The Price of Electronic Publishing

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Harper Studio- “We still pay for the author advance, the editing, the copyediting, the proofreading, the cover and interior design, the illustrations, the sales kit, the marketing efforts, the publicity, and the staff that needs to coordinate all of the details that make books possible in these stages.”

Conversational Reading- “No publisher has yet made the leap to publishing a sizable fraction of its books as electronic-only; in other words they’re going to pay these upfront costs whether or not they publish the ebook version.”

Three Percent- “What strikes me about this bit is that most people who are critical of the commercial publishing model are critical of both huge advances, and the amount of redundancy and waste that goes into producing a book—all of which is still included in Miller’s model. So, rather than find a publishing model that’s sleek, efficient, keeps costs down, and makes ebooks available to readers everywhere, Harper Studio is trying to invent a new publishing model that’s a lot like the old publishing model, but replaces overpriced hardcovers with overpriced ebooks.”

Conversational Reading, Three Percent, and Harper Studio Blog, weigh in on what an eBook should cost.

Stephen Elliott is the author of seven books, including the memoir The Adderall Diaries and the novel Happy Baby. He is the founding editor of The Rumpus. His feature film debut, About Cherry, is being distributed by IFC and opens in theaters September 21, 2012. More from this author →