A Good Question Deserves An Answer.
November 26, 2007
Zadia wrote… I am waiting to see how my favorite ebook writers respond to this gadget.
Thank you for the comment Zadia, and you made two very good points here in one line about the Amazon Kindle. It is a gadget, a $399.00 gadget that I can not whole heartedly endorse.
When all is said and done, it is currently a product that forces you into using Amazon’s DRM and Amazon’s hardware to read Amazon’s eBooks. Which is pretty limiting to me with it’s current price tag.
Would I buy a Kindle?
Sure, but I am a hard core gadget freak and I am willing to take chances on potential. Kindle is nothing but potential right now. They are taking the existing Mobipocket library and converting it over to a device that will allow you to buy any Mobipocket title from anywhere the Kindle can make the connection to the Internet from. That is some powerful stuff there. A eBook Reader with a built in delivery system is nothing to sneeze at.
But… There are still holes here. If I was Lora Leigh with a lot of books on Ellora’s Cave or a big author on Loose-Id I would be hounding their collective butts right about now on why they were not included in this enormous event for this new eBook platform.
The promotional capability of having your traditionally published books listed right along side your back list eBooks is what the Amazon Kindle is providing to the established eBook authors lucky enough to have had eBooks being offered on the Mobipocket Site and that is some powerful stuff indeed to have happened on the busiest store on the Net. Talk about making a big entrance with not much effort… There you go!
Anyway, that is really all politics and positioning and potential and not what a prudent practical minded person should buy into yet. If you worry about every penny then let the dust cloud settle and wait this one out if you can. The Amazon Kindle could be the greatest thing since sliced bread for eBooks and ePubs or a gigantic flop.
It is still too close to call yet.
If I wanted to buy an eBook reader that I did not consider strictly a gadget and that I knew was gonna be supported for a long time coming I would head over to Amazon.com and check out the PALM T/X currently listed for about $257.00 and if you read my review you would know it is also wi-fi connected and reads Mobipocket, Adobe Reader, Palm eReader. Which gives you three DRM choices to buy eBooks in and I highly recommend it if you can handle it’s screen size. If you are really diligent remember they are found at Walmart and you know those local sales there.
If I was really truly really EVIL… And you know I am. If I worked for say Samhain, I would see what wholesale actually is on a load of Palm T/X’s because there are HUGE discounts for businesses buying these things in bulk and I would sell them at cost on their website.
Why? Because, it’s all about the eBooks and I am The VEPB!
There is my personal endorsement for the holiday season all wrapped up for you.
Happy eBook Reading!
Tags: Hacking eBooks
Just to make it clear, I am not speaking for Loose Id, and I don’t know what Loose Id’s plans are. What I’m about to say is a product of hanging around a bunch of science fiction writers, so I’m also to some extent speaking as an sf writer rather than a romance writer.
Amazon is wonderful for readers, but isn’t automatically a wonderful thing for authors. Looking at the dead tree market, if you’re published in mass market paperback you may see very little money from a copy sold on Amazon. As with other big chains, they typically take a massive wholesaler’s discount from publishers, which is how they fund things like free shipping, 4 for 3 deals. It is often a large enough discount to trigger a clause in the writer’s contract that says you get reduced royalties on deeply discounted copies. The same can apply to other paper book formats.
[rummage] Ah yes, copy-n-paste from someone else’s post about this:
“Amazon currently demands 51-52%% off cover price for most new books. That puts them into the “Discount” category in many contracts. It’s found in a clause called “the Discount clause” which usually states that when the publisher sells books at below a certain rate off of cover price, the author gets 10% (or less) of the amount the Publisher received for the books. That usually works out to between 1 and 3% of the cover price to the author.”
Looking at it on the ebook side, Amazon used to sell a lot of different ebook formats (for which they also demanded and generally got a wholesale discount well beyond what independent booksellers get). Then they bought out Mobipocket, and told the publishers that in order to provide better service to the customers, they would in future only sell books in Mobipocket format. Publishers have to pay a licensing fee to Mobipocket to use the format, so Amazon get the publishers both coming and going. When Amazon pulled the books of publishers who didn’t take up this most generous offer, they did so in a manner that left the book’s pages on Amazon with wording that would leave the casual viewer with the impression that the book was no longer available from anyone, not just Amazon. (Yes, I am bitter and twisted about this because one of my books was affected.) If you’ve had that happen once as an author, you tend to be wary of it happening with yet another Amazon-owned proprietary format.
If Amazon reaches a whole new market that would not otherwise buy the books, this doesn’t matter. It’s still money you wouldn’t otherwise have had. But if it cannibalises sales from other distribution channels, in the worst case it may be *losing* you money. From this side of the writing desk, it’s not necessarily such an obvious benefit as to justify nagging a publisher to put effort into that rather than some other distribution/marketing project. And preparing and checking a properly formatted master file to upload does take someone’s time, if you want to sure of offering a quality product — it’s not just a matter of clicking a button and adding another file format.
