“An e-book should cost 50 cents,”

Tomorrow I head out for three weeks in Kenya, Tanzania, and London--researching and allowing my soul to grow in Africa and then hawking my latest at the Historical Novel Society conference in London.  To the extent that my internet connections allow, I will apprise you of my progress as I go along.  In the meanwhile, discussions I have had with readers and writers in the last couple of weeks have encouraged me to return to this post from three and half years ago.  As predicted, the situation is worse now than it was then.  The US government has sued publishers, giving even more power to Amazon, and Amazon is "renting" ebooks of current novels free of charge to their "Premier" members.  The members pay Amazon $75 a year for the privilege and, of course, pay Amazon for the Kindle on which they read.  Authors and publisher get zilch.  OY. OY. OY!!!

…the woman at the gym said to me and a couple of others. We had just taken an exercise class together and were chatting as we changed to go out into cold and windy mid-February New York. “I mean,” she went on, “it doesn’t cost anything to produce.” The person who was speaking is a grownup who lives on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan. She reads a lot, so presumably she is capable of more subtle thought than she was displaying at the moment. She had been touting reading on a Kindle to one of our group who was about to head out on a vacation away from the sleet and slush. The main advantage the speaker saw in the electronic book reader was that one can carry so many books so easily. That e-books cost less than print copies made up for the cost of the Kindle, she thought. Then she dropped that bomb about 50 cents being the appropriate price for an e-book.

I spoke up to defend the rights of the writer. I even defended the right of the publisher to make a profit for taking the considerable trouble to publish the book. Once I pointed out that a writer had probably spent two years working on the book and deserved get more recompense than such a price would afford, and that publishers had to maintain offices and pay editors, the 50-cent-lady changed her tune. The discussion then turned to an even more difficult subject. One of the company had heard that only the most successful authors make more than a pittance for their work. Why do they do it, they asked me. By then I had revealed my profession.

Fact is that if authors don’t get a decent cut of the income from the sale of electronic books, our plight is going to get worse and faster than was predicted even just a year ago. A couple of days after that discussion at the gym, I received an email from The Authors Guild outlining the impact of e-book sales on authors’ royalties. The story isn't pretty. Quoted here is what the Guild said:

E-book royalty rates for major trade publishers have coalesced, for the moment, at 25% of the publisher’s receipts. As we’ve pointed out previously, this is contrary to longstanding tradition in trade book publishing, in which authors and publishers effectively split the net proceeds of book sales (that's how the industry arrived at the standard hardcover royalty rate of 15% of list price). Among the ills of this radical pay cut is the distorting effect it has on publishers’ incentives: publishers generally do significantly better on e-book sales than they do on hardcover sales. Authors, on the other hand, always do worse.

How much better for the publisher and how much worse for the author? Here are examples of authors’ royalties compared to publishers’ gross profit (income per copy minus expenses per copy), calculated using industry-standard contract terms:

“The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett
Author’s Standard Royalty: $3.75 hardcover; $2.28 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -39%
Publisher’s Margin: $4.75 hardcover; $6.32 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +33%

“Hell’s Corner,” by David Baldacci
Author's Standard Royalty: $4.20 hardcover; $2.63 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -37%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.80 hardcover; $7.37 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +27%

“Unbroken,” by Laura Hillenbrand
Author’s Standard Royalty: $4.05 hardcover; $3.38 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -17%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.45 hardcover; $9.62 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +77%

So, everything else being equal, publishers will naturally have a strong bias toward e-book sales.

We can suppose that the future will belong more and more to e-book formats. If publishers continue find them so much more profitable than printed books, they will push change even faster.

Much as I love the tactile experience of reading what I still call “a real book,” I have begun to buy e-books too and to read them on an iPad. I like it that the device is backlit, which allows me to read in the dark, since I am often awake in the night and turning on the light would wake my husband. I love it that if I am reading to research a story, I can highlight and write notes on the text quite magically. And I have to say, that I do like the lower price.

But now having seen the Authors Guild’s numbers on the subject, I feel guilty depriving my fellow authors of a fair share of the profits from their work. Predicting how all this will work out is a favorite game in every corner of the publishing industry these days. For my part, I am counting on organizations like the Guild, Mystery Writers of America, and other author advocacy groups to press for authors' rights. In the meanwhile, I am grateful to the Guild for giving me information to set the record straight when the subject comes up, even if it's just in response to uninformed opinions in casual discussions at the gym.

By the way, the following week, one of the other people who overheard our conversation brought in a hardcover copy of one of my books and asked me to autograph it. Now there is something you can't do with an e-book!

