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HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by Joat42   » Mon Apr 27, 2015 6:41 pm

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McGuiness wrote:..snip..
I'm all for RFC making as much money as possible, although in a perfect world an ebook that carries no printing costs, no shipping or storage costs, and requires no brick and mortar store from which to sell it ought to be more profitable than the dead tree version. I suspect the amount of piracy regarding anything in digital form is the reason that the ebooks are usually released the same day (or later) than the dead tree version. For a contrary view of piracy from Eric Flint, who co-authors the Torch books in the Honorverse, see the link below.
..snip..

The major cost of a book doesn't lie in printing, shipping or storage; it's in the editing and promotion (plus whatever the writer gets).

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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by McGuiness   » Mon Apr 27, 2015 7:35 pm

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Joat42 wrote:The major cost of a book doesn't lie in printing, shipping or storage; it's in the editing and promotion (plus whatever the writer gets).
I agree with you entirely, and I clarified those three points in my last post. Even with those costs, it's still far cheaper to produce an ebook, and once those expenses are recuperated, the production costs of an ebook that's sold from the publisher's website is essentially zero, minus the author's royalties.

If another internet retailer like Amazon sells the ebook, it gets a cut, but the profit margins on an ebook whose production costs have been repaid remains much higher than paper books into infinity.

That's why I'm so grateful that Baen puts so many ebooks into its free library, or gives them away on a CD included with a hardback, which they did with most of RFC's books on the CD included with "Mission of Honor." Since my local library didn't have most of the Honorverse books and refused to buy them, I was thrilled to get my grubby mitts on the entire series!

The free ebooks introduced me to the entire Honor Harrington series up to that point, as well as Bahzell and a bunch of RFC's stand alone novels. Needless to say, I've devoured all of the novels he's written since, which proves that giving away early books in a series to hook readers on an author's work is a profitable thing to do. Ironically, "On Basilisk Station" is still available in paperback despite being part of Baen's free library.

Tor could learn quite a bit from Baen's marketing strategy...

"Oh bother", said Pooh as he glanced through the airlock window at the helmet he'd forgotten to wear.
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by BobG   » Mon Apr 27, 2015 8:44 pm

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Charybdis wrote::cry: :!: :x

I'm not too surprised. The Sword of the South is coming out on August 4th. They probably delayed It a month so people's wallets would recover.

-- Bob G
SF & Fantasy: The only things better than Chocolate.
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by octavian30   » Mon Apr 27, 2015 9:52 pm

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I have to say that when the first of my books is ready to go to print - Tor will be at the bottom of my list of potential publishers - even below the Evil Empire (Amazon)
us Aussies have a word to describe them..... LAME
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by Dutch46   » Mon Apr 27, 2015 10:24 pm

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I am clueless about the publishing business and how it actually works. At a guess, I would think that books generate a revenue stream that has the characteristics of an exponential curve. High revenues when a book is published and falling off rapidly after that. If the publisher can make a shrewd guess about the revenue potential of a proven author such as RFC, and it is expected to generate good revenue, they can then schedule the book to come out when other revenue streams begin to peter out thus helping to levelize their income.

The other thought that crosses my mind is that once an author signs with a given publisher, he is locked in and pretty much at the mercy of the publisher. This lock removes a lot of the incentive for the publisher and allows them to go at a pace that suits them.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other books that I find interesting. I have found a series of books by Peter F. Hamilton that present a view of how his Universe works that I have never before seen in SciFi and I am completely fascinated with his works. I am currently pining away for the next installment of The Fallers series, number 2 in that series. There are either 12 or 13 previous books in the various series that comprise his version of the Universe. I highly recommend all of his works!
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by drothgery   » Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:31 am

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McGuiness wrote:
Joat42 wrote:The major cost of a book doesn't lie in printing, shipping or storage; it's in the editing and promotion (plus whatever the writer gets).
I agree with you entirely, and I clarified those three points in my last post. Even with those costs, it's still far cheaper to produce an ebook, and once those expenses are recuperated, the production costs of an ebook that's sold from the publisher's website is essentially zero, minus the author's royalties.

The marginal cost to produce an ebook is very close to zero; all the expenses except promotion (and possibly quality of cover art and maps) are pretty much the same for one copy as one hundred thousand (though with greater expected sales you can afford to hire a better editor or have him or her spend more time). But the marginal cost to produce a print book is pretty low, too. You don't think it really costs two or three times as much to print a hardcover as a mass market paperback, do you? What you're actually paying for with a hardcover is access to a book a year or so earlier than you'd get a paperback.
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by boballab   » Tue Apr 28, 2015 1:22 am

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Food for thought:

IIRC HFQ was finished and turned into Tor well before Sword of the South (SotS) was finished and turned into Baen, but Baen will have SotS hardcovers in stores even before the original pub date for HFQ...
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by wingfield   » Tue Apr 28, 2015 6:28 am

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octavian30 wrote:us Aussies have a word to describe them..... LAME


"We Aussies"!!! ;)
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by SWM   » Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:12 am

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McGuiness wrote:I'm glad to hear that the New York Times best seller's list has gotten its act together regarding ebook sales. Tor's decision to delay the release of the ebook of HFQ for more than a month after the hardback is even more confusing now that ebooks are counted on the best seller list.

It is far more likely that the print publication is also delayed (and is the cause of the delay), but the web sites have not been updated yet.

The cause is probably a problem at the printers, or some other problem causing a domino effect. HFQ is probably not the only title affected. At least, that is what I would guess based on past history.
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Re: HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon
Post by clancy688   » Tue Apr 28, 2015 3:32 pm

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Michael Everett wrote:I also found that Tor is owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, one of the so-called Big Five.
This raises an interesting point. Is their apparent inability to adjust schedules in a positive aspect a result of the arthritic bureaucratic setup of such a large company? Is it the result of teutonic efficiency colliding with the fact that sometimes books take slightly longer to proof-read than planned?


Oh come on. Not everything is the fault of us Germans. Apart from a couple of world wars.
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