J.K. Rowling is stupid for no ebooks [Archive]

OneAngryDwarf

07-17-2005, 02:51 AM

I so don't understand J.K. Rowling's decision not to release her books in ebook format. I'm guessing that's is an attempt to keep it from getting pirated but seriously how dumb is that. Within hours of the book's release it had been scanned, ocr'd, and had initial proofing performed on it and was widely available in a variety of formats on the net.
She stood to earn a lot more money if she had simply released a legit ebook. I love reading on my Pocket PC so much that I haven't read a bound book (w/ the exception of say textbooks or things of that nature) in about 3 years and will pretty much refuse to read a book unless I can read it on my PPC. I would imagine there are plenty of other people just like me who must resort to getting less than legal copies because a legitimate one does not exist. Sure, it would be pirated it if she released it but the only people who would be getting the pirated version would be the same people who are pirating the scanned copy.
Would there be tons of money in an ebook version? Probably not, but there is definitely a sizeable amount of money that she and her publishers will never see.

Janak Parekh

07-17-2005, 03:44 AM

I so don't understand J.K. Rowling's decision not to release her books in ebook format. I'm guessing that's is an attempt to keep it from getting pirated but seriously how dumb is that.
Most mainstream authors are like this, and if I had to guess, the publisher sells them the "piracy" line to prevent the ebook market from exploding.

--janak

ADBrown

07-17-2005, 05:29 AM

Most mainstream authors are like this, and if I had to guess, the publisher sells them the "piracy" line to prevent the ebook market from exploding.

Well put, and very accurate. I've actually worked somewhat inside the industry, and that's pretty much exactly the point.

Book prices have been increasing year after year, including a very substantial premium on books by well known authors, even the paperback versions. Compare the price of a novel by Tom Clancy to another by a less famous author. Now compare either to the price of a novel from 5 years ago. The industry types usually blame this on "distribution costs". It's a bogus argument, but it's their fallback position, where they can obfuscate any counter arguments to death.

Ebooks have no significant distribution costs (a few pennies for transaction fees and bandwidth), so the industry has no excuse to price them like regular books, and yet it is done. Ask anybody in the publishing industry about this, and they would sooner swallow their own tongue than answer your question, because there's not even a tissue-paper excuse. The best they can come up with is claiming that ebooks are a premium item, which requires a lot of time and effort to support (lies), and they're priced to reflect this.

The truth is that they want to make more profit, so they jack up prices on best sellers, take fewer chances on unknown or little-known books and authors, and attempt to squeeze more money out of established works. Just look at the number of successful book series that have suddenly had other writers brought in to capitalize on the originals with some spinoff or other form of money-grab: Ludlum's Bourne trilogy, Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series, the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, others that I can't remember. Not to mention the practice of splitting a single, decent length book into two anemic 200 page booklets, and charging full price for both.

The truth *behind* the truth is that they can't justify their inflated pricing without paper. They camoflage the greed behind a physical product, gradually raising the prices while protesting innocence. If they tried the same thing with ebooks, they would never be able to maintain the pretense. Nobody in their right mind will pay $30 for an ebook, and if you priced a Harry Potter ebook at a very reasonable and profitable $5, their paper sales would collapse. Without paper, there is no excuse for price gouging.

Rant over.

OneAngryDwarf

07-17-2005, 05:49 AM

and such a good rant it was... well said... damn the man

Janak Parekh

07-17-2005, 06:30 AM

Nice rant ADBrown. It's a similar problem as with music, but here, the publicity and popularity (or lack thereof) has enabled publishers to keep a tight lid on the situation.

And frustrating it is. :|

--janak

dMores

07-17-2005, 11:47 AM

because of all the hype, i googled around and found my way into a dedicated hp6 irc channel where i could actually follow the progress of the hp6 ebook.
chapter after chapter was scanned, OCRed, proofed and released to the public.

(and despite all the reportings of the currently available chapters, there were those boneheads who still were looking for the complete ebook and were conned into downloading some weird versions with a lot of blind-text :) )

since i actually wanted the book in our private library i went ahead and bought it (you know, paper and all :) ), but i also admit to saving the ebook onto my hard drive to convert from html to mobipocket format soon.
the book will probably be read by my girlfriend or given to my brother as a gift.

if you see what is going on in IRC channels, you can't take all those "ebooks are dead" and "nobody wants ebooks" views by so-called professionals seriously. i mean, there is an ebook downloaded about every second, and i believe that a lot of these people would rather spend money on legitimate ebook releases than go through illegal channels such as the IRC.

the market is there ... just nobody seems to want to supply to it.

tanalasta

07-17-2005, 01:26 PM

Whoever who decided not to make HP an ebook may be interested to know that there have been .pdf and html files of her newest html books floating around for the last 24 hours.

