3 ms·
To a publishing executive, this makes sense because ... The traditional pattern of book-selling is a reverse auction. First you sell the limited edition short
by cstross 17y ago
To a publishing executive, this makes sense because ...
The traditional pattern of book-selling is a reverse auction.
First you sell the limited edition short print run signed gilt-trimmed hardcover. (Optional.) $35
Then you sell the regular hardcover. (Optional.) $25, discount to $16.
Then you sell the trade paperback. (Optional.) $16, discount to $10.
Then you sell the mass-market paperback. (Optional only if you're a small press.) $8, discount to $5.
If it's a mega-bestseller, then you sell the cheap MMPB edition, discount down to $3 in quantities of 100K and up.
Each of these steps occurs in sequence, typically 6 or 12 months apart. Some or all may be ommitted -- most books only go through 2, sometimes 3 of these stages -- but the general pattern is that the price comes down as the early adopters are soaked up by the expensive editions.
It's an established business model and it worked in the traditional book business because books effectively come with built-in DRM; who in their right mind borrows a hardcover and photocopies it?
If you read HN I'm going to take it as read (heh) that you understand why this model is fundamentally broken when you try to apply it to soft goods, as Hachette's execs seem to be bent on trying.
(Full disclosure: I am published by a Hachette subsidiary in the UK, and I'm contractually required to not saw off the branch I'm sitting on.)
- patio11 17y agoThis is a particularly acute problem for booksellers because, against everyone's expectations, their core audiences are taking to the Kindle in droves. This leads to the ultimate nightmare for the market segmenter -- they're cannibalizing their best customers. It would be like if an enterprise software company convinced their Fortune 500 clients to all sign up for their self-service $9 a month SAAS plan.
- cstross 17y agoYes. Most American households buy around 1 book a year. Roughly 50% of books are sold to just 2-3% of the market. There's a power law at work (with, admittedly, a cut-off at the high end). I know quite a few folks who typically buy and read 50-150 novels a year. To make a runaway best-seller, you need to reach out to the 1-book-a-year folks, but to stay in business you've got to keep the 50-books-a-year people happy, because those are your core market. Regularly reading fiction for entertainment is, these days, a niche market.
- jacoblyles 17y agoWhy not just Jack up the ebook price then gradually lower it over time?
- cstross 17y agoThat's an excellent idea, but their contract/royalty accounting side really isn't set up for it. Internally, when the word came down to set up an ebook division, I am told that $BIG_PUBLISHER basically set up a "virtual warehouse" that duplicates the printing/distribution workflow of physical books -- right down to handling unsold returns! -- which sounds surreally stupid, except that it was easier than getting in touch with all their authors and haggling over updated contract terms (especially to books they already had the right to publish, on backlist). If publishers sold direct to the public, doing something like starting ebooks at $20 and then depreciating them by 5% per month to a floor of $2 would be practical. But they sell via distributors such as B&N, Fictionwise, Diesel, and the Kindle store, and I've got a horrible feeling (I need to do some digging to confirm this ...) that what they sell these stores is a right to sell X units of book Y, for a fixed price minus a wholesale discount. (Which would mirror how they do things with physical books, hence plugging in to their accounting system ...)