tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post380630117365210897..comments2023-05-27T11:14:02.426-04:00Comments on Some Space to Think: The Price of BooksAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14216103531396452644noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-2829430258717360262010-02-09T12:45:14.716-05:002010-02-09T12:45:14.716-05:00"(Of course, the reality is that the publishe..."(Of course, the reality is that the publishers are probably already colluding to create a fixed price structure on the ipad - it's not going to be a coincidence that their best-sellers are all identically priced - and the question is whether they can get away with it in such a visible place as out in the open on the internet?)"<br />From what I've read, this whole hoopla started because 5 of the 6 big houses have already negotiated these rates with Apple for the iPad. (Random House is still working theirs out)<br />As for whether the argument gets slanted one way or the other, I agree - from what I've read, inside the publishing bubble, everything favors Macmillan, but the handling of the situation from both parties is probably helping with that. Both of John Sargent's letters that he sent as advertisements in Publisher's Lunch were reasoned and sounded forward looking. He came off as the white knight, asking to charge between 5.99 and 14.99 so that they can release concurrently with hardcovers rather than making people with ereaders wait to get lower prices. Amazon didn't like this idea, and he offered to let them keep the 9.99, but the titles would have to be heavily windowed. He got back to NY and found all of the buy bottons gone. After that, Amazon's response, which was buried in a Kindle forum, well after they removed the buy buttons, about Macmillan having a monopoly on their own titles just seemed kind of sad.Christinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08745632421110452801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-23871746624823585542010-02-06T15:10:49.699-05:002010-02-06T15:10:49.699-05:00I know there's a lot more to it and my grasp o...I know there's a lot more to it and my grasp of economics is tenuous, but won't the price of ebooks eventually equalize normally, assuming that the publishers don't do something to kill it first?<br />While Macmillain does have a monopoly on their own books, if another large publisher undercuts Mac's price by a dollar, doesn't that put pressure on Macmillain to drop their prices. Sure, the titles are different and you won't be able to get X from the other guy, but odds are the other guy has something you'll like as well, right? If given the choice between two equally cool things, I'll generally choose the cheaper first (depending on the amount of money floating in my pocket). This would set up an indirect pricing war, where the value of the medium is at stake, rather than the value of the work. <br />Maybe things won't work that way. I think that pricing a hardcover differently than a paperback makes sense, because the production values are higher (it's their choice to do the HC first). However, the cost of a movie ticket is mostly comparable to a new DVD, if you figure in the change in use (you can assume you're going to watch it at least twice, or with someone else, there are extras, etc.) Purchasing an album off itunes is also about the same as buying the CD in the store. <br />Maybe I'm completely off base...Seth Claytonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-1843354505167095902010-02-05T19:23:49.023-05:002010-02-05T19:23:49.023-05:00@semioticity: It's difficult for a publisher t...@semioticity: It's difficult for a publisher to make money off a midlist author in the traditional publishing regime. Most barely break even, many don't even do that.<br /><br />This in turn means it's difficult for the midlist author to get the support from the publisher that their work probably deserves. Afterall, the publisher is going to invest in those titles expected to give a greater return.<br /><br />Ebooks won't change this basic dynamic. In fact, given the models that have been floated, it will probably make things much worse, as the publisher will actually get an even greater return per unit, hence increasing the pressure to invest their money there.<br /><br />And altering this dynamic, to focus on epublication first, and physical product second (probably through POD or direct sales over the internet), will threaten the profit margins on the more expensive to produce best-sellers (which really do rely, at the moment at least), on being able to put the physical product in bookstores and chain and department stores). So the midlist has to be sold at the same price, or the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.Reverance Pavanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01217657347160811310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-9091581195636084002010-02-05T14:04:14.029-05:002010-02-05T14:04:14.029-05:00@Michael Your right, of course, that the ultimate ...@Michael Your right, of course, that the ultimate goal is a more nuanced price structure, like the one that currently exists for print books, but the reason I don't put a lot of weight on that is that I think it underscores the problem. Digital pricing is its own beast, and trying to treat it the same way as print, just without paper, is not going to solve any problems.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14216103531396452644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-69036166439586124462010-02-05T14:02:06.315-05:002010-02-05T14:02:06.315-05:00@semoicity: The cost of the physical book (printin...@semoicity: The cost of the physical book (printing and so on) was estimated in a Money Magazine article from last spring as being only about 10% the cover price for the big publishers, and less than that for the really big print runs. Most of the money is spent on the editor, copyeditor, book designer, cover artist, support staff (legal, accounting, sales, etc), and, of course, the writer.Michael Currynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-16121008747578193962010-02-05T13:51:51.183-05:002010-02-05T13:51:51.183-05:00Good post, though it doesn't include the impor...Good post, though it doesn't include the important point (a point also skipped in stories by the AP and others) that what the pubs are pushing as part of the agency model is a system where only brand new eBooks (and not even all of those) are going to be $14.99 when they come up, and then get cheaper as time goes on, moving toward a low point of $5.99. <br /><br />In other words, it'll roughly model the current structure where you can choose to pay $25 for hardcover when it comes out, or wait and get the $8 mass market paperback.