The DOJ and ebook Pricing

If you’ve been breathing and reading the headlines these past few weeks, you’ll know the DOJ (Department of Justice) has, as threatened, brought an anti-trust suit against a number of publishers and Apple computers for price fixing and collusion on the pricing of ebooks.  No shock.  They had been telegraphing their intentions for some time.  Their main cheering section is composed of Amazon management and Kindle owners.  (By the way, I just got a Kindle and I’ll give you my opinion in another post.)  A number pf publishers named in the suit caved and settled with DOJ, but Apple and several larger publishing houses will go to court.

These pricing agreements that Apple created to keep the cost of ebooks artificially high haven’t hurt the growth of the ebook market – or so it seems, but it has certainly angered customers and frequent readers.  When I can buy yet-to-be-released and hot-off-the-press mass market paperbacks for LESS in print than as ebooks, there’s really something wrong with this picture.  How could a hard copy – that includes free 2 days shipping to arrive at my door on the release date – cost $2.00 LESS than electronic copy that arrives via wi-fi or 3G?  Makes no sense.  Except if you’re a publisher or book seller looking to make a major money grab.

It will be interesting to hear the justification for the price fixing – and no mistake, that’s EXACTLY what it was.  That Apple made 30% off the top is nearly obscene.  How can a small bookseller with high overhead compete against a pure profit ebook seller?  If there is a ‘convenience surcharge’ that ebooks will pay, well, they should know upfront they are funding the annual bonuses for the various businesses for the privilege of reading an often far from perfect ebook.  Road warriors and technophiles won’t care.  Some people will.  I can tell you I look at pricing before deciding between ebook and print no.  In the 10 days I’ve owned the Kindle, I bought 3 ebooks and 18 print books, mostly pre-order.

Keep an eye on this in the news.  It will give users of e-readers a look into the mindset of those who want to use them as cash cows.  I’m sure their justification will be based on “the cost of developing technology” and the costs of keeping the system.  Like printing presses and UPS delivery comes free.  I guess it’s a good thing I won’t get called for THAT jury.

Read on!

The New e-reader War

3-8-12 Here’s an update.  Don’t know how long the link will work DOJ Takes on Apple & Publishers in Price Fixing

 

With days getting longer and temperatures getting warmer, my nose running and eyes watering, it sure does feel like spring is coming.  The other sure sign, no football.  SIGH!  It’s the only sport I actually watch, so when the season ends, it’s withdrawal time and weekends are not fun.

I was reading an article on the web about the revolt that’s slowly happening among ebook reader owners.  I often whine about the lack of value for the money with ebooks, especially those from small press publishers.  $5.50-$5.99 for a novella is just plain silly.  The vast majority of books I’m reading these days are purchased thru Amazon on the 4-for-3 plan.  I do buy some just released hardcovers by favorite authors, and I also buy used hardcovers and trade paperbacks.  With the 4-for-3 promotion, I’m paying $5.99 for a full novel – and many are 300+ pages and 120,000+ words!  Why I should pay  $5.50-$5.99 for 35,000 words of a badly done novella?  Is convenience worth that kind of money?  Makes no sense to me.  But the big problem with e-reader owners seems to lay with the price of of the ebook version of newly released hardcovers.  Not having a dedicated e-reader, and still reading most of my books in print, that hasn’t been a personal issue, but I do feel they have a point.

Americans love gadgets.  Especially electronic gadgets!  Smartphones are the hottest of the hot – until the cell providers start charging by usage, or throttling speeds on those who suck up too much capacity.  By 2013, air time will be really rationed as demand outstrips capacity, despite the FCC making more frequencies available.   But how cool is it to watch a movie on a smartphone?  Apparently, very cool.  Well, e-readers, Apple’s I-pads, and now Amazon’s Fire and B&N new Nook don’t call friends, but they are doing battle in the ebook and entertainment wars. Welcome to the brave new world – you can pay silly prices for little gadgets and watch movies on business card sized screens, or lose the phone and watch them on slightly bigger screens (Kindle Fire and Nooks), or join Apple I-pad and get the biggest screen.  Bottom line – what do you want, what will you pay upfront, and how much are willing to go on paying over the useful life of the product?  (Life expectancy being only slightly longer than that of the average fruit fly.)

