There is a lot of discussion going around about ebook pricing and what authors control. I have been epublished since 2004, in the whole spectrum of ebooks produced by traditional publishers, by digital first publishers, and self-publishing. In only one of these did (or do) I have any say whatsoever on price, or even availability of format. This is called a trade-off; if I self-publish a book in eformat or print, I have to do or hire done everything that goes into the production, and lower overhead can mean lower unit price in the end. But price is only one consideration when it comes to trying to decide what is best for me as a writer and what is best for my readers.
Recently I had email conversations with Macmillan’s contracts department, with the end result being a contract amendment that will make Wild Wild West and Wicked Hot, my two Macmillan titles which have never been available as ebooks, finally available in various formats for readers possibly as soon as late February.
But! you may cry. Your other Macmillan ebooks cost $9.99! Why would you do that?
It’s true that $9.99 has been the price in the past and will likely be the price for the near future; I’m not going to make any predictions about the further future but I do believe that eventually mass market pricing will become the rule for ebooks, especially those that release after the hardcover or trade version. So while I might be able to do it myself at a lower price in the immediate future, in the long run it’s likely to become a wash.
Additionally, not going forward with the amendment would mean instead beginning the laborious process of reversion of rights, with no guarantee how long that would take, impacting availability of print versions, and then finally when reversion might happen in the future, weeks of revising, re-editing, contracting cover art, formatting for the various ebook formats, uploading to sales channels, all of which would take more than the eight weeks proposed by Macmillan.
So I asked myself: what’s the best thing to do for readers? Ensure that these books are as widely available in as many formats as possible as soon as possible? Or delay that for an unknown period of time so that I could put ebooks out at an initially lower price which Macmillan may well move to as the rule in the future?
Then I asked myself: what’s the best thing to do for myself as a writer? Do I want to spend months wrangling with this legally and technically? Or do I want to leave it in the hands of a very competent publisher and spend my time writing instead?
For me, the choice was very clear. Writing wins. Getting as many books in as many formats as possible to readers in the most expedient manner wins. I signed the amendment happily and with no internal conflict whatsoever.
All of which is to say: yes, I can do it all myself. That doesn’t make it the best choice in every situation. The two ebooks I put out myself last year required no small investment of my time, time I could have spent writing more new work. I still think it’s a valid option for material that has no other way to market, but I’m wary of the trade-off in writing time. And the pricing advantage may well prove temporary, while my time is something I can never get back.
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