Douglas Preston: Still a jerk, now a much more careful jerk

An arrogant hack author named Douglas Preston appeared in a New York Times article two weeks ago, wherein he said that readers who wanted ebook editions of his book (and wanted them for less than the cost of the hardcover) were astonishingly ]]>

Douglas Preston: Still a jerk, now a much more careful jerk

An arrogant hack author named Douglas Preston appeared in a New York Times article two weeks ago, wherein he said that readers who wanted ebook editions of his book (and wanted them for less than the cost of the hardcover) were astonishingly entitled and, quite literally, he accused them of making America unhealthy.

So. That ticked some people off—including me. Two weeks later, Preston has realized that maybe he shouldn’t run around insulting his customers, and he has now offered up a half-assed backpedal (via), in which he attempts to mollify his readers with about half a Hallmark card’s worth of affection. He succeeds, however, only in proving he thinks his readers are stupid enough to believe his obvious lies.

Chris Meadows at TeleRead debunks Preston’s turnaround pretty thoroughly. I just want to add a couple of “how stupid does he think we are?” points about both the statement and his other new comments:

• Preston never apologizes. He should apologize.

• Preston says he wants to make money for Wal-Mart. In his original comments, he said “the Wal-Mart mentality…is very unhealthy for our country.” Is this a joke?

• He says he has no control over pricing or windowing (the practice of delaying ebook releases to force people to buy hardcovers), then says he supports windowing. He uses movies as an example of windowing, but fails to mention that movies in a theater offer more value and a different experience than DVDs, while hardcover vs. ebook editions of books offer exactly the same experience (and the people who disagree can still buy the hardcover).

• In his statement, he says, “We want to write the best books we can.” Uh, no. If that was true, you’d spend longer than 9 months apiece on them.

• He says he wants his “publishers to make [his books] available to you in the format in which you prefer to read them.” Come on, Preston, you’re not even trying.

• And, of course, the ultimate lie: “From our perspective, the most important element in all this is you, the reader.” What does it mean when my BS detector shrieks and then melts?

Look, Preston, here’s the thing: you write books because they make you money. You hate ebooks because you think you’ll make less money on them. You hate your readers because they want ebooks, and because they don’t like being bossed around, or being told they’re stupid and greedy.

You grudgingly crapped out this… this statement, whatever it is (not an apology), in which you transparently lie and say you like your readers. Hopefully, it’s not fooling anybody, but TechDirt put this news in the “good-for-him dept,” so you got at least one. Basically, you’re a jerk. But now you’re being slightly more diplomatic about it.

Listen, you owe your readers nothing less than a debt of immense gratitude, especially if they’ve allowed you to write full-time and make a decent living at it. You should be fighting your publisher to give your readers what they want. They don’t want free books, and they don’t want to rip you off. They just want a fair deal, and when you call that “entitlement,” you should come crawling back on your knees and beg for their forgiveness. Instead you throw this sloppy mess of platitudes at them. It makes me furious, and I’ve never given you a dime.

OK, deep breaths.

The person I really feel sorry for is Lincoln Child, Preston’s writing partner, who hasn’t said anything stupid about this. But then, he’s worked with this colossal jerk for years, so… I guess he’s not entirely innocent.

J.K. Rowling

Not really a full links post, but a few things caught my eye this morning. So here we go.

First of all, J.K. Rowling has been sued for plagiarism, again, hilariously. This time the plaintiff is the estate of a writer who died thirteen years ago. They claim she stole from a ]]>

J.K. Rowling

Not really a full links post, but a few things caught my eye this morning. So here we go.

First of all, J.K. Rowling has been sued for plagiarism, again, hilariously. This time the plaintiff is the estate of a writer who died thirteen years ago. They claim she stole from a 36-page pamphlet called “The Adventures of Willy the Wizard.”

The entire case rests not on copied passages, but on the fact that “both Willy and Harry [are] required to solve a task as part of a contest, which they achieve in a bathroom assisted by clues from helpers.”

So, your case rests on the word “bathroom.” Good luck.

My other favorite line from that story is the estate’s PR guy (not lawyer) saying: “‘All of Willy the Wizard is in the Goblet of Fire.’” That’s a joke, right? Because “Willy” is only 36 pages long? Right?

And there’s a lot of other funny stuff in the Guardian piece. In other news:

• In doom-of-literature news, James Cameron wants to write a novel based on Avatar, presumably to create a special effect where the universe folds back on itself and creates a black hole of mediocrity. Maybe George Lucas can consult. Wait, he’s busy panicking about being a terrible filmmaker. (If you haven’t seen the 70-minute YouTube review of The Phantom Menace, I recommend it.)

