Cookaholics Bulletin Board

No matter how many terms you toss around, you're not going to convince me that the opinion of someone with zero experience in a field is every bit as good as the opinion of someone with 11 years of experience. You can twist it around however you want, but that's essentially what you're arguing. It has nothing to do with authority and everything to do with knowledge. So far, you have not presented anything to suggest that you know anything about the costs of book production, which makes the validity of your other arguments suspect.



Are we talking about the $9.99 kindle books, or something else? Got a source? The articles I read said different, so I'd like to see the other side.



Maybe the term "BS" is used differently in Canada. Here, it means that the speaker is not just mistaken, but lying deliberately. Your post also pretty clearly asserted that 100% of ebook problems were attributable to publisher greed. I'm sure you were speaking off the cuff, but you can't fault me taking a whack at a strawman argument you set up yourself.



What if the publisher sets a price which is 20% lower than the current issue (hardback, softcover, depending on timing)?



Actually, I think the best thing which could happen to the world of book publishing is for the Big Four to go under. The consolidation of all English, French and German book publishing into a few mega-corporations has done more harm to book writing and reading than anything else could. And yes, most people who currently work in publishing (based on a personal straw poll) would agree with me.

Oh, BTW: I'm having this argument with Paul because I'm enjoying it. If we're upsetting someone, I'll stop.

phew. I was going to send both you boys to your rooms soon.

I love debates, so I am ok with it. If I didn't want to read it, I'd just ignore the posts, but other folks might feel differently.

I think I read this somewhere, but have no clue where, but for me it rang true. I think digital books have encouraged reading again (as opposed to watching tv or playing video games.) It is cool now to be seen reading on an ereader be it a Kindle, iPad, etc.

I love books. When my kids were little that was the one things they knew they could ask for and get when we were shopping. I still buy books for my grandkids. However, my granddaughter who was 2 on July 31, can operate an iPhone and iPad. I can see her having digital books to read when traveling and space is an issue.

Now I am finding that ebooks while more than a paperback would be, are usually a lot less than hardbacks, so I don't have to wait for paperbacks. For those out in paperbacks, mostly the price is about the same, and I like the instant gratification. Most of the time, whether paper or e, I will buy it from Amazon because I can get it with not shipping cost in 2 days (unless I happen to be going to Costco in which case I might impulse buy there).

So for me since ebooks encourage reading I am all for them, and the public library systems are getting on board as well which is fantastic.

Well, duh, I'd buy it (assuming that is 20% of what it is actually selling for, not some fairly arbitrary price printed on the spine/dust jacket), and have already many times for similar prices. Why wouldn't I? I might buy it if it is the same price as the current issue, because in general, I don't want physical books any more and the eBook is convenient (particularly if it was DRM free). I won't pay the hardcover price generally, because I don't see why I should pay for some sort artificial scarcity (artificial for eBooks, anyway), and I've not met a fiction book that couldn't wait to be read for 6 months (the whole hardcover thing is kinda silly, but it works, people are willing to pay, so who am I to argue).

As an aside, I've bought quite a few O'Reilly eBooks for work and such. That can be a weird experience. On the face of it, they essentially charge the cover price of the book for the eBook on their own website, essentially making them the single most expensive way to buy an O'Reilly book, e or not. However, once you log into the website, you can inevitably get some kind of 50% off at checkout or buy one get one deal, making it competitive with discount sellers for the physical book, and cheaper then other sellers for the eBook. I'd be guessing that they can't advertise a lower then cover price and undercut their wholesale customers, but make up for it with coupon codes. The offer most books in a wide variety of formats, which is wonderful. Naturally they are not representative of the business as a whole their customer demographic is fairly unique.

At least we agree that the companies are broken. Here in Canada, distribution is almost sole owned by Chapters Indigo, which has caused huge problems for publishers, and readers. In the last couple of years Amazon.ca has go their act together, giving some competition, but as you know they are no friend to the publishers either. eBooks provide a huge opportunity, here anyway, to break the grip on distribution and sales that Amazon and Chapters Indigo has and give them some freedom and leverage (they now have an alternative). Yet, even less books are available here in eBook form; not available in Canada is a somewhat common refrain.

(I'll try to drag up some of my former materials on Amazon, but needs to wait till the next year)

Not at all. My misconception is that is is difficult to store, stock and distribute 2lbs of paper at a time. You can't really do it yourself. A few companies, like Amazon, have gotten really really good at it, with super fancy warehouses all over the place, and fantastic picking and packing machines, and extensive and exclusive shipping agreements, and even tax deals with states. So good they are displacing the last guys who were do it in brick and mortar stores. So they do it for you, but now they (amazon today, those old guys before) have you by the throat (or other things, but we'll keep it family friendly). That is why it isn't about the cost of printing and distribution; it is about who can do it for that 20%. It is very difficult to do efficiently, and takes specialist companies. eBooks, OTOH, can be sold on any old eCommerce server around, placed anywhere in the world, and there are a whole bunch of companies who would jump at the chance to be your partner or do it for a fee. Very competitive, and very open. eBooks can let the publishers do the business in a whole different way. Even if Amazon is distributing the eBook, the publisher, if they have an alternative set up and working, can use it as leverage. That is why the fact there is no paper is everything, and it isn't about the cost of printing. There are other things there too; the fact the publishers had deals with the distributors is also used as a barrier to new entrants to publishing; those deals are complex and difficult. Tough for the small guy. Now the small guy will still have to sort out marketing, etc., but no paper means he doesn't need those distributors, and can make new deals, and even cut the current publishers out (who will eventually just be marketing firms who also invest in authors, well sort of are that now really). Amazon is helping this out with their self-publish on the Kindle, but really, we don't actually need them for that either, it is just easy.

