99 ebooks because of my budget , with a few important exceptions, like the last Harry Potter book and the last 4 or 5 Psy/Changling books. In those cases, it was more important to me to read the book when everyone else was reading it do I could talk about it and enjoy being part of the community than it was to save money and wait for the prices to come down or the library hold list to reach me.
Here’s a couple of further articles for you. Sorry I can’t find anything more current behind the corporate firewall…
http://www.ebookanoid.com/2011/01/08/do-you-actually-own-the-ebooks-you-buy-on-line/
https://gigaom.com/2012/10/22/a-healthy-reminder-from-amazon-you-dont-buy-ebooks-you-rent-them/
Long story short … read the terms and conditions … in case they’ve changed … again!
@Michelle Knight: Thanks, Michelle, that is helpful. I knew about the DRM-removal–I’m just so tech-inexperienced that I didn’t know if there was more to it then that! And that Playstation thing does give me pause, really, because a much more minor version of it happened to me: I went to play an iTunes-purchased song on my iPhone the other day only to find that since the album had been removed from the store, I couldn’t download it from my cloud again. Luckily, I still had a downloaded copy of it on my computer (and iPod, and backups), but if I hadn’t, I would have been out of luck. I’ve at least verified that some of my Kindle editions that have gone out of print are still capable of being pulled from the cloud–but who knows what’s going to happen? You’re probably right about it not being realistic, but when I try to think about only really *renting* them, I’m reluctant to buy ebooks at all. It’s like a battle between my anxiety and my convenience. :-)
@Michelle Knight: You wrote, “It’s fine as long as you like the service you’re getting, but eventually most of us will hit that brick wall of wanting or needing to change. As it is, with Amazon after 5 downloads, I think, and you have to re-purchase.”
Were you talking about Kindle books? I haven’t encountered any demand that I “repurchase” books. I’ve reread a good may of them, but perhaps not five times. Does that really happen? Yikes!
@Laurie, Oh, it’s a minefield. The terms and conditions, by the way, are further bent by local copyright laws, which do allow certain things to be done with files.
By the way, I believe another change has been enacted on iDevices so that they won’t play songs that weren’t purchased from the store – I can’t find the article, but this is something you need to be aware of and get up to speed on … http://9to5mac.com/2014/12/03/apple-deleted-songs/
Apologies, that was a recent court case over what Apple did a few years ago.
There was a more recent article of an Apple issued update that stopped iThings from playing music that wasn’t purchased via the store, but I’m having trouble finding it.
My apologies. – IT can be a minefield some times.
@Mzcue … I believe I had the warning from Amazon. As part of the DRM removal process I had to re-download to a new, “device,” and that’s when the warning popped up. Prior to that I was on a music service 7Digital that sold via UbuntuOne (now closed) and that also had a download limit.
The long story short is that licenses can be applied to individual files … the system is not static. Amazon (or any seller) can come to individual agreements with any other seller (music or book publisher) for their particular product.
In the UK, we have, “catch up” services for TV, but not all shows are on catch up, because of the licensing agreements that go on behind the scenes. It’s a mess and is one reason why I point people to my publishers site rather than Amazon … however, some reviewers are linked to Amazon. That’s where it gets difficult.
I just feel that eBook prices should not be set based on other editions of a book. They are their own edition. Right now I am waiting for an anthology to be be released in paperback because I know that it means the eBook price will be lowered from its current $12.74. Pricing on an eBook, especially since the buyer doesnt actually on it, should be a separate thing.
@Mzcue … more info in this dicsussion… http://www.amazon.co.uk/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx3IRFCNF3E5K2W&cdThread=Tx3PO4V15MS4DUS
Long story short, some licenses are for 6 devices at any one time and some licences can be handled by “YOUR ACCOUNT / MANAGE YOUR DEVICES – select DEVICES” – but what happens if you have damaged a device and the book can’t be pulled back …. who knows. It’s a minefield which is why I try and keep out of it.
Apologies for having diverted the discussion.
On the topic of how much we buy vs read: I am guilty of having a significant TBR stack & files, but this was true even before I started to read ebooks in earnest. In thinking about it more I suppose the 99c price point has influenced my buying bc it gets this blog’s attention, via the “Daily Deals” posts.
Like Cleo it is blogging , the online conversation about books, that has really enriched my reading life and made me more involved and thoughtful about what I choose to take it. I am also a big fan of literary magazines and some journals. I love reading critiques and reviews. That, put together, makes me buy and read books more than price points.
Amanda, that’s an interesting idea. Haven’t books always been priced according in relation to each other when considering formats? That’s a sincere question.
One of the weird things that DearAuthor has covered a few times, I believe, is that e-books are a VATtable item whereas books are Zero VAT.
On top of this, in Europe new laws came in to force at the start of this year that meant ebooks are charged VAT at the VAT rate of the country you make the purchase IN, as opposed to the previous arrangement of where you buy the e-book FROM, which has really caused a degree of grief and overhead, especially for the small press.
So I in the UK, can end up paying a different amount for the same book as someone in Germany, even though the source server is in Switzerland. It is very messy.
