Black Plastic Glasses » Business

The Day Digital Died

Evan — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:12:31 +0000

It was a seemingly innocuous situation… I was sitting in a room filled with publishing types: book publishers, librarians, agents, industry press, metadata specialists, and consultants of varying shapes and sizes. We were there in an advisory role to one of the digital publishing conferences. Things started innocently enough – the usual suspects began to chime in (I am shamelessly unable NOT to talk in a group). As I spoke I began to feel a strong sense of familiarity. And that feeling grew and grew as the conversation rolled forward until I felt I was having a deja vu on steroids moment. It dawned on me that I was in the exact same discussion about the exact same conference in the...

Ebooks Don’t Cannibalize Print, People Do

Evan — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:37:50 +0000

Last week in The Bookseller, Philip Jones covered a seminar in the UK by Enders Analysis that presented data done as a part of a Nielsen BookScan report. The article led with the following statement.

“The growth in e-book sales in genres such as romance and science-fiction is leading to a cannibalisation in sales of printed books, according to Nielsen BookScan data.”

This led to the inevitable debate on the Read2.0 listserv (also known as the Brantley List for the devoted followers of Mike Shatzkin). While there was little illumination in the ensuing voluminous discussion, there was an overall consensus that ebooks were indeed cannibalizing print books. While I see the logic...

Pass the Gestalt, Please

Evan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:08:24 +0000

In the past two weeks I have heard forcefully stated pronouncements by agent Andrew Wylie and chair of the Society of Authors, Tom Holland, regarding ebook royalty rates. A 50/50 share between author and publisher is the only possible outcome they can accept, citing the tired and somewhat old argument we have heard before:

The publisher has little or no incremental out of pocket cost to create ebooks, therefore the income should be split in the same manner as subsidiary rights, which is generally 50/50.

The average person would be hard pressed to disagree—certainly in this day and age the digital file created to make a print book cannot cost much to...

Demand Pricing for Ebooks

Evan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:18:25 +0000

A stir was created recently when Sourcebooks announced the delay of the ebook version of a brand new title for fear of cannibalizing print sales. CEO Dominique Raccah said, "Hardcover books have an audience, and we shouldn't cannibalize it," adding, "It doesn't make sense for a new book to be valued at $9.99." Is Dominique Raccah making a smart decision? There are a lot of factors to consider. Amazon has claims that sales of ebooks are 35% of the same print titles on Amazon.com. If the hardcover is priced at $25 and the ebook $10, then one can see Dominique’s point quite clearly – delaying the ebook version could mean that demand for 35% of the...

There Will Be Disintermediation

Evan — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:28:06 +0000

The first two parts of this series, Disruption and Generation On-Demand, explored my own personal content consumption disruption and traced it through the seismic shift in my reading, listening, and watching habits. My experience seems to align with the generational experience of content at one’s fingertips, on-demand. I called this phenomenon Generation On-Demand because this generation has grown up with and expects that everything and anything (content) be available to them, however, whenever, and wherever they want. I traced the dramatic decrease in my own immersive reading, music listening, and TV and movie watching in the last few years and cited my ability to work and play whenever and wherever I want as the primary reasons. Accessing...