A common refrain out there among the people who are pro-delaying e-books (last spotted in the Wall Street Journal article about S&S’s and Hachette’s delays) is that it’s kind of like how in movies you have the new release in the theaters, and then a while later you have the DVD release. Ergo ipso facto quod erat demonstrandum (Latin! It’s what’s for dinner)… DVDs are same thing as e-books, right? You have the hardcover release and then the e-book comes out later.
I don’t understand this e-book/DVD comparison at all. I’d even go so far as to say it’s Greek to me.
Let’s take movies.
When a movie comes out, you pay to see it in the theater. Once. You don’t get to take home the reels (and even if you wanted to those things weigh like 75,000 pounds). You’re paying for the experience of sitting in a darkened theater with strangers and watching it on a giant screen. You’re not buying something tangible.
Then, six months or a year later, the DVD comes out. It’s a tangible product. You get to keep it or give it away or loan it to a friend. And, by the way, it’s usually more expensive than a movie ticket (assuming you didn’t spring for the $17.00 popcorn). It’s also most likely to be purchased by someone who saw the movie in the theater and wants to re-watch it whenever they want or add it their collection.
How does this have anything at all to do with hardcovers and e-books? Watching a movie and owning a DVD are wholly different experiences and models. As subets pointed out in the comments section: One is an experience, the other is a product. DVDs are more expensive and tangible and you can watch it whenever you want. Going to the theater is cheaper and less tangible and you have to go at certain times.
If theater = hardcover, why is going theater cheaper whereas the hardcover is more expensive? If DVD = e-book, why don’t people usually buy the e-books for hardcovers they’ve already purchased?
I mean, yes, there are some points of comparison between e-books and DVDs, in that they’re both digital. And e-books (could/should be) loaded up with all kinds of cool bonus features that are afforded by an electronic format.
And some people might say that the reason DVDs are delayed is so people who are interested in the movie will be motivated to go to the theater first rather than renting it when it comes out on DVD. But the movie industry’s ideal is that someone consumes a movie twice – first at the theater, then with the DVD. If publishers are hoping consumers are going to buy e-books after the hardcover they’d better get to work making e-books a whole lot more awesome.
We already have a model for the e-book delay that makes way more sense: paperbacks. We can debate the merits of that comparison until we’re hoarse, but at least it makes sense as a model – the theory being that people who are excited about a title will be steered first toward the most expensive version of the product. Releases start with the highest price version and then move to the cheapest priced version.
But DVDs/e-books?
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Also: Rosebud. Just because.
Okay, here's the model:
Traditional existing print publishers do NOT compete with bookstores.
Publishers provide bookstores with steep discounts so bookstores can make enough money to stay open and sell the publisher's product.
Publishers will NOT sell a book to you at the same discount.
Not yet, anyway.
Amazon.com is bookstore. It does compete with other booksellers.
B&N, a chain brick-and-mortar among other things, issued it's own eReader to compete with amazon.com (Not to compete with publishers).
What's a publisher to do? Harlequin is one model (they have for decades particopated actively in direct retail sales to readers). They started their own eBook imprint line.
Were three of the big five publishers to do this, what happens to bookstores of, as Nathan's poll suggests, eBooks become a larger and larger share of the market?
What's a publisher to do?
Think it through. For now, publishers are doing exactly the right thing. Thank you, Random House for leading the way.
In two years, it could all change. Or in five years, the eBook market will establish its percentage of the book market (will it take over entirely? will it be 20% of retail sales? Who knows?).
Publishers will create new strategies to participate in the integration of the two markets for their product (content).
Major publishers have not, in my opinion, been slow to act. Now is the right time to protect their product (and perhaps a few thousand bookstores) in the eBook world.
Any sooner would have required publishers to have crystal balls. Balls, they got. But they're not crystal.
Just because you (for instance) were one of the 3% who bought eBooks two years ago does not mean publishers should have changed their entire business structure to suit you. Not yet.
Rosebud, right back at ya!
I'm on the same page re: paperback argument.
Who's brilliant idea was it to bring DVD's into the mix?
"But can we get a subscription book service like Netflix?"-Kelly Bryson
Already exists. 🙂
http://www.bookswim.com
Rent all you want for $9.95 a mo.
While hardbacks and e-books may not compare well to theaters and DVDs, the hardback is a physical product and the e-book is a service (sort of). The service that the e-book provides is that it can be made available for a longer period of time. When the hardback is no longer selling as well as it was, the publisher starts looking for a way to get it out of the warehouse and out of the catalog. But the e-book can be left out there for very little cost to the publisher (practically free). They can do the same with POD, but it appears that the publisher can make more money from each hardback sold than they can from e-books and POD. With that in mind, I see nothing wrong with a publisher wanting to sell the hardback first, then the paperback, and then the e-book and/or POD version of the book.
Kelley- bookswim.com rents books? Cool. I will check that out. -Kelly
"…Then, six months or a year later, the DVD comes out…"
Nope, try five months or sometimes four. I saw Julie and Julia in September (it had been out for awhile) the DVD goes on sale next week.
Or you can check out your local library too…free. They should have a nice selection of ebooks and books on tape that are downloadable.
("But can we get a subscription book service like Netflix?"-Kelly Bryson
Already exists. 🙂
http://www.bookswim.com
Rent all you want for $9.95 a mo.)
-Daniel
You're right. The models don't compare. However, if you look at reading a book in any form as an experience, then people choose the experience that is right for them.
I may be excited about a book but I hate hardcovers. Has nothing to do with price. They smother me when I fall asleep while reading. I'd prefer it now but my dislike for those hardcovers is so great that I wait for the paperback or the ebook.
I'm an early adopter and I'm gung-ho about ebook reading. Got a Kindle and a Nook. Nothing like the feel of electronic plastic beneath my fingers. I want an ebook. Now. Don't want to wait until all those hardcover and paperback-loving folks are done. Why should I?
I prefer paperbacks. They take up less space than hardcovers or trade. Not big on that whole electronic reading thing. What do they call them, electrobooks? They don't smell right.
I want the least expensive option. Period. I wait for the mass market paperback, if it wasn't published in trade format. But if the ebook is going to be cheaper, I'll wait for that instead. (Might as well use that ereader I got for my birthday.) I've got plenty to read while I wait, like all those books that came out before 2008.
So, ideally, from a reader's perspective, every book is offered in every format at the same time, and the reader picks the right reading experience for him.
Ironically, as the movie industry struggles, one of their proposed solutions to improve revenue is to release the DVD and the theatrical release on the same day.
I get this really weird picture of Struther Martin and George Kennedy racing down hill on little wooden sleds. Ain't never seen a kindle, nook or any other type of e-reader. I do own a bookcase full of leather bound, printed on archive paper classics. Don't know what that has to do with anything but just wanted ot comment.
I don't see why there has to be a perfect parallel between publishing and the movie industry. I never buy DVDs, e.g., and my reason to wait for them is so I can rent the movie I didn't think was worth $10 and a trip to the theater.
If publishers want to delay the e-book release, it may be that it makes sense in terms of their industry. It may help keep book production and distribution companies from going under, e.g., at least for a little while. It provides bookstore presence, visual cues that an e-book display could hardly do at this point — but maybe interactive e-book kiosks are coming? It will also help to ensure the existence of durable, hardcover books in a world where not all the people even have electricity yet, much less e-readers.
Or maybe publishers are holding onto a familiar model that should be phased out. Why not release the hardcover, paperback and e versions simultaneously and let them fight to the death?
What a pity, I always come late to these verbal battles because I live on the other side of the ocean…Nathan, yes I agree with you and lots of others, including dogboi and subets.
I still think that what's fundamentally wrong with many publishers is their vision of what the market looks like out there. They think the 3 forms of publishing – hardcovers, paperbacks and e-books – COMPETE with each other. I don't believe that. Sure, there's some overlap and the same person might sometime buy a hardcover, sometime a paperback – mostly by chance rather than design (that's the case with me and surely I'm not an exception).
But e-books are something else. They're an entirely NEW product, and if publishers were clever, they would try to emphasize the newness and include nice additional gadgets like music and video bits. The reading audience is an EXPANDING market, once you add e-books. Why? Because it's the kind of technology that's going to attract a whole new digital-savvy crowd! AND it increases opportunities for reading: it lets you read when travelling, standing in line etc
So, if I'm right and it really is an expanding market, it would be logical to publish all 3 forms together…
Some guys like Stephen R. Covey (one of the most successful business authors in the last 30 years) has JUST GIVEN AMAZON DIGITAL RIGHTS entirely bypassing traditional publishers.
THE HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL!!!
The E-Book will eventually win out. Just like Amazon did during the Dot.com bubble. They are far and away easier and less expensive to produce and distribute. Doesnt mean books will go away totally, just that e-books will be the preferred medium.
I haven't bought a DVD in a coon's age. I've had Netflix for years and now they let you stream movies whenever you want on your computer. The selection is limited but growing.
Books will probably go the same way — subscription with unlimited access.
Nathan,
You said "But change and new technology is impossible to resist, and the only thing you can do is continue to adapt and hopefully innovate."
You might want to modify that statement to make it a little less sweeping, because as it stands, I think it is false to fact. Consider these various counter-examples:
(1) Nuclear power:
This is a painful example, as I was on the losing side of the argument, being pro-nuclear. But the expansion of that technology was effectively brought to a halt foe 20-30 years due to political, philosophical and safety concerns which gathered momentum in the wake of Three Mile Island.
(2) Laser Disks. Not sure if this fits, because it could be argued that DVDs are the successor product. But as originally introduced, they never caught on.
(3) "Push" technology sending things to your desktop. At one point this was an information delivery model that was generating a pretty big buzz in the techno-corporate community. It failed, probably because people liked to maintain control over their own info-viewing. We see a faint echo of this in some features of Google Desktop, but it's not really the same.
(4) Web TV?
(5) You could argue this one, but note that the shift to HDTV required a top-down government mandate to achieve success.
(6) Ethanol fuel. Again, this one required quite heavy-handed government action, and it's nonetheless running into heavy resistance as the impact on the production and price of foodstuffs becomes more apparent.
(7) Online Information Services. When was the last time anybody heard of CompuServe, or the Source. AOL still exists, but only because it morphed into an ISP and content provider.
This is fun, but I'd best get back to the day job. The bottom line is that some technologies are eminently resistable. Context is everything.
-Steve
@Claude:
Non-fiction and fiction are different beasts, in my opinion. I prefer online research and such, but not reading fiction online.
On the topic of e-book readers, you might appreciate this rant:
https://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/12/16/