• Engadget reports the new iRex ereader is finally coming out, only four months late. This new model, the cutely named DR800SG, is notable because it costs less than $800, and it gives Engadget a chance to backhand the stupid Nook by calling the iRex “Barnes & Noble’s first big play in the space.” Since it has a stylus-driven touchscreen, file it under Y for Yet another reason not to get a QUE.

• TeleRead reports that the new agency pricing model for ebooks might not mean all that big a change for readers. That’s good, because raising prices makes for fewer sales, which could stifle ebooks (the best thing to happen to the publishing industry since, well, J.K. Rowling) before they fully get off the ground. And, for the record, publishing needs to stop listening to the music industry. Piracy is not the main reason for their decline, never has been, and does not discourage people from creating. So embrace ebooks and take the DRM off them, huh?

• And, finally, The Rapture, one of my favorite bands, says this about their upcoming release:

“Our new album’s gonna be fucking 100 times better than the iPad,” [band member Gabe Andruzzi] jokes. “With this record you’re going to be interfacing with your soul in ways that have never happened before.”

So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.

Bestselling author and mean mean jerk Douglas Preston

I just read this NY Times article (via) and I’m noticing a trend that’s really starting to infuriate me. It’s the use of the word “entitlement” by publishers and authors to describe their own customers.

In this article, author and complete jerk Douglas Preston ]]>

Bestselling author and mean mean jerk Douglas Preston

I just read this NY Times article (via) and I’m noticing a trend that’s really starting to infuriate me. It’s the use of the word “entitlement” by publishers and authors to describe their own customers.

In this article, author and complete jerk Douglas Preston is featured in this paragraph:

“The sense of entitlement of the American consumer is absolutely astonishing,” said Douglas Preston, whose novel “Impact” reached as high as No. 4 on The New York Times’s hardcover fiction best-seller list earlier this month. “It’s the Wal-Mart mentality, which in my view is very unhealthy for our country. It’s this notion of not wanting to pay the real price of something.”

This kind of thing drives me absolutely insane. The ebook release of Preston’s book is delayed by four months because Preston and his publishers want their hardcover money. According to those publishers, Impact‘s “real price” is $26. Speaking of entitlement.

But let’s see some peasants brandish pitchforks. Exactly what are the outrageously entitled Wal-Mart Americans saying? Here’s another paragraph from the article:

“I just don’t want to be extorted,” said Joshua Levitsky, a computer technician and Kindle owner in New York. “I want to pay what it’s worth. If it costs them nothing to print the paper book, which I can’t believe, then they should be the same price. But I just don’t see how it can be the same price.”

Hmm. That’s logical, sound, completely unentitled thinking. For years, publishers have been charging $20 or more for “hardcover” books, implying that some of that cost goes toward the actual production materials. Now, with ebooks, they’re trying to charge the same price for brand new ebooks as they charge for the outlandishly expensive hardcover editions.

The problem with this isn’t that customers are “entitled” to think they should get ebooks cheaper. The problem with this is that no publisher has yet advanced any logical explanation as to why the ebook editions SHOULDN’T be cheaper than the hardcovers. The burden of proof is on the publishers, and they haven’t convinced anybody.

Furthermore, it infuriates me when publishers think or believe that just because their pricing system has been a certain way in the past, that’s the way it should be forever. $26 is not the “real price” of a book. Dan Brown is not worth $26, Sarah Palin is not worth $26. And let’s face it, Douglas Preston isn’t worth $26. (You can just tell by his hair, can’t you?)

In reality, the hardcover of Impact goes for $14.29 at Amazon. If you want customers to pay more than $9.99 for the ebook edition, start by showing them a formula that goes something like this: [hardcover price] – [paper, ink, cardboard, and shipping costs] = [ebook price]. To sell a hardcover for $14 and then argue that the “real price” of the ebook version is up to $15…  sheer madness.

Now, I do think publishers should be able to set their own prices. I also think Macmillan is incredibly stupid to raise their prices $5 per ebook. I hope it brings them to their knees. Fine, though, it’s up to them.

But when rich, bestselling hack authors (Preston’s crapped out more than a dozen novels in the past decade) start insulting their own readers, things are taking a wrong turn. It’s not readers’ “absolutely astonishing sense of entitlement” that makes us think technological advancement should bring down production costs, it’s basic common sense. And no matter how many times publishers say ebooks are expensive to make, it will never make sense to charge the same amount.

