I envisage a model where authors employ an agent who then subcontracts editing, marketing, retailing and any other required support services, but the author sets the price of the book through the agent and receives the entire amount minus the cost of those services and the agent’s commission. I think this likely future is why publishers are so afraid of ebooks. Self-publication is already possible online.

Fictionwise (before being bought and strangled by B&N) had successfully offered ebook titles for very low prices, with a significant membership discount and weekly specials. Re-issue of older titles should be possible at a very low price. Encourage people to buy backlist titles, by discounting them heavily. Get more value out of your older titles this way, as people become interested in those authors and buy more of your backlist. As for new books, Fictionwise offered all NYT best-sellers at $9.99, which I think was a good marketing strategy. There’s no reason for ebooks to be anything like the price of hard-copy books. The price of hard-copy books reflects many people’s efforts between the author and the reader, plus transport costs, storage and display costs, and enormous wastage in unsold titles. Ebooks are an opportunity for publishers to offer books at really affordable prices, following the example of the music industry. I look at my older music CDs and shudder at how much I paid for each of them, but I can get a whole album now for less than half that price, and that’s not even factoring in inflation. This has worked for the music industry, because the online platform has increased the market. Publishers need to follow this model. They can also add value (embedded media, interactive media, subscriptions etc.) to an ebook.

Currently, I’ll pay $9.99 if the title is something I absolutely must have, but otherwise I’m looking for titles at $5 or less. There’s less work for the publisher, more risk for me (formats losing support, inconsistent authentication systems, the need to backup and manage the file) and it’s certainly worked for book retailers online.

BTW, while we’re talking about the technological burden of being Australian, how about Amazon’s Whispernet charges? Even though I don’t have a Kindle, so I’m downloading purchased books through my own Internet account to the Kindle app on my laptop or iPhone, I get charged the Whispernet fee for the Kindle’s “free” wireless delivery system. This fee is not shown in the book price. If you live outside the U.S. (like most of the world), you pay $2-3 per title.

I, like Kristina, have contemplated doing the illegal downloading option. I would much rather pay an Australian based company a fair price for a book.

Like Janette I appreciate that the work an author puts in to a book doesn’t change regardless of the format. So, why should the author’s cut get changed??

Surely some Aussie companies can get serious and start providing ebooks by Australian & overseas authors at reasonable prices? And not this 100 or 200 books – there should be tens of thousands of books for me to choose from – after all, if they’re available elsewhere in the world why not here?

By the way – what’ are your thoughts about what is a “fair” price for a book?

Julie

I’ve been looking at the options over the last few days and I’m not impressed. I can buy a kindle or Kobo or whatever but they have restrictions. I can get a Bebook, which seems better for file options, but then my content is still restricted. I can get an iphone and keep one device on hand and live with the deficiencies but I’m still restricted on content. I was actually getting a little grumpy. I fancied a B’Day pressie for myself.

So I poked about some and searched a lot… multiple sites for a particular author to see what and where, still pretty depressing. Some but not all and not earlier or latest (which seems odd) and the price is not all that good either.

Then one of my Googles turned up an alternate way…. I had a peek at bittorrent, what was involved how to… and the risks, albeit minor. Not an option I especially like, but….I can get almost anything, especially recent release titles. For example the author I looked for, the entire list (a dozen books in one download with the latest to be added shortly). Naughty? Yes, not really me at all. But I am like Helen not at all impressed by the practices of the industry so I may go black and search the dark side and thumb my nose at these fools that think they can sit back and it will all go away. Get it together quickly people or you will be steamrollered. If I can go to Amazon and buy a CD or mp3 at appropriate price differences I expect to do the same with books. Learn from that guys or scramble as your business slides even more quickly than it is now. Film went from dominant to almost non existent in about 5 years.

I for one would not go to Amazon or whoever if there was an alternative here. I like being Australian, I like living here, but sometimes I want to throw things against the wall in frustration. Don’t make me smash my Rosenthal cat.

Kristina

As an example, Keri Arthur writes a range of fiction books, some based specifically in Australian cities. She is an Australian author. I used to be able to buy her books on Fictionwise, and bought the earlier books in five separate series of hers. After the sudden imposition of “geographic limitations”, I can’t buy any more books in those series.

I wonder what Ms. Arthur thinks about this.

Like Helen, I’m a keen reader who has had the door slammed in her face by booksellers, simply for being Australian. How is this is a good commercial decision? As I’ve said in a previous comment, I can’t read hard-copy books anyway. So I’m not going to buy them, regardless of the availability of ebooks.

However I think there is another way to look at it for publishers — that new technology has the potential to remove them — the middlemen — from the picture entirely, with authors selling

This may explain some of the delay, IMHO.

apparently the people running these companies must have a major fear-of-change complex.