Booklovers aren’t the only ones who’d benefit from bundling e-book editions with paper books. So would shareholders of companies like Barnes & Noble. It’s great to see a writer for a stock-oriented site, Seeking Alpha, saying the same thing as TeleRead community members have for some time now.
Let’s hope that B&N follows up on the idea, quickly, and that publishers will go along. Like Seeking Alpha, I think that the bundles shouldn’t sell for that much more than paper books alone. Most people buying paper books aren’t going to buy e-books and vice versa, but they would appreciate the convenience. At any rate, keep in mind that books aren’t just competing against other books, but also against other forms of recreation. We need to make them as enticing, as easy to use, as possible.
Detail: The Alpha site is currently down, so try again if you don’t get through.
My selfish interest in P: My publisher, Twilight Times Books, is having a sale. Prices of individual titles vary all over the place, but I notice that The Solomon Scandals is currently going for $8.77 in paper at Amazon—new. Yes, I’ve raised the possibility of bundling the E and P editions. Speak up if you’d like to buy books that way!
Wouldn’t e- and P- bundles benefit online retailers more? “Order the P-book and start reading the e-book while the treeware is in the mail!”.
Main problem, I think, is that the print edition is likely to end up at the used book store. “Keep the ebook and trade-in the pbook” sounds more likely.
I would never buy books this way, myself: You’re buying two copies of exactly the same thing, and unless the idea is to gift someone with one of them, that makes one of them disposable. Sure, Felix, some will end up in used bookstores… the rest will end up as landfill. Who needs that?
The kind of “bundles” I approve of are proof of purchase coupons that allow you (or someone you might gift it to) to buy another book, in print or E (but preferably E) at a discount.
Thanks, Felix and Steve.
Felix: I’m not sure. People might want to continue to enjoy the convenience of E and P. As a writer, I’m willing to take that risk, and I’d hope that publishers would be, too. As for p-stores, I suspect they could come up with a system to open up E access when people bought P.
Steve: Yes, it’s the same material, but remember, the cost of the E edition would not be much more than for the paper book. As for your discount proposal, thats’ cool, too, and could be yet another option.
Thanks,
David
You make an excellent point David: Books aren’t just competing with other books, but other forms of recreation. Bundling ebooks and print books together would be very convenient for people like me, who read large hardcovers but hate lugging them around. It’d be nice to have an ebook edition (without buying it separately) for when I’m out and about.
I find that this is really not an issue-having or not having a p-book- for me and most of my fellow e-readers. The convenience of e-books is that they consume no space whatsoever. I have three bookcases in a small apartment and struggle to find space for books. My kindle on the other hand allows me to store the equivalent of at least 5 to 6 additional bookcases at the moment, for which I am eternally grateful. A paper book is nice to have but I treat an e-book as I would an mp3; that being if there is nothing unique about the cd then why burden myself having to store it. Felix, before I forget, amazing analysis on why Goldman Sachs was right to downgrade B&N’s stock.
David, I am a student teacher and have found that teachers will face new found challenges in the 21 century. The whole “digital native” vs “digital immigrant” debate, thanks for sounding the clarion call I believe that more education professionals need to become aware of the problem in order to have any chance of bridging the gap that seems to be growing in the short term.
i like the idea of ‘order the p-book, get e- free’, as long as i can also choose e-only. except in rare exceptional cases, i have little desire to own fiction in print; love e because it leaves more room on the shelves for heavily-illustrated science and ‘how-to’ material, and certain special textbooks. when a good annotatable color e-ink device exists, i will want my bookshelves for archival copies only.
i imagine that a bundle would need to be available only to e-reading device owners? for their personal use? i wonder how that would work?
This solution makes a lot of sense to me. It reminds me of back in the early days of MP3s when Napster was the big bad. Record labels hadn’t decided to simply surrender and sue yet, and were trying to improve the value of CDs by creating “Enhanced” CDs.
These included high quality MP3s, links to fan sites and music videos on the CD itself. Put it in a CD player, you got the normal music, put it in a PC, you got a splash screen and then all sorts of groovy options.
I loved Enhanced CDs….which is likely why they didn’t last long.
>I loved Enhanced CDs….which is likely why they didn’t last long.
I think they didn’t last long because they weren’t supposed to. Their role was as a format gap; a way to introduce people using the old format to the new one, including a way to purchase the new content. That’s ultimately what this kind of bundling will be, a promotional campaign for ebooks. As such, people reselling one (or the other) would be irrelevant to the publisher. It’s also great PR for the book author, and done right it could actually help introduce people to new authors/series. Baen already does this for some of their hardcovers, by including CDs with free ebooks.
@Frode: Well. You just threw the window open on this one for me. ‘Bundling’ of print w/ e really would go a long way toward reducing the perception of risk in the mind of the purchaser. Very clever; now I think it’s a brilliant idea and should proceed.
On the other hand, bundling two separate formats did nothing for HD-DVD or UMD.
And there is the small matter of the ebook reader and DRM.
Baen supports all book formats in drm-free version and include rtf and html that don’t need ebook readers and most of the other formats are pda and smartphone friendly.
And then there is the matter of pricing.
Somehow I can’t see the major publishers charging single-format prices for these hypothetical bundles.
It might be a good idea if done right but the odds of it being done right…?
I am so over dead tree books. I get my knitting books that way & sometimes a signed 1st but that’s about it.