It's not to the minimal level
you see trade eBooks — it's much more in depth; there are lots of metadata and taxonomies built into the eBook files and very proprietary HTML and CSS approaches to things.
Not exact matches
I'll grant you that HB authors will
see their advances split into groupings that recognize there will be MORE money down the line when
trade or mm comes out, but that doesn't equate — to me — with the scenario you've come up for
ebook royalty payments being considered an «advance» when paid after publication.
I myself have
seen this if a book's in transition from, say,
trade or hardcover to mass market and the
ebook price hasn't been adjusted yet; I had it happen when a Tanya Huff book I wanted made the jump from hardcover to mass market.
I've
seen examples on Amazon where the
ebooks are actually MORE EXPENSIVE than new paper copies (primarily with
trade paperbacks).
Hmm, going back to what my Tech Guy mentioned about a good
ebook price being 75 % of the paper version, I wonder if some of the difference we
see at the higher end is the publisher comparing the price to a hardcover or
trade paperback version rather than the mass paperback format.
The trend of more moderate growth for
ebooks in the U.S. in 2012 continued in Sept. as sales of adult
trade ebooks were up 30.7 %, much less than the triple - digit sales growth
seen in
ebooks in previous years.
Amazon's original $ 9.99 price point for an
ebook now seems generous compared to the sorts of pricing
seen in various markets and sectors, particularly as the self - publishing wing has used ultra-low pricing to try to attract readers from
trade offerings.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., the 204 - year - old publishing house that has known a few great names in its day (think Edgar Allan Poe, for example),
saw a threefold rise in its
ebook sales in the first three quarters of this year, which still only brought the percentage of their professional and
trade sales in digital format up to eleven percent.
There are some
trade - offs (again,
see below), but your
ebook needs to be in a format that can be sold and read as widely as possible to enjoy success.
There is a slight rise in the indie
eBook author category and most of them can now be
seen in various
trading and publishing sites.
If
Ebooks were indeed sustaining and just a format change, we should be
seeing the old order of
trade publishing flourishing, we are not, our bookstores are dying.
With the combination of tablets and digital content sold, U.S.
trade publishers
see 7.2 % increase of their print and
eBook export sales of 2011.
Since then, however, Nielsen will report Thursday, the
trade has
seen «a slow erosion in both
ebook and print unit sales.»
Coker
sees the growth of
ebooks accounting for close to 30 % of the overall
trade market in the U.S..
Furthermore, when you look at the pricing models that
trade ebooks have engendered in the market, you
see that publishers have allowed pricing to be controlled by forces that are looking to control over an emerging market rather than those who need to fund the content creation.
Hachette — currently the world's third largest
trade publisher, according to Publishers Weekly — has tried to tackle this by acquiring three video - game companies over the last two years, Nourry said, in order to tap talent from different industries and «
see how we can nurture one another and how we can go beyond the
ebook on digital».
This can be
seen in their excellent Trader Education resources which include a comprehensive library of
trading related
EBooks, Multimedia and an interactive Economic Calendar as well as their daily signals service.