…and that’s just thanks to the government interference before you get any other influence down the chain.
Personally, the people I talk with, have lost faith in many of the on-line methods of choosing books. All the messing around that people are doing with statistics, reputations, followers, hype, sock accounts, etc. have turned book buying in to a bit of a lottery.
I have been trying to find reviewers who are willing to review find balanced erotic romances, but so many of them have vanished, only having been around for two or three years on average. So things are word of mouth.
Until that is sorted out, I can perfectly understand why people are not willing to spend much money on what is, effectively, a shot in the dark.
I agree with the “can’t own” comment. I had a bunch of erotic romances from back in the day – maybe 2007? – that are just gone to me b/c of platform failure. I paid more for those than the current prevailing prices, but they’re vanished. That’s why I’ve become critical of high priced ebooks.
I’m a working writer and agree that 99c/free is detrimental to the long-term health of the industry b/c professional level packaging and editing costs money that isn’t going to recouped for most writers at that price. However, I really can’t see readers paying 9.99 or more for a digital book unless a really big company backs that they will always have it – and I don’t see everyone trusting their libraries to the cloud that much, at least not for awhile. At 2.99 – 6.99, which I pay for ebooks, I am okay if it’s gone in a couple years. But like a lot of commenters, my sweet spot is 2.99 – 3.99.
My former roommate doesn’t have a computer or ereader – there are still people who don’t! – so she reads paper exclusively. Sharing books I love with her is always something I think about, and that’s why I do still get a bunch of things in paper format b/c I basically think of the price as divided by two. Books are meant to be shared, I really believe that.
@Michelle Knight: If you have one of your licensed downloads on a damaged device, you deregister said device and the license then becomes available for use on another device.
I realize that doesn’t resolve the bigger DRM and licensing issues/concerns but I’m not aware of any retailer that doesn’t allow you to deregister damaged devices.
From Janet/Robin’s post:
and I’ll add “from authors, publishers and other readers,” and make it into my motto.
@Michelle Knight:
A brief continuation of your diversion of the discussion: my experience is that a book does not have to be “pulled back” as deregistering the device under MANAGE YOUR DEVICES solves any problem with trying to use more than six copies simultaneously. In fact, at least on a PC, the files just sit there on the hard drive and are immediately available to read if you re-register the PC (though presumably what is now the 7th instance of a book on which the publisher has placed a restriction will not be readable?).
@Michelle Knight: The taxation on ebooks is different in Canada as well. Here we pay HST (harmonized sales tax) of 13% on ebooks, but only 5% GST (Goods and Services Tax) on print books. This just adds insult to injury when ebooks are priced higher than print books to begin with even though all I am purchasing is a license.
I am old enough to have gone through the conversion from records, to tapes (I even remember 8 tracks) to CDs to digital and from video tapes (Beta, VHS) to dvds (and the various formats of those) to digital downloads to streaming services. I have also watched as companies like Fictionwise, Books on Board and Sony disappeared. Had I not stripped the DRM from the majority of the books I purchased from those companies or had Kobo not taken over Sony, I would have lost hundreds of dollars worth of purchases (as it was, I still lost some books because I couldn’t strip the drm). Stripping drm is a pain in the butt and, as it is now illegal in Canada, I also have to be concerned that someone might decide to launch a prosecution of those who strip drm. If what I am purchasing is a license, then that the price should reflect that a license has far less value than a book which I own and which I will not lose because a company has decided to change format or closes.
The publishing industry has been crowing lately because ebook sales are down and they believe that there will be a mass return to print books. I hate to burst their bubble, but the friends I have spoken to about their book purchasing habits are not going back to print – they are moving on to other forms of entertainment (like binge-watching all of their favourite tv shows or playing their favourite Facebook games). Others are using the library more to feed their reading habit (I just spoke to two friends on the week-end who went and got library cards for the first time since they were kids – and these are people with excellent jobs and incomes who simply find that the price of books from the major publishers is not something that they can justify in their budgets). If my friends and I are a valid reflection of the market, then those in the book industry need to start re-evaluating their strategies PDQ.
I don’t consider the comments on DRM to be a diversion at all, since they go right to my point that the bundle of legal rights that come with buying paper books (under the first sale doctrine) is absent in ebooks, making them less valuable. If I lose a paper book or drop it in the water, that’s an accident and that’s on me. But what about the Adobe books I have that are no longer readable because of changes to the software? I bought those books in good faith, and they have become inaccessible to me through no fault of my own (assuming I don’t crack DRM, which I didn’t).
Also, a clarifying comment on the .99 book, if this wasn’t evident from my post: I think .99 and free books can serve a very important purpose in the marketplace, but I don’t think *as standard pricing* they really help cultivate a robust book culture that benefits both authors and readers.
@Lina: It feels like publishers are like gas companies they will ride the market wave of consumption regardless of supply or consumers.
