Paper Books or Ebooks

[WinnieWinkle]

24 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I read too much to be able to outright purchase everything so I am dependent upon my local library. 

This is actually the main reason I finally started using my kindle!  For months our library was closed and, well desperation lends enchantment I guess!  But once I got used to the kindle I found I continued to use it.  So, um, thank you, Covid?

[Irlandesa]

I am more of a paper book reader.  But I've read more ebooks in the pandemic. 

My favorite library moment is when I have the paper version, ebook version and audio version available to me at the same time so I can switch based on what's convenient.  Paper book for when I'm reading at home; ebook on my phone for when I'm waiting in line somewhere; audio book on my phone for when I'm driving or taking a long walk.

[Ohiopirate02]

52 minutes ago, WinnieWinkle said:

This is actually the main reason I finally started using my kindle!  For months our library was closed and, well desperation lends enchantment I guess!  But once I got used to the kindle I found I continued to use it.  So, um, thank you, Covid?

I work for my local public library.  My favorite part of the job is ordering new materials.  I order physical books for my branch and ebooks for the entire system.  We really only closed to the public for 6 weeks last spring.  The rest of the time, we have either had limited opening or curbside pickup.  We had a huge increase in ebook and eaudiobook usage last year.  

[DearEvette]

I started reading e-books back in 2007 mainly because 1) I am a technophile and I love cool new gadgets and 2) Amazon was offering books for free if you bought the e version for the Kindle. A lot of free books,  So many free books!

But then I was fully on board with the ease and convenience.  Back in the early days of kindle your Kindle automatically came with Amazon's whispernet which was it's very own cellular network.  You didn't need wifi.  It still exists but it now adds about $100-150  more to the price of the Kindle to have it. 

I remember being in the middle of a longish train commute and finishing a book in a series and needing the next one  like right now!  That is when I got fully indoctrinated.  The ability to get the next book, right there with a click in the middle of a train on my way from work was life changer to a life-0long book devourer like me. LOL.  That was it for me, No going back.

I recently became a real audio-book reader -- maybe in the last five years?  It is its own kind of convenience and "reading" experience.

Edited March 22, 2021 by DearEvette

[OtterMommy]

Not to get into the print vs. digital debate, but I'm not sure where else to put this little e-book rant(?).

I recently saw a TikTok by Jennifer Weiner where she talked about the recent NYT piece on Colleen Hoover.  (I am  not a Hoover reader, and this rant isn't really about her)  She was very gracious to Ms. Hoover but the point was that the NYT piece (I have not read it, but I've heard enough about it that I'm sure I could already recite it verbatim) pointed out that the key factor of Hoover's success was that, early in her career, so many of her books were free e-books.  I'm not sure if Hoover was a KDP author, or not--but Weiner had a good point.  Free or cheap e-books are a great way to reach readers.

Personally, I think you should pay *something* for an e-book because I think artists should be compensated for their work, but I also feel that generally e-books are overpriced.  

I rarely pay full price for an ebook.  Really, the only time I would is if it is a new release that I'm very eager to read and instead of waiting for a library hold to come in, I'd rather pay full price and let it sit unread on my kobo for a few months.  Heh.  I do, however, frequently check my Kobo wish lists for sales and end up buy a good number of ebooks at $1.99 or $2.99.

I didn't blink when I put a pre-order on the next Louise Penny, but I'm not going to pay $14.99 or more for a debut novel unless it's been out for a while and I know from others who have read it that it is worth it.

I don't know what share of the market is e-books, but I do know that the very, very best marketing out there is word of mouth. That not only includes the various social media platforms, but also one person reading a book and enjoying it and then telling others to read it.  So, I think it would behoove publishers to make one form of the books more accessible.  Both print books and audiobooks have a fair amount of overhead.  E-books really don't.  If you think about it, pricing a new release e-book at $4.99 or so, even for a limited time, could be more valuable in terms of marketing  than a full-fledged book tour.  Putting backlist on sale frequently at $1.99 or $2.99 can bring new audiences to established authors.

