What price e-books?

I promised you all a report of what Left Coast Crime was like, but truthfully, I'm still sorting it out and I'll get to it eventually. It was, as Jean Jenkins told me, very casual and relaxed, and I met a lot of very fun writers who wanted to talk about their books and my books and the future of publishing. And I met some engaging readers who wanted to talk about everything. I'm a little afraid that if I start naming names, I'll miss someone and they'll get their nose out of joint, but you know how it is when you're running through a weekend at warp speed, right?

What I've been mulling over today is a conversation a group of us had at lunch on Friday. Seven or eight of us sat around a table at PF Chang's and we were talking about the prices of e-books and the lawsuit against Apple and all the publishers who are "suspected of colluding to raise e-book prices."

As a former engineer, I made my usual whine about how e-books are uploaded once by the publisher and then sold over and over and over without any more cost to the publisher's wallet. Not to mention the fact that e-books are not actually "sold" - you are sold a license to have them on your device. You don't own your Kindle books, or your Nook books, or your name-your-reader books.

(Didn't you know that? It's all well and good until the publisher starts a fight with the e-reader company and forces them to remove their books from the site and the book you've "bought" disappears. Yes, you get credited the money - I think - but still.)

At any rate, one of the authors says, "But you're paying for the intellectual property rights." I admit, this sounded like a So What argument to me. But it planted a seed.

Days later, I begin thinking about the way we who embrace e-readers compare their advent to the changes in the way our music is delivered. "The content is the same. It's just the delivery method that changed."

When I was young, I bought vinyl records. If I recall, in the late 60's you could get a 45-rpm for about 80 cents and an album (33 1/3-rpm) for less than 5 bucks. I know this because my weekly allowance was $5 and I could get the latest Monkees album with it. I nearly died of shock the day I went into to Sears to get their latest album and the price had risen to $6.99.

8-tracks were cool.

As the years passed, album prices rose. At their peak, most of them were, I think, around $15. Then the media changed and everyone was going to either cassette or 8-track tapes. It seems that 8-tracks came first and didn't last. The prices stayed about the same for vinyl or tape and we accepted this, because there were still materials and labor involved in pressing a record or winding a strip of magnetic tape.

Then Compact Discs came along. They were priced about the same, which is shocking when you consider how much time had passed without inflating the price of music. There were still materials and labor to produce a CD, so it was still worth the $15.

Enter MP3 World. The iPod and other players let us have instant access to music from our computer. I did a little recon in iTunes and found that most albums go for anywhere between $9.99 and $15.99. The song/album is downloaded to the store once, where it is sold over and over and over. There are no more materials involved.

We are all okay with this. Not only are we okay with it, some of us have bought the same album in each format as it comes out.

I'm slowly beginning to change my mind about the price of e-books, although I haven't quite reached the point of some publishers, who think they should be priced higher than the paperback. I started out thinking that everything should just be 99 cents, because you're selling the same damn thing over and over.

Now I'm in a struggle - I've raised the price of my books a little (I kept my short story at 99 cents), but not nearly as much as others. It's hard to know what to do, since there is really no model to follow. Traditional books can't be used as a reference, because the publishers are using a standard that includes the cost of their doing business. Self-published books can't be used because they're just all over the map and there's plenty of swill out there I don't want to compare myself to.

So what is my intellectual property worth? Does it come with mineral rights? And can I install a jacuzzi?

As Pooh would say, "Think think think."

I've been thinking about this a lot. I've been threatening it. But now I'm going to do it, Dagnabbit.

There's been a lot of discussion on the Amazon boards about e-books and Indie authors. A lot of people seem to think we all write like we've got boxing gloves on and the I.Q. of a stick. Then there are a group of people who are willing to wade through the Amazonian slush pile to find those rare gems of good books written by good writers. In between those two tribes, is a big fat group of Skeptics.

The Skeptics aren't afraid of Indie authors or their books, with one caveat: a low price means low quality. Where I've been swimming around in the pool of people who think 99 cents is a great price, there is a growing contingent of readers who won't touch a 99 cent book because it's like putting a big GARBAGE HERE stamp on the story.

Personally, I'm not convinced that a low price means low quality. I have a hard time, philosophically, in loading a book onto the internet for an infinite length of time and selling it over and over and over, for more than 99 cents. I mean, it's a marathon, right?

My sales of What Would Erma Do? are pretty brisk. I'd like to say it's because WWED is a good book (which I think it is), but I think the real reason is that it has shown up on the Top 20 of Amazon's Humor for Parenting and Families. When people go looking for humor, it's easier to find.

My sales of my mysteries are a little slower. Okay, a lot slower. I still believe in Hit or Missus (as I do Freezer Burn), but the mystery genre is a large ocean. Even when you narrow it down to Women Sleuths, my books are a small drop in the waters. It's harder to climb up the list, and therefore harder to get discovered, no matter what the price.