Annamaria Alfieri

I, Er, Couldn't Put it Down

You've probably heard about the words and phrases you can use to write a job reference for someone in whose suitability for employment you have no actual confidence. "I can recommend this person without qualification," you can say. "You'll be lucky to get him to work for you." I thought of that on Saturday, when I read Dear Abby's newspaper column. The writer complained that her best friend's husband had written a novel and self-published it on Amazon. It was terrible on many levels, as she discovered when they asked her to read it and submit a glowing five-star review.

Sometimes one finds oneself in such a predicament. Many people have brothers-in-law or childhood friends who produce terrible novels and then insist that all their relatives and childhood friends review them on Amazon. This happens quite frequently now that self-publishing is so easy.

Fortunately for me, my friends and acquaintances are all good writers, and my relatives don't write books. Not everyone is so lucky, however. As I was reading the Dear Abby column it struck me that it would be in the public interest to design an all-purpose review you can use if ever you are backed into a corner. Any additions you can think of will be welcome; post them in the comments. The five stars are optional, but your brother-in-law will love them.

[BOOK TITLE] * * * * *

I can recommend [BOOK TITLE] without qualification. [AUTHOR] has produced an astonishing work of fiction, one that will live in my memory for a long time. This is quite a book. I couldn't put it down. (Fast enough.)

[Mention the name of the main character, and as much of the plot as you could stand to read.]

A real page turner. If [BOOK TITLE] is the sort of thing you like, you're sure to like this book.

Kate Gallison

My Amazon Conflict

I am writing this blog post on November 3. On October 26, I wrote the following letter to Jeff Bezos.

Dear Mr. Bezos:

My husband's cell phone was stolen yesterday. He got a replacement today.

I have been calling your customer service department since October 11 because thousands of archived items are not showing up on my Kindles which are in synch with one another. Still I have not been presented with a solution. Getting my Kindle problem solved has become a second job. This seems monstrously unfair since most of my disposable income is disposed of on Amazon.com.

My primary Kindle displays all of my items (I have around 4, 800) but another only displays 1,026. I have had multiple conversations with countless Amazon employees over the past 15 days. I have had to repeat my story over and over again. I have spent minutes I'll never get back on hold. I have been told multiple times that the issue has been "escalated." Now at my office when an issue is escalated it means one person stops everything else she's doing to resolve it. I believe Phil escalated my problem on October 18th. Alas, when I talked with Brian on October 23, he told me my service ticket had not been touched "for a couple of days."

Last night I spoke with Edmund. Though I begged to be spared another recital of my tale of woe, I finally realized there was no way around it. I told my story and he transferred me to his supervisor. She explained that in order to transfer me to someone who could help me, she would have to call me back. She confirmed my number, called me back and put me on hold. The call dropped. I was not discouraged because she had confirmed my number and I assumed she would call me back. I guess my expectations were too high. I was just not willing to call again and tell my story one more time to five people on the unlikely chance I might get an answer. And the hold music! NOOO!

Yes, I told my husband, it's time to write to Jeff. I love your company. I am physically disabled (I walk with two canes) and the Kindle has changed my life. I no longer have to worry about whether a book I want to read is too heavy to be carted back and forth to work. I'm able to carry a whole library with me. I can't tell you how wonderful that makes me feel. Many of my friends have bought Kindles because of my near manic enthusiasm for it. I bought my first Kindle in 2009, but I've been an Amazon customer since 2006. I have bought traditional books, 4 CD players which hold a total of 1200 CDs (need I mention that I bought many of the CDs at Amazon), miscellaneous items and numerous gift certificates so that other people can discover on their own how wonderful Amazon is.

The Amazon staff to whom I've spoken have been unfailingly courteous, but only occasionally competent. Surely I deserve a customer service experience that matches my loyalty.

 Sincerely,

Stephanie Patterson

The letter got results. I heard from an Amazon employee who told me he was responding on behalf of Jeff Bezos. He sent an email, left a vmm and sent another email to make sure I got the voice mail message. He asked when might be a good time to call me. I said Friday, November 1 at 7PM. He confirmed the time and did not call. I forwarded the employee's confirmation of our appointment to Jeff Bezos and ever so casually mentioned that I hadn't gotten a call.

I hope by the time this blogpost appears, all will be well. I want all my Kindles to hold those 4,000 items (which I might mention include books by Annamaria Alfieri, Kate Gallison, Bob Knightly, David F. Nighberg and Sheila York), And I want to maintain a good relationship with Amazon. Even before the Kindle appeared I was a great customer. One of my train buddies told me she figured out where I lived when she saw a collection of Amazon boxes on a porch. And Kindle is once more wooing me (and millions of others) by offering very reduced prices on
Kindle editions of selected books if a customer bought a hardcover or paperback version from Amazon. Be still my heart!

But I won't wait forever. Barnes and Noble sent me an update on electronic devices that they will be selling at the end of the year. Don't make me buy a Nook, Jeff. Don't make me buy a Nook.

© 2013 Stephanie Patterson