NPR’s Terry Gross interviews Ken Auletta about the future of ebooks.
This transcript makes for interesting reading
but nothing those of us in the epub world haven’t already thought about and discussed.
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=126196977
For me, probably the most significant segment of the interview is when Mr. Auletta discusses Amazon’s 80% market share and then goes on to talk about the arrangement publishing houses made with Steve Jobs before the release of the iPad, to allow them to set what’s called an agency model - essentially allowing them to set the price points - which are higher than Amazon’s. Here’s a quote from Mr. Auletta:
“Steve Jobs will go along with that for at least one year, and obviously there’s a question whether he will continue beyond a year at that pricing. But that pricing is going to be, instead of $9.99 as Amazon was doing, it’s going to range between 12 and $15, let’s say.
And what happened is that Amazon did not want to go along, but five of the six major publishers, who publish 60 percent of all the hardcover books, squeezed Amazon, and with the backing of Apple, and with the coming backing of Google Google said that they would go along with the so-called agency model as well Amazon was forced to surrender and agree to that as well.”
My opinion? Consumers of ebooks will be unwilling to pay that higher price. I suspect higher prices will encourage pirate sites and file sharing…not in anyone’s best interest. I also suspect the inflated prices will go by the wayside in a year or so.
***Interesting stuff: Rebecca over at her site, Dirty Sexy Books, responded to requests to follow up her posts regarding what authors do wrong on their websites by writing a funny, insightful post about what book bloggers do wrong on their websites! This makes for very entertaining reading! Rebecca and the hilarious ladies over at Smokin’ Hot Books have become my go-to sites when it comes to new books, old books and what’s going on around the blogosphere. Why? Because these women are funny, responsive and informative. They come across as regular human beings who love to read, and their sites are easy on the eyes.
http://smokinhotbooks.com/blog/
***The Romantic Times Convention starts tomorrow in Ohio. Quite a few authors I know will be there. Hopefully they will have loads of fun and if they have specific goals…success! I’ll be attending next year when the convention is in L.A. Waaaay closer than Ohio!
