Your average Kindle owner, on discovering that a new release is not available electronically, is unlikely to set down his expensive gadget and drive down to Borders to buy the hardback. The problem is that book sales are not a zero sum game. The hardcore book buyers who regularly buy hardback books are also the ones most likely to have an e-reader – meaning that delaying ebook releases should result in more hardback sales. Ebooks on the other hand sell for less than paperbacks but, by and large, pay a larger royalty to authors: somewhere in the region of 25% of the cover price, leaving even less profit for the publisher.
Hardback sales – especially of popular titles – are one of the cash cows of publishing, costing just a few cents more to produce and distribute than paperbacks but with a far higher cover price. It’s no huge coincidence that Covey’s decision came just a few days after Simon & Schuster, along with several other publishers, announced that they were postponing the ebook release of dozens of titles on the basis that Amazon’s $9.99 price point for electronic titles was cannibalizing hardback sales. “Our position is that electronic editions of our backlist titles belong in the Simon & Schuster catalog, and we intend to protect our interests in those publications.” said an S&S spokesman, ineffectively. Simon & Schuster, perhaps unsurprisingly given that they sold 136,000 paperback copies of the book this year, disagree – arguing that Covey’s contract precludes him from publishing any ‘competing works’. ‘Seven Habits’ was originally contracted back in the pre-ebook days of 1989 and as such Covey claims that the electronic rights remain with him to do with as he wishes. Covey’s move has caused a highly effective shit-storm because he made it in direct defiance of his paymasters at Simon & Schuster who won’t see a penny from the deal. Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, to make his books available exclusively on the Amazon Kindle. “I didn’t say it was my advice, I just said there’s nothing they can do to stop you.”īefore our meeting had taken its subversive turn, we had been talking about ebooks: a subject that’s on every publisher and agent’s mind this week after the decision by Stephen R. My agent rocked back in his chair (a chair bought with 15% of my earnings) and laughed. “So that’s your advice is it? As my agent? On the week my book comes out in paperback, I should produce my own pirated version and give it away free? Why don’t I just punch my publisher in the face? That would be less work.”
0 kommentar(er)