Seeing I purchased the book and finished reading it by 3pm the day it was released, it's a moot point.

And no, I won't be posting neither link nor file for obvious reasons.

Mona13

07-17-2005, 03:27 PM

I won't be reading books by this author and he/she won't be spending my $ either.

I don't mind paying paperback $'s for e-books and I wait to purchase until e-books are in that price range.

But, I also don't purchase paper books of any kind, only e-books, for the last 2-3 years.

I just e-mailed an author a thank you note for making his books available via ereader.

Mona13

gibson042

07-17-2005, 05:30 PM

Amen to the sentiments here! Publishing is yet another industry that has collectively failed to realize the significance of digital media and commonplace broadband connections. Everyone who wants to see that change should familiarize themselves with things like the Street Performer Protocol (http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html) for a glimpse of how to handle things in a world without media scarcity.

disconnected

07-17-2005, 05:45 PM

I really wish some authors with a lot of power would support ebooks. The "fear of piracy" excuse makes absolutely no sense, as everyone has mentioned.

Less popular authors really have do whatever their publishers want. I've emailed several authors who had one or more of their books published as ebooks, but not their latest books. They all answered and said pretty much the same thing -- that it was the publisher's decision. Some of them apparently weren't even told whether the ebooks would be released or not. I guess they must sign a contract giving total control to the publisher. If you're not enormously successful, I guess you're happy to even be published at all.

As far as ebook pricing goes, I don't really think the high prices are justified, but I'm willing to pay them anyway. I guess publishers could argue that the ebook sales would take away from hardcopy sales, and thus must be priced comparably, although, as a previous ranter mentioned, even the hardcopy prices are seriously inflated.

dMores

07-17-2005, 07:17 PM

I really wish some authors with a lot of power would support ebooks. immagine what j.k.rowling could have achieved by setting an example and using her power to promote ebooks.

but i guess she fell for the same lame excuses, and her obviously not being a pda user hasn't helped.

Janak Parekh

07-17-2005, 07:20 PM

but i guess she fell for the same lame excuses, and her obviously not being a pda user hasn't helped.
This is the real reason -- most writers (people?) aren't PDA users. In fact, many of the older mainstream writers are classic technophobes. Such is life. :| The few who are technically knowledgeable sometimes even go so far as to utilize Creative Commons licenses -- a la Cory Doctorow (http://www.craphound.com/).

--janak

juni

07-18-2005, 06:12 AM

I really wish some authors with a lot of power would support ebooks.

Like Stephen King? :)

Steven Cedrone

07-18-2005, 01:50 PM

Sven Johannsen

07-18-2005, 03:08 PM

I sympathize with all you e-book readers, but I find it difficult to assign the adjective stupid to someone who is worth 450M pounds, and didn't inherit it. Mis-informed, anachronistic, technophobic, ill-advised...but stupid? Wish I were half that stupid.

uwaku

07-19-2005, 02:37 PM

Y'know, I've seen several versions of the HP books availablle, and read Palm versions of the first 4 books a few years ago. When HP5 came out, someone forwarded me an ebook copy (I was in Iraq at the time), and it was all jumbled, multiple chapter errors, etc.

I'd be happier if JKR finally decided to do ebooks, so I could get the real versions. Much easier to read than converting PDFs or scans.

In the meantime, I'm just enjoying the Psychic Serpent series. Fan fiction is usually pretty crappy, due to either poor writing ability or lack of loyalty to the author's universe, but Barb Purdom's 4-book series (years 5, 6, & 7, plus a prequel) were so good I couldn't put them down. They're all novel-length, very well-written, had only one mistake that I could spot, and were so faithful to the originals that I thought JKR should use some of the ideas.

I have about 20-odd HP fan fiction works, but these were the first I read, and have gotten the best reviews. If you're tired of waiting for HP to go ebook, try them out.

Phillip Dyson

07-19-2005, 02:58 PM

I think a lot of it depends on what type of "artist" the author is.

Some artists are interest in every aspect of the process. From concept to distribution. Many musicians are very involved in the the digital media conflict.

While some just want to create. As long as their creation is getting out to their audience, there is not reason to look up from the metaphoric typewriter. JK Rowling is obviously reaching her audience, so there is not reason for her to burden her mind with statistics and technological details. She is free to focus on the creative process.

