e-Book Prices Dropping

Money is the topic this week. After reporting a $138 million loss for the fourth quarter of 2000, Barnesandnoble.com.,the leading online seller of electronic books from Gemstar, Adobe, and Microsoft, announced 350 layoffs this week. The company's eBook operations do not appear to have been affected by the layoffs. Press speculation in response to the announcement centered on the possibility that Barnes & Noble, which owns 40% of spinoff Barnesandnoble.com, will reabsorb the company.

The high price of ebooks is surfacing again with some action finally being taken by some large publishing houses. Simon & Schuster will offer the electronic versions of both of M.J. Rose's novels, Lip Service and In Fidelity, for only $4.95, far below the softcover price of $13.95. Del Rey Books also said that it will publish original Star Wars eBooks, beginning with Darth Maul: Saboteur, for only $1.99. Both announcements come on the heels of a promise from Barnes & Noble.com's new digital publishing division to limit prices on its original eBooks to $7.95. This is an unusual move as most p-book publishers feared that reducing the prices of their electronic editions would cannibalize their print versions.

More on the subject of money, Stephen King announced this week that he made better than $450,000 dollars on the first six chapters of The Plant. Not bad. The project cost King $721,449 but after expenses he netted almost half a million dollars! And that was from voluntary payments. I'll bet King can't wait to find the time to write another six chapters.

Following King's example, but probably not as profitably, other "branded authors" are considering publishing electronically. E-Books by Patricia Cornwell, Walter Mosley, Dean Koontz, James Ellroy, Robert Jordan, and Elmore Leonard will soon be finding their way to your computer screen, according to USA Today. I'll bet they will be happy to write a whole book for half a million dollars.

More ebook news follows.

2001 Eppie Award Finalists Announced

Jeff Strand, secretary of the Electronically Published Internet Connection (EPIC), recently unveiled the finalists for the group's Eppie 2001 Awards. Four to six eBooks will compete in each of 18 categories for the coveted Eppies, which are to be handed out in Las Vegas on March 17. http://www.ebooknet.com/story.jsp?id=4892

-------------- An ePublisher's Creative Querying Tips

Looking for a good way to get your novel rejected by an ePublisher? Try ignoring the submission guidelines, attaching a deadline to your query, submitting anonymously, and including half a dozen other publishers in the CC: line of your email. Now, what are the best ways to get that novel accepted? Columnist Melinda Rucker Haynes asks Silke Juppenplatz of Dreams

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic