February 7, 2012
Is bundling ebooks with print books a good idea?
by Dennis Johnson
From an ad for a Hillary Jordan book, published by Algonquin in a bundle including print and digital versions (from HoodedHawk.com)
Is bundling — selling a print book together with its digital version for one price — a good idea? Is it, indeed, an idea whose time has come?
There have been a few stray efforts to see how it might work —- Barnes & Noble tried it out almost two years ago, as this Publishers Weekly story reports, but the dearth of follow-up reports, and the fact that they haven’t tried it since, may tell us how well it worked.
But it’s certainly become a topic of conversation again lately. British indie bookseller Tim O’Kelly got a lot of attention when he called for it in a Bookseller commentary last fall. He set out the argument that most proponents make:
In many ways this is less radical than it sounds. When you buy a CD in a shop you can make a back-up copy on your computer, and although technically breaching copyright, people have been known to transfer these onto their iPod.
A concern might be that if the e-book was part of a package and not paid for, sales would be lost. However it’s clear that the reverse would be true. Very few people currently buy both forms of a book separately, so only a tiny proportion of sales would go—and one thing we know for sure about British consumers is that they love a bargain. More copies of books would undoubtedly be sold and it would return power to the physical book and its publisher. Some people would continue to buy the electronic version on its own—like the people who use iTunes to buy their music.
At a stroke it would blow open restrictive use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) as every e-reader would have to be able to accept these free books, or risk becoming obsolete. Regular bookshop customers lost to Kindle would be able to buy their books (in whatever form) from their favourite bookseller again.
Digital would cease to be a threat, and instead it would be a shot in the arm for the traditional physical book, adding value at no actual cost to the publisher or the author.
Of course, it’s hard to find someone speaking to the opposing argument — not because there isn’t an opposing argument, but because of the general hesitancy of publishers to ever appear to oppose digital anything. They’ve — we’ve — learned the hard way that this leads to instant derision (as I’ve complained before). But what they would probably say in response to O’Kelly’s pitch is that much of what he says seem illl-informed: It’s not at all clear that sales wouldn’t be lost, as there’s little statistical back-up of that supposition, and indeed, to the contrary some studies show ebook readers are heavy print book buyers (see below); the DRM argument is irrelevant — regular bookshop customers can buy ebooks from a growing number of brick-and-mortar booksellers now, including MOBI files which work on Kindles; and then there’s the ever-popular canard that there would be “no actual cost to the publisher or the author” in giving away ebooks. In fact, ebooks do indeed cost something to make, and authors certainly do stand to lose income in a give-away of their work.
In fact, most of the publishers I’ve talked to about this see ebooks as, simply, a third format, in a trilogy that includes hardcovers and paperbacks. One reason they like that, of course, is that it would mean an expanding readership, a readership that might not otherwise have been reachable. This excites any publisher, and not just because of sales. It’s not all about money. But it’s a business, after all, and it does also mean something to publishers that a third format does help to amortize costs and make a distressingly low-margin industry look at least a little more like it has a workable business model. There’s a hesitancy to voice that because it seems, if you’re a cretin, to resonate with the above-mentioned canard about ebooks having no costs involved in them (i.e., the idea that publishers are just greedy bastards). But it’s a viewpoint that makes the idea of giving away ebooks for free as nonsensical as the idea of giving away paperbacks for free.
But as a Publishers Weekly report by Rachel Deahl noted just yesterday, there are some smart publishers who say nonetheless that bundling’s time has come. “I’m very interested in the idea of using digital formats to help sell physical formats,” Workman publisher Bob Miller tells her. ”And I think consumers don’t want to have to buy the same book multiple times, for multiple formats.”
And Evan Schnittman, managing director of group sales and marketing at Bloomsbury USA, feels “the upside of bundling is manifold: the consumer can enjoy the malleability of digital reading without forgoing the joy of retaining the paper book, while the author/publisher/retailer benefit from charging more for the content.” With a little contract restructuring and a raised retail price, Schnittman says, “The retailer is happy. The author and agent get a higher royalty. The consumer wins.”
Of course, there are some major business hurdles, notes Deahl:
One of the biggest hurdles to bundling, though, may prove to be the current system through which the big six publishers sell their digital books. Aside from questions about royalties and pricing—what should an author, who normally receives a separate royalty on print and digital editions receive when the two formats are combined? what should publishers charge for a hardback sold together with an e-book?—there is the issue of the agency model. Because the big six sell their print books on the wholesale model and their e-books on the agency model, this poses tricky questions on what terms to set for bundled editions.
