Why Are Major Publishing Houses Having Such A Hard Time Accepting E-Books?

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by: krizyyquinthwarbler
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Word Count: 759
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 Time: 5:12 PM
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E-books and e-book readers are a relatively new development. Nevertheless, the public seems to have accepted them very quickly. A good deal of the credit for that must surely go to the Amazon Kindle reader - in particular the Kindle 2.0 which was launched in February of 2009. The third generation Kindle was released in August of 2010 and, despite prophecies of doom for the Kindle following the release of the Apple iPad, is selling faster than ever. However, it was the Kindle 2.0 that really helped e-books to take off.

Equally important was the large selection of Kindle books available. Amazon has always been well in front of the following pack when it comes to the number of titles available. Currently, they have in excess of 800,000 e-books to choose from on their Kindle store - and that's just the Kindle books that are for sale. They have a further 1.8 million titles which are out of copyright and are now available for download free of charge.

However, although the public seems to have taken to e-books, it's debatable if the same can be said for many of the major publishing firms. The traditional publishing cycle has been totally modified by the introduction of e-books. It's not just that e-books are cheaper than printed books (since they consume no paper, ink or bindings) - there's no reason why they shouldn't be on sale simultaneously with the hardback edition. The e-book version is available immediately - no need to wait months for the paperback to be released.

Obviously, having a cheaper version available at the same time as the hardback is something which could impact upon the sales of hardback books. According to Amazon, they are currently selling 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardbacks. This seems to have created a bit of a stir for many of the big publishing houses. They have already had several run ins with Amazon over the pricing of e-books.

Publishers like Harper Collins, Penguin and Hachette recently moved to the "agency model" for their e-books. What this means is that the publishers set the price rather than the retailer (Amazon). This has led to an increase in the price of some e-books - to the point where they are more expensive than the hardback edition in some cases.

Kindle owners quickly made their feelings known by awarding "one star" reviews to titles where they felt that the price of the Kindle version had been set too high. Some fairly terse comments were left on Amazon's website - mainly aimed at the publishers - and it was suggested that prospective customers boycott both the hardback and the Kindle versions until prices are fixed at more reasonable levels. Some prices have now been reduced.

It seems to be an almost suicidal tactic by the publishers to adopt such an artificial method of raising prices. After all, it seems reasonable to assume that e-book reader owners read a lot of books. If you only read a book a month then you would hardly invest in an e-book reader would you? In other words, e-book reader owners are the target market for the major publishing houses.

It also seems obvious that e-books should cost less than printed books. Apart from their lack of paper, ink and bindings, they have no delivery fee to speak of. They are also - even making allowances for the materials used in the e-book readers themselves - more environmentally friendly. It seems likely that e-book reader users would be able to work this out and that they would naturally expect prices to be correspondingly lower.

It could be that the publisher's tactics will prove successful in the short term - however, they need to take care not to antagonise some of their best customers. Artificial price hikes are likely to alienate the buying public and, after a series of one star reviews and public calls for buying boycotts, authors would probably also be somewhat unhappy. Publishers have every bit as much to gain from the e-book revolution as the public. The savings apply on both sides of the fence, publishers save money - which should be passed on to the public. Publishers who adopt e-books, in just the same way that the reading public has, will be successful going forward. On the other hand, if their desire for short term profits inures them to the possible opportunities offered by this new medium, they will be rejected by both their authors and their readers.

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