Publishers Delay E-book Releases

A number of book publishers are beginning to adopt the sales model of the movie industry, where DVD releases are delayed until months after theatrical release. The equivalent of the theatrical release in the book world is the hardcover launch. Some publishers are noting that releasing e-books simultaneously with hardcovers of best sellers has led to canibalization of hardcover sales, with the digital releases, which sell for much less, yielding less profit margin.

Yesterday, Simon & Schuster announced that digital editions of around 30 works to be published in the first half of 2010 will not be sold until four months after the hardcover. Books affected by the move include novels by Don DeLillo and Mary Higgins Clark and Karl Rove’s memoir.
A spokesperson for Hachette Book Group USA said they will delay a "wide selection" of e-books in 2010, and HarperCollins is planning on delaying digital version of from five to ten titles per month, beginning next year.

Online retailers such as Barnes and Nobles, Amazon and others regularly sell digital releases of best selling books for $9.99, a price which publishers and authors are worried about. The e-books do add to sales for older and less mainstream books, and readers of an author’s latest work are often stirred to seek out and buy an author’s backlist, or previous works.

Amazon argues that it must stock new releases in all available formats, since a book has the highest visibility and publicity at it’s launch date. I tend to agree. But why not raise the e-book price to a level that publishers and authors are comfortable with? As the percentage of sales from e-books grow, this will need to happen. For now, Amazon, with it’s proprietary Kindle format, simply has too much control of the market.