Back to Jennifer Weiner.  In this TikTok, she said she probably would have had a different career if she had debuted in a time of e-books and social media.  However, her first book is over 20 years old and, after reading the Hoover profile, she asked her publisher to make her first novel, Good in Bed, available for free (as of this week, it is now available for free on Kindle Unlimited.  It's still $12.99--which is far too much IMO--on Kobo.  However, I'll save my Kobo vs. Kindle thoughts for another rant).  It will be interesting to see what happens.  Granted, there are other things in play with Weiner--I think her earlier books are generally better than her later books (I believe her problem right now is that she doesn't know what kind of writer she wants to be at this point in her life).  She also already has a well-established fan base and social media presence.  Still, it will be interesting to see if the Kindle Unlimited play has an impact on the sales of her backlist.

Anyway, that's my rant.  If anyone has another perspective on this, I'd love to hear it.  Thank you for coming to my TED Talk...

[Ohiopirate02]

Ebook pricing is tricky and publishing has never done a good job explaining whys.  I personally do not have a problem with publishers and authors selling new releases at roughly 40% of the hardcover price.  That 40% is the difference in price between an electronic file and the cost of printing and shipping a physical book.  There should be a base price for the manuscript that allows for the author to get paid and the publisher making enough money to stay in business.  The problems arise when the cost of the print book becomes less than that base price.  And publishing has not figured out how to navigate pricing when that happens.  So you get backlist titles where the ebook costs more than the mass market paperback.  And the authors who have that extensive of a backlist and remain popular enough for them to stay in print are the ones who can handle a reduction in the ebook price (King, Grisham, Roberts, Patterson, etc.).  

Giving away titles for free is not a sustainable model.  Authors should never devalue their work in the hopes of future sales.  Colleen Hoover is an anomaly.  What worked for her will never work for others.  Sure, authors can play around with giving away the first title in a series in the hopes of getting readers to pay for the next, but that also makes readers pissy.  They get upset when book #1 is free or a dollar but then book #4 is 8 bucks.  Once a book is free or virtually free, it sets unrealistic expectations.  

[OtterMommy]

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Ebook pricing is tricky and publishing has never done a good job explaining whys.  I personally do not have a problem with publishers and authors selling new releases at roughly 40% of the hardcover price.  That 40% is the difference in price between an electronic file and the cost of printing and shipping a physical book.  There should be a base price for the manuscript that allows for the author to get paid and the publisher making enough money to stay in business.  The problems arise when the cost of the print book becomes less than that base price.  And publishing has not figured out how to navigate pricing when that happens.  So you get backlist titles where the ebook costs more than the mass market paperback.  And the authors who have that extensive of a backlist and remain popular enough for them to stay in print are the ones who can handle a reduction in the ebook price (King, Grisham, Roberts, Patterson, etc.).  

Giving away titles for free is not a sustainable model.  Authors should never devalue their work in the hopes of future sales.  Colleen Hoover is an anomaly.  What worked for her will never work for others.  Sure, authors can play around with giving away the first title in a series in the hopes of getting readers to pay for the next, but that also makes readers pissy.  They get upset when book #1 is free or a dollar but then book #4 is 8 bucks.  Once a book is free or virtually free, it sets unrealistic expectations.  

Yeah, I think once a book hits backlist, the pricing becomes trickier.  As you said, no one has ever been clear of what the production cost of an e-book is.  Not only is the e-book sometimes more expensive than the mass market or trade paperback, but at that point used copies of the book are in wider circulation and someone could pick up a like-new copy for $1 or $2.

As for the free books in backlist, I have thoughts on it.  As I said, I think authors should get paid, so I think permanently making a book free is a big mistake.  But if you look at Jennifer Weiner, I can see the value of doing a book free (in her case, only on Kindle) for a limited time.  I can't imagine that at this point Good in Bed makes up a large part of her sales.  It's over 20 years old and, in some ways, and it's actually quite dated.  However, it is also one of her better novels.  While she may lose some money one having this one free, she might make it back with new readers picking up In Her Shoes or another later book after having "discovered" Jennifer Weiner via her free e-book.