I have long argued that traditional publishers tend to act like natural monopolies (e.g. public utilities), as if they are a necessity and that people simply *have* to buy what they’re selling at any price. I don’t know why I thought the post-collusion reality would change things. *sigh*
Where it’s getting interesting, IMO, is in the way authors who self-publish have to balance the business expectations of the publisher with the creative production of the author, and that isn’t always a smooth relationship, in part because publishers tend to focus on buying, while authors are more naturally focused on readers/reading, I think. Right now I feel like the scales are tipping toward a culture of buying, although my hope is that as the market continues to mature from its wild west-type expansion, the balance will shift back toward reading, or at least toward the overlap between reading and buying.
The difference between buying and reading was one of the things that drove me so crazy about the Oprah book club thing. A huge percentage of the books were not read, they were just bought. Which was great for an author’s profit margin on that first book, but since most of those people never went and bought the author’s next book, it was seriously problematic for their career and led to a question in a number of author groups I belong to: which is more important? Cash up front or a long career and lots of people reading your book?
I fully admit to being privileged when it comes to my reading habits. If I want a book, I buy it. In fact, for my favorite author, I buy both the hardcover to keep and for him to sign and the ebook to read.
I’ve given up on 99 cent books. I have yet to find one I can make it through. (Unless it’s a case of a book that’s on sale for 99 cents but is usually more.) I grant that I am an extremely picky reader. I require engagement with plot and characters as well as good editing and proper pacing.
I had really high hopes for the TotalBoox model, which focused HIGHLY on reading and almost not at all on buying (you paid for what you read). (I wrote about them when they first started: http://www.laurakcurtis.com/blog/2013/05/total-boox-a-totally-new-reading-payment-model/ ) But their interface was just too problematic and they switched to a primarily library market.
I would still like someone to create a reading app/store where people only bought what they actually read. I think it would benefit everyone, readers and writers alike.
What also encourages me to read is a lack of DRM. I strip and convert all ebooks I buy. I don’t have a dedicated eReader (like a Kindle) and my devices (laptop, tablet, phone) are all different brands. I need to know I can read whatever on whichever. This is also why I am still as stuck on paper as I am. Outside of comparative weight/bulk, everything about it is less of a hassle. I am die hard reader tho — in my circle, most persons talk about what they’re going to catch on Netflix than at any library or store.
That TotalBox idea sounds rather amazing! Perhaps that would also cure some authorly gripes about book returns.
@Imani:
ALL of THIS.
I don’t care what the author/publisher/etc says, I’m NOT paying $12.99 for an ebook. It is not happening and anyone who has an issue with how I spend the money I earn can shove it.
This doesn’t mean I’m not willing to pay for my reads – I have print copies of every Kate Daniels book ever written with pre-orders for all of the (print) books Ilona Andrews plans to release in 2015.
Thanks for a really interesting post that gave me lots to think about. (I’m sure I’m going off on my own tangents here).
1. It’s easy to forget–and publishers often seem to forget–that publishing companies still employ a lot of people who care about the culture of reading and talk about books as readers. I like hearing editors talk about books they’ve fallen in love with (if it doesn’t come across as “buy it!”). The Guardian (Hale No!) has a great annual Year in Publishing piece where they ask publishers and editors from presses big and small what book they published that they think deserves more attention, and what book someone else published that they wish they had. Their love of books as books, for reading, comes through there.
2. I wonder about readers’ role in a culture of buying instead of reading. I don’t mean just because we (me too) buy a lot of cheap ebooks we don’t read. But because our conversation is often focused on our role as consumers rather than readers–I don’t meant that as a criticism of this post or comments; of course we are concerned about money and our rights or not to what we buy. But sometimes it seems that conversation takes over. I don’t know if it’s because we read in a commercial genre, because of the way authors and readers mix/overlap in social media, because publishing is changing so rapidly, or because “value” of what we read is so much more personal, abstract, and hard to talk about than price and buying habits. Maybe all those things.
3. I’ve been thinking a lot (kind of like Cleo) about my own buying and reading habits. I felt that increasingly my buying was separate from my reading: I didn’t read a lot of the books I bought; I read books I didn’t buy (books I got from the library because they were too expensive). That suggests that for me there is some overlap between price and the “value” of the reading experience. Maybe it’s because part of me is still a snob. I like literary fiction and non-fiction in paper, and those aren’t MMPB so are more likely to be library experiments. (It’s not just snobbery, it’s also that challenging books are easier for me to engage with in hard copy where I can flip around/re-read bits more easily). These are also books I’m likely to shell out for in paper when I can, because I’m more likely to share them. E-books are one-and-done books, mostly; I think of them as disposable fun reads. (Although I certainly have genre books I own in multiple formats and/or re-read in ebook). I also wonder if format shapes my perception of value, though: does a beautiful hardcover cue my brain that what’s inside is “worth” more–including as a reading experience–than a shoddy MMPB or a (often badly-formatted) ebook? I suspect that’s the case.
Thanks for the heads up about the devices and copies. Personally, I’ve abandoned the Amazon platform because of their attitude to their staff, their customers and their suppliers even outside the book market – I made a post on all that here – http://msknight.booklikes.com/post/1113831/the-amazon-effect – but lets just say that it is scary to be a publisher who’s store front is on the service of a competitor like Amazon, with a track record like they have.