You can only buy Wolf Hall and other Macmillan books through third-party sellers at Amazon.com (click for full-size)

Sony's Reader Store still stocks Macmillan books, and for the controversial $9.99 price point (click for full size)

[UPDATE: Amazon gave in, and will sell Macmillan books via the "agency model" Macmillan laid out. ]]>

You can only buy Wolf Hall and other Macmillan books through third-party sellers at Amazon.com (click for full-size)

Sony's Reader Store still stocks Macmillan books, and for the controversial $9.99 price point (click for full size)

[UPDATE: Amazon gave in, and will sell Macmillan books via the "agency model" Macmillan laid out. Which means Macmillan ebooks will cost $13-$15, even at Amazon. I'm putting the over/under on the date of Amazon's next major Kindle screw-up at March 15.]

So Amazon has barred all Macmillan books (print and digital) from its U.S. website after the publisher insolently disagreed with Amazon’s stringent pricing policies. Macmillan asked for either a different pricing structure or “windowing,” i.e. delayed ebook releases (Macmillan CEO John Sargent claims Amazon will make more money, and Macmillan will make less under the new structure, which confuses me). Amazon responded with the Macmillan ban.

You can still find Macmillan books at the Sony Reader Store, however, and you can find many selling for the $9.99 price point that started all this. I’m assuming either higher Macmillan prices or windowing is coming to Sony, but at least you can buy the books.

For the record, I think the entire hardcover pricing system is greedy and predatory; it’s essentially publishers milking their biggest fans’ excitement to make a few extra bucks. I think Macmillan’s making a big mistake in trying to preserve hardcover pricing, and refusing to fully embrace ebooks.

However, this Amazon move is thuggery of the first order, and it doesn’t feel like the stalemate will be resolved very quickly [UPDATE: Or maybe it will, what do I know] (or that it will be the last of its kind). The Macmillan ban combined with Amazon’s continued refusal to allow library ebooks on the Kindle makes one thing clear: Kindle is simply not the best ereader for book readers. If you read mostly books, get a Sony Reader or an Astak Pocket Pro. If you read mostly newspapers or magazines, get an iPad. [UPDATE: Amazon's cave-in brings the Kindle back to the realm of relevancy for book readers. But it still comes with too many questionable corporate decisions for my taste.]

I’m just not sure who the Kindle is for.

[More Macmillan/Amazon analysis by Edward Champion, E-Reads, Ars Technica, and the Guardian.]

There’s been some kerfuffle recently about Amazon losing two dollars on every ebook they sell. Publishers are arguing, among other things, that $9.99 ebooks will lead to authors not writing books. Other ebookstores are calling Amazon’s price point “

Say goodbye to paying an extra $15 for two pieces of cardboard

There’s been some kerfuffle recently about Amazon losing two dollars on every ebook they sell. Publishers are arguing, among other things, that $9.99 ebooks will lead to authors not writing books. Other ebookstores are calling Amazon’s price point “predatory.” Frankly, I don’t buy too much of that, nor the whispers that ebook retailers will have to raise prices. And I’m more than a little skeptical about the $2 loss figure.

Instead, I see all this as evidence that the hardcover is dying. The $25 hardcover book is every bit as unsustainable in a digital world as $18 CDs were ten years ago. And good riddance. It’s a terrible business model that will only lead to entrenchment in non-digital strategies and financial heartache for the publishing industry.

Let’s take a closer look.

Numbers point to publishing clinging to hardcover business model

I’m by no means a publishing expert, but here’s what these much-ballyhooed numbers say to me. The $2 loss per book figure is based on reports that publishers are hardlining Amazon and wholesaling ebooks for $12 each. If you were to add in a bookstore cut of 40% of retail price, that means the publishers expect Amazon to sell these ebooks for $20. That’s a “hardcover ebook” price, and entirely ridiculous.

Amazon was built on selling cheaper books thanks to lower overhead. They essentially killed the idea of full-priced new release hardcovers, and now most bookstores offer at least 10% to 20% off the ticket price.

$9.99 ebooks are the natural evolution of that business model. Ten bucks makes perfect sense as a price point for the digital edition of a paperback, a few dollars less than the print version. The publishers’ problem is that they want their hardcover money, which also shows up in their new plan to delay the release of ebook editions for four months, which essentially pushes them back into paperback territory and preserves the false scarcity of the hardcover version.