In the beginning, the purpose of e-books was to eliminate printing, physical storage and distribution, bricks and mortar stores, and all the associated costs for the infrastructure and personnel.  OK, makes sense.  A HUGE chunk of the book cost just went away. (Yes, yes, I know there’s all the formatting crap for various software packages, but I do that all the time in my work.  It’s a pain, not brain surgery, so publishers spare us the drama queen act.)   The big plus for owners of e-readers remains the convenience of being able to carry hundreds of hardcover and paperbacks in a device that weighs less than a small paperback.  (The durability of such devices is a whole different issue I’m simply avoiding here.)  A win-win, right?  NO!  Seems basic human greed has entered into the equation.  It usually does.

Ebook readers were sold on the basic premise that ebooks would cost less than print and Amazon promised bestsellers for $9.99.  Makes sense. Early e-readers certainly had a hefty price tag, but cheap ones are out there these days.  It might just be a break even on cost, but the convenience is worth it, especially for those who travel a lot.  When Amazon introduced the Kindle, I ran the numbers on book pricing and figured it would take me 5 years to save enough to pay for the nearly $400 device – or 3 years longer than the device would last.  Well, now they sell (a MUCH smaller version) for as little as $79.  At that price, yes, you can get it back in savings if you read a lot of hardcovers, reap the convenience of an e-reader, but lose the ability to ‘send it on down the line’.  Now it’s just a question of personal preference.  Many people will pay for the convenience factor – and publishers are loving them!

From the beginning, my reason for not getting a e-reader had less to do with price than with value derived from sharing books.  Passing on the pleasure of a book to another.  Amazon tried to address that by allowing owners of ebooks to ‘loan’ their ebook for a limited amount of time.   Of course that other person would need a Kindle AND have to be in range of a cell signal.  (Hummmmm – that leaves my brother out!)  Well, I don’t want to be a librarian – despite the fact that I worked several happy summers in libraries in my youth.  I want to give my books away.  I want, “Bye Bye!  Have a good life where ever you go!”  Not, “So long.  See you in a few weeks!”

No question, in the convenience race, ebooks win hands down.  My house if littered with piles of books – and piles of corrugate from Amazon that needs recycling. My hundreds of ebooks sit unnoticed in computer hard drive.  But I can send the print books to my brother, and if his wife wants to read them she can.  Then they go to their friends or to PBS for swapping!  Or they head to a book sale as a fund raiser.  I give books to a neighbor who lets other neighbors select what they wants and takes the rest to the Friends of Library sale.  That works for me.  But all of that is work.  I spends hours each week wrapping and shipping books, packing books to be given away, and re-stacking the ever growing mountain of to-be-read books.  All that clutter would disappear with ebooks.  But then, so would all the third, fourth and fifth readers the books have, readers I’ve never even met.  Readers who can’t afford used books, much less e-readers and ebooks.

All my own warm, gooey sentiment for print books aside,  it’s the owners of e-readers that resent the current pricing structure – one that publishers control, not Amazon or B&N.  Understandable.  That Amazon 4-for-3 promotion that has me buying books like crazy does NOT extend to ebooks!  And take a look at the price of ebooks for current hardcovers.  It’s not the $9.99 that everyone thought they would be.  Publishers see ebooks as a premium service where their profits are larger. “You can afford an e-reader, well be prepared to pay!”  And Amazon is now selling more ebooks than hardcovers.  As long as that happens, it’s unlikely prices will come down any time soon. Publishers want their cash cow alive, well, and all theirs!   Some authors are getting clever and doing end runs.  The Detachment by Barry Eisler was released 6 months early in ebook prior to the print copy – from a indie publisher.  Welcome to publishing’s new frontier, well known authors going indie.  Can you blame them?  The only ones raking in more money on ebook price gouging are the publishers, not the authors.  And it’s readers who get their pockets picked.