Just my $.02 from the perspective of an aspiring writer.

dMores

07-19-2005, 03:05 PM

this is taking the thread off topic, or very close to off topic, but i can only recommend barb's HP fanfiction.
i actually got into it by downloading the 5th year of harry potter and expecting the original one (my gf had the book in german, i wanted the original language so i appeased my mind to think it's ok to download since i own the other language book).
anyhow, i took psychic serpent (filename was, of course, order of phoenix) as rowling's original and was surprised how cool harry suddenly got.
only after a few friends laughed at me and my understanding of the book that i realized i downloaded a fan's version.

read the other ones by barb, and i really, really enjoyed them.
definately a must read, even if it screws with your mind and you'll be having problems seperating real and fanfic stories :)

regarding the garbage text in those illegal OCRed ebooks: i have purchased ebooks that had obvious scanning errors in them as well.
so i suspect that some ebook retailers don't get the books in digital form, but create them themselves. or it's the publisher who's dumb enough to first print and then re-scan.
but i was very surprised when i saw those.
i believe it was "cat and mouse" by james patterson ... but i'm not sure.

Dawatticus

07-25-2005, 04:19 PM

I downloaded the latest book from a p2p application. It took a while to find it, I kept getting stuck with that stupid fanfiction version.

( It starts with harry and Dudley peeing in a graveyard... riiiiiiight )

I cant stand the " psychic serpent " i dont know why everything thinks harry is so cool, or even falls for it being the real one. You can tell in an instant its not by JK Rowling, its all " American ", written even worse than Rowling writes ( and her writing is actually pretty poor ) , and its... well rubbbbbish.

I finally found it, rejoiced, as it let me finish the book quicker.

I do have the actual hardback version, so I dont feel that ive done anything wrong. Not my fault they havent released it officially.

RomanceReader

08-11-2005, 05:33 AM

I absolutely agree with you all. Print authors would only benefit from eBooks. And how many millions more could HP have made? Augh! I just don't understand it. Oh well. One day, my friends. eBooks are going to rule the world! lol Okay, now I'm just being melodramatic. :lol:

Rachel

juni

08-11-2005, 06:20 AM

It starts with harry and Dudley peeing in a graveyard

:rotfl:

We are going to buy the whole series as a bundle when the last one comes out, but I really wish she had made them in ebook format.

dMores

08-11-2005, 06:55 AM

[...]written even worse than Rowling writes ( and her writing is actually pretty poor ) [...]
vs.
I do have the actual hardback version[...]
:roll: i find that hard to believe. why would you buy books from an author whose writing you dislike? sounds fishy!

PetiteFlower

08-11-2005, 08:43 PM

Just because her stories are enjoyable does not mean that the quality of her writing skill is particularly high. She's not a wordsmith, she's a storyteller. One can absolutely respect her for being a good storyteller and still acknowledge her weaknesses.

juni

08-12-2005, 06:35 AM

She isn't a Tolkien or Lewis, but her stories are fun to read. :)

dMores

08-12-2005, 07:08 AM

there's a difference in saying "her writing is poor" and "she is no shakespeare".
the latter means you know her writing is nothing special. but you accept it, hence you can still enjoy her stories.

if you consider someone a poor writer, it is not normal to continue reading.
might be personal preference, or just "common knowledge".
but, for example, i read some crime books by james patterson. and after a few, i got sick of his style. i wouldn't allow myself to judge the writing itself, since i'm no expert and i can't say what is "good" and what is "bad". but i just know i didn't like it anymore, so i also won't buy any more books from this author.
that's why i was surprised that someone considers someone a bad writer and still reads the stories.

Jorgen

08-12-2005, 07:16 AM

there's a difference in saying "her writing is poor" and "she is no shakespeare".

Take Ludlum: generally poor writing style, but good plot/story.

Jorgen

PetiteFlower

08-14-2005, 09:27 PM

Hell I think she's a better writer then Tolkein. His stuff is HARD to read! I mean, clearly he has skill with the language....but he's WAY over-wordy and doesn't know how to move the story along in a good way all the time and keep the reader interested. His books are classics because the story is good enough to overcome the flaws in the style. He wasn't a professional writer either, he was a linguistics teacher who came up with a good story.

rhmorrison

08-14-2005, 11:42 PM

Stephen King did do an experiment a while ago (years, actually) having people pay for an ebook a chapter at a time (1 dollar, I think it was), he ultimately canceled the project. The book was called "The Plant" I think.
At that price how did he think it could possibly succeed?
So he thinks we should pay MORE for an ebook than we do for a printed copy? Don't they understand that the costs of running a shop to download ebooks and pay vie PayPal, credit card, or electronic funds transfer is miniscule compared to the costs of printing, shipping, storing and selling real printed media.

