After a short period of reflection, and the realization I'm old enough to do this, I have revamped this blog so that a wider audience will be welcomed, perhaps find a point or two to ponder for themselves and know who is behind it.
Venturing into this territory of umbiquity with an identity is new to me. Partially responsible for this decision are a couple of articles from my favorite magazine, Wired, about e-books, Amazon's pricing and Macmillian Publishing: http://bit.ly/9YQySV and http://bit.ly/c92Wym
I own a Kindle. I am pleased with it, but not with the set price of $9.99 for all books that Amazon demands. If I ordered some books in paperback and by volume, I could save money to use for other things, like $1.29 iTunes! Publishers insist that $9.99 is too low for many books, and of course they would say that as they prepare for the advent of college text e-books and possibly secondary school e-books as well. Cheap text books would shudder publishing houses.
Wouldn't the advantage of cheaper books mean that fewer books would be published, and those that made the cut to go to press would be of higher quality than the average tome printed today? Once again, another industry and segment of our society would realize volume does not equal quality.
With blogs, internet publishing and author's websites equipped with PayPal, the printed stacks of paper will soon be history. Self-publishing will only need to overcome inefficient distribution through self-promotion. A company called Google can help with that!
The published word, sharing of knowledge, imagination or just a different perspective, is powerful. That is why this blog is no longer anonymous.
Great thoughts. I've always thought publishers are missing the point of ebooks. I like your idea of smaller or independent publishers/authors going digital exclusive.
ReplyDeleteI've also thought that for the big dogs, you can follow the same pricing structure as printed books. Start with a higher price (something closer to the hardback cost) and lower the price over time.
Or, to promote a newer author, you can start with a low price to encourage early sales, then raise the price over time. Either way, it uses the main benefit of the digital platform: flexibility.