3 ms·

Why not just Jack up the ebook price then gradually lower it over time?

• cstross 17y ago
  That'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 ...)