<br /><br />What the publishers are in part trying to avoid here is a Walmart-like scenario where Amazon eventually comes to them and says that, because Kindle owners won't pay more than $9.99 for an eBook, Amazon needs to get a bigger discount from the publisher. If eBooks cost the same no matter when they're purchased, it'll keep Amazon from using cheaper eBooks to grow the Kindle's base to the point where they can throw their weight around to that extent.Michael Currynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-27868626625433589032010-02-05T13:07:13.718-05:002010-02-05T13:07:13.718-05:00@semoicity: I don't think Authors will make le...@semoicity: I don't think Authors will make less money. They are the ones with an actual monopoly not the publishers. The value of your work has not decreased at all. I think it will be editors, typesetters, printers, execs and all the overhead in addition to writing that will see their salaries decrease. The cost of entry into the publishing industry has gone way down (hello evilhat!) making the value of huge publishing companies ever smaller (why am I jacking up the price of my books so you can keep your last century presses running again?)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07115806740936215657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-18776842715591166572010-02-05T13:03:52.390-05:002010-02-05T13:03:52.390-05:00Killing the midlist is exactly what the music busi...Killing the midlist is exactly what the music business did a decade ago. And it does indeed suck. It sucks so badly that I dearly want to see the entire major-label record industry go down in flames so that something better can take it's place.<br /><br />Virtually all my spending on music is on independent self-releasing artists; some of them would have been in the midlist had it still existed.Tim (Kalyr)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00960811565368970485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-410568793505405332010-02-05T12:47:42.061-05:002010-02-05T12:47:42.061-05:00I think what is really going to kill the price of ...I think what is really going to kill the price of ebooks is comparison to substitute products. Before, you would compare the price of books to a DVD. A hardcover was $15-30, but man, when you walk away you've got a freaking hardcover. It's a tangible physical thing. It sits on my shelf and chicks dig books. $15 bucks for what, a 100 meg computer file? Chicks can't dig a computer file! I can pay $10 or less and get a freaking multi-gig HD monstrosity of a file. And I know for a "fact" that movie had much higher costs. Mind you, that is total costs, the other fact those costs are spread over many many more people is too deep in the weeds for most people to care about. A wider audience is just not going to see the value. Especially not when you have magazines /giving/away electronic copies with their physical product.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07115806740936215657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-72344628781572451082010-02-05T12:46:13.947-05:002010-02-05T12:46:13.947-05:00True, but there are tech-driven paradigm shifts ha...True, but there are tech-driven paradigm shifts happening all over the economy. There are some very real comparisons between the Industrial Revolution and the Digital Revolution. Efficiencies affect value as well as costs, since they're related, and there are some big perception gaps between profit-as-margin and profit-as-percentage. It's easier to accept a $30 hardback when you know there are additional costs for material, making, shipping, warehousing, etc. (beyond advances and royalties), but much harder to accept $15-20 ebooks when those costs are (largely) irrelevant.<br /><br />I'm aware that in order to pay less for certain things, I and others will probably be *earning* less, if there isn't a profit margin to support our salaries. I understand if most people aren't.Matthew D. Gandyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10385705569087231697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-24170789575160150852010-02-05T12:29:59.811-05:002010-02-05T12:29:59.811-05:00@sem You're absolutely right, but the transiti...@sem You're absolutely right, but the transition's going to hurt, especially writers who currently make their living off it. The problem is that while it's easy to talk abotu this as an abstraction, there are enough real mortgages and grocery bills this hurts that I can't help but flinch.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14216103531396452644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-66763723330063841302010-02-05T11:37:53.798-05:002010-02-05T11:37:53.798-05:00"If the book marketplace were to become ratio..."If the book marketplace were to become rational, it would kill the midlist, at least for a while."<br /><br />Why wouldn't the midlist be *ideal* for ebooks? Audience exists but is smaller than for bestsellers, publishing costs (and risks) are less for ebook than for print. Maybe I'm thinking ahead of the pain the book publishers have yet to go through regarding entering the 21st century, but that strikes me as a rational model.Matthew D. Gandyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10385705569087231697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-50327335200918990842010-02-05T11:11:37.158-05:002010-02-05T11:11:37.158-05:00It has, but at the same time, Apple's dollar p...It has, but at the same time, Apple's dollar price has reduced the pressure for 25 cent songs and 5 dollar CDs, so it's still better for the music industry than a free for all.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14216103531396452644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-87466505328754250092010-02-05T11:10:21.360-05:002010-02-05T11:10:21.360-05:00This, of course, exactly what happened in the musi...This, of course, exactly what happened in the music industry. Don't you think the music labels would have been much better off embracing the technology and driving the per-song price point to, say, $2 instead of letting Apple push it to $1. That ship has sailed.Justin D. Jacobsonhttp://www.johnraingame.comnoreply@blogger.com