I just read the following comparing the rise of the indies in books, to the rise of punk in music – https://authordylanhearn.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/why-self-publishing-is-the-new-punk/ – and interesting read.
The thing that is standing out to me at the moment, catching up on the latest comments here, is that we’re, “buying,” stuff that we pretty much know we won’t read, even before we hit the buy button … and we’re distorting the statistics. You could look at this any way you want actually, but the most stark viewpoint that crossed my head was that a good work could get smothered because someone cheaper, or better with publicity, slammed the stats on that particular day.
I was reading about 20 page ebooks being put on to game the Amazon engines.
It strikes me that there is something more fundamental that needs fixing, in the interface between reader and author.
Just as a heads up for those who didn’t know … a new indie site started squawking on social media – http://www.indiebookdiscovery.com/ – and I’m working towards hopefully gaining a page on http://www.theindieview.com/ because there are hoops I’ve got to jump to be recognised as a worthwhile author on there … I can’t just stroll on and register.
@Liz Mc2: ” I also wonder if format shapes my perception of value, though: does a beautiful hardcover cue my brain that what’s inside is “worth” more–including as a reading experience–than a shoddy MMPB or a (often badly-formatted) ebook? I suspect that’s the case.”
Interesting.
I’ve been slowly packing up my books preparatory to moving house (a huge project; where did I ever to get the money to buy those thousands and thousands of books?) and I’ve been weeding as ruthlessly as I can.
Yet I still find myself refusing to part with books I haven’t read in years, or never read but someday mean to get around to, or even have no intention of reading and just like having them nearby.
And I find that their physical condition has a lot to do with it, but not in the way I would have predicted. The prestige hardbacks with their sewn bindings and cloth covers and snooty fonts went right to the book sale; they felt too “unfriendly”, too much like aristocratic visitors and not cozy and comforting to curl up with.
Meanwhile, ratty mmpbks, often with covers falling off or stamps from a library booksale on the endpapers, were impossible to give up. Just touching the spines brought back so many memories: passing dreadful derivative fantasy series around my circle of college friends, so desperate were we to find another Tolkien; scouring UBS to somehow complete my collection of Heyer (oh, the triumph when I finally snagged that elusive copy of CHARITY GIRL, on a research trip to Oxford of all places!)
And then there are the hundreds of volumes of manga and graphic novels, not to mention the longboxes of “floppies”; the inks may have faded and the pages be acid-eaten, but they are still far more alive and beautiful than the tiny blurry pages I could get on my phone.
Goodness, I didn’t mean this to turn into a elegiac diversion on my love of the physical book. But it’s interesting the ways that “value” is still separate from “cost” (and how my brain perceives a “book” as something more than just the words it contains).
I agree with @Imani and my answer to this in original blog post: To what are authors entitled beyond the freedom to legally offer their original written work for sale? is:
Nothing. Nothing beyond being able to legally offer their work for sale. All the other stuff, “I need to make a living!” comments should not be any part of the consumer’s decision to buy a book and read it. Readers decide what they buy and for how much.
And the fact that so much is contributed to Kickstarter authors to write a book is mind-boggling.
Dear HarperCollins,
Thank you but no, I am not interested in preordering the upcoming Stuart MacBride title at the current price of $18.29 for digital. I’m not interested in the hardback at $19.25 either.
Sincerely, A reader feeling rather disrespected.
@Robin/Janet: I thank you very much for these posts. They have made me take the time to consider what drives my current buying/borrowing habits beyond those formed by my disgust with the accused price fixers.
This has been a fascinating discussion with many interesting and informative contributions. As a reader who buys ebooks, hard covers, trade paperbacks and mass market paperbacks I am constantly on the look out for where I can obtain them more cheaply. I tend to “collect” both paper and electronic copies of favourite authors e.g. For Georgette Heyer I have MMPB of all , ebooks of favourites, hard covers of as many as possible and even some as audio books. Similarly for Nora Roberts/ J.D. Robb, Jayne Ann Krentz, Jane Austen, IlonaAndrews, Patricia Briggs, Tolkein, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie to name a few. Why? I am a re reader of favourite books. When I travel my iPad enables me to carry a swag of books with me and at home I read on my iPad as well as reading “paper” books. I love reading so much I listen to books while I do household chores like ironing. However I find I have buyer resistance to the price of books, both new books from favourite authors and books by authors new to me that I want to buy on spec after reading good things about them on DA , AAR or SBTB. Paper books have long been very expensive here in Australia , e.g yesterday I spent $20 for a paperback of Kristen Callihan’s Firelight and am not yet sure it will be a keeper for me. Even eBooks can be prohibitive: I bought the first two Julia Spencer Fleming Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mysteries as ebooks at $11.99 each. $12 each when there is a whole lot more in the series to buy is too much so I decided to wait and pick up the others at a UBS. Sarah Addisen Allen’s First Frost sounds good but at $16.99 for an ebook ? No thanks I’ll wait in the library queue . Incidentally the local library is where I was able to borrow her Garden Spells and Lost Lake, instead of $11.99 and $16.99 respectiveI am really agonising over whether to pre-order new books from authors who were previously auto-buys for me, e.g. Nora Roberts new book The Liar ($16.99 on iBooks and on Amazon.com.au ) and I don’t think I will
@hapax: I have a similar feeling about my tattered and much used books. I stopped buying hardcover books (with a few exceptions) when I realized what a pain they were for reading the way I usually read – on my commute, in the park, in the waiting room, on the plane, etc.