Jorgen

08-15-2005, 05:50 AM

The publishers of course know what costs are involved in making and selling an ebook, and they have so far been grasping what they think they could get away with. And they can get away with quite a lot, due to people willing to pay between $6-15 for an ebook with or without DRM.

I for one have stopped paying what they demand - I think even Fictionwise's prices are a bit over the top and have more or less stopped buying unless I get some very good offers. I can on the "other" discussion (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=42138) see that many people are willing to pay more than I am (I think something like $5 for a published author is reasonable, and a bit less for "not-yet-known talents"), and if that is the general opinion, then ebook prices will not come down.

Until either they or I give in, I will be reading classics from Project Gutenberg and like. :)

Jorgen

Steven Cedrone

08-15-2005, 12:12 PM

juni

08-15-2005, 01:00 PM

If I remember correctly "The Plant" failed since the story wasn't very interesting...in fact, quite boring. I assume his other ebooks are doing quite well (I have bought a few myself). :)

samsonh

08-17-2005, 02:47 AM

If like like a good fantasy/sci-fi book in ebook format, try dune. Best series ever imo.

Steve Jordan

08-17-2005, 03:48 PM

Seems to me King was perfectly justified to cancel "Plant"... after all, the majority of readers didn't pay, and he stated he'd kill the project if that happened. I don't blame him for that.

On the other hand, charging $1 per chapter sounds way too high to me... I can't blame people for being reluctant to pay, after they've already ponied up, what, $5 for an unfinished book.

If I were King, I would have offered a flat fee to whomever was interested for the remainder of the book, and satisfied those who wanted the rest of it, at least. He might have still eaten some profit, but the PR of finishing for his fans would have been worth that.

The Slashdot article was informative, especially since I'm looking at eBook publishing options myself, and still researching the best methods to use for promoting, advertising, selling, etc.

Jorgen

08-18-2005, 06:02 AM

I know this is from The Guardian, but since the subject is unpolitical the information may be based on facts:

"The figures show that the total money received from downloading of the six-part book was $721,448.61 and after expenses, which included $140,766.75 for advertising, $14,000 for 'compositing and design services' and $102,849.59 for 'web hosting and maintenance', the net profit was $463,832.27.

Article continues
King, who has suspended the project for six months in order to work on his next book, allowed readers to pay by an 'honour system', trusting them to pay after the story was downloaded. King charged $1 for the first three instalments and $2 for the following three. "

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,435496,00.html

Nearly $103,000 for web-hosting and maintenance. Sounds like King wasn't the only one to make a profit! But the advertising seems to have paid off.

Jorgen

dMores

08-18-2005, 09:22 AM

Nearly $103,000 for web-hosting and maintenance. Sounds like King wasn't the only one to make a profit! But the advertising seems to have paid off.
we must be doing something wrong ... my clients expect us to develop kick-ass sites, with content management, rich media etc. for under $4000.
and those are relatively big companies. most sites bring in around $1500.

dang !

hey mr. king ... i'll cut your internet costs in half !
special offer !

:cry:

tregnier

09-08-2005, 01:10 AM

Apple announced today that it will be making the Harry Potter books available for its iPods. Nice move, Mr. Jobs.

dMores

09-08-2005, 06:54 AM

we're talking audiobooks. the cd has been available since day 1 of HP6.
but still no EBOOK :)

Ommadawn

09-08-2005, 02:49 PM

And they are not going to be cheap from what I've heard.... <sigh>

juni

09-09-2005, 06:57 AM

The digital audiobooks are being released by the Random House Audio Trade Group, her current audio publisher. They can be purchased through Apple's iTunes store, for prices ranging from $32.95 for a single book to $249 for the whole series, which, according to Random House, includes a "full color digital booklet" and "previously unreleased readings" by Rowling.

ADBrown

09-09-2005, 08:46 AM

for prices ranging from $32.95 for a single book to $249 for the whole series

Holy mother of f--k.

juni

09-09-2005, 09:45 AM

But at least you get a "full color digital booklet" ;)

dMores

09-09-2005, 12:50 PM

audiobooks are expensive!

if you have a good reader, a professional studio, costs add up.

