Penguin is out to win it. Why? They’ve seen the light. Oddly, I’ve been working on a paper that examines the potential for new media to change the content and reading experience of fiction. This news story pushed me to establish this blog. Why? It felt like they were stealing from me! Of course they aren’t, and I feel just fine about it because the idea is simple and essentially already out there. What this announcement does provide, however, is the first step to legitimizing this new medium as a source for study in academia, not unlike any other field of study. The most interesting aspect is how well suited new media is for fiction and how well suited new media fiction will be for gender, race, socioeconomic, and other aspects of literary theory. This will usher in a new opportunity to more closely evaluate reading habits and trends. Through the use of algorithms developed by Google and other search engines, not to mention analytics and sales information, new media fiction will make statistics available as they have never been before. Such information will no doubt effect scholarship, marketing, and style.
Anyway… The article linked above, has some great stuff in it. Here’s my favorite bit:
“We will be embedding and streaming audio, video and gaming into everything we do. This will present us and the platform owners with technology challenges.
“The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about. So for the time being at least we’ll be creating a lot of our digital content as applications, to sell on app stores in HTML, rather than as ebooks.
“The definition of the book itself is up for grabs. We don’t know understand at the moment what the consumer is prepared to pay for […] We will only find answers to these questions by trial and error.”
Before we get drunk on the idea of a new format, let’s first see the risk involved in patents and ownership as it relates to the platform format. DRM aside, the ownership of any new format will restrict creativity and effect the revenue of creative output. Publishing costs will decrease, but production costs will increase. This new medium creates problems larger than typesets.
Apple Insider looks at the justification of ebook pricing and the power of Apple and the iPad to effect pricing. The shift in pricing, a direct result of Apple’s clever ploy to legitimize its own bookstore by leveling the playing field between it and Amazon, is note worthy for its inclusion of cost as it is associated with production both new and old.
The whole article (essentially) lifted for your pleassure:
“The report said that while the average hardcover bestseller is $26, the cost to print, store and ship the book is just $3.25. That cost also includes unsold copies returned to the publisher by booksellers.
Publishers get roughly half — $13 — of the selling price of a book. But after factoring in payments to the author and the cost of cover design and copy editing, only about $4.05 is left. And, the report noted, that doesn’t even include overhead such as office space and electricity.
Under Apple’s agreement with publishers for the iBookstore, the hardware maker will keep 30 percent of each book sale, leaving $9.09 for the publisher on a typical $12.99 e-book.
“Out of that gross revenue, the publisher pays about 50 cents to convert the text to a digital file, typeset it in digital form and copy-edit it,” the report said. “Marketing is about 78 cents.”
Author’s royalty can range from $2.27 to $3.25 on an e-book, leaving the publisher with between $4.56 and $4.54, before paying overhead costs. For comparison, under Amazon’s $9.99 e-book model, publishers would take in between $3.51 and $4.26 before overhead.
“At a glance, it appears the e-book is more profitable,” the report said. “But publishers point out that e-books still represent a small sliver of total sales, from 3 to 5 percent. If e-book sales start to replace some hardcover sales, the publishers say, they will still have many of the fixed costs associated with print editions, like warehouse space, but they will be spread among fewer print copies.”
Publishers are also wary of making e-books too cheap for fear of killing off booksellers like Barnes & Noble.
Apple will serve books for the iPad through its iBookstore, due to be a part of the iBooks application for iPad. The software features a 3D virtual bookshelf displaying a user’s personal collection, and allows the purchase of new content from major publishers. Like the Kindle, it will offer content from the New York Times Bestsellers list.
The introduction of the iPad has driven publishers to force Amazon into higher prices for new hardcover bestsellers. While books are currently priced at $9.99 on the Kindle, that is expected to rise to between $12.99 and $14.99 by the time the iPad launches later this month.
The charge was led by Macmillan, which was followed soon after by Hachette Book Group and HarperCollins in renegotiating with Amazon.
Last week it was revealed that Amazon frantically phoned publishers as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs gave his keynote introducing the iPad in July.
While publishers had their way and Amazon reluctantly agreed to higher prices, not every bestseller will carry the new, higher premium price. It has been said that while higher prices are an option for publishers, and most new titles will be between $12.99 and $14.99, publishers can also choose to lower prices on select titles.”
Now, imagine a world where Flash developers, iPhone OS developers, and other platform developers are paid to craft the application that is, for all intents and purposes, a book. A new open source format must be developed for writers hoping to avoid such costs. However, we may also be entering into a world in which publishers pair writers and software developers much like comic book writers and comic book artists.
What say you?
Thanks,
Lon Koontz
New Media Fiction 