I can't speak for other readers, but I completely understand why books in series are priced differently.  I read a fair number of mystery series and I've noticed that earlier books in the series will go on sale when a new book is released.  It's all about hooking readers--I get it.  It's a business and, in one of the worst analogies ever, it's kind of like drug dealing.  Give 'em a cheap hit and you'll hook 'em.

Yes, Colleen Hoover is an anomoly, but she isn't the only author to start from offering free books to becoming a publishing success.  The entirety of The Martian (albeit an early version) was available for free on Andy Weir's blog as he was writing it.  Then, IIRC, he offered a free ebook of it?  

[Razzberry]

Back when ebooks first came out,  I wasn't sold on the idea of investing in a proprietary device to read overpriced digital versions that can't be borrowed, sold or put in my bookcase.  The longevity of the trend was also a concern.  Back then Amazon had message boards and there was a long-running boycott thread of ebooks  costing over $10. that got pretty heated at times, mainly from posters who I'm pretty sure were employed in publishing.   When Jeff Bezos himself came out in support of the boycott, they were crushed, lol.  However, the publishers won in the end, and they set the prices. 

I still rarely pay over $10., but have changed my mind about the paper/ebook debate, mainly due my increasingly bad eyesight.  Also discovering that I can't even give away my many boxes of paperbacks and hardcovers these days, which is interfering with my decluttering plans.  Even the library no longer accepts them, and I may have to resort to the paper recycling bin. 

[DearEvette]

The give them the first one free and they'll come back for more, certainly worked with me.  I remember -- and this was waaay before ebooks became a thing -- that Baen books had something called the 'Baen Free Library.' where they'd have the first book by some of their biggest named authors on the web and you could read them for free. I think I downloaded and printed (it was my at work -- I used my work printer) to print the entirety of  David Weber's first Honor Harrington book.,  LOL.  And it hooked me.  I bought the rest.

When ebooks came along for real, I was an early adopter of ebooks mainly because there were books I wanted to read that were only in e format.  And the ridiculous ease of getting a book right now no matter where you were.  The first generation kindles had their own internal internet connectivity.  Like Amazon's version of their own cellular network.  So you could just buy and then download straight from Amazon, no wifi necessary. 

A lot of really good (and a lot of really, really bad) romance came out of self publishing because of the rise of ebooks.  With authors of color, especially, they were being gate-kept away from getting published, except for one small indie publisher called Indigo Press.

Pricing wise, there is a long and nasty history about ebook prices.  There are two models of ebook pricing -- wholesale and agency.  Wholesale is when the retailer buys the book for half the price of what the publisher wants to retail it for and then goes on to sell it.  The retailer can either mark it up to the Publisher price or they can discount it. 

Agency is when the price is set by the publisher.  The retailer can not change the price at all, and gets a percentage on each book sold.

When ebooks came about, Amazon wanted to sell Kindles.  They bought books through the Wholesale model and would deeply discount them.  The overall company profits were mammoth enough that they could act as a loss leader and of course their main priority was to move kindles.  It paid off because the first kindles to hit the market sold out in like 6 hours.

Amazon began to dominate the ebook market as a retailer to the point they provided the impetus for ebooks to outsell print and hardcover -- I think it was 2009?

I am not gonna lie, I was all over those free and .99 cents book.  I have an insanely huge kindle library with so many going back 10-12 years.  Some I look at and go 'YIKES! what was I thinking this book is terribad!" but others I got some great early back list of authors who now do have big 6 contracts.

But Amazon's strategy was drawing angry eyes especially MacMillan publishing.  They got into a pissing match with Amazon and told Amazon they had to stop discounting their books.  Amazon said no.  Macmillan pulled all their books from Amazon.  This lasted about... I wanna say a month?  I remember so well...And other houses started holding back the release of ebook versions of books until a month or more after the hardcopy had released.

