New e-book sales models bookstores should try

One of the things heralded by the Department of Justice settlement is that it might allow book/e-book sellers to experiment with new ways of selling or packaging their products. Jane Litte at Dear Author writes about three possible experimental models she would like to see bookstores and publishers try out.

One model is adding different types of subscription offerings, like Audible.com’s monthly audiobook memberships. If publishers with extensive backlists offered subscription pricing for older books, it could lead to selling more of their new books. She also proposes selling “best of” bundles, in which part or all of a series or an author’s individual works is sold together at a discount price.

She also suggests that publishers could adopt Baen’s “E-ARC” program, in which it sells early pre-publication access at a premium price. (Speaking of which, I just bought the E-ARC of the latest Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Liaden Universe novel for $15 yesterday the moment it was available. Occasional typos and brief availability with the wrong cover art aside, I found it worth every penny. I wouldn’t do that for every Baen book, even from series I enjoy, but books from the Liaden and Kencyr series are my buy-it-right-this-damn-minute exception.)

To those models, I would add wanting to see print and e-book copies bundled together, the way Amazon already does for some of the music and DVDs it sells (and the way Marvel is doing with its print comic books). Buy the paper book, get instant access to the Kindle book that you can read until the paper one comes. A number of people have been calling for this for quite some time, in fact. Of course, that would mean readers could give away or resell the printed copy while keeping the electronic one—but then, they can already do that for CDs and it doesn’t seem to have hurt the music market that much.

Whatever happens, hopefully they will start trying some of these new models out. They need to start adapting somehow.