Ommadawn

09-09-2005, 04:04 PM

Sort of the antithesis of ebooks, really. The cost of producing and marketing ebooks is far lower than audio or print.... I like the suggestion I read earlier today - Release them as ebooks, put a discount voucher for the ebook in the print book. A lot of people will buy _both_, and everyone's happy.

Nah.... I can't see it happening, which is a shame, as releasing books like the HP series might just be the fulcrum that could really drag ebooks into the mainstream (and sell readers to the little tikes 8) )

SteveHoward999

09-20-2005, 05:07 PM

I don't buy paper books any more. If I cannot get the book in electronic format, then it does not get added to my library. I know many people are the same ...

tanalasta

11-21-2005, 05:42 PM

I buy paper books - I have the hardcover versions of all 6 Harry Potter Books on my bookshelf. 8)

However, there was a flurry of news articles when JKR released her last book - with an eBook version widely available on the internet within days of release from iSilo, pdf to MS lit. OCR technology is advanced enough to make scanning an entire book into digital format very easy for pirates. As the publishers already have the original manuscript in digital format, it wouldn't be very difficult for them to license & distribute an eBook. Personally, I don't think e-book piracy can easily be stopped by publishers. But at least if they released a legitmate eBook, I believe some people will buy them to support JK & the HP franchise, as long as they're affordable.

Audiobooks are a different matter. I have subscribed to Audible.com - for my iPod and they do have a place. Such as loooong plane flights. However, audiobooks are horrendously expensive unless purchased as part of a "audio plan" - often more expensive than their paper counterparts. I don't know if having to hire somebody to read the book and the web-storage/server space justifies the cost.

Steve Jordan

11-25-2005, 12:50 PM

I'm reading "Goblet of Fire" now. As much as I'm enjoying it, I do not like the massive size of the paperback, making it a pain for me to take it on my commute to work (I travel light). I'd much rather have an eBook, it would be so much easier to read on my long stand-up Metro ride every day.

Knowing the publisher, though, it would probably cost as much as the print book, and the DRM would scare Snape to death!

Jason Dunn

01-16-2006, 09:53 PM

They all answered and said pretty much the same thing -- that it was the publisher's decision. Some of them apparently weren't even told whether the ebooks would be released or not. I guess they must sign a contract giving total control to the publisher. If you're not enormously successful, I guess you're happy to even be published at all.

Having published a few technology books, I can personal attest to this. When Microsoft was publishing the Faster Smarter Digital Video book I wrote, I talked to them about making an eBook version and they flat out said no. I think most of their reasoning was ignorance. Publishers just don't understand what eBook users want. I think we're 10-20 years away from them being forced into it, once we have pervasive, thin and light computer slates in every room of the house, and that's how people will want to read, not paper books. Publishers will be pulled into that new world kicking and screaming.

Jon Westfall

01-16-2006, 10:01 PM

Having published a few technology books, I can personal attest to this. When Microsoft was publishing the Faster Smarter Digital Video book I wrote, I talked to them about making an eBook version and they flat out said no. I think most of their reasoning was ignorance.

I realize that MS is a large company with many different independent groups that specialize in their own areas (i.e. the publishing division are publishers, not programmers), but still this is an ironic statement. For a company that has its own e-book reading software to have an e-book ignorant publishing division is a pretty indicative example of the overall e-book scene.

For me, If I ever get around to reading e-books seriously (Which I really should...) then I'm sure I'll get annoyed. Right now though, I'm stuck with academic books which have probably the least chance of ever reaching e-book format, although I'd love it if they were there.

SteveHoward999

01-17-2006, 12:00 AM

If I ever get around to reading e-books seriously (Which I really should...) then I'm sure I'll get annoyed. Right now though, I'm stuck with academic books which have probably the least chance of ever reaching e-book format, although I'd love it if they were there.

Most academic papers are published as Acrobat files. I have been reading scores of them on my PDA over the last couple of weeks ... I don't think it will be long before academic and technical books come with eBook versions by default.

Over the last few years I have bought several books (Flash 5 Bible, Microsoft .NET book for e.g.) that have electronic versions of the books on CD. Admittedly not mainstream novels, and still pretty rare, but it is hapenning :-)

Jon Westfall

01-17-2006, 04:04 AM

Most academic papers are published as Acrobat files. I have been reading scores of them on my PDA over the last couple of weeks ... I don't think it will be long before academic and technical books come with eBook versions by default.

Well, we'll see. Articles are nice, but some of my classes still use textbooks (Albeit very complex annoying textbooks without any pretty space-wasting pictures). Right now I'm toting around "Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method" by Bauer, which (While thin) would be better as an e-book ;)