Amazon blinked first and MacMillan books came back at the agency model.  So now, Amazon had to sell all MacMillan books at their set price.  I remember it well.  Up til then romance ebook novels under the subsidiary of MacMillan had been -- at most 4.99 -- until agency model came back and they were at 5.99 - 7.99.  Pissed me off.  But I had a few favorites that I'd auto buy and it wasn't so bad.

But then Apple launched iBooks.  And it came out that 5 of the big six had colluded with Apple to price fix ebooks.  So that was a nasty scandal.  And the DOJ sued them all.  Everybody else settled, Apple is the last man standing.

I remember when they settled, I got a notice from Amazon I'd get money.  And sure enough, I got a whopping $300 credits from Amazon.  A lot of people were posting how much they got on social media.

Now, I think that Amazon is fully agency model.  Their whole thing about discounting books was to sell Kindles.  Kindles are 81% of the market of ereader.  So they don't have that driving force anymore and when they were doing it they were taking a loss. 

So now that is why I think ebook prices are all over the place.  I see new ebooks from some of my favorites coming in at 11.99 - 14.99 and these are not fat door knocker books like Game Of Thrones.  These are 250- 300 page book.  I feel like with almost everything books are part of the whole price gouging thing.  I'm seeing fewer and fewer mid-list authors new books being available via Overdrive or Libby in the library.  I think libraries are being pinched by the higher prices too. 

So now I'm like, nah, I'm good, I can wait.  I'll just track you on e-reader IQ and wait for your price to come down to something reasonable.

[OtterMommy]

2 hours ago, DearEvette said:

So now that is why I think ebook prices are all over the place.  I see new ebooks from some of my favorites coming in at 11.99 - 14.99 and these are not fat door knocker books like Game Of Thrones.  These are 250- 300 page book.  I feel like with almost everything books are part of the whole price gouging thing.  I'm seeing fewer and fewer mid-list authors new books being available via Overdrive or Libby in the library.  I think libraries are being pinched by the higher prices too. 

From what I've seen on the books I'm interested, the "full" price for an e-book is $9.99-$22.99.  (And you had better believe I snatched up the $22.99 on the day it went on sale for $2.99!).  Considering new hardcover prices are about $28-30, $14.99 is not terrible if it is a book I really want.  But, when the paperback is $11.99 and the e-book is $14.,99, I have to roll my eyes.

I was also a reluctant e-book reader.  Now, I read both print and e-book, but digital reading is just SO MUCH EASIER on the eyes (I have some eye issues--thanks, Lasik!--that limit the amount of time I can read print in one sitting).  I did fall prey to all the cheap and free books on Amazon when I first got my kindle.  In fact, my paperwhite doesn't have the memory to hold all the downloads.  I now primarily read on my Kobo.  I'm fine selling my soul to Jeff Bezos for many things, but not books.  Plus, I find the Kobo Libro to have a better interface for my eyes than the Paperwhite.

Another interesting element with digital books is that they aren't subject to the printing "issues" we are currently having with big titles.  I'm still not entirely sure what is causing that--if it is someone going on with the printers or publishers not printing enough copies, or what.  But, I could get a copy of Babel right now on my kobo, even though it is currently sold out at my local bookstore.

Honestly, I think I will be reading more and more on my e-readers as time goes on.  While I don't think that reading in general is going that way--the trends certainly don't indicate that--I don't think that ebooks are going away.  At some point, they are going to have to come clean or something about the pricing.

[Ohiopirate02]

@DearEvettelibraries are always getting pinched by higher ebook prices. The publishers keep on changing the terms for licenses and always in their favor. Gone are the days of libraries paying once for a title and keeping it in perpetuity.  Now we have to renew the license yearly (or every other year) if we want to keep it.  And a 20 year old blacklist title costs us the same amount as a new release.  My library spends half of our e-material budget on renewing licenses and ordering additional copies. We don't have the money to buy midlist titles anymore.

[Irlandesa]

2 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Now we have to renew the license yearly (or every other year) if we want to keep it.

