Book publishers delay e-books, and it’s Sarah Palin’s fault
Just when you think an industry is making sensible decisions with the long term in mind, they revert to type. The music industry has done it, the movie industry has done it, and now it’s the publishing industry.
E-books are becoming more popular as the number of e-book readers on the market increases. And yet rather than see that as a good thing, book publishers are only seeing the bad, and making decisions to protect revenue in the short term which don’t take the bigger picture into consideration.
E-book readers such as the Kindle, the Nook, and the Sony Reader may not yet be selling in large enough numbers to be considered mainstream but they’re certainly on many people’s wish lists. If the price drops then expect to become as familiar with seeing people using an electronic book reader as you are seeing people using a portable media player such as the iPod.
New release e-books from mainstream publishers and authors are already selling well, and yet that is being seen as a problem rather than a triumph. The reason being that e-books sell for around $9.99 each while the hardback print edition of the same book could retail for two or three times as much. And book publishers cannot see the logic in allowing that to happen.
So, Simon & Schuster and the Hachette Book Group announced this week that it was to delay the release of the e-book version of many new releases to allow time for the hardback version to sell to its full potential. And HarperCollins has now joined in, with WSJ reporting that the publishing house will delay the release of five to 10 new hardcover titles each month for between four weeks and six months.
James McQuivey, principal analyst for Consumer Media Technology at Forrester Research Inc. summed up the ludicrousness of the decision by stating:
Every once in a while, a media business that appears to understand the digital reality quickly reverts under pressure and starts acting like a last-century business. If you give people digital content, they’ll actually consume more of it. But if you withhold it from them, you are motivating them to buy somebody else’s book, or to consider piracy, something which hasn’t yet hit the book industry but probably will next year.
This just doesn’t make sense, and it smacks of publishers taking advantage of their customers. In a way, the publishing industry has done this for years by releasing a hardcover version of a book months before releasing a slimmed down, cheaper paperback version. And now the e-book versions of those same titles are being lumped in as second-class copies as well.
This will surely backfire on publishers as people turn to less legal means of obtaining e-books when they want them rather than when the publishers want to release them.
And who can we blame for this? Sarah Palin, whose Going Rogue book was delayed in e-book form for over a month and went on to sell well. And this experience influenced HarperCollins decision.
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December 12th, 2009
Come on Dave, what a totally idiot premise. How about trying to be objective rather than letting your political bias into a totally un-political subject.
From my BlackBerry Storm…
December 12th, 2009
No, whom we can blame for the inevitable piracy is journalists like you who, through your editorializing disgised as ournalism, are giving Slacker Nation tes a by-your-leave to rape, rob and steal. The book industry can handle its titles however it deems prudent – and what they don’t need is journalism yelling, “Sooo-eeee!” to the worst instincts of Slacker sociopathy to take what they want.
(BTw, you’re no doubt of the ilk who beat up Amazon for using Kindle’s technology to correct an honest mistake by deleting the Orwell books – and refunding the purchasers’ money. Far from being the heavy hand of Big Brother, I thought what they did was great – using the technology to right a wrong.)
I myself am an author and have long been an evangel of the ebook. My novel, THE MONEY TREE, was an ebook in ’97 – and was one of the first fiction titles in the Nuvomedia RocketBook format in ’99. (Today, it is a Kindle – and on its way to being a Nook and an Adobe Edition.) The world wasn’t ready for the ebook back then; it is now. The possibilities the ebook represents for serious writers – not the least of which is the disintermediation that frees us from the onus of Pimp Daddy James Patterson and the dunghill of dumbed-down New York publishing – make it one of the most exciting developments of our time.
But the danger that the fanged whore-dog Napster represents – in a culture where it’s already impossible to make a living as a quality writer of fiction – is cause for great disquiet.
Finally, I haven’t thrown in the towel on DRM (digital right managment) yet, as a defense to the spirit of Napster. The Adobe Content Server 4 shows great promise in preventing piracy. I say, anything to keep from happening to publishing what has happened to the music and movie industries.
In sum, kids, writers aren’t fascists for wanting to make a living at their craft. It’s wonderful that some of your enjoy reading. Just please don’t pirate our books!
December 13th, 2009
Kindle and E-Books are over hyped.
Seriously, how important is the latest novel or bio e-book? Is there being way too much attention being put into e-books anyway? Is the mere mention of Kindle supposed to stir up excitement? Or is it “Kindle” is supposed to make us want to read books again?
I don’t get it, for centuries there was no E-Book or “Kindle” or E-book readers. Yet the world got along just fine without them. You wanted a book, but it was too expensive, you would wait till the paperback edition was released. Wow what a concept.
And long before Napster or P2P, there was a place you could get the book for free. It is called the library.
If you cannot afford it, don’t buy it. There were thousands of books that came and went in the last few years, I didn’t buy them or read them at the library. It didn’t change my life either way.
Regarding Kindle and DRM, there is no way I ever spend my money on Kindle or any DRM product. If I want the book bad enough, I’ll go to Amazon, buy the real deal and get free shipping in most cases.
And for the price of the Kindle, One could buy several “real” books a year. Then again, there is still yet another option….The Public Library.