Still, leave it to Deahl herself to smartly describe a scenario that’s the most provocative consideration of the idea that bundles make sense — a scenario that constitutes, as well, a far more convincing argument for bundling than the lame music CD-copying analogy most advocates trot out:
In a world where people increasingly consume their content on multiple platforms—watching TV recorded on their DVR, as well as downloaded to their iPad; reading the New York Times in print Sunday mornings, on their Kindle during the morning commute, then on their desktop at the office—questions are starting to be asked about why publishers are not allowing readers easy access to both digital and print. (Studies show that most e-book readers also buy print books.)
Now, that makes a publisher wonder ….
Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.
UK indie booksellers protest Amazon’s tax avoidance 
Stephen King kills ebook in favor of print for his latest, Joyland 
What does it mean that the New York Times Book Review is no longer listing bestseller prices? 
‘Just a joke’: Amazon gets more money from UK government grants than it pays in tax 
16 Comments
They have been doing this for years with records, I have been waiting for it to happen with books. I will readily admit I do not sit down and listen to my records as often as I would like, but if given the choice of buying a record with free digital download or just the download, I will always go for the record. Same thing for books (though, personally, at least for now, I see myself continuing to read books in physical form) would be great. Especially for new hardcover releases, it would be nice to have the book to sit and read primarily, but also to have the book on your e-reader to avoid carrying the book during the day.
I, too, recognized this concept as one that carries over from the world of LPs.
I have come to expect from a new LP that it should come with a free
digital download of the album, I get frustrated when one doesn’t, and it’s certainly an incentive to buying a physical record that I’ll have its contents in more than one format. Records can be expensive.
I can’t say with any great certainty, though, that this practice
translates well from music to books. I can listen to a record many
times, and listen to it electronically many times as well; I read most
books only once, and even then I often don’t finish them. So the value
in having a book in both formats is not so apparent to me, especially
since if a book was sold with an e-book I, personally, would probably
take the e-book voucher slip – or whatever form the free e-book took –
and send it away to someone else.
As another commenter mentioned, they’ve been doing this for a while with music – but I think it’s a bad idea for books. I heard an interview with a musician recently who mentioned that they used to tour to support the album, but now they record an album to support the tour. The album has some real-dollars value, but not nearly as much as it used to – and musicians can supplement their income with touring, merch, etc.
But authors have only their books. And if the books lose value then there’s nothing left for the authors. In my opinion, giving away the e-book devalues the book. I fully support cheap e-books, but not *free* e-books. Cheap e-books can make up for price in volume but no matter how much free you sell you still end up with zero real-dollars.
yes, yes, yes!!!!
Fewer format decisions.. reading at home or on the go.. YES!!
I have at times not purchased a book at all when I can’t decide
where to better spend my dollars, ebook or print. This would be fantastic!
Would it be better if we had some sort of model where the ebook was STEEPLY discounted if we had bought the physical copy? I’m thinking that you buy the physical copy in the store and you get a printout along with your receipt that allows you to optionally buy the ebook for .99 online. They still make something back on the ebook and the authors with the great books get both sales, and their names can shoot to the top of Amazon’s list and have them sell more ebooks at the regular pricepoint.
I think that’s a great idea.
Something like this has already been considered as a way to facilitate indie stores that don’t sell ebooks … so maybe it’s a method that could solve more problems than one. — Dennis Johnson
When I think of “bundling”, I assume I’ll be paying more than the price of one item but less than the combined individual price of each item.
Having said that, I often wonder why this isn’t already becoming commonplace, especially on places like Amazon. I can see where buying in a brick-and-mortar store could pose concerns. After all, if you buy a hardcopy book and get a code to go online for an ebook, what would prevent you from giving that code to someone else (and thus causing the loss of a sale for the publisher)? But even there, I can see ways to reduce the impact of that.
Bu I still don’t understand why Amazon doesn’t do this. There, you are logged into your account and thus the purchase of your hardcopy book and Kindle editions could be automatically linked. I’m guessing B&N could have a similar method.
Publishers worry about lost sales, I worry about wasting money. I *prefer* both versions but I will seldom buy both a new hardc0py and an ebook. To me, that’s just too much to spend for some extra convenience.
Note that I said “new” hardcopy. When I want both versions, I will buy a used hardcopy. I save money and satisfy my preferences. However, neither the publisher nor the author is making any more money from the sale of that hardcopy.
A telling statement in the article is that, ”
publishers … see ebooks as, simply, a third format, in a trilogy that includes hardcovers and paperbacks”. In the marketplace, successful businesses align their products and services to the *consumer’s* perceptions. For people who prefer print but want the benefits of digital, ebooks are often perceived as an extension of the hardcopy.
