We’ve seen instances of publishers holding back the release of an ebook by a best selling author, now we see the reverse from this imprint of Random House UK. The Man from Beijing will be released a month earlier than the hardback, even though Henning Markell is one of their best selling authors.
In an interesting pricing move, Random House will be selling the ebook, on release on January 7, at the same price as the hardback price when it is released on February 4. After the paperback release the ebook price will drop. More details at The Bookseller.
Now that is smart marketing, something I didn’t expect from Random House, considering their stand on TTS.
At least there you know what you get for your money; early access.
Baen has been doing that for some of their more popular series authors for a while now; offering up Advanced Reader Copies at a premium price as soon as the manuscript is turned it. The price includes access to the final version so the reader ends up with the final release version too, in case of last minute edits.
Maybe a three-phase pricing scheme can satisfy everybody; Hardcover pricing for early-access ebooks, $9.99 after the hardcover release and sub-paperback pricing after the cheaper pbook comes out. That way ebooks are always the cheapest release while maximizing the publisher’s take. And readers stil have a choice.
If you *must* be the first kid on the block, you pay for it; if you can wait, you save. Your money, your choice. Of course, some beancounter somewhere in one of the glass tower will promptly assume that is soe people are willing to pay the premium price, everybody should and we’ll be right back where we started. 😉