Hi Cyanide, I appreciate all the points you mention and I particularly agree with you that it is indeed a very fine line to tread to give away something for free.
Quote
"A few years ago, Steven King did something unique when launching his newest novel. He offered it as an e-book but people could buy and download per chapter, not the whole book. $1 or $2 per chapter"
I think your mention of the Steven King story is very interesting, I heard about that too. However, I also heard that the 'buy the book per chapter' websales never really worked for him on the scale he had hoped and that he chose to go back to his publisher in the end. I guess you can speculate on why this would be the case. My own guess would be that although people like the Steven Kings novels, sales would be hampered by the fact that you had to wait for the next installment of the story. Arguably you could of course wait and would in the end be able to buy the whole thing which is what most people do indirectly anyway when they buy a book. Another guess is that the Steven King website did not carry as much promotional force as a major heavy weight publisher who can get bookshops to put up posters and arrange other promotional offers and thereby make a lot more money from sales for themselves and their author.
But also lastly and perhaps most importantly, publishing industry research has shown that people who like and read books buy books not just for the content but because they like the traditional value of books if you know what I mean. A lot of readers like to see the book sitting on their bookshelf and value this traditional format. I am not saying that with the new generations of children growing up e-books are not going to become more accepted, but I still hope that for some generations to come there will be people who think that the hard copy is worth investing in.
Do I sound like I am stuck in the 20th century??? ; ¬ )
Perhaps I am, but if I'm wrong then I, as a publisher of hard copy books, don't have a very good future to look forward to.
|