Me, I’ll be perfectly happy to see my books in Kindle format. But I also have in front of me a spreadsheet that tells me how many copies of of one of my books sold through Amazon in the time it was available there, and how many copies have sold each quarter through Fictionwise…
The real advantage I can see for authors is the possibility of Kindle-syndicated reader blogs linking to the Kindle purchase page of a book. That means another platform on which you can read a review and then buy the book then and there. *That* might make a serious difference for authors who get reviewed, and perhaps for other authors at the same publisher if readers then go looking for more like that one.
But Jules,
To me that is like fighting Goliath by crying about it and running home.
I do not know all about the discounts and such but it seems to me that Samhain, Amber Quill Press, Aspen Mountain Press, New Concepts Publishing and Cobblestone Press were fine with the deal. Those companies do not strike me as dummies.
There have been many formats out there and still are but the main supported ones continue to be Mobipocket, Adobe Reader, Palm eReader, Microsoft Reader and quite a few eBook readers remain Mobipocket only.
This is a business and I am not an author but I have to say if I was, watching things like this play out. It would be making choices for me. I personally want to be involved with a company that looks to be proactive and on top of these changes and seeking to promote my work.
But is it fighting Goliath?
I can’t go by my own figures, because I know they’re in no way typical. But who actually sells more ebook copies of any given title? Amazon or Fictionwise?
Amazon sells Mobipocket, and now Kindle. It sells any title that someone cared to buy an ISBN (and IIRC books-in-print listing) for. There are tonnes of vanity published books on Amazon, allowing the reader the pleasure of buying raw slushpile.
Ficitionwise sells lots of different formats, and with many publishers there’s no DRM. They make a serious effort to weed out vanity presses. Those are things many people think of value.
Amazon is certainly pushing the Kindle down people’s throats and there are some good things about it in spite of the problems, so it may well hook a bunch of new readers; but I’m still not convinced that chasing the Kindle launch to the detriment of other outlets and formats is automatically the best option, even if one might want to be in Kindle format in the long term. This isn’t me being anti-Amazon, because I *love* Amazon when it comes to my dead tree edition. The bricks-n-mortar chains still don’t know what to do with gay romance even where they’re okay with the idea of selling it in the first place, but Amazon has no trouble selling it.
And the deep discounts *matter*, because it is quite possible for a contract to be drawn up such that the cost of that discount falls primarily or entirely on the author rather than the publisher. In such cases, it can be a excellent business decision for the publisher to go in for a deal with a deep discounter, while being a very poor deal for individual authors. The publisher’s best interests and their authors’ best interests are not always identical. (I am not suggesting that this is the case with any of the publishers you’ve named.)
Well, I think the Amazon Kindle with it’s many faults is way more advanced than anything Fictionwise has come out with giving Amazon the greater potential.
Will that pan out? Who knows, but I would think promoting your books in the middle of all this marketing hype would be of benefit to everyone.
By bringing up Fictionwise you also pointed out something I had missed and that is Loose-Id may or may not have a new book on Fictionwise and Ellora’s Cave does not seem to participate at all.
Simply being in a catalogue isn’t promotion. There needs to be something else to get the reader to look at your books rather than the other 88,000. Dear Author or Mrs Giggles reviewing my book and giving the purchase links — *that’s* promotion. Dear Author being syndicated on the Kindle, and the purchase links including a Kindle link — oh yes, *that* would be worth nagging the Quad for, especially given that Jan’s got a review copy of my yaoi novel. My cover art on the sidebar of teddypig.com with a link (and no, that is not a hint, just an example). But that’s a long term thing worth going for, not a “must be there right now”. Unless you’re suggesting I go around spamming blogs with Kindle purchase links for my books. :^)
Re Fictionwise: Emily would have the hard numbers, such as they are, but one of the odd things that shows up in anecdotes is that different publishers and even different authors at a publisher have had different experiences with where they do best. Some publishers find that they do really well with sales at Fictionwise but poorly from their own websites. Others find the reverse. Some do well on Amazon (pre-Kindle, I mean) compared to Fictionwise, others find the sales are bleurgh. It makes sense to target your efforts to maximise a combination of exposure and immediate revenue, and if your sales are strongly skewed to specific distribution channels, you’re going to favour them.
So it doesn’t surprise me that Ellora’s Cave is heavy on Amazon and light on Fictionwise — they have a large print catalogue with good distribution, so they’ll pick up significant sales of both print and electronic books through people buying a print book in Borders and then shopping for more online. Whereas it may not be worth their while to do the extra work to put books on Fictionwise, because EC have been around a long time, they’re the keystone of the erotic romance market, and they’re the publisher that readers will know the name of when they’ve never heard of Fictionwise. Frankly, they don’t need to be on Fictionwise.
