Publishers still resisting ebooks – at their own peril

I continue to be amazed at these large publishing houses who still resist ebooks. Have they learned nothing from the music industry? HarperCollins made a recent announcement that they planned on delaying the release of ebooks for new titles. I really don’t understand their reasoning for wanting to delay the release of ebooks.

In an interview, Brian Murray, chief executive of News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers, said that beginning in January or February, HarperCollins will delay the e-book publication of five to 10 new hardcover titles each month. The delays are expected to range from four weeks to six months, depending on the book.

Four weeks to six months? All HarperCollins is doing by making this move is encouraging piracy. I have always maintained that piracy by itself is not the problem, rather it is the symptom of the problem. The problem is publishers not embracing new technology and publishing models and not giving people books in the format they want. If people want to read a new release in ebook format, there is a segment of those readers who will resort to finding a pirated edition.

If this isn’t bad enough, HC gives us this little nugget:

Mr. Murray said that if new hardcover titles continue to be sold as $9.99 e-books, the eventual outcome will be fewer literary choices for customers, because publishers won’t be able to take as many chances on new writers.

The emphasis in bold is mine. The problem is that publishers are already not taking chances on new authors. They are throwing all their eggs in one basket with well-known authors who can rake in millions of dollars. Yes, new authors are being published, but not nearly as many as before. Blaming this on ebooks is laughable.

Another large publisher, Simon & Schuster, also plans on delaying the release of new titles in ebook format for at least four months. The main reason why publishers want to delay the release of the cheaper ebook version of best sellers is because they’re afraid it will chip away at their profits:

Each publisher voiced concern that the popularity of cheap, $9.99 e-book best sellers available simultaneously with new hardcovers endangers the publishing industry’s future.

Publishers made the same argument when mass market paperbacks began making their way onto bookshelves: Customers would get used to the cheaper prices and hardcover sales would decline. Instead, overall book sales have skyrocketed since mass market paperbacks were released.

In the midst of all this depressing news from large publishers, at least one industry analyst is showing a little common sense towards ebooks:

“Every once in a while, a media business that appears to understand the digital reality quickly reverts under pressure and starts acting like a last-century business,” said James McQuivey, principal analyst for Consumer Media Technology at Forrester Research Inc. “If you give people digital content, they’ll actually consume more of it. But if you withhold it from them, you are motivating them to buy somebody else’s book, or to consider piracy, something which hasn’t yet hit the book industry but probably will next year.”

Thank you Mr. McQuivey. I hope HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster take your words to heart. But they probably won’t.

News like this only reinforces my opinion that indie authors and small presses, who are more experimental and open-minded to new technology and business models, will beat the large publishers at their own game. Indie authors will be releasing ebooks and print books while reaping a majority of the profits from both.

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Read More: Publishing News, eBooks