I can sit back and watch the whole war play out.  I don’t have a dog in this fight, so let ‘em rip.  Amazon and the DOJ vs Apple and old line publishers.  The poor readers are forgotten.  Steaming about cost, and poor quality, they find themselves paying more than they ever thought for the privilege of convenience.  I read the Amazon reviews for a book and I am amazed at how many have blistering negatives not about the book content, but the ebook and pricing/quality issues!  That has got steam the authors.  The other side effect of this ‘luxury pricing’ attitude is the fact escalating ebook costs have cut deeply into my willingness to read novellas and short novels from small press pubs and new authors.  I’m a small scale user of ebooks, so I doubt I’m much missed, but I do try new authors all the time and I’m happy to promote the good ones here, on PBS and elsewhere.  Now, I’m reluctant to send the price of a discounted new print book for a novella or short novel in electronic format that I can’t pass on to friends.  I have to believe there are others out there like me.  Books are my one big vice, but even I have have my limits.  Plus ebooks are up against Amazon’s 4-for-3, PBS swaps, and used books, so they aren’t essential for my entertainment.   I’m good.  I don’t know for how long, but right now, I’m OK.  Let the ebook wars rage.  And may the consumer FINALLY win one!  Then I’ll buy an e-reader!  Maybe.

What’s Going on with Romantic Suspense

Obviously, as a mystery reader, I also read romantic suspense.  OK, maybe that’s not obvious.  Not all readers will read and enjoy both genres, but I do, just as I enjoy Urban Fantasy and paranormal with a mystery element.  To some readers – especially male readers – romantic suspense is lame.  Yes it is if you’re looking for noir type stories.  You’d get closer with UF.  My brother hates both genres and he’s pretty picky about mysteries too.  He does like some action thrillers and we both like historical mysteries, but we’re picky there too.  But here’s my problem.  Romantic suspense has been invaded by romance writers who frankly can’t seem to generate any suspense.

Good Book or Bad?

How we determine if a book is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is a very subjective thing.  Even professional reviewers will differ widely and books I found dull have won awards.  But like Oscars, book awards don’t always go to an author’s best work, or even the best book, just the one with the most votes.

Everyone has ‘hot buttons’ and strong preferences.  I can remember my mother, a teacher, laughing about a college English class where anything about a dog got a good grade from a certain professor.  Hey, preferences are not exactly new.  Literature majors look down their noses at those of us who like entertainment rather than deep and meaningful ‘literature’.   I’d rather have a classroom full of kids who love Harry Potter than ones that want nothing except video games and texting friends.

Think about this.  If you’re 30 years old, you’ve always known PC’s.  If you’re 20 years old, www has always been part of your life.  Those born 10 years ago had free blogging.  Now you can watch movies on your cell phone.  In one generation, the way the entire world communicates has irrevocably changed.  Google is a verb.  Facebook is linked to everything.  We’re inundated by information – often incomplete and sometimes completely erroneous, all so 24/7 news stations can ‘be first’.  The entire entertainment industry is struggling to deal with a 5 year cycle in changing technology.   Remember $15,000 plasma TV’s that burned out in a year?   Everyone thought it would be YEARS before they became semi-affordable.  Then LCD’s flat screens came along and in under a decade they were in most homes – and hotels have been busy retrofitting their rooms with 32 to 46 inch screens.

Through all this, the publishing industry has been locked in a bizarre battle to remain relevant.  A handful of wildly successful authors have carried entire publishing houses, but ebooks finally broke the last stronghold this year when Kindle ebooks outsold hardcovers on new releases.  How long before those of us – and I am admittedly in this group – who prefer print books to ebooks are left paying super premium prices to get a print books?

Obviously, I read ebooks.  I prefer print and buy the vast majority of my books as print – a ratio of better than 50:1.  But being print or ebook does not make a book good or bad.  I’ve read some excellent ebooks that never made it to print and some awful print books that should be wrapping dead fish.  Authors that gain immense popularity sell well regardless of quality.  Dan Brown is an excellent example.  The DaVinci Code wasn’t as good as Angels and Demons as a book – and in all fairness, Dan Brown isn’t a great writer – but The DaVinci Code struck a chord and it’s been selling well all over the world for many years.  The plot isn’t all that original, the characters are flat and two dimensional, but the idea of this conspiracy just rang a chord with people and all the books shortcomings mattered not at all.

