News
Nourry's e-book fears rejected by publishers
03.09.09 | Catherine Neilan
UK publishers have dismissed claims made by Hachette Livre chief executive Arnaud Nourry that they are “very hostile” towards Amazon’s policy of pricing frontlist e-books at $9.99 (£6.15).
Earlier this week, Nourry was quoted by the Financial Times as saying unilateral pricing by Amazon, and other retailers such as Barnes & Noble could destroy profits and kill off hardback editions, predicting that eventually the losses would be passed onto publishers. Hachette UK declined to comment, but other publishers disagreed with Nourry’s stance.
Bloomsbury executive director Richard Charkin said: “I don’t think it’s for us to be hostile to someone else’s strategy—it’s a free market. Of course he has a point, but in the Anglo-Saxon world, as opposed to the French, these things tend to work themselves out in the marketplace.”
He acknowledged retailers “can’t go on losing money” but stressed the writing was not yet on the wall. “Who knows what they will do? It depends how competitive the market becomes. We hope there will be many routes, and one of them will almost certainly be Amazon.”
Canongate digital editor Dan Franklin argued that “with e-books, publishers are calling the shots—through metadata, we price it one way and that’s the way it’s sold”. However he acknowledged this would change “as bigger retailers come on board”.
Franklin added current pricing structures were “not ideal”, as readers “just don’t see how it’s justifiable for publishers to charge as much for hardback as for e-books”.
He said publishers should be “more dynamic”, creating different editions so that e-books and hardbacks do not compete directly. In particular, Franklin suggested cutting content from selected non-fiction e-books “so you can justify having it at a lower price” or creating “deluxe” print versions.
Oxford University Press vice-president of global business development Evan Schnittman agreed it was likely that Amazon’s losses would eventually be passed over to publishers, but said there was a solution. He said: “We need demand-based pricing so that e-books start at one price and then settle into a backlist price when peak demand has ebbed.”
Schnittman added: “If retailers want bestsellers to be priced at $9.99, then they need to create some sort of ‘e-book co-op’ programme that effectively swaps in-store marketing for added discount.”
Comments on this article
By Bob Mcbob
Good for Amazon. About time the big publishers woke up to the fact e-book pricing is so out-of-step with what people are willing to pay. Digital publishing isl changing the way things are being done; those that cling to the old pricing models will suffer04 Sep 09 11:09
By Max
‘“with e-books, publishers are calling the shots— through metadata, we price it one way and that’s the way it’s sold”’. I really wonder what Dan Franklin means by that since most eBook retailers are not bound to charge the end consumer the rrp that is informed by the publishers in the metadata.08 Sep 09 15:13
By Morris Rosenthal
The Financial Times ran a front page story about Nourry, and I sent them the following letter which they didn't print:-) In your front page article Monday “Hachette Chief Laments…” you qoute Arnaud Nourry as stating Amazon charges $9.95 for of all of its Kindle eBooks in the US, and “the rest will have to be sold between zero and $9.95.” If Mr. Nourry had spent five minutes on the Amazon site, he would know that $9.95 is only the price for bestsellers from participating publishers. Prices for Kindle ebooks range from zero to over $100, with most nonfiction and professional books barely discounted from the paper book price. Around 5% of the popular Kindle titles are out-of-print classics supplied by Amazon itself, but many of the top “selling” free and penny eBooks are actually promotional give-aways from innovative presses and self publishers. The small clique of large fiction houses that remain after the consolidation of the last three decades, a consolidation in which Mr. Nourry played an active role, are simply flustered that the cartel they were trying to build themselves has been pulled out from under them by the more agile Internet players: Amazon, Google Books and Apple iTunes. These same large publishers also played a major role in the retailer consolidation of the 1990’s, in which Barnes&Noble and Borders grew rapidly at the expense of the independent bookshops, thanks to co-op payments from the large fiction houses. Now that Amazon has surpassed Borders and Barnes&Noble, the publishers are belatedly learning that cartels aren’t so fun when you aren’t the one in charge. The next time Mr. Nourry wants sympathy for the predicament the large fiction houses have created for themselves, he should turn to the investment bankers who funded his acquisitions and the consultants who agreed that it was a topping idea. Those of us who earn our livings as authors and small publishers can only say, “We told you so,” and “Serves you right!” In the meantime, I suggest he keeps a copy of Chris Anderson’s “Free: The Future of a Radical Price ” by his bedside, and pleasant dreams to him. Morris Rosenthal11 Sep 09 13:48
By Maya Reynolds
***Franklin added current pricing structures were “not ideal”, as readers “just don’t see how it’s justifiable for publishers to charge as much for hardback as for e-books”.*** I suspect you may have misquoted Dan Franklin. Readers find it difficult that publishers want to charge as much for e-books as they do for hardbacks. Traditional publishers continue to try to support the hardback prices while e-books cost less to release.13 Sep 09 18:29
