E-Book pricing update

So as I was searching the blogosphere this morning, I ran across several interesting blog posts about e-book pricing that were really informative. I’m listing the links here so you can check them out for yourself. I think the bloggers make some interesting points, and it certainly is food for thought.

Traditional romance author Stephanie Laurens has a blog (Ofdinosaursanddaffodils.blogspot.com) that I have just started following. She’s posting a series of thought-provoking blogs about the publishing industry, why we read, and pricing. I’ve read many of her novels (she’s published 47 books), although I haven’t read her most recent one. Her comments are insightful, especially her most recent post about story-telling, and how e-books are merely one more format change in the evolution of stories. In one of her recent posts, she argues that print publishing will be here if not to stay, then at least for a long while, because readers want to see an author’s product in the format to which they are accustomed. In my earlier post on e-book pricing, I questioned why publishers would get so upset about e-book prices when you can purchase a book at Walmart or Target for a discounted price. Ms. Laurens made this comment in her blog about that very topic:

” What will significantly impact the speed at which e-books replace p-books is the contraction of shelf space in wholesale.

The day either Walmart or Target axes the floor space they currently devote to genre paperback bestsellers is the day genre fiction publishing starts on the downhill run to e-book + POD only.”

I think Ms. Laurens is dead-on in her comments, and I encourage you to check out her blog.

There’s an interview with author Zoe Winters on allindiepublishing.com (http://allindiepublishing.com/author-interviews/zoe-winters-on-ebook-pricing/) about authors who self-publish and how offering low prices on books could be hurting the market. I read Ms. Winters’ first novel, Kept, on my Kindle last year, and I believe I downloaded it for free, although I can’t remember. It was not a bad read, although I haven’t purchased any of her books since. She explains in the interview that offering books at such a low price is often done to entice readers to try out a new author, in the hopes that they’ll then purchase future books at a higher price. Ms. Winters argues that this is actually counter-productive, because it devalues the work done by all authors and gets readers used to such low prices that they come to expect these prices. I’m not sure I agree completely, although I do confess that I often expect the quality of writing in a 99 cent book to be lower, which is not always the case.

In my experience, it does seem that the cheaper ebooks (less than $4.00) are usually self-published or from what appears to be a vanity press (you pay to get your book published). Typically these books are of an inferior quality, and I admit that I’m a much more forgiving reader for these books, because I haven’t invested a lot of money in them. If the writing is good, I’ll continue to purchase books by that author, and I would be willing to pay more, which in a way contradicts Ms. Winters’ argument. This has actually happened with authors Kinsey Holley and Heather Killough-Walden. I enjoyed their books, and paid more for Ms. Holley’s second novel, Yours, Mine and Howls, than her first. I’ll definitely continue to read her books, as I felt this second novel clearly demonstrated growth as a writer and have reread the book several times since I purchased it. I also like Ms. Killough-Walden’s books, but she continues to offer them at 99 cents or a dollar. She could easily raise the price and I would purchase the books, because she’s a good writer.

Blogger Jane at dearauthor.com has also written a post about her thoughts on economics and value of books. (what-is-the-right-price-of-a-book-print-or-digital-part-one) She offers some comments about how we as readers decide if we will purchase a book based on how we value it. For example, if you had limited funds with which to purchase a book and someone you didn’t know well recommended a book or a close friend recommended one, you would choose to purchase the book recommended by the friend first. I agree with her comments, but I also have discovered that with my Kindle I’m more willing to try new authors I wouldn’t have read in the past. This could be for various reasons, but  I suspect much of it has to do with the ease of purchase on the Kindle. Even though the cost to me is the same as if I were making the purchase in a store, it’s dangerously easy to sit in bed and click on a link to download the book. Getting dressed and going to the bookstore involves much more work, and is far less likely to happen. So I’m wondering how the ease of purchase would affect perceived value as Jane describes it. It’s an interesting blog, and I recommend it.

Finally, regency romance author Sabrina Jeffries has several articles about publishing on her website, SabringJeffries.com, that offer useful information about publishing terms, timelines, and the economics of writing. Her article, “The Big Misunderstanding About Money" is really funny and chock-full of information about the realities of how much an author really makes. Her point is that unless you’re a frequent New York Times bestseller, such as Nora Roberts, who seems to have more than 5 books out on the shelves at Walmart at any given moment, you’re probably not making a decent living by writing books. Ms. Jeffries doesn’t address the ebook issue in this article, but it’s definitely worth reading, just to see how much authors really make on a book.

eBooks and the Publishing Industry

As an avid reader and Kindle owner, I’ve recently become interested in the economics of the publishing industry. When I first received my Kindle in February of 2009, one of the advantages of owning a Kindle was the discount on paperbacks and hardbacks offered by Amazon. All hardbacks were $9.99, and most paperbacks were discounted either 10 or 20%. However, about 6 months or so after getting my Kindle, I noticed that books that were available for pre-order for the Kindle were now no longer available even though the printed text was. I soon learned that certain publishing companies were protesting Amazon’s reduced pricing for the Kindle. The end result is that now many of the prices for ebooks published by certain companies (Harper Collins, Penguin, and Random House, for example) are fixed at the cover price, and the electronic version of hardbacks is usually $12.99.

            I must confess that I am hardly the first person to blog about the publishing industry’s pricing wars, but I’ve never understood the publishers’ stance on ebooks and e-publishing. Since owning my Kindle, I purchase a TON more books than I did before, and I suspect that a good case could be made by my husband for my attending some sort of “resort” that aids those with addictions. There’s no doubt that the ease of purchase associated with the Kindle makes my addiction that much more difficult to quit. My husband should give thanks that I’m not giving up my Kindle for Lent, because Kindle deprivation could lead to some nasty side effects, namely finding things to add to the “Honey Do” list. Bottom line, I’m spending a lot of money on books, and since Amazon recently announced that their ebook sales have surpassed mass market paperback sales, I’m at a loss to explain why the publishing industry seems determined to raise ebook prices.

           

This decision becomes even more bizarre when I can walk into any Walmart or Target and find mass market paperbacks and hardbacks at reduced prices. The publishing companies are clearly not losing money by selling to these stores or they would have raised a stink about the prices and fixed them at the cover price as well. So my question then becomes, what’s the difference between purchasing the paperback at a Walmart at a reduced price and purchasing the Kindle version?

           

My sister and I recently discussed this phenomena, and we both admitted that we’re far more likely to try a new author on the Kindle than in a physical bookstore. I’ve also seen an article that said that romance novel sales have soared with the growing popularity of ebook readers. I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s a bit embarrassing to purchase a low-brow romance novel with some half-naked stud and a woman with enormous breasts hanging from her strategically placed dress! I once purchased a Georgette Heyer romance and a Frida Kahlo book at a Waldenbooks, only to have the cashier make a comment about that being a strange combination. I certainly don’t have that problem now! And since Waldenbooks is now defunct and Amazon is rolling in the dough, I have to think that there’s something to Amazon’s business model.

            Another troubling issue I’ve noticed with books is the move from mass market paperback to trade paperback. For a long time, I thought the trade paperback format was reserved for either academic texts that had been on the market in hardback or erotica. This could very well have been an entirely erroneous assumption on my part, but that was the impression I had. But lately I’ve begun to see a lot of novels that would probably have been published in mass market paperback being issued in trade paperback format. Since the trade paperbacks tend to sell for $14.99 and the mass market ones for $7.99, I have to assume that this is a ploy to get more money from readers. However, I pretty much refuse to purchase trade paperbacks, and I certainly don’t try new authors in that format. $14.99 (or $9.99 on the Kindle) is a lot of money to risk on an unknown or even a known author. I haven’t purchased any of Nora Roberts’ books in trade paperback, even though she is usually one of my auto-buys. And Amazon kept recommending Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires series for me, but I didn’t want to try them because of the high cost. I did find one of the Neill’s books on a bargain table at a Borders (and Borders is another subject for another rant) for only $3.99 and for that price, was willing to give her a try. I’m glad I did, because it’s a great series and she’s a good writer. It just seems to me that launching a new author in trade paperback, while perhaps intending to indicate a higher quality product, is just going to make people reluctant to try that author.

            The publishing industry’s reluctance to embrace the technology of ebooks seems extremely impractical to me. Ebooks clearly are not “killing” books; more people are buying books than before, just in a different format. I understand that late last year Dorchester decided to stop issuing paperbacks and only issue ebooks. I think that’s as much a mistake as engaging in pricing wars over ebooks is! I also recently learned that Harper Collins is now limiting the number of times libraries can lend ebooks to 26. I don’t understand this decision either, because once a library purchases a printed text, the publisher receives no more profit from it, so why would an ebook make a difference? Now Amazon is allowing Kindle users to “share” ebooks purchased with others, which again is no different than if I purchased a paperback and then passed it to my mother-in-law (which I do frequently). I understand that the publishing industry has been struggling economically for years, but the growing popularity of ereaders seems to be a possible solution, rather than signaling the death of publishing. I’m certainly curious to hear what others think on this issue, so please share your thoughts!