A Response to “Lessons from One Publisher’s Aversion to Ebooks”

I was delighted when I saw Joe Wikert's article "Lessons from One Publisher's Aversion to Ebooks" and its mention of our book The Real McCoy: My Half-century with the Cincinnati Reds, by beloved Reds beat writer Hal McCoy. When you are an independent publisher, all press is good press, and it's great to see commenters combing through our website.

I'll note before continuing that Hal's book is one of our commercial books, and was published traditionally with no financial investment on Hal's part whatsoever.

I'll also note that his book has sold really well. We've already committed to a second print run so that we're well-stocked through Christmas.

This conversation starts, however, when Joe looked for an ebook of Hal's book and didn't find it: "It's 2015, after all, and surely every publisher offers e-editions of their frontlist, right? I've apparently stumbled across one of the remaining publishers who is still stuck in the 1990's."

The irony of this is our discussion internally last week -- when should we release Hal's ebook? It's our regret that it wasn't available when Joe went looking for it! Most of our other sports titles are already available as ebooks (priced at $7.99 and $9.99 on Amazon and selling well), and we knew Hal's book would do well too (given its appeal to the diaspora of Reds fans and baseball writers).

In our traditional publishing division, we acquire (almost exclusively) regional sports nonfiction authored by or featuring local sports figures. These sales are fueled by in-person events, our local bookstore partners, and libraries, making the ebook edition a lesser priority at the start. At the time of the release, we have a high demand for signed print editions and media interviews, and with a small team, we schedule our time accordingly. Now that the print book is faring well and Hal's tour is off to a fantastic start, it's much easier to set aside the time for conversion.

Finding that the ebook is not yet available, though, Joe turned to Amazon to purchase the print book: "Amazon offers it at 21% off the publisher's list price though, and since I'm a Prime member I'll get it in a couple of days. So here we have a small boutique publisher who is contributing to their own market limitations. In this world of digital abundance they prefer to live in the era of physical scarcity."

This argument is a bit misleading. While Amazon sells our book at a 21% discount, they aren't paying us any less to sell it, and as Joe discovered, local stores outside of Southwest Ohio most likely won't stock it, so listing it on Amazon makes it accessible to anyone, anywhere. Not a lot of small independent publishers would say no to that deal. To say that we are contributing to our own market limitations is a bit of a stretch, and we certainly aren't living in a world of physical scarcity (we are already reprinting).

But never fear, the ebook will be available soon! I imagine we will list Hal's ebook at $9.99, as it's a price point that suits the book and our nominal time investment in its conversion. If we list it higher than that, we take reduced royalties from Amazon, and risk looking like dinosaurs.

While we wish Joe had reached out to us before positioning us as the crux of his print vs. digital discussion (a discussion we've entertained ourselves on our blog, specifically here and here), we're happy to hear that he's a fan of Hal's and that he ultimately found the book.

Thanks, Joe, for taking the time to share your thoughts. We love book dialogue and look forward to seeing your review of Hal's insider stories on the Reds on Amazon.

Kelsey Swindler is the marketing and business development lead at Orange Frazer Press, an independent publisher in Wilmington, Ohio. Kelsey blogs about book publishing at orangefrazer.com/blog.