So, beginning November 1, I am raising the price of Hit or Missus to $2.99, which is the same price as Freezer Burn. If you want it at the 99 cent price, get it this weekend. As they say, move it or lose it.

I'm keeping my humor books at 99 cents, at least until I'm shown a good reason to raise their prices. If you can think of a good reason for me to hike my humor prices, by all means, let me know.

In the meantime, the mysteries are on the rise.

P.S. Please check out the Crime Fiction Collection blog. It's good. Trust me.

What's the price point for an ebook?

When I got my Kindle, I was all atwitter with excitement about the thousands of books I could read for very little money. Then I started shopping. Bestsellers, books from the Big Six publishers, were rarely under $9.99.

Color me appalled.

There is no paper involved in producing an ebook. There is nothing that has to be generated or re-generated. An ebook is an electronic file that is uploaded ONCE to the e-distributor (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, etc), where it is sold over and over AND OVER again.

I might not mind if the author was getting the lion's share, or at least an increasing revenue, of their creation, but (correct me if I'm wrong) I think most authors in the Big Six houses rarely see more than 25% royalty on their ebooks. That's about $2.50 per book. The publisher gets to keep the rest. Why?

According to them, they have to keep the rest in order to keep the lights on, employ their staff, and look for new authors. Really? Perhaps they should find other ways to bankroll their operations, instead of trying to convince authors that being poor is for their own good.

When I published What Would Erma Do, I initially set the ebook price at $2.99. This is my own personal breaking point, so I thought it seemed fair. Within the first month, I dropped it down to 99 cents, for two important reasons:

1. It was a new book from a new author (of that genre), so I wanted to entice a quantity of readers. Who could refuse a book for a dollar?

2. I knew that if I sold enough books, sooner or later it would start to creep up the Amazon rankings and more people could find it. At that point, I could raise the price back up to $2.99.

I did the same thing for Hit or Missus. But now, the more I think about it, the more I think I'll keep my books at 99 cents, at least until the market changes. If the lowest priced book becomes $1.99, I'll probably follow the market. When you're thinking of buying an ebook or  selling one, consider the following: not only is an ebook uploaded once and sold multiple times, it's often not even "sold".

Welcome to DRM, Digital Rights Management, a system for keeping consumers from transferring a song or book or movie from one device to another an infinite number of times. (Yes, I know it's a little more complicated than that, but I only want to focus on one aspect today. Bear with me.) I'm not arguing for or against DRM. It is part of the landscape. I'm just saying that, unless an author has opted out of DRM, when you "purchase" a book, you are only purchasing the right to store it on your Kindle/Nook/whatever.

A year or so ago, there was a big brouhaha at Amazon. It seems there was a question about whether Amazon had the rights to sell George Orwell's books on Kindle. While the matter was being settled, Amazon pulled Orwell's books from their Kindle store and from anyone's Kindle who had purchased one. Yes, read that sentence as many times as you like, it will still mean the same thing. One day I had 1984 on my Kindle and the next day, I didn't have 1984 no more.

Everything got corrected and the books went back to everyone's Kindles and all was well. But you see my point?

Do you want to pay $9.99 to rent a book?

One more thing to think about: technology grows at an astounding pace. How many of your favorite albums have you re-purchased as 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, MP3s? How many of your favorite books will you end up re-purchasing when the next generation reader comes along?

It's just something to consider. Thoughts? Ideas? Jokes?

Guest Helen Hanson shows you how it's done

I've been hosting horror writers and paranormal writers and it's been so much fun, being scared and abnormal, that when I met thriller writer Helen Hanson, I thought, "Cool! She'll tell me how to thrill people!"

Helen had other ideas, though, and wanted to talk about formatting your beautifully written, wonderfully edited, soon-to-be best-selling manuscript into the various e-book formats. This is a great idea, since I've never given any instructions on anything - only my (big fat) opinions.

So, let's give a warm welcome to Helen Hanson!

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An Ebook Formatting Primer - See Jane Format. Format, Jane, Format.

As indie writers, we’re inherently do-it-yourselfers. But between time, talent, and resources, it’s nice to farm some jobs out to experts. In my case, I was quick to offer happy cash to a talented artist for my cover. But formatting my novel, 3 Lies, for the Kindle, Nook, and iBooks platform was as natural for me as fetching was to Spot.

As Gayle’s guest blogger for the day, I’m here to provide a primer on the main ebook formats, the process, and the tools used to format ebooks for the dominant self-publishing sites. After reading this, you may decide you want to format your own ebook, or you may decide that you’d rather remove your own spleen. If the latter, at least you can feel good about the money you spend on a professional.

The ebook world for indie authors is split between two main format types. Amazon uses the .mobi (aka .prc or .azw) file format, while Barnes & Noble and iBooks use the .ePub file format. While the tools to create these ebook files are different, the skills you need are the same.

