Joe Wikert's Kindleville Blog: All Kindle, All the Time: They just don't get it: "You'd think book publishers would have learned something. After seeing the recording industry ignore then dig in and fight new technology to the extent that now they're struggling to maintain their current business model, one would guess that book publishers and authors would see the folly and strive to avoid repeating it.
Not so much.
Before the floor of the Morgan Library in NY had even cleared after the press conference heralding the coming of Kindle 2.0, some in the business were already proving that they would not go gently into the good e-book night."
Great article! The book publishing industry doesn't seem to be learning any lessons from the music publishing industry. Folks, the world is changing whether you want it to or not.
We have to remember the lessons learned in the past. Just as the evolution of our society into the Industrial Age caused seismic changes in business, so does the transition into a Technological or Digital Age. Just as the transitions of the Industrial Age took decades so will our transition into the Digital Age. Even now, we see television moving from analog to digital. The whole telephone business is in a state of upheaval as we sort out our options with digital cellular, VOIP, and other options. The Christian Science Monitor and PC Magazine have moved to all digital formats, no longer printing “hard copy.”
Newspaper publishers are considering and experimenting with newer models of delivering news, including use of micropayments. You can subscribe to newspapers and magazines on your Kindle and have them automatically arrive on your device within seconds of their digital publication.
Amazon is getting it. Yes, the Kindle is still pricey, but they seem to taking a loss on the ebooks they offer for the Kindle because they understand that something is only worth what others will pay for it. Isn't this just one of the lesson publishers should have learned from Steve Jobs fighting the music industry to keep singles available at 99 cents per download. That is what people were willing to spend. When it comes to books, there is the “hardback audience” willing to spend a premium for having an early, hard bound copy of a novel. But, I imagine that most book buyers (especially of fiction) are those who, (1) wait for the paperback; (2) search the bargain bins for hardbacks that are sold for less than the paperbacks; or (3) get books from a book club. I will buy reference works (things like dictionaries or commentaries) that hardback so that I may refer to them again and again, but if it is a novel or a book that will likely only read once I will not buy it in hardback.
My personal library is rather sprawling. I have a study at home with 4 bookcases. My living room has 2 bookcases. My study at the church has 4 bookcases. Then there are the piles and boxes of books that don't fit. The bulk of these are nonfiction and I am in the process of weeding them out. I like to read fiction, but I tend to do so by (1) checking it out of the library, (2) buying the paperback, (3) buying the cheap marked down hardback, (4) ebook, (5) get a copy at a used book store, or (6) occasionally borrowing a copy of the novel. Once I read the novel, I rarely have an interest in keeping the copy. I give my read copies to family, friends, or the local library. That's my reality. My guess is that it is the reality for a great many readers of novels.
So, with that in mind, what is the worth of a new novel? If it is worth what people are willing to pay for it, how much is that? I would say that most people are going to willing to spend about what they spend on a paperback for an ebook. You might be able to sell it for a higher price the first few months after its release (to those gotta have it right away folks!), but if most people aren't getting their leisure reading at hardback prices now, why would they spend that amount for an ebook?
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