(Don’t suggest that a big print catalogue is thus clearly the way to go — that’s a huge wriggling tub o’ worms…)
Oh no, Ellora’s Cave only sells their “paperbacks” through Amazon. Which is the only place I buy a lot of eBooks in paperback because it is convenient and the shipping works out OK. Have you ever really tried to search for the paperbacks on some of these sites. It is an afterthought or at least hard to tell what is in stock.
I have not seen Ellora’s Cave sell their eBooks anywhere but on their own site.
Now let’s see birthday cake for the hubby…
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
2 cups (1 lb or 454 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup (115 g) vegetable shortening
3 lbs (1.36 kg) 10X confectioners’ sugar
1 cup (110 g) Dutch processed cocoa powder
3 Tbsp meringue powder
1 tsp salt
5 fl oz (150 ml) chocolate liqueur (i.e., Godiva or another)
2 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups (1 lb or 454 g) refrigerated Ganache
Ganache
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz or 360 ml) heavy cream
1 lb (454 g) semisweet or bittersweet dark chocolate
Jello Chocolate Pudding Cake
1 (3 1/2 ounce) package jello instant chocolate pudding mix
1 (18 ounce) package chocolate cake mix
4 eggs
1 cup brewed Coffee
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Major Ingredients
5oz Bottle of Godiva Chocolate Liqueur
5oz Bottle of Chambord
Chambord Raspberry Preserves
I have the palm t/x. I actually choose this format because I wanted all my erotica authors. It made sense to me to buy one gadget, then get the software programs to read my writers. I read in microsoft reader, palm, mobipocket and pdf. I also have 2 convert software programs to switch my favorite novels/novellas to the format that I am reading. The screen is small compared to the kindle but since I love erotica so much, I just change the text size and keep going. Where ever my writers make the most money then that is where I will go. I want you guys paid and happy, not frustrated and broke. I use several websites from fictionwise to samhain, to changeling press. I want my writers to have the best financial contract and I will read their novels in what ever format makes them the most money. The kindle is cute but not to the extinct I want my writers frustrated or feel cornered in their contract choices.
Zadia I personally think that the Palm T/X is a smart buy for the price to number of DRMs supported. Good choice.
I do not think the Kindle or it’s format is so much a cornering for the authors but yet another thing they need to keep track of and prioritize when choosing which ePublishers to deal with.
I do not believe that any eBook Authors should keep all their eggs in one basket anyway not with all the flux we see in the industry. So they need to prioritize based on good editing, good packaging or cover art, good promotion, and now formats and platforms that the ePub supports.
The Kindle might be all hype now but it also might take off and smart people should be keeping track of which ePubs provide the most across the board support for all formats available. It kinda falls into promotion.
I just got through with a major project where we had to make sure an unnamed bank’s mobile website worked for all these different brands of handhelds operating systems and mobile browsers like Palm, Windows CE, Blackberry, iPhone, etc etc etc.
This kinda falls into this idea that in order to attract customers a Internet Publisher much like a Internet Bank needs to keep track of these gadgets and what is going on and provide support as quickly as possible to be seen as proactive.
I would start though with what Jules brought up… Is the ePub participating in in other web sites like Fictionwise, Books On Board, All Romance eBooks, Mobipocket?
It seems to me that iPhone will be providing it’s SDK to companies this year and there is nothing stopping a Fictionwise from making a smooth move and coding a eBook Reader/Buy & Store function into the iPhone.
I have a palm tx question, I don’t know if anyone can answer.
I’ve a tungsten E (thinking of giving myself a xmas present of a T/X) and have been using adobe pdf for palm as I’ve always bought my books as pdfs. But I was fishing around the palm site seeing what goodies there were for the tx and saw they have a separate ebook format/program. What actual format is this, and does this program read pdf’s or only the ebooks from the palm bookstore?
Well if we are talking DRM then only Adobe does Adobe. Palm T/X has the three eBook Reader programs for Mobipocket, Adobe Reader, Palm eReader. The Palm eBook DRM is different than Adobe’s.
I have a Palm T/X. I bought it solely for being able to read eBooks. My preferred format is Mobipocket, but I love the fact that I have 2 other options as well (Adobe and Palm’s eReader). I can also convert an unsecure Adobe book into the Mobipocket format. If I haven’t been able to find a book I want in Mobipocket, I have generally been able to find it in eReader format. I also love the fact that I have a 4Gb card (had a few teething problems Hot Syncing with the 4Gb card) and I have, so far, just over 500 books on my Palm and it has used just under 200Mb. Plenty of room for plenty more books. Great for going on holiday - nothing like having a large selection of books with you at a moments notice. Living in New Zealand we are rather restricted about the type of device you can buy for eBooks, probably not as popular a format as in the US or UK. I bragged about how much I loved my Palm too much, and I had to buy my mother one too!
I asked Santa for a Palm T/X with a four gig card too.
I think I have been very good this year. Oh damn, wait…. Hmmm, Anyone need a good deed done quick?