Most formatters agree that you get the best ebook results if you start with an HTML file of your manuscript. Doing this by hand may be beyond your comfort level. Mobipocket Creator is a free program that takes your .doc file and converts it into HTML. From there you can add the table of contents, embedded cover, or the formatting of your choice to generate the final .mobi file.

If reading the letters HTML didn’t send you directly to a bottle of scotch, you can also generate the .mobi file using Kindlegen, another free program. If you go this route, you create your HTML file, a toc file (table of contents), and an .opf file (build file) then turn the crank on the Kindlegen program to generate the .mobi file.

Whatever you use, or even if you pay a professional, verify the final .mobi file using the Kindle Previewer before you release it to the public. Keep all your files for future clip-and-paste purposes with your next book.

For Barnes & Nobles’ Nook or the iBookstore, you need an .ePub file. The .ePub format is a set of files , like a .zip, where each of your chapters becomes a separate file, along with the toc and others. Once you have a clean .mobi file, many people use a free program named Calibre to convert this file to an .ePub.

Try Calibre first. It’s a simple conversion, and if you’re happy with the output, it’s all good. You can verify your .ePub file by downloading the Nook reader and checking out your file.

If your head is gemstone hard, like mine, you can dig into another free program called Sigil to create your .ePub. In my defense, I didn’t know about Calibre at the time. But I was satisfied with my product using Sigil, and I earned enough war stories for a multi-part series on ebook formatting, so all was not lost.

Even Fun with Dick and Jane seemed challenging the first time I read it. And when you need to format your next book, clip-and-paste is your friend. Like anything, it’s always easier the second time.

Thanks, Gayle, for sharing your corner of cyberspace!

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Gayle again: Thank YOU, Helen, for all the great links to these formatting tools. I didn't know about most of them, and definitely plan to put them to use. You can find Helen's book, 3 Lies, at any of these locations (so there's no excuse not to find it and buy it):

iBooks

Amazon US

Barnes & Nobel

Amazon UK

Smashwords

3 LIES

At CIA headquarters, a young officer discovers that terrorists may have commandeered their computer systems to launch an unauthorized mission. Elsewhere, conspirators abduct nine people to manipulate the rules of their game. Two disparate ambitions — Clint Masters becomes the reluctant link in the chain of danger.

 

Ever since Clint’s almost ex-wife dumped him, he bobs along the Massachusetts coast in a sailboat with his black lab for company. He avoids all forms of technology, a counterintuitive effort for the burned-out founder of CatSat Laboratories. Tired of clutching the brass ring, he needed to untether, step off the corporate treadmill, and smell a flower. Fortunately, he met one, a beautiful, unspoiled woman who doesn’t treat him like a commodity. His relationship with Beth offers more promise than his marriage ever did, even if she is on dialysis for her recovering kidneys, until she disappears.

In spite of the evidence, her family refuses to admit she’s in danger. Without routine dialysis, she won’t survive. As Clint realizes that he loves Beth, damn-near ex-wife Paige sashays back into his life with disturbing news.

While the CIA young gun tracks his quarry, Clint enlists the help of two men to find Beth, a blithe Brit named Merlin, and Todd, his playboy partner-in-tech. But Clint must find Beth before her kidneys fail. And before someone unloads a bullet in his head.

And be sure to visit Helen's website.

What we have heah is a failure to communicate.

A couple of posts ago, I spoke of David Mathison's talk at the Southern California Writer's Conference, and asked for opinions and discussion about the future of the paper book. The responses to the post, and to some other blogs I've been lurking on, lead me to believe I might have been misunderstood.

My quandry was this: As children, our first experiences with books are tactile ones. We chew on the fabric picture book, then we touch the patches of fluffy and slick and rough on board books, and slowly graduate up through chapter books, etc. While many of us are embracing the world of e-books, gobbling up Kindles, Nooks, and eReaders, almost everyone with Kindle-in-hand says, "but I still like to read paper books," or some such statement. I wondered what, if anything, would replace those early childhood sensations to allow us to completely give up our dependency upon the feeling of a book in our hands as adults?

Let me make my position clear: I'm NOT opposed to ebooks. I want a Kindle, or a Nook. As a nerd, I adore technology and welcome new toys.

What I want are ideas... what's out there to replace this? I know there are interactive books for the computer. My son had one, and delighted in clicking on things to find hidden clues. But what else?

Will anything replace this? We've got a few of these three-dimensional bug-eyed books and they were fun novelties to him.

Maybe they'll have a Baby's First Kindle, although it would need to be shatter-proof, slobber-proof and spill-proof. Will it be big enough to sit in Mom or Dad's lap every night and find the mouse?

Or how about books that are really works of art? This book has very few, very thoughtful words, accompanied by beautiful pictures.

I'm asking for all you folks who are thinking outside the box, who've glimpsed the future and seen some of the sights, who are dreaming of the paperless world, to tell me what's coming and what may be.

What would the paperless world look like, if you had your way?