I work with academic titles so it may be different but another thing people don't realize is that libraries get charged more for ebooks than individual patrons.  A textbook that costs a student $100 can be $300 for a year (or a certain # of checkouts), $500 for more time or $600 for in perpetuity* access. And that's just one copy with only one person able to view it at a time.  Cost goes up if you want multiple copies to be accessible at the same time.

*Or until the hosting platform (which also needs to be paid for) changes so much that it becomes unusable.  And oh no, you only paid for perpetual access to the title on the publisher/vendors X platform but not on their new X+ platform. And if you lose access when the publisher stops supporting it?  Too bad.

Edited November 5, 2022 by Irlandesa

[partofme]

3 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

@DearEvettelibraries are always getting pinched by higher ebook prices. The publishers keep on changing the terms for licenses and always in their favor. Gone are the days of libraries paying once for a title and keeping it in perpetuity.  Now we have to renew the license yearly (or every other year) if we want to keep it.  

This is interesting.  I only read library books, and in recent years I only read e-books because they’re so much easier.  I have noticed that the nypl no longer has a few titles in ebook that I previously read in that format and I wondered what was up with that.   It’s also really frustrating when they get both the hard cover book and the audio book at least a month before they get the ebook.   

[Ohiopirate02]

3 minutes ago, partofme said:

This is interesting.  I only read library books, and in recent years I only read e-books because they’re so much easier.  I have noticed that the nypl no longer has a few titles in ebook that I previously read in that format and I wondered what was up with that.   It’s also really frustrating when they get both the hard cover book and the audio book at least a month before they get the ebook.   

Given the size of NYPL, they will have different staff purchasing physical books and other staff for e-materials.  They may also employ a set schedule for what type of ebooks they order each week or month.  One order is adult non-fiction,  next order is children's fiction, next order is popular adult fiction, etc.  So, they may only be ordering romance or mystery once a quarter.  Pre-orders are an option, but may not happen due to budgets. It is easier to keep up on ordering print materials when you can get 4-8 books for the price of one ebook license. Ebook licenses run anywhere from $5-120 for fictionvand your garden variety nonfiction.  The vast majority only allow for one user at a time and most have built in expiration terms.  Each publisher has their own terms.  Some are a blanket one year or two years, others allow for the library to keep for a set number of checkouts usually 26. 

And on top of all of this, the library has to pay for use of the hosting platform.  The fees associated with offering the platform are based on the total population size for the library.  NYPL pays thousands more per year than my library system for the exact same software.  This is why smaller libraries can have a better collection of e-materials.  

[partofme]

8 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

And on top of all of this, the library has to pay for use of the hosting platform.  The fees associated with offering the platform are based on the total population size for the library.  NYPL pays thousands more per year than my library system for the exact same software.  This is why smaller libraries can have a better collection of e-materials.  

This is a good point.   However as much as I complain about the  NYPL’s ebook collection, they do have a lot of titles, there are a handful of books over the years I’ve been surprised and disappointed they never got in ebook but overall it’s not too bad.  ( I mostly read mystery and domestic thrillers).   I’ve searched the ebook collection of my mom’s suburban NJ library and they don’t have half the title the NYPL has. 
 

And  just want to point out I do appreciate the cost the NYPL pays and libraries in general for their existence, I’ve always said when I win the lottery I plan on donating to the NYPL.   

Edited November 5, 2022 by partofme

[DearEvette]

This is a pretty interesting thread on a recent episode of Planet Money and ebook borrowing and pricing in Libraries.  I bit down in the thread she talks about John Sergent with MacMillan Publishing.   I have post upthread a bit about the ebook pricing wars with Amazon and the Big Six publishers and I mentioned MacMillan pulling their books from Amazon and their price fixing with Apple.  Well, Sergent was the ringleader of that and I remember how ebook buyers esp. those really voracious buyers in the romance community reviled this man.  So it was funny to see his name come up again, with revulsion, in this thread.

But what is worse she says wrt to ebook pricing and libraries:

Quote

he does come out and say they purposely made library ebook prices high to libraries couldn't afford too many.

Once a POS, still a POS.  Anyway here is the thread.