You heard it here first.
No idea at what point Publishers and Authors are going to figure this out. They are destroying the value perception of their work.
In fact, we might already be beyond the point of no return.
Here’s how we started in ebooks (and it was a win-win situation) -
- Amazon selling $10 ebooks. Giving Publishers a very healthy cut (sometimes more than $10). Giving indie publishers 35% of their list price.
- Kindle Store had a limited range of public domain books, they weren’t easy to find, and there were few free ebook offers.
- There was no competition to this eco-system.
First Problem: Google and eReader companies using Free Books to attack Amazon
Publishers were greedy, greedy, greedy – trying to make money off of orphan works, trying to get $12 per $10 ebook sold, etc.
They were scared of Amazon so they let Google into the henhouse. They were delusional enough to believe they could sell $20 ebooks.
Google uses its standard things are free and we make money off of advertising rationale – a rationale that KILLS content creators. Something Publishers and Authors conveniently forget because they get to steal from orphan works and get promised they can sell $20 ebooks.
Google announces one million free ebooks and shares it with every eReader maker not named Amazon.
What does this do?
- Amazon are forced to add more public domain titles to compete – polluting the channel.
- Even on the Kindle more people are reading free books.
- More people start perceiving ebooks as low value.
- 1 million free books – that just overwhelms people.
- 1 million free books hurts the 350K paid books.
The only way authors could survive this would be to demarcate a clear line between free and paid books i.e. $0 public domain titles and $5 and $10 paid books.
Did they do that?
Second Problem: Authors undercutting other Authors
Instead of demarcating free and quality/paid content, Authors gave in to short-sighted greed and their own self-interest -
I can sell a lot of books if I drop the price of my books. I can sell a lot if I use first book free.
They are killing the value perception of ebooks for everyone, including themselves.
There is exactly one company that has been able to make significant amounts of money off of Free. Yet, every author and publishers feel they can do the same.
Which Brings us to the current mess -
eBooks are going to Zero, it’s happening NOW, and it’s INEVITABLE
44 of the Top 50 Kindle Bestsellers are at $0.
The Kindle Store was the best unpolluted channel for ebooks and now it’s dying out.
When people see 44 of the top 50 ebooks free -
- They are reluctant to pay $10 for ebooks.
- They choose free first and read more free than paid books.
- The value perception of ebooks goes downhill.
They think authors who want $5 or more for an ebook are greedy.
Who benefits from this terrible perception of ebook value?
The middle-men.
- It doesn’t suit authors or publishers because the value of their work is zilch.
- It definitely doesn’t suit Amazon because their platform becomes worth much less.
- It doesn’t suit eReader makers because they can’t sell anything except eReaders.
- It doesn’t suit readers because quality suffers. It will eventually (all the people who think ebooks are worth only $1 – Congratulations! You are going to get exactly what you pay for).
It suits every middle-man company that wants to -
- Use books as loss leaders like WalMart.
- Use books for advertising.
- Turn authors into slaves working for the promise of a lottery payday.
Publishers and Authors deserve it
It’s painful because we get to see the death of books.
However, it’s survival of the fittest and the most intelligent.
It’s hard to shed a tear for Publishers when they never had readers’ best interests in mind.
- Publishers let in Google because they were scared of Amazon and weren’t ready to become more efficient. Congratulations – you’ll get $0 prices as your reward.
- Authors and Publishers are undercutting each other instead of standing firm at a $10 price. Congratulations – Now, all of you can sell $3 books.
- Publishers are so greedy and delusional they think they can sell $20 ebooks.
- Publishers are so unethical they want to profit from sales of orphan works.
An entire industry is being wiped out before our eyes. The industry deserves it.
- Book quality will be the collateral damage.
- Authors will get to share the joy of working for our new overlords.
Dear Publishers and Authors – Amazon was perhaps your only friend. You’d rather blow up the pie than share a larger piece – well, it worked.
Filed under: books | Tagged: lack thereof, value of books
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I think your argument is over played. If this were the case, that digital goods are driving to zero, then we would have a zero market of something somewhere. In fact, we don’t, what we have is a lot of markets with some zero but mostly people pay for things that they value. Yes some people will be ok with low quality free books, but I think that if we looked closely most of the people that consume low quality free books are actually high readers that buy as much or more than most people.