I have some tattered books that I haven’t read in years but that I keep because of the emotional connection – the ancient hardbound Nancy Drew that I probably bought for a dime at the Am Vets second hand store, the crumbling collections of Pogo comic strips that my dad used to read to me and my brother as bed time stories, and I could go on.
This has been a fascinating discussion with many interesting and informative contributions. As a reader who buys ebooks, hard covers, trade paperbacks and mass market paperbacks I am constantly on the look out for where I can obtain them more cheaply. I tend to “collect” both paper and electronic copies of favourite authors e.g. For Georgette Heyer I have MMPB of all , ebooks of favourites, hard covers of as many as possible and even some as audio books. Similarly for Nora Roberts/ J.D. Robb, Jayne Ann Krentz, Jane Austen, IlonaAndrews, Patricia Briggs, Tolkein, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie to name a few. Why? I am a re reader of favourite books. When I travel my iPad enables me to carry a swag of books with me and at home I read on my iPad as well as reading “paper” books. I love reading so much I listen to books while I do household chores like ironing. However I find I have buyer resistance to the price of books, both new books from favourite authors and books by authors new to me that I want to buy on spec after reading good things about them on DA , AAR or SBTB. Paper books have long been very expensive here in Australia , e.g yesterday I spent $20 for a paperback of Kristen Callihan’s Firelight and am not yet sure it will be a keeper for me. Even eBooks can be prohibitive: I bought the first two Julia Spencer Fleming Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mysteries as ebooks at $11.99 each. $12 each when there is a whole lot more in the series to buy is too much so I decided to wait and pick up the others at a UBS. Sarah Addisen Allen’s First Frost sounds good but at $16.99 for an ebook ? No thanks I’ll wait in the library queue . Incidentally the local library is where I was able to borrow her Garden Spells and Lost Lake, instead of $11.99 and $16.99 respectively for ebooks. I am really agonising over whether to pre-order new books from authors who were previously auto-buys for me, e.g. Nora Roberts new book The Liar ($16.99 on iBooks and on Amazon.com.au ) . I think it’s time I accepted I may have to wait in a library to read latest offerings from favourite authors and acquire my personal copy eventually as a second hand copy. I notice authors often thank editors, agents, spouses, parents, etc but I can’t remember any lately who has thanked their publisher. Possibly too many authors, if they were candid, would have to say ” thankyou publisher, your greed is pricing me out of the market though I know you will tell me it’s my fault for not writing what the book buying public wants.”
@Liz Mc2: I find most of the discussion here to be about reading since most of the posts are reviews or Daily Deal type posts in which persons will chime in if they liked the book or not. Price mostly comes up in posts like this, IMO. This may also have to do with what I bother to pay attention to in my Feedly.
I think I am one of those snooty readers…I really dig hardcovers lol. But that may be because I am not the best book warden so I prefer texts that can stand up to some rough handling. I’m also a sucker for book design, although the serrated edges are not the best, practically speaking. At the same time, the books I get in hardcover are usually novels I believe I am almost sure to love or at least find an intriguing “fail”.
Budget is a huge criteria as we are on a very tight budget. Any ebook at, or more than, ten dollars that isn’t required non-fiction is right out. I’ll wait for the paperback drop, library copies, or used copies. When there is a promo price drop, I have a serious tendancy to buy more than I can read. If I don’t and I change my mind I won’t be able to afford it. When I finish one, I go browsing in my TBR. (Also, the lower pricepoints may be smaller works so they can be a proper part of the price spread and not the devaluing of authors’ work that some are afraid of) I was excited about ebooks, just because of the space issues. But I read and reread books, having a permanent copy available is important to me. Just because I have not read an old favorite for years, doesn’t mean I want to buy… er, rent it again. Buying a second paper copy because ebooks expire feels like a betrayal of my previous purchase.
I want my money to go to the author, because I have seen too many books shoddily produced in large and small press to think that the publishers are adding as much value as they used to. (A writer friend is putting so much or her own money in publicity, she has a publisher. To me, that means she might as well self publish) I went through a period of over five years, that just about every new author I bought, (pre broad ebooks) revealed awful copyediting and needed a major rewrite. This was especially annoying as I had paid higher for trade and HC for some. I got so frustrated at all the wasted money that I stopped buying any books and went into an MMO for my recreation for several years.
Before, books had movies and tv as competition, which rarely engaged the readers as much as games or constant video. Now the competition for the consumer’s cash is stronger, and books have to engage better at a price consumers can afford. So many books now come out in trade, and the price of trade and pricier ebooks are crowding the DVD price for a movie for the family. That resistance to change is unwise, how many gilt-edged hardcovers sell again?