I have to admire J.K. Rowling’s evolution as a writer through the Harry Potter series.  You can watch her style grow and improve as Harry grows and changes from a child to a young man with a huge burden to bear.  Clive Cusslar struck gold with Dirk Pitt, though that is a character that never transitioned well into the movies.  Robert Ludlum, the venerable thriller writer created book after book of amazingly intricate plots and forgettable characters until he wrote The Bourne Identity.  Ludlum never repeated any character.  It was one of the few things he was determined to do.  Fans and his publisher pushed him into writing a sequel and finally a third book.  Now, the character will forever look like Matt Damon as other authors carry on various series after his death in 2001.  I read every book Ludlum wrote, but not those published after his death.  I tried twice and neither was any good.  Eric van Lustbader, an established author of fantasy (Sunset Warrior)  and thrillers novels (the Nichloas Linnear series) now writes a continuation of the Bourne series – not that I’ve ever read one.  Of all his thrillers, that’s one that people most connected with.

Today’s authors struggle with popular characters.  Fans love them and don’t want them to change.  Publishers want what sells.  Authors do what they get paid for.  A handful take chances.  Robert Crais felt he’d taken PI character Elvis Cole, first seen in The Monkey’s Raincoat, as far as he could and started different characters before coming back years later and writing a very different kind of Elvis Cole book in L.A. Requiem.

Character growth and aging is something many authors struggle with.  Technology changes dramatically.  From cell phones to GPS to Facebook to satellite imaging to Google maps with both aerial and street views – what PI’s and spies did in 1990 and what they do today is just so different.  But how do you keep a recurring character from becoming a caricature?  That’s the big problem and few do it well over a long stretch.  Crais is not the prolific writer that Robert B Parker is or even Martha Grimes.  Maybe Ludlum and j.K. Rowling have it right, kill off characters, and wrap the ongoing story up before the audience gets bored.  To bad Robert Jordan didn’t write shorter books, or wrap his story sooner.  Now they’ll be finished by a different author – and judging by the reception of the first post-death book, not a successful transition.  I gave up around Book 7 of the Wheel of Time.  I think a lot of folks did, but hardcore fans are very upset.

When complaining about characters, remember, even Shakespeare wrote his plays to satisfy his patrons.  That’s what we, today’s reading public are, patrons who buy books.  We speak our likes and dislikes and discontent with our wallets instead of movie or event attendance.  When sales start falling, it’s a pretty clear signal something is going wrong.  I just wish writers and publishers paid more heed and stopped milking series to the last dime. It’s insulting to us ‘patrons of the arts’.  heheheheheheheheheheheh

Despite all this, say what you will about writers, most need to make a living, though some just seem driven by greed and fame.  Your average writer isn’t rich, they make a living and work damn hard doing it.   Yes, I and other reviewers carp and complain when what gets churned out isn’t worth the effort, but overall, I probably like more than I dislike and every so often, I find a gem.  I guess it’s like anything, even football, sometimes it has you glued to your seat and other times, you fall asleep, but most of the time, its good enough to at least keep you interested.  So grab a book, an ebook reader, hey – a magazine and READ!

Happy New Year!

It seems hard to believe that the first decade of 2000 is coming to an end.  It’s been a decade of change for me, for my family, and for our country.  Perhaps one of the things I remember most clearly, other than 9/11 when I stood on the roof of the building where I worked watching New York City disappear in a cloud of dust on a beautiful fall day, is a moment of personal clarity two months later.  I worked for decades in corporate America and had a job I used to like.   The changes within the company caused me so much stress I had to have a thallium stress test on my heart just a month or so before 9/11.  I had planned to skip the rest of my vacation days that year so I could finish a project I was working on for a product launch.  Though I lost no family or close personal friends, I knew far too many who did.  I decided life was too short and I was taking off.  Thanksgiving 2001 found me sitting in a lovely large villa on the island of St John in the US Virgin Islands.  It was a real last minute arrangement and many people had canceled their vacations, which is how I ended up with that villa.  I recall sitting there dividing my time between reading and gazing at the beautiful view of Chocolate Hole.  I was puzzled because I felt something was missing.  That’s when it hit me – for the first time in nearly a year I had no chest pains.  I slept well and for more than 5 hours a night.  I didn’t even realize it then, but I had decided to do what I had longed to do for several years, quit my job and go to work for myself. 