You can make all the arguments you want to; you can hold to the idea that we are “wrong” and keep doing things according to how you believe we should see them. Somewhere amid your hungry competition, someone is looking at the issue from the consumer’s perspective. They will see the need and find a way to satisfy that consumer’s desires.
Many readers want both hardcopies and ebooks. The best way to sell more new books and ebooks is to make buying copies of both more attractive. One book, two sales? Even if the second sale is only a small profit, it’s still a win for readers, publishers and authors.
Here’s the simple deal – I won’t buy both formats. I do like building a library and believe the paper has more value to me, especially for “better” books. If a book is less interesting, but cheap, I’ll buy digital only. If it were bundled, I might buy the paper for a little more. But the big grabber- between two paper titles, I’ll buy the bundle first. I never have enough to buy everything I want, so I make choices. When I can both build my library and have a digital copy, that will be the first factor in choosing between desirable titles.
some German publishers have recently started to include e-books (via download links) in their hardcover editions; e.g. mairisch Verlag or Haffmans&Tolkemitt, the latter calling it “Hardcover Plus”.
I would really love for this to happen, as a reader–I like to have the ebooks for their portability, but once I’m done reading them, and want to flip back through to compare an earlier passage to a later one, there’s really nothing like having a print copy. Plus, I’m still attached to print books in the way that many people are, as items to keep around and put on a shelf. But as a writer, I’d be concerned about some of the issues that some are mentioning–how would that affect authors’ net income?
Rather than look at the music industry for a model, why not look at a sub-section of the publishing business that has been doing this for years already: IT publishers. Forget this idea of trying to shoehorn e-books as a “third format” and go talk to Tim O’Reilly and other tech publishers about how they’ve managed to offer DRM-free ebooks and paper/ebook bundles for quite some time now.
I agree that looking at the music industry isn’t necessarily the right model. How is thinking of ebooks as a third format “shoehorning” it, however — and what does that even mean? I’m use telling you the general perception, in any event, and, well, jeez, it IS a third format, truth be told. As to Tim O’Reilly — in case you haven’t noticed, he is the darling of the industry, and not exactly unobserved. But what he’s doing is working a substantially different marketplace than general interest trade publishing. All of which prompts me to make a truly bizarre, incredible observation: what if we don’t compare general interest trade publishing to anything but … general interest trade publishing? Naaaah. That would mean the publishers know what they’re talking about when they talk about their business, and the default position in this discussion always seems to be that that’s impossible. — Dennis Johnson
As both an avid reader and a self-published author I am very interested in this topic from both points of view.
The “best of both worlds” solution that I would like to see adopted by booksellers would put some technical burden on the providers of ebooks such as Amazon and I don’t know how the technology would work — but I would like to see each purchase of a hardback be accompanied by the right to “borrow” for free the ebook of that title, maybe through a on-time-use coupon code, so I could read it the first time on my Kindle, then it could disappear back into the cloud forever after a month or so (or I could buy a permanent copy of the ebook at market price) and I would have the print copy available if I wanted to read it again. And if I never wanted to read it again, I could at least sell or give away or donate that hard copy as I do now. If I buy an ebook now and decide I never want to read it again, I can’t pass it along to a new reader except as a loan. I can’t donate it to Goodwill.
And I have to say that nearly every author I’ve gotten “hooked” on was due to someone lending or giving me a copy they had read and telling me, “You’ll love this.”
Those second-hand books lead to new fans. I’d never heard of Harry Potter until my sister loaned me her copy of the first two. I now have all seven books in hardback, all seven books in audiobook, and all eight movies. JK Rowling has made a fortune off my sister passing along her copy to me (and my sharing my copies with others who then became fans). I’m afraid as people convert to ebooks authors will lose much ability to expand their fan base due to the loss of the second-hand market.
The biggest problem I see is piracy. I know of no DRM that actually works. If I can get a book on my Kindle I can convert it into an epub or mobi it about 20 seconds. If I were a publisher and/or author I would be reluctant to go e. The other side is that you can crowd-source the hand-copying of a new book and have it done in an hour, but that only affects the blockbusters that can warrant such an effort.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying we need to do, I even sent an email to this effect to the ceo of Borders right after we filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. If only this could have worked out I do believe Borders would still be in business. Now I’m looking into opening my own bookstore but unless and until this partnership of ebooks and physical books happens I don’t see opening it as a smart idea. I hope publishers realize that this is the natural progression of things, technology is here now but physical books are forever and the consumer does not want to be limited.