I lose so many of my eBooks just on a general basis, I don’t trust them an inch. I’ve had computers for 25 years and have “safely” stored files in all the ways recommended and do you think I can access them? No. So I will not pay the same or more for a book that is not safely in print in my hands as I do for a book that is safely in print in my hands. It was annoying enough when I upgraded my Kindle and it will not allow me to copy the books I purchased from Amazon in bulk from my hard-drive but requires me to download them again…ONE BY ONE…as I want them. I still haven’t cleaned all the ones that come up with a not authorised message off my kindle because I own thousands of books purchased over the last few years.
So, I don’t think that $14 is an unreasonable price for a new (e)book by a top selling author, and I don’t actually have a problem with ‘renting’ my ebooks.
My rationale is this: You are paying for the privilege of reading the book immediately on its release, in a very portable and convenient format. For me, $14 for a new ebook is like going to the cinema to see a new film. If I don’t want to pay the premium, I wait. Simple as that. Time vs money. Several people have already said, “I don’t buy hardback except I did for Harry Potter”. Well, if you really love Lisa Kleypas, you will pay $14 to read it immediately, rather than $7 two years down the line.
And as for ebooks being rented and paperbacks being better, I really don’t agree that they are interchangeable products. I haven’t got the space to store every book I’ve read in paperback, and I certainly don’t want to lug them around everywhere I go, just in case I want to read them. I like ebooks because they are super portable and I can buy and read where-ever I am. I consider that the benefit is worth me renting them, for quite a while, and most of the time, the price reflects this. If I think that they are worth renting at .99, great. If I think that reading a new release once is worth $14, also fine. I consider it like renting or downloading a film, or going to the cinema. Most of the time my primary enjoyment of a book is usually in the first reading. If I still want to read it after my 5th e-reader has died, then it’s probably worth buying a new copy.
Let’s also not forget that physical books have a lifespan too. Anyone who has bought secondhand books that are dog-eared, dropped a book in the bath, or has a favourite book that they’ve had to buy a new copy because the spine completely broke, knows this. They also take so much space! Ebooks maybe have a shorter lifespan, but then usually they are a bit cheaper. And when they aren’t, I am okay with paying for a book that I *really* want, to read it once or twice, exactly when I want to read it.
I do not like ebooks costing more than physical books. That is where I draw the line. But unlike most comments here, I don’t see ebooks as an inferior product. For me personally, they are a better product, even as a rental.
Also of note is that I don’t book hoard. I love the convenience of one-click buy, and when I buy a book, I usually read it immediately. If I haven’t read it, it was because it was a DNF, or it’s something that I have to be in a particular mood for. And I put only slightly less consideration into a purchase of .99 than for $7. I want a book that I will enjoy. That is my first criteria. I’ve come to realise that my time is worth more than reading crap books.
@Tara: I actually agree. If you are privileged enough to have fourteen dollars to spend on the ebook (I am talking about myself, not you, not anybody else), I am perfectly fine with spending it in order to read favorite author right here, right now.
The thing is though, there are only two authors in the world of genre fiction for whose books I will pay that much money. Two. Ilona Andrews and Jim Butcher. And I am privileged enough to do so. And there are tons of people who cannot afford to spend nearly as much for the authors they may really want to read right there right now. If the publishers are stupid enough to think that those prices are going somewhere, well, my prediction is that they are wrong. Because I can afford to spend on books, I know I am blessed to have a good job and I do not hesitate one bit to pay for the book I want right here right now. But once again – lots and lots of people can’t even if they wanted, and there are lots of other authors I love, but I will not spend a penny more than ten bucks for any other fiction book. I do not want them that desperately, you see? TBR of over 500 books also helps.
P.S. I am addressing my points to you, but I hope it goes without saying that I am just addressing and being irritated about what I perceive as general stupidity of big publishers.
@Lynnd:
Count me as another one who just the other day went back and got a brand new library card. Of course now I have to deal with the guilt of checking out a digital copy and then maybe not finishing it and “wasting” one of their limited check outs. Which is I guess a second negative in the digital setup. The way they treat libraries is somewhat appalling.
I don’t have any hard rule for the price I’ll pay for a book and I don’t really compare the ebook price to the dtb price for a book because I don’t want a physical book and I strip the DRM and back up my books. I definitely raise an eyebrow when the price for an ebook is over $9.99 but all it really does is make me think harder before I buy the book. If my experience is anything to go by, I think publishers are missing an opportunity by pricing their books too high. I will usually buy a less expensive book without a second thought and in many cases (to my shame) don’t ever bother to read that bargain, but I will dither over purchasing a higher priced one until I forget why I even wanted it in the first place.
Almost everyone in the comments had an exception or two where they would pay the higher prices for books. I think the impulse buy sweet spot is pure economics. Amazon has their idea of it (something like between $3.99 and $7.99) and traditional publishers seem to think that sweet spot is higher.