Somebody Hit the Snooz Alarm

I feel like I’ve been swimming in a sea of mediocre books lately.  It isn’t limited to genre either.  There are a slew of mysteries due for release in January – hardcover, of course – that I’m lusting for, but right now I’m just depressed over my inability to find an excellent read.  Over on PBS (Paperpack Swap) they mentioned a big book sale at Bookcloseouts.com.  Oh wow, did I go nuts.  No, the books I wanted the most weren’t there – big surprise – but a lot of others were.  I went crazy twice.  Once doing mystery/thrillers and whatever paranormal books on my wish list that I could find.  Then I went back and ran amok in the fantasy section – or wizards and nonsense as my brother dubbed it years ago.  Raymond Fiest, Robert Jordan and many others.  Soon, over 30 new hardcovers cost $2-3 dollars each will add to my alarming pile of to-be-read books.

The Paperback Swap Chronicles Vol. 4 – Games

OK, so I’ve had good, bad and indifferent experiences with Paperback Swap, the online book swapping site.  My initial impressions were posted in Book Swapping Online:  Is it worth it? then an Update after switching swap tactics in April, and the most recent third installment on my ongoing experiences with the Forums in July.  I mentioned I hadn’t tried the games and honestly didn’t understand them.  We’ll, I got invited into a beginners game and launched myself into a frenzy of white elephant swaps and three Virtual Boxes.   Now keep in mind, I don’t even play Bingo, and still don’t understand tricky trays, though I understand things like raffles and lotteries – I lose – but I have never participated in a white elephant swap before.  I know, I lead a bizarrely sheltered existence.  Here are my experiences.

In Retrospect – Part Two: The Keeper Shelf – The Price of Cleaning

My taste in books is widely eclectic, even though it seems I review a lot of erotic romance.  I think I do it because the usual romance sites largely ignore it, other than a few authors, in favor of mainstream romance and those dreadful ‘category’ romances from Harlequin that are so very popular.  Or maybe that’s because the vast majority are quick easy reads – or so tedious I skim.  The year is far from over and the fall is a big release period for publishers looking to cash in on people’s holiday spending, but I’ve been editing my selves.

I have hundreds of books, mostly hardcover, on my bookshelves.  Hundreds more piled about.  I need space, so time to edit the keepers and reference books I haven’t used in over a decade.  Cookbooks are rarely on the discard pile, but history is, along with literature and many old series – from David Eddings’ The Mallorean to Stuart Woods’ Stone Barrington novels – I have no interest in rereading.  Keeper shelves are mostly a matter of taste, and tastes change, or the reader’s wants change, and books get dated or supplanted by something even better.  I find I have to edit my keeper self, but I confess I have enough book selves (a whole wall) that I keep far too many.  I hate getting rid of books, but it MUST be done.

In Retrospect – Part One: Looking Back at Reviews

Like most people, or maybe unlike, I go back and revisit my ideas to see if they’ve changed.  There’s almost no way to keep personal likes and dislikes out of review.  If something makes you mad, or upset, or just violates your principals, maintaining an emotional distance just doesn’t happen.  In my work I deal with data and form my opinions based on facts, but even there two people can look at the same data and see different things.  If opinions vary when dealing with numbers and facts vary, it’s inevitable that reactions will vary even more widely when forming opinions on books – after all, a book is intended to elicit a reaction from the reader.

So I went back and revisited some of my reviews to see if I still felt the same way – positive or negative – about some of the books I’ve reviewed.  To do this, I looked primarily at those I like the best and the least.  I don’t give many A reviews and even fewer F reviews, so the lists aren’t long, but I did include a few B books that might be deserving of a second look.

PaperbackSwap.com – Review to Date

If nothing else, I can be tenacious as a tick.  I prefer to think of it as determination, though others might account it closer to Missouri Mule stubborn.  After a really bad start and a less awful second portion I have now swapped over 100 books and I still don’t know it all.  PaperBack Swap is actually a bit more complicated than it appears at first blush.

I first wrote about PBS back in March and then did an update in April thinking I knew the site by then.  HA!  I’m still learning some of the things and frankly I do not get other bits at all.

At it’s most basic, you list books and swap them for 1 point per completed transaction and then request new books with your points.  See, very simple.  But a lot of the books swapped are well worn, so you then use ‘Requestor Conditions’ to limit this, as well as add things like, ‘currently in a smoke free home’.  Then you can swap with your buddies – those who have similar interests to your own.  But wait, there’s more!  (I’ve always wanted to say this while selling vegetable peelers that can shave shoes at 2AM in an infomercial.)