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Another shot in the e-book timing wars
July 20, 2009 | 1:36 pm
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By David Rothman
“If publishers withhold content from the ebook audience during peak demand, they risk abetting an already thriving underground of ebook piracy found in sites like Pirate Bay.” – Evan Schnittman, an Oxford University Press exec, in his personal blog. His main topic was pricing.
Related: Mike Shatzkin on the four stages of e-book adoption . The four are “vision,” “establishment” (actual existence of the Kindle), “transition” and “the new marketplace.” Hmm. For many publishers, a little like Elisabeeth Kubler-Ross?
(Moved to more recent position in the blog, from 6:45 a.m., for better exposure.)
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Comments:
I thought this a very sensible article–maybe because it’s what I’ve been saying for a long time. eBook readers want eBooks. But market segmentation is an important reality in making the publishing business work. It’s difficult and expensive to change pBook pricing–considering that the prices are printed into the stock. Changing eBook pricing is easy and relatively low-cost. So, setting high initial pricing with release, to go after those willing to pay a premium for early reading, followed by lower prices to attract the mass market makes sense. For me, denying eBook readers the right to their format of choice doesn’t make sense.
Rob Preece
Publisher
Once again, we see traditional media failing to realize that they cannot adapt their old business models to electronic media. Book publishing is getting a longer time to figure this out than most other types of media, but they are, unfortunately squandering their opportunity.
The world of e-book readers is essentially divided into two groups (at least with respect to this issue).
The first group is the group that will never pay for books. If they couldn’t download them from the torrent sites, they wouldn’t read them. There is effectively no way to turn them into consumers. They are mainly a factor in this discussion because the publishers don’t want to encourage other e-book readers from becoming members of this group.
The second group is the group that is willing to pay for e-books, but they figure (justifiably in my opinion) that e-book prices should be priced significantly lower than hard back books. These are the people who have flocked to the Kindle and to other e-book readers. The problem is that they also are unwilling to wait for weeks or months for a book to become available after the release of the book in paper. To make them wait encourages them to go look for the book in the dark-net. Likewise, trying to charge them the same price as those who buy physical copies will likewise result in them going to the dark-net.
Ultimately, the problem the publishers face is that e-book adoption is going to only increase. The longer they drag their feet, the more they risk encouraging people to go to the dark-net.
Frankly, Amazon’s $9.99 pricing model seems about right. Maybe $10.99 or $11.99 would also work, but the price discount seems low enough to seem fair to the average buyer. The only time a higher price could be charged would be if the publishers followed Baen’s habit of allowing e-book readers a chance to buy an e-book version of the book before it was available in print.
The problem of course is that such a price is unsustainable given the current business models of most publishers — it drives people away from the $25 hardback and to the e-book. But as we have already seen, trying to keep e-book prices artificially high will not save hardback sales, it will drive people to download the e-books illegally.
Ultimately publishers need to get ready for a new reality. Even a cursory look at the way the book industry works shows how inefficient it is. Print runs always greatly exceed the numbers the publisher actually expect to sell; many books never make enough to earn back their advance; publisher salaries tend to be small, but their expense accounts tend to be large. The book industry is going to have to learn to make the best use of technology possible in order to trim their costs to the bone.
In the end, we might all be better off for it.