This is such an interesting topic, and I think it’s going to be one for years to come. I think some people are hitting the same wall that other people hit a few years earlier, just at a different price point — the tangibility and reliability of ebooks vs their price.
Having moved several times over the last few years (with at least once more upcoming this year), I weeded down my physical media libraries ruthlessly. When I moved from Montreal to Toronto, I moved with 30 boxes of books. I’ll have 5 or 6 this move, and I’ve acquired over half of those since the big purge. I’m okay with ebooks, but part of that is because I’m also tech savvy enough to be comfortable stripping DRM and reformatting and buying from multiple vendors to get the best prices I can. If I didn’t have that ability to back-up, convert and be choosy, I’d be a lot less willing to fork out money for ebooks and would rely on the library a lot more.
Interestingly, my other physical media libraries — DVDs and video games — were winnowed down to less than a box apiece, as I have digital copies of what’s important and Netflix or various cheap digital rental options for those I’m not too worried about. I haven’t bought a DVD in years, a physical CD in over a decade, and my video games I have to give a think before deciding if I want to go digital or physical. Some of this is that I have more trust in the keepers and curators of these licenses — I know stuff rolls on and off Netflix all the time, but there are fairly easy alternatives for me to that. Steam has earned my trust with over 10 years of keeping PC games, and they absolutely have a culture of buying (steam sale, 90% off, of course buy one and one for your friend!) but also a really strong culture of gaming and enjoying games together. I also like having all my stuff in one place, which means I’m irritable if I have to buy something specifically through Uplay or Origin, even though I work for one of those companies. They’re all on my computer, yes, but it’s one more hoop to jump through.
Amazon hasn’t earned that trust from me yet, although I’ve only ever had good experiences with their customer service. Kobo does NOT have that trust at all because I’ve only ever had awful experiences with their customer service!
I think when things become more trustworthy — when we stop seeing people lose access to their books and so on — it might be a lot more reasonable to pay more for books knowing that we will have access to them at least 10 years from now. I’ve been thrilled with ebook prices as MMPBs are often $15 here and hardcovers $40, so I’ve had to be a lot choosier about buying books brand new for quite a few years.
All that said, $12.99 for a pre-order just rubs me the wrong way. I just noticed that there’s a book coming out, and right now it’s on pre-order for $6.99 a week from street date. I also saw that I bought it several months ago for $3, and I am as happy with that price now as I was then. If pre-order numbers drive sales and other publishing metrics, for goodness sake, don’t punish the people giving you those sales and metrics! Especially when the book may well drop in price in the first week, as we’ve seen happen multiple times.
(As an aside, the Sony PS3 stuff was a result of trying to mash 15 years of technology into one box — they just couldn’t continue to provide backwards-compatible updates with the new technology, it definitely wasn’t a moustache-twisting thing, but for people who a) bought the first-run backwards-compatible machines and b) didn’t realize the update would affect that and c) didn’t know how to back up firmware versions, it sucks tremendously for. I don’t think that people should by nature NOT update devices, but from iPhones to consoles to computers it is not always the ideal choice! Also, the Vita Near tech was a huge bust, nobody used it, it was intrusive and annoying, and I am thrilled to see it’s going out the door soon — and the other two apps are available through the web browser, so it will actually be a better Youtube experience as the app was… not great. I promise, companies don’t do this for diabolical reasons, they sink a lot of money into new features and updates and rolling them back is usually the absolute last available option! At least the ones I’ve worked for and with do. There might be evil companies out there.)
As a self-published author, high ebook prices on traditonally/commercially published ebooks work to my benefit, because I can compete much better by pricing my ebooks much lower that $9.99. And I do price them lower, because what I want is readers. Someone who buys one of my books — or downloads it for free– and never reads it provides only a very brief benefit. I have made no connection with them, and they likely won’t recall my name if they see it again.
Technology has made it so cheap and easy to write and publish a book, that it seems more people are writing books than reading them! Some days I feel like a salmon, trying to fight the current and the other salmon at the same time. I have given away books, and put them on sale cheap, and had some success, but it’s always been a struggle. Of course, I could make all my books free all the time, but one reason I don’t is that people are not as likely to read the book they download for free compared to the one they got as a bargain.
Every new writer faces the same barrier: how do you get someone to part with money in order to read your book? I have to say, so far I have had the most success in two ways: First, a made a book free and sold its sequel at a very reasonable price. But I had to give away thousands of books to get a measure of sucess because of the high rate of not reading free ebooks.
Secondly, I put my latest book into the Kindle Unlimited program. If you’re not familiar with KU, it’s Amazon’s subscription service. Customers pay a fixed monthly fee (I think it’s $10) and then they can borrow all the books they want, but there is a limit to how many they can have “out” at a time. What this has done is to get my book over that barrier. They’re already paid, so it doesn’t cost them extra, but because there’s a limit to concurrent borrows, they don’t squander a borrow on a book that they have no interest in. They only borrow what they think they might like.
