Two free kindle books from James Scott Bell to say goodbye to January. They’re both religious fiction -
- Sins of the Fathers – It’s rated 4.5 stars on 15 reviews.
- Deadlock – Rated 4.5 stars on 15 reviews.
The last set of free books disappeared quickly so please get these as soon as you can.
Galley Cat pretends the $9.99 boycott didn’t happen
GalleyCat highlights a contentious claim about the $9.99 boycott -
“I doubt Amazon is letting the views of 2200 customers dictate a pricing policy that affects millions.
If 2200 are unhappy enough to post about it, that means (let’s ballpark it) 2,997,800 are at least neutral enough not to join the conversation.”
Actually, what Galley Cat should factor in is -
- While normal topics get 10-40 replies from 5-20 users, the $9.99 issue got 2,200 customers to jump in.
- The number of people who actually write things on forum is notoriously low – less than 10% of people who visit a forum actually write anything.
- Only a fraction of Kindle owners visit the Kindle forums.
- Saying that 2,200 people wrote about $9.99 means 2.997 million didn’t care is the most inaccurate thing you could write.
The effectiveness of the $9.99 boycott is that there were always less than 10 (and usually less than 5) books priced over $9.99 in the Top 100 bestsellers chart – even before free and public domain took over.
Charlie Stross talks about Pipelines and his readers improve on it
Shouldn’t be a surprise - Just like John Scalzi, Charlie Stross is losing sales and he thinks Amazon is evil. Losing book sales will do that to authors.
He does write about the pipeline -
Publishing is made out of pipes. Traditionally the supply chain ran: author -> publisher -> wholesaler -> bookstore -> consumer.
The agency model Apple proposed – collapses the supply chain in a different direction, so it looks like: author -> publisher -> fixed-price distributor -> reader.
One of his commenters, Ray Racine, points out something pretty cool -
Why not view the future chain as Author -> Electronic Distributor -> Customer
Isn’t that what Amazon is really after here. Becoming the sole required intermediary between the Reader and the Writer?
That’s exactly it – Publishers and Authors don’t fully realize that in New Publishing publishers are optional.
Publishers keep claiming that printing costs less and less
Unqualified Offerings offers some good links and makes fun of a piece in Laptop Mag that claims that printing books costs less than 1% of hardcover prices.
- We started off with claims that 10% to 20% of the cost of a book was printing and paper and shipping and warehousing.
- Here’s my Book Cost Analysis which has printing at 10%. Note that printing costs aren’t the only thing eBooks save on.
- Now Laptop Magazine is claiming printing is just 1%.
- Soon we’ll have Publishers claim eBooks cost more than physical books.
eBooks actually take care of a lot of things -
- Reduces the risk in publishing books.
- Makes warehouses and distributors much less important.
- Makes Publishers much less important.
- Eliminates the need to have staff and actual physical stores.
- Eliminates shipping costs for the most part and eliminates the need for returns and destroying unsold books.
Add on things like 60 second downloads and stores that are open all the time and readers reading more and you really have to wonder how Publishers can’t find a way to cut costs.
Filed under: free books | Tagged: free kindle books
Another real advantage of e-books: In addition to not having to deal with unsold books and returns, there is also an unlimited supply–which means that when a book is hot, publishers don’t have to scramble to keep up with demand. I know several authors who have seen their book sell out at a critical moment, and they worry that it will lose momentum as a result.
This is particularly true of time-sensitive books–for instance, a friend who wrote a popular children’s book about Thanksgiving saw it sell out in mid-November. Having more books in the warehouse in December won’t help her much.
Thanks for all your thoughtful posts.
you’re welcome Amy. Unlimited supply when a book is selling well is a very good point.
Publishers seem to have spent a lot of time talking up the costs of ebooks (formatting, etc.) without talking at all about all the benefits.
Does Macmillan really think that I am going to buy a hardback instead of waiting 7 months for a $15 ebook? That is, if I still remember the book exists after seven weeks. I am mostly weaned from paper books with my iPod audio books at audible.com and ebooks at Kindle/Amazon. My pattern is to keep two books going – one on iPod, the other on Kindle. I listen when in the car alone (it is impossible to coordinate two people on an audio book), sorting socks or engaged in similar mindless tasks, and when doing exercises that preclude reading my Kindle – such as riding an elliptical or recumbent bike.
Point is: I search for and buy books when one of my two books is completed (an all to arduous task). If a book is not available in one of the two formats, then on to another. Macmillian is losing a sale and not gaining anything by delaying seven weeks. I am not going to buy a hardback. They haven’t a clue about reader/listener habits.
Macmillan thinks that the habits of readers buying hardbacks instead of waiting for the paperback translates to they will buy hardbacks instead of having to wait for an ebook.
Interestingly, I downloaded the audio of Macmillian’s Sarah’s Key yesterday from Audible (an Amazon subsidiary). Apparently Amazon hasn’t withdrawn Macmillian audio books .
Macmillian executives would fit right in the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate. Same mindset. Go Amazon!
I love Apple as a stockholder, and as a mac and iPod user, but there is no way I could use an iPad on an exercise machine.