Not having paper completely changes the way the business could be done. And eventually will, just like it is changing music slowly. Yes, I know there are a lot of details, but advantages should allow the details to be worked out in time.

It's worse than you realize. Before Amazon, one single company -- Ingram -- took over 100% (not 80 or 90 or 98%, a genuine 100%) of to-bookstore wholesale book distribution in the USA. In fact, the collapse of the independent bookstore industry was more due to Ingram's chief competitor (PGW) going bankrupt with orders owing than it was due to competition from Amazon or B&N. Physical books in the USA are exclusively distributed by one of four channels: Ingram, Amazon, Walmart and Costco. If you don't deal with one of those four, you're shipping books direct to bookstores via UPS, something few small publishers can afford. So even though the competition between the four channels has kept the price of distribution low, the limited choice of channels has choked small independant publishers, causing most of them to go out of business or agree to a buyout by the Big Four over the last 15 years. This, in turn, limits our choice as readers.

But, I'll point out, this is a problem for readers and for small publishers. The Big Four regard the situation as optimal, since it limits competition.



While paper distribution requires a large physical plant, eBook distribution requires a great deal of scarce technical expertise and the skills to do new types of marketing (social networks, viral promotions, etc.). The average publisher staff is a 50-year-old former English major using a 10-year-old PC. In other words, you're dramatically underestimating the existing knowledge and skills gap.

What the industry really needs to be healthy is some serious competition for Amazon.com. iTunes and B&N.com isn't quite enough. Amazon has already shown its willingness to use its dominant position in eBooks to squeeze suppliers unfairly, as would any company with the same market position.



Just don't expect new business models from existing big publishers. When we get new ways of publishing, they will come from new and/or outsider companies, just as the drivers for the digital camera revolution were not Kodak or Fuji.

Carey,

You should be able to print pages out from ebooks, depending on the device you are using. In some cases, you need to take the ebook file over to to a PC and then run it through an ebook-to-PDF converter to print it.


Fran,

The outsourcing was happening anyway, ebooks or not, no? I mean, most printing moved to SE Asia 20 years ago.

I last dealt with Ingram about, oh, 20 years ago or slightly more (helping set up an independent bookstore). They were certainly a gorilla then, and difficult. Well, easy on the surface, but that was a facade. I didn't care for the much.

I don't underestimate the skills gap (I deal with it every day, life as a consultant...); I expect a fully corporate Darwinian outcome: adapt or die. I hope some of those 50-somethings get to retire, at least. But there will be a long time when exclusive deals with big authors keep those guys afloat, so the waiting game begins.

I do think, though, that you don't need 'new marketing' for eBooks anymore, or at least particularly moreso over regular books (everything requires new marketing now). It isn't for techies, or the elite, or even for the 'better educated'; regular folk all over the place are buying eBooks right now, and thinking nothing of it. It has got very mainstream. I expect to see "available in bookstores and on the kindle" in mainstream marketing soon. Of course, those regular folk still put you at the mercy of Amazon/B&N/Indigo (round here), so it isn't independence yet, but get those folk used to that, and you might be able to bring them around to buying off a website, which the muggles know how to use now too. One piece missing is an e-reader/tablet that is a little easier for outside content; maybe someone with a different kind of stake will make it, like Google. Sony has been kicking that can for a while too, though their prices are too high.

Ingram was talking about making their own ebookstore. Wonder what happened to that?



Try "or die", and nobody gets to retire. For one thing, as the publishers downsize, their youngest, smartest and most flexible staff have been among the first to leave, since they can get good jobs elsewhere. That's why my wife is now freelance; she got tired of working for idiots. Thus, if anything, the Big Four get more fossilized every quarter.



Publisher marketing, historically, has primarily focused on selling the publisher's books to bookstores, and counting on the bookstore to sell to the reader. eBook channels like iTunes and Amazon are largely content-neutral, so publishers are now in the position of needing to market books directly to readers, doing 100% of promotion themselves. This is not something they're used to, and most publishers will fail to figure it out before they go under. The reaction of publishers, instead, has been to cut back on all types of marketing, leaving the authors to do their own marketing. Of course, then the authors start to defect to self-publishing.

Also, keep in mind that this whole eBook shift is taking place against a background of declining book purchases of all kinds (eBooks or paper). North Americans today buy around 25% of the books they bought, per capita, in 1980. eBooks will succeed in revolutionizing the industry to the extent that they can turn that trend around. Here's hoping!