The drawback is Amazon enforces exclusivity. I can’t sell the ebook anywhere but Amazon if I want it in KU. This is my current dilemma. I get paid less for a borrow than for a sale, but I get a lot more readers with KU than I have gotten without it. And frankly, If I take the book out, it’s not like new readers will pursue me. The heavy readers I want are signed up for KU and that’s where they’re going to look. To use the salmon analogy again, the river is full of salmon/ebooks and that’s where the bears/readers are hunting.
I think Amazon is definitely pursing the reader rather than the buyer. I’m not so sure about publishers.
I switched to ebooks in 2008 and haven’t looked back. My TBR pile is way bigger than it ever was when reading print because when the TBR pile took up physical space, I didn’t feel right buying more books until I had whittled the pile down to one or two. Now that my TBR doesn’t take up space, and I don’t have to leave home to buy books, I’m much more likely to succumb to temptation.
I’m buying a lot less books these days because I won’t pay more than $9.99 for an ebook–and then only from my most favorite authors. I’m also buying less ebooks because my county library has a truly great selection of ebooks. I rarely find a book they don’t have. That being said I still buy 10 – 12 books a month.
I support authors and think publishers should pay them a higher royalty rate for ebooks. Publishers are making good profits on ebooks, they can afford to pay a higher royalty. There are no returns, transportation or warehousing costs. They could also charge less for books by eliminating DRM because they wouldn’t have to pay Adobe for it.
I read a couple of books a week, but not enough to keep up with my TBR pile!
The entire price discussion was brought on by publishers by themselves. There used to be a set progression and pricing structure of first releasing a hardcover, for bigger authors. If the reader was a real fan, they would pay the $25.00 for the book at a retailer. Then Amazon started discounting the hardcover edition to around 13.00 and sometimes even below cost. Next came the iPad and Apple insisted that publishers not be allowed to “window” the release of the book. This means that they had to release the ebook edition at the same time as the print book. This helped the huge book in ebook sales and caused the huge decrease in physical sales. In turn, this caused bookstores to closes and the cycle continues. It used to be the voracious romance readers or other category readers wouldn’t mind waiting for the book to come out in mass market. Even though most of the mass market books are now $7.99, they are discounted at Walmart, Target and other retailers too. There was never the complaint heard about overpaying for these books because ebooks weren’t available for $.99-3.99. There weren’t self published books competing for the reader’s attention either. The market has to settle out yet and it will still take some time for publishers to figure out how to handle pricing. But the price of the ebook has no correlation to the price of manufacturing. It has to do with making sure the publisher recoups their investment in the author.
Steven Zacharius
CEO-Kensington Publishing Corp.
@Steven Zacharius:
Except when we bought those hardcovers or even paperbacks, we knew we could share that book with however many like minded friends we had, and could in turn borrow from those friends, splitting the overall costs of the book to a minimal level. And when everyone was done that book could be sold or traded for more books, again reducing the overall costs of reading. Plus there were always used book stores. Ebooks completely changed the sorts of strategies that frugal people employ, and many people are frugal. And if the costs of manufacturing have nothing to do with pricing I’m not sure how else one would quantify “making sure the publisher recoups their investment in the author”. Every single industry I’ve worked in, the cost of manufacturing had a significant impact on every single aspect of pricing and business planning. To discount the costs of manufacturing in business seems somewhat foolhardy.
I don’t understand why your talking point is a 12.99 price. Many, maybe even most, ebooks are priced far, far below that level, so the argument is invalid. Most authors, and publishers, are giving readers a great selection at very reasonable prices, while also dealing with rampant piracy of their books, brutal demands for a bigger cut from Amazon and other distributors, and competition from free and 99-cent ebooks.
@carmen webster buxton: Really interesting and insightful perspective. I had always wondered how a lot of authors feel about services like Kindle Unlimited, Scribd and Oyster, and why some authors put their books in while others don’t.
For myself, I have Scribd. If there’s an author that I read and really enjoyed, I will go and buy their non-Scribd books from Google Play/Amazon/Whatever. I can say that Scribd has allowed me to “try out” new to me authors without hesitation — before my subscription, I would stick with buying trusted favorites or wait for positive word of mouth. I discovered some great authors on Scribd, who I probably never would have read otherwise, and that has translated into actual sales.
@Steven Zacharius: As a reader, the old model worked for me because 1) most books in genre fiction were published as mmpb to begin with, 2) Iif the book was originally published in hardcover or trade, I knew that the price of a book would come down when the book would be publushed in mmpb (and they almost always were within a reasonable period of time), and 3. we owned the books and could share or sell as we wished. Now publishers are printing more and more books in trade and basing the ebooks on that priceAND the price never seems to come down unless there is a “sale” (and we in Canada seem to get far fewer sales than our US friends). The fact that readers are also mere licensees also means we have no real rights or security in our purchases (in fact we could be sued or worse if we take steps to protect our investment by stripping DRM and backing up our books). This now results in readers becoming very cranky when we see ebooks priced at $12.99 or more. As a reader, I’m just going to pay that price for something which I perceive does not measure up in value. I also am not going back to paper, except for a very, very few authors. I hope that publishers figure it out soon, because making readers cranky is not a good business strategy.