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Stupid e-book delays: HarperCollins joins the un-party
December 10, 2009 | 9:20 am
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By David Rothman
Lemmings don’t really commit mass suicide. But one wonders about large publishers.
HarperCollins has joined S&S and Hachette in deciding to delay at least e-book releases—a bid to pump up hardback sales. Within the trade there’s hope this can save jobs by, say, keeping hardbacks viable as a product at places like Costco. Actually it’ll be a job- and royalties-killer. Book publicity counts most at launch. Some shoppers just might skip buying certain books and go for DVDs or video games—or titles from more clueful publishers able to adjust to E.
The big houses are the TV networks of publishing and the e-book outfits are the cable companies. Well, guess who is apparently about buy up NBC now. Not that I think Ellorda’s Cave or OverDrive will become Comcast and buy HaperCollins, but you never know what the future will bring.
Penguin has taken a slightly different tack by saying that it will experiment with pricing and delay from time to time, but won’t delay systematically. Macmillan, which is delaying some titles now, says it will continue to do so in the future. There is no word so far as to how long HarperCollins’s e-book delays will last.
(Paul Biba contributed to this post.)
Related: StrategyEye article.
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Comments:
A lot of readers are getting their feathers ruffled about this issue at the Kindle Boards, but I don’t see much to fume and fuss about. I ‘m no fan for of the delays, but ultimately, if it makes the publishers feel better and more comfortable about ebooks, then let them have their four months for now. However, it is not a scheme that will get me to buy the hardcover edition over the Kindle edition, unless, of course, I wanted the hardcover in the first place, in which case the delay is meaningless. I can wait for the ebook for four months, six months, even a year–there are plenty of others to read. Once the publishers figure it out for themselves the delays will not increase hardcover sales, I think the delays will go away.
I agree that, short-term, delaying the release of the ebook edition won’t have much effect either way. With the proviso that the ebook be priced more like a paperack than a hardcover.
However…
Long term, this strategy hurts the publisher’s and their authors two ways; first, through reduced overall *early* sales. The delay will lead to delayed purchases by ebook afficionadoes and a sale delayed is often a sale lost altogether as mindshare drops with time.
Second, it is a clear surrender on the concept of ebooks as premium product. Which, of course, means giving up the added revenue that might have been obtained from the sale of Advance Reader Copies at a premium price, by releasing ebooks *before* the hardcover.
What’s that old saying about cutting off your nose…?
Delaying types of editions is the way publishing works–– first the hard cover, then about six months to a year or more later, the mass market paperback or the trade paperback.
The delay means that some really eager types will buy the hard cover because they can’t wait, others will wait until the hard cover’s price starts dropping, others will read the hard cover at the library, others will wait patiently for the paperback, and others will forget the book exists.
Publishers know all this so all this fussing about ebook delays won’t faze them.
Until some publishers prove that ebooks will improve sales while the book is in hard cover, we won’t see any change. And those improved sales will have to be incredible for the publisher to make their partners-in-sales like the bookstores very, very unhappy with them.
Delaying book editions *used* to work because affluent, prolific readers bought hardcovers. A lot of those customers are buying ebook readers (hence the teeth gnashing—traditional paperback buyers don’t care) and are the ones who’ll more likely look elsewhere for their new releases.
If *all* publishers delayed the ebook releases it might mitigate the impact but if only some do it…
Just because something *used* to work in the past is no guarantee it will work in the future. The future is not the past with a different calendar; it is an entirely different place inhabited by different people. And the issue isn’t so much whether ebook releases can increase sales; the issue is whether *delaying* those releases, once committed to them, costing sales.
As I said, short-term impact should be low.
Long-term…
Ebook buyer profiles argue against this strategy enduring.