One doesn't have to look far to find stories about and opinions from authors who have scored big with self-published books, who make a living by selling books for 99 cents each, or who have built up a reading public from the PR machines of mainstream publishing and are now going the low-priced e-book route.
I have no problem with such success stories. I don't think they are typical.
What bothers me is the large number of readers and writers who think e-books should be dirt cheap because they are just files. As IPG demonstrates in their comparison of print book and e-book prices, e-books require (or should require) editing, promotion, cover art, all of which will be hard to recover if the material is sold under the "it's just a file" entitlement expectations of some buyers. In addition, if the book is issued by a publisher, the pricing also has to help defray the usual overhead costs of the company.
In IPG's example, a $14.95 book that sells 10,000 copies may earn the author $11,000 and the publisher a net of $48,000. Similar results may occur with an e-book with a price of $10.00. IPG is fighting Amazon because the bookseller wants to cut the sales price down so low that neither author nor publisher can stay in business.
Of course, while everyone argues about this, the author may get lost in the shuffle because s/he isn't really expected to live off a writing career. In IPG's example, there aren't too many people who aren't independently wealthy or who don't have the benefit of a spouse with a large salary who can spend a year or so writing a book and then earn only $11,000. If Amazon has its way, the earnings will be lower.
As a writer, I can't buy into the views that (a) Two years of my work are "just a file." (That's nonsense--the reader is, in part, paying for the CONTENT); (b) That "the pride of authorship" should be worth more to me than staying out of bankruptcy, or (c) That while the author and publisher take a loss on each book, they'll make up for it on volume (ha ha).
I hope IPG stands firm against Amazon's demands and that writers who want to work for free will figure out a way to do it that doesn't help Amazon grow larger and nearly all-powerful.
--Malcolm
You May Also Like: Please check your imagination at the door, on society's expectation that such things don't belong in the adult world.
9 comments:
I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks for another great post.
Thank you, Beth.
and let us say "Amen"!
:-)
Well stated!
Here's the old "Walmart" philosophy again. Everything should be dirt cheap (and shoddily made). So, ebooks, being just files, ought to be "cheap" because the reader can't see the work that went into them. And who cares if the author/editor/designer gets paid? Certainly not the consumer.
BTW, just have to come back and say that the captcha words on my last post were particularly melodic.
I think the protagonist of my next book will be named Evinserv Witper.
The who captcha thing changed recently so that even if the words are melodic, I can't usually read them.
Yeah, Walmart, that's a wonderful model. :-(
Malcolm
As a reader I am not sure I agree that this is bad for writers. Who I think it is really bad for are all the middlemen who place themselves between the writer and the reader. Just looking at your example I have major issues as a reader.
An e-book sells 10,000 copies at $14.99 generating $149,900 in sales. An author may only get $11,000 out of that almost $150,000 that their written words generated. Where does the other $139,000 go? Mostly it goes to the middlemen (publishers, retailers, distributors). As a reader it is disturbing to me to know that I just paid $14.99 and the author is only getting $1.10 out of it.
If I instead look for good self-published books I can buy between 3 and 5 books for that same $14.99. If we assume Amazons standard 70% for the self-published author and they sell the same 10,000 copies at only $4.99 then the author is making over $34,000.
I apologize to the middlemen but in the two cases above I am happier if the biggest chunk of money I spend on a book goes to the author.
IPG is definitely a middleman in this case and I refuse to champion them because of the simple fact that I have not read any actual details that tell me what the major changes were between the old contract and the new one. If I thought that IPG was fighting for their authors then I would be all for them but I see them fighting to maintain their profitability and relevance in a process that, as it moves steadily towards e-books, will have much less need for distributors than the paper world does.
A lot of readers and writers will agree with you, Tom. In traditional publishing, the publisher takes all the risks, not the author. So they have the most to lose inasmuch as a book that doesn't sell loses real money. So naturally, there is an infrastructure that looks greedy of we only take a look at it when doing the numbers for one successful book. I would suggest also that most self-published books will never sell 10,000 copies or even 1,000 copies, so if we do this math for the average CreateSpace or iUniverse product, the author isn't raking in money because his book (in most cases) remains unknown. You make good points, though, that are food for thought as the e-book world grows and prospers.
Malcolm
Post a Comment