eBooks Will Save the World/eBooks Will Destroy Us All

I got a kick out of this article in the NYT, another of the flurry of epublishing stories that accompanied the flurry of new ereaders last week. In particular this p

Such testimonials do not persuade everyone. Many book publishing executives say that e-book sellers like Amazon have a strong interest in heralding a new age of reading, because they must persuade skeptical publishers that a higher sales volume of e-books will offset the eventual loss of profit if the most popular digital editions continue to be sold for $9.99. For now, sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble subsidize that price.

Some publishers are also not quite willing to accept the notion that books can make a mainstream resurgence.

“Given the fact that people now have the Internet, almost 24-hour football entertainment in the fall, tennis matches from around the world, TV shows out the wazoo, and movies, do you really believe that people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen?” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, owner of imprints like Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press. “I don’t see the scenario.”

Well, in the first place, how does selling ebooks, with their lower overhead (no warehouses, no printing, no shipping), for less than $10 constitute taking a loss?  This drives me nuts about print publishers, this business of insisting on charging print prices for ebooks.  As far as I know, they're not passing the commensurate higher profit margin on to their authors in the form of higher royalties.  And frankly, if books are going to remain a mass-market entertainment form, they need to sell for less than $10.  I can be suspicious sometimes, and in this case, I suspect print publishers who want to charge $25 for an ebook really want to kill that ebook.  They want to remain a print-based business. 

Well, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that in and of itself, but what really gets me here is Sargent's quote.  He seems to be capitulating.  He seems to be saying books can't compete in today's entertainment marketplace.  Personally, I don't think screen or printed page is the issue.  I think cost and availability are the issue.  I don't think print and brick and mortar can deliver books in a way that is affordable enough for people to take chances on new authors and that is what makes literature thrive.  I'm thinking about the advent of the blockbuster model in publishing back in the eighties and the way that's played out and I'm wondering, did they already give up on us all the way back then?

Comments

[Ian M.]

According to one of my library science textbooks, consumer book reading (measured in hours) hasn't changed that much in the last decade. People consume more cable, less broadcast tv, less recorded music, less newspaper, more internet and more video games. But consumer books are oddly steady between 106 and 119 hours a yea. 2004-2007 had yearly hours of 107, 109, 109, and 108.

Whatever problems publishing has probably happened around 1999 when the year rate dropped from 116, 118, 119 to 108, 106, etc... It's not like people have stopped reading recently.

[Jessica Freely]

Interesting, Ian. Thanks for the info!

[Angie]

As far as I know, they're not passing the commensurate higher profit margin on to their authors in the form of higher royalties.

This. Last time I heard anyone commenting about New York publisher e-book royalties, they were the same as their paper book royalties. That's a huge WTF, seriously. So they're paying their writers a fraction of what they should, they don't have paper or ink or printing or warehousing or shipping costs, and they're griping that they're losing money?? [raised eyebrow] Ummm, sure.

Angie

[St. Michael]

Sargent's quote also seems to want to dismiss e-books, in order to justify the big publisher's inability to wrap their minds around the concept that books could possibly be delivered in a form other than what they're accustomed to providing. He's a dinosaur.

[Jessica Freely]

I feel like this mindset treats ebooks and print books as different in the wrong ways and as the same in the wrong ways. A novel is still a novel whether it's read on a bound sheaf of paper, a digital screen, or engraved on the surface of the moon. But where epub and print differ is in the economics of bringing books to readers, where many print publishers seem not to want to make a distinction.