Do I think that ebooks are changing the market forces of the publishing world, absolutely. Do I think the end result is free books, no way. I have literally hundreds of free books on my kindle. But I still spend $30 to 40 bucks a month on new books, not including my audiobooks. I have hundreds of free books that I might get to someday, but if I don’t, I am not worried about them. I have bought hundreds of dollars worth of books from authors that I first read free however.
[...] Value Perception of eBooks is going to zero No idea at what point Publishers and Authors are going to figure this out. They are destroying the value perception of their work. [...]
May I reprint this post on Publetariat.com, with credit given to switch11 as author, a link back to the source article here on Kindlereview, and a link to the Ireaderreview homepage?
Email me if you have more questions first.
A blockquote extract is fine. No more than 100-125 words please.
I was looking for a full reprint. Oh well. I’ll still RT the article on Twitter.
I find it difficult to accept that booklovers are willing to invest significant amounts of their time in reading a book that is free with no regard as to whether it is an enjoyable book or not. If I had the choice between a free ebook of dubious quality versus a quality ebook for $10, I know which one I would choose. I don’t have hours and hours of my life available to read crap books, even if they are free.
Stephen Windwalker has an interesting take on this being due to a flood of people trying out the Kindle for PC application.
http://thekindlenationblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-kindle-for-pc-app-fuels-explosive.html
Clever insight and if true, we should see the list settle back to its original shape over time. However I think your observation has merit and the consequences to Amazon and the whole business model could be dire if the company does not do something about value perception.
In the short-term, the blip is likely an indicator of the success of the K for PC issue.
I have checked Kindle top 50 just now, and all of them entered the top 100 list over 5 days ago (Kindle for PC was released 4 days ago). Clearly it is not a K4PC efect.
Thanks Krigan – that was a brilliant way of solving that puzzle. Thanks a ton.
All that the factoid about 44/50 Kindle bestsellers being free proves is that people are downloading a lot of free books. It doesn’t prove that they are reading those books or that they are buying fewer non-free books. It might be that people download free books just to have them on their Kindle in case they ever get around to them.
I think Paul Story’s link to the Stephen Windwalker blog on why there are so many free best sellers has merit.
Another potential reason is the limited time that many of the free books are actually free. If I think I MAY be interested in the book when it’s free, I have very little reason to hold off “purchasing” the book now, and adding it to my library. Will I actually read the book, ever? That’s a much more interesting question. Will it cut into the purchases of other books? Probably not, unless I find a lot of books I want to read for free.
After an initial urge to download all the free books while the fire was hot, I curbed my impulse and read the description of the books. I limited my viewing to the top 10 best sellers on Amazon since they’re placed right on the front page and are easy to find. I ended up downloading one of the books, Kiss of Shadows. I already own the print version, but thought having it on my Kindle would be nice. One of the books isn’t free, but I’m not sure I want to read yet another one of Dan Brown’s books. The other eight did not strike a chord, so I didn’t bother.
But other readers may download first, and cull later. So it’s probably too early to tell if the free books will seriously eat into the not free book market. Only time (or Amazon) will tell.
Another issue you didn’t enumerate:
With all of these free books flooding the Kindle market, people are going to take a wait and see approach to buying the books they are actually willing to pay for, holding out for sales and the hope that a book they are on the fence about will soon wend its way to the free list. (Those books may never go free, but it will cut down on impulse buys and, in the end, cost authors–especially new ones–dearly.)
[...] stuff. One blogger recently found that 44 of Top 50 Kindle Bestsellers are $0. Does that mean the Value Perception of eBooks is going to zero? I’m not sure, but I think that it’s going to be increasingly harder for publishers to [...]
[...] value perception of ebooks is going to [...]
Wow, this article is clearly written by someone who doesn’t understand anything about the digital age. As with any device, it is only as good as the content that is available for it. Thus meaning, if digital content had no value, then digital devices would cease to exist. As for eBooks, their sales have been growing exponentially, so a value of $0 is illogical.
Sorry – no full reprints because then its considered duplicate content and eventually the main article gets penalized.