At first I simply felt a wave of sympathy for those authors who found their familiar world swept away, particularly those authors who had books that were supposed to come out this fall and were in the middle of marketing campaigns designed around
traditional trade paperbacks and brick and mortar stores.
Not exact matches
Trade paperback prices are normal traditional publication prices for trade paperbacks in the size range indic
Trade paperback prices are normal
traditional publication prices for
trade paperbacks in the size range indic
trade paperbacks in the size range indicated.
While
traditional publishers (actually, the top end publishers) are fighting over business and legal issues, like any big business, you adapt and work with what works — eBooks still represent a minority in sales, but it is rapidly catching up to print, and by all accounts, has already passed hardcover (which has been in decline in a slow death since the advent of
paperbacks and
trade paperbacks in the 40s and 50s).
It turns out that e-books are not cannibalizing hardcover and
trade paperback sales, as publishers» once feared, though mass market
paperbacks — which are often published much later than their hardback counterparts, and sold mostly in more
traditional retail environments like drugstores — have been negatively impacted.
The price of
trade paperbacks tends to have a narrower price difference between the e-book and
traditional book versions.
Publishers have begun releasing
trade paperbacks sooner than the
traditional one - year period after the release of the hardcover, leaving the mass - market
paperback even further behind.
Compared to the craziness that
traditional publishers do to produce a
trade paperback, indie publishers have it very simple.
Standard royalties via
traditional publishers (note: these may vary): Hardcover: 10 % retail, sometimes escalating to 15 % after sales thresholds are met
Trade paperback: 7.5 % retail Mass market: 8 % retail E-book: 25 % net (usually translates to 17.5 % retail)
The Long Tail: The importance of
trade paperback collections for the long term viability of a series is undeniable and I think that trend is going to continue as the market keeps expanding beyond
traditional comic shops.