Publishers can foster that change by further lowering the prices of their e-books. The record margins they’re currently earning are certainly seductive, but taking advantage of authors is not a sustainable business model. Hollywood studios had to capitulate to their writers when a new digital stream emerged. Publishers will likewise need to pay authors a fair share of the proceeds for e-book sales. 50% of net for every author is a good start.
There is much more, pointer from Tyler Cowen.
My best experience publishing was self-publishing The Three Languages of Politics.
My worst experience publishing was with Unchecked and Unbalanced. The publisher insists on pricing it not to sell on Kindle. I do not understand this. With zero marginal cost of distributing it as an e-book, I would think that the goal would be to maximize revenue. I don’t want 50 percent of the e-book revenue. I just want there to be e-book revenue. Publishers that are so stupid do not deserve stay in business.
About the middle of last year, I bought and read most of your books. I had wanted to purchase “Unchecked and Unbalanced” for a while, but the price was too high. I finally found a used book on Amazon that was in the 5 dollar range, so I grabbed it. I also don’t understand why publishers do this. Don Boudreaux and Eric Falkenstein also have books I would probably purchase if the price came down. I don’t know why the publishers priced these items to not sell. Are they banking on the “extremely committed fans of somewhat obscure economic writers” market?
I’d buy it for a couple bucks and even promise to never read it.
Maybe the publishers aren’t stupid. Maybe they realize that any author that publishes a successful e-book is bound to see they don’t need a publisher any more.
I don’t think that is it. More likely, there are many foolish authors who are willing to bend over for the publishers.
One recent example I know of is a fantasy genre author named Anthony Ryan. He self-published a book “Blood Song” that was a huge success — sold a lot of ebooks and got extremely high ratings and reviews. And it was the first book of a planned series.
In short, he had it made as a self-publisher. He already did the hard thing for a self-publisher, which was to develop a large customer base.
But for some reason, he signed a deal with a publisher for subsequent books in the series. Not smart, but he did it anyway. Maybe he is extremely risk averse and the publisher offered him a large advance. But the thing is, as I already said, there was not much risk. He had already established a large and loyal customer base. But he foolishly gave away a lot of the profits by signing with a publisher.
Publishers offer things such as editing and advances. If for example, Ryan wrote the first two books on his own time, he might appreciate an advance to help him take time off to write future books. He may also be looking to broaden his market. I had never heard of him until he had a publisher, yet I picked up “Blood Song” this weekend at a Barnes and Noble. I haven’t started it yet, but if I like it he may have gained a customer he didn’t have previously.
You do not need a major publisher to hire an editor. There are plenty of experienced people who are willing to copyedit a self-published book, for a reasonable fee.
At the time Ryan signed the publishing deal, he had already written a significant portion of the second book (and he completed it not long after signing the publishing deal).
So no, it does not seem that he took an advance so he could fund future writing efforts.
Also, there is no indication (from interviews and blog posts) that he had some large unexpected expense that he needed an advance to pay for.
He just decided to sign with a publisher. I think he made a big mistake.
“I also don’t understand why publishers do this”
I believe they’re pricing them to maximize dollars from library purchases and are willing to give up most sales to individuals. This might or might not be a good strategy for realizing the greatest revenue in some cases, but it’s really lousy for an author who wants his book to be widely read as much or more than the royalty checks.
One interesting fact with self-publishing ebooks on amazon.com is that it rarely makes sense to charge less than $2.99, because self-publishers can get 70% royalties on books in the $2.99 to $9.99 range, but only 35% royalties if the price is less than $2.99 (or more than $9.99).
I’m not sure why amazon does this. It seems to imply there is NOT zero marginal cost as Kling states above. Why does Amazon demand a much larger percentage of the selling price when it is $0.99 or $1.99 as compared to $2.99 to $9.99?
I think what Amazon is trying to do with the $2.99 cut off is boost the sale price above that level, while still allowing authors to charge less. Amazon wants a floor on kindle prices for its own benefit.