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War of the publishing models: Sarah Palin’s pub dreads e-books, while Tina Brown’s new partner gets nimble with E
September 30, 2009 | 7:59 am
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By David Rothman
Sarah Palin’s new book will appear in print on November 17, but not in E until December 26, the day after Christmas, so e-books won’t steal away p-book sales.
But as Kassia Krozer wonders, is that really true about E? And wouldn’t Harper make more money with E piggybacking on the initial publicity for P?
Meanwhile, smartly moving in the opposite direction, the Daily Beast’s Tina Brown (right photo) and Perseus are teaming up to get newsy books out in E first. Initial title? Attack of the Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America, by CNN commentator John P. Avlon. A reference to some of Palin’s fans?
If the Daily Beast approach catches on, could one side effect be to hurt PW and some of the more snailish book reviewers the newspaper world? And some at other mags? Certain members of the reviewing establishment are used to taking months to review books.
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Comments:
SARAH Palin…
Fixed. Thanks for caring, Katherine. Psst! We actually try to get typos into our copy to keep readers engaged.
David
What I love about this is the different paths the publishers are taking. The Palin book will offer us a good test case, affording us solid data as to what effects etext availability will have on sales of paperbound books.
My inclination here is to say it’s a smart move with the Palin book. This is a book of very limited marketability. It is unlikely to have any lasting sales appeal, and will be overflowing in the remainder bins come next spring. For the gift-buying season, however, we can count on the Governor being all over Fox News and on Rush and other rightwing radio shows, probably springboarding into her own show, either on radio or Fox News. People buying her book as gifts for like-minded radical rightwingers would rather have something they can wrap and place under the tree than a digital download.
And you know what? Amazon will still shift the most copies of it!
It’s amusing when I see publishers complain about pirating of ebooks. Then I get a good giggle seeing a book being released in print form and the digital format being delayed. If the book is any good what do they think is going to happen. Do they not realize that those that read ebooks are probably the best customers to look after. People that in my opinion read electronically are avid readers, problably 1 or more books a week, whearas a large portion of print book buyers may buy once or twice a year and would not even be aware of electronic books. The publishers should cater to all customers.
I personally do not buy print versions anymore and don’t want to either. I want the electronic version at the same time as the printed version is releases and
I don’t care how I get it.
The real reason behind this is that they realize that producing an ebook version of Palin’s garbage would be a waste of the internet and storage costs.
There are critics of Sarah Palin but in my opinion she is also a very good politician and she also did some good projects in Alaska.
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