Publishers even claim that, without money from hardcover sales, authors won’t be able to write good books anymore. (That one makes me laugh. By my estimate, 99.9% of books published are mediocre to terrible. But don’t get me started on quality.)

All this adds up to publishers believing that hardcover sales are the lynchpin of their entire business, and will be forever. That means that, in an industry that’s slowly dying (and needs saving), profitability is only achieved by milking the enthusiasm of their biggest fans. By these publishers’ rationale, the whole industry is based on hardcore fans not wanting to wait a few months for a half-priced paperback edition, and publishers inflating new-release prices. That’s frightening.

The greener pastures of ebook publishing

For argument’s sake, let me propose a business model that embraces ebooks and rejects the notion that publishers can’t profit without hardcovers.

Accept the fact that you’re going to wholesale ebooks for, let’s say, $6 per copy, and Amazon will then sell them for $10. Six bucks is a dollar more than TBI Research’s proposed ebook wholesale price, and makes the gross profit, according to their calculations, almost the same as the print model, within about 10%. Ten percentage points sounds pretty good to me for a stable digital model in a time of transition.

Also, TBI’s numbers assume that 90% of print copies are sold, which is high. With digital book sales, loss on unsold copies is much lower, and that takes out a lot of the risk of the current print model, in which profits on hardcover bestsellers subsidize losses on back-catalog misses.

The ebook model also has the double bonus of encouraging people to buy books and not punishing their biggest fans with inflated initial prices. The publishing industry isn’t doing enough of that kind of thing.

The long and the short of this is that ebooks will be profitable in different ways than print books. Different business models and practices will have to be developed to make epublishing work. And the sooner major publishing houses stop whining about losing hardcover money and embrace digital books, the more money they’ll make.

News of the $9.99 ebook’s death has been greatly exaggerated

I also don’t think Amazon is losing money, overall, on ebooks. I don’t know the extent of the $12 wholesale pricing, but I would guess it’s limited to fresh, new, hardcover bestsellers. I’m sure they buy plenty of older ebooks for less than $12, and I think they’re making plenty of money.

When BooksOnBoard’s Bob Livolsi called Amazon’s price point “predatory,” I think he was misdirecting the blame for all this. His argument was: “It’s an attack on literature so Amazon can control the industry.” Of course, it’s not an attack on literature, but it could be construed as an attack on non-Amazon ebookstores and ereader producers. Wal-Mart does the same thing with Mom and Pop stores, they sell everything below cost until the competition is forced to close its doors.

I’m going to do something I rarely do, and give Amazon the benefit of the doubt. I think they’re trying to put pressure on publishers to lower wholesale costs for ebooks, which is actually good because Amazon’s the only one with enough market clout to effect a change. Of course, Amazon won’t commit entirely to these negotiations, because that would involve refusing to buy books for $12 wholesale, and they want to keep their high percentage of “bestsellers available for Kindle” intact.

There’s also nothing to guarantee that Amazon won’t lock in exclusive preferential wholesale prices, and leave third parties like Livolsi out of the loop. But for now, the publishing industry needs the greatest possible incentive to embrace ebooks and leave their hardcover pricing schemes behind.

Besides, even Amazon’s print hardcover prices wouldn’t support buying books wholesale for $12 each. The top two bestselling print books on Amazon right now are (shudder, shudder) Going Rogue, priced at $14.50, and The Lost Symbol, at $12. Both are hardcovers, both were recently published (Palin’s just a month ago), and each one’s “list price” is more than twice what it’s actually selling for. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Amazon’s buying both of these for less than $12 wholesale, and that not a single person in the country paid full list price for them.

Imagine if the record industry forced customers to pay $29 for an LP of a new album, and didn’t release the mp3s until four months later. It’s ridiculous because it flouts the realities of modern media technology. Adapting to new technology is like adapting language: just because “irregardless” rubs you the wrong way, that doesn’t mean it’s not in the dictionary. You can say it’s not a word, but you’re wrong.

Independent epublishers are already making money (and paying higher royalty percentages) selling $10 ebooks through storefronts like Fictionwise, which takes 40% of the retail price. If they can do it, why not Random House?

And, for the record, none of this means that hardcovers are going to disappear. If publishers embrace ebook first-runs, they’ll still be able to sell their precious hardcovers, but as an option for hardcore fans instead of a way to shake down avid readers whom they’ve got over a barrel. Just like LPs.