3 Responses to “New Interview up on IO9. And Diane Duane mishap!”

1. Steve 12/01/15 21:27

   

   Robin, I’ve purchased *all* of your books (first in paper, then on Kindle) and was ready to buy City of Dragons when Amazon sent me the email. But then I saw that the Kindle edition is $14.99, v. the hardcover at $17.53. This simply doesn’t make sense, and I’m drawing the line here. Sorry to say I won’t download anything else at this price; your publisher appears to be underwriting their paper business with the e-business, and it doesn’t make economic or ecological sense.

2. Robin Hobb 12/01/16 18:27

   

   Well, every person has a price in mind for every book, regardless if it’s on paper, pixels or audiotape. Only you can determine what you are willing to pay for story. But I don’t think that comparing an e-book price to a paper price is quite fair. Nor do I think we can really separate books into ‘paper business’ and ‘e-business.’ Here is the real question we have to think about: If the paper book did not exist, what price would you consider fair for the e-book? Whatever your answer is, I respect it. Some authors, I’d shell out $30 to read the story right away. Others I’m happy to wait and pick up the book off the discount table, or even at the second hand store. What I’m buying, really, is the story. And each reader has to decide what that is worth to him or her.

   For many years, paper books subsidized e-books. E-books were almost an ‘after market’ item. First the hardback, then the paper back came out, and they paid the publishers initial investment to create the book. Then the e-book came out, at a much cheaper price, for a much smaller market, as a sort of final gasp.

   But now, as the e-book market has begun to boom, people want the e-book to be available the same day as the hardback. So the e-book must carry its shareof the costs of the initial creation of the book. That is, the e-book has to help pay for the author’s advance, the editor’s salary, the rent for a publishing office in New York, the copy editor’s salary, the expense for computers, electricity, running water, internet, etc in those offices, the assisstant editor’s salary, the website, the cover artists, etc. etc. And of course, there is the advertising that promotes all forms of the book. Because a publishing house needs all those things to create ANY sort of a book, paper, audio or pixel. That’s what it takes to get a story ready to read; at that stage, there is no difference between hardback and e-book in terms of the publisher’s cost.

   True, the paper book will eventually have additional expenses, such as warehousing and shipping and printing, but an e-book also has expenses the paper version does not share. Formatting and servers and middlemen like Amazon all take a bite.

   As we move more and more toward e-books, we will undoubtedly see price adjustments, but I’m not entirely sure which direction those prices will move. It’s an interesting world that we are living in now, one of great change for all of us. All we can do, readers and writers, is move with the tide.

3. Lindsay 12/01/17 11:13

   

   Thanks for the explanation of the ebook stuff. I’ve wondered about the pricing decisions surrounding the format, and it was nice to understand what’s what from someone who knows.