{"id":2096,"date":"2012-01-10T20:48:01","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T01:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/?p=2096"},"modified":"2012-01-10T20:54:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T01:54:26","slug":"is-it-time-to-make-big-publishers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/10\/is-it-time-to-make-big-publishers\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Time To Make Big Publishers Pay The Price?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I noticed\u00a0that Jayne Anne Krentz's new one - \"Copper Beach\" <\/a>is now out and about.\u00a0 I love her work as Krentz and Amanda Quick, though I've never read any of hers as\u00a0Jayne Castle.\u00a0 I'd have snapped up her new one in a heart beat except for one not so itty-bitty thing -- the price.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms. Krentz's \"Copper Beach\" is priced for ebook at $12.99 and the hardcover is $15.26.\u00a0 That means that Penguin Publishing is selling Ms. Krentz's ebook for only $2.27 less than the hardcover edition.\u00a0 Holy toadfrogs, Batman.\u00a0 I adore the author's work, but that price tag is a big ole' stop sign for me.\u00a0 Even if I had $12.99 to spend for the book -\u00a0I wouldn't pay that price.\u00a0 The cost for this ebook doesn't reflect economic reality in today's market given most consumer's\u00a0budgets and it doesn't reflect how little ebooks cost to produce as compared to paperbacks - let alone hardcover.<\/p>\n

In fact, the $12.99 pricetag is so high it feels like gauging.\u00a0 That\u00a0I wouldn't put up with even if I had a bank balance bigger than the combined wealth of Bill\u00a0Gates, Warren Buffett, every Arab Sheik\u00a0and the entire Walton family.\u00a0 In the present economic environment, Penguin Publishing's price scale seems far worse than mere\u00a0greed - it feels evil.<\/p>\n

I also think it's quite short sighted of Penguin to set their ebook prices so high.\u00a0 Consumers have long, long memories.\u00a0 In my neighborhood there was a hardware store that had been family owned and in business for many years.\u00a0 Then during Hurricane Hugo the store decided to profit from the aftermath.\u00a0 It decided to pad its bank balance at the expense of the people who'd kept the place in business for so long.\u00a0 In the midst of disaster and destruction, the store charged outrageous prices for supplies, generators, batteries\u00a0and even water. And the victims of the Hurricane got victimized again.\u00a0 But the area recovered.\u00a0 People rebuilt and hardware stores all over the area made a great deal of money - but not that store.\u00a0 You know what happened to that store?\u00a0 It went out of business and the victims became the victors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Penguin would reduce prices far below what it could reasonably charge the company and its authors would make more money now and would make far, far more when we FINALLY recover from the present economic disaster.\u00a0 Penguin could sell all its books for $7.99 or less and stamp each one with a note -\u00a0something like - \"We're all in this together and a link for a website.\"\u00a0 At the site, the company could state that it had reduced prices to keep books affordable and that prices would increase when things\u00a0improved.\u00a0 You know what? The company that did that would find out that the most valuable business commodity is a loyal customer base.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms. Krentz isn't responsible for what her publisher charges.\u00a0 Sure, she makes money from each sale but the publisher and the vendor make far more than the author who doesn't get to decide the price.\u00a0 That's a big advantage of being an indie author - all the choices belong to me.\u00a0 I surely don't have a fan base of even 1\/100th of Ms. Krentz's, but based on my experience I can say that the author would actually make a fortune if she got the rights to her back list and self published.\u00a0 She could charge $3.99 or $4.99 per book and make more than she'd made on that books original advance, all the payouts and all the royalties - far more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Penguin's not the only publisher bilking the\u00a0public, but it's the one I noticed today.\u00a0 The mindset that allows a company to feel entitled to price an ebook so high\u00a0is the same mindset that\u00a0prompted\u00a0my local hardware store to go for the gold and disregard\u00a0the hardship being suffered by their devastated and loyal customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Penguin and any company willing to re-victimize\u00a0the victims of the current economic catastrophe should suffer the same fate as my local hardware store.\u00a0\u00a0But you know what? We actually had to drive farther to pass the gauging\u00a0 hardware store to go to another business. In an online world, it will be much easier to teach publishers the consequences of corporate greed and an unconscionable lack of empathy. And we won't even have to go out of our way to\u00a0do it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clicking \"next\" is easy and perhaps now would be a good time to put that into practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I noticed\u00a0that Jayne Anne Krentz's new one - \"Copper Beach\" is now out and about.\u00a0 I love her work as Krentz and Amanda Quick, though I've never read any of hers as\u00a0Jayne Castle.\u00a0 I'd have snapped up her new one in a heart beat except for one not so itty-bitty thing -- the price.\u00a0 ...continue reading \"Is It Time To Make Big Publishers Pay The Price?\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2102,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}