By Edward Nawotka
Today’s lead story discusses Penguin’s 75th anniversary campaign in Australia, New Zealand and India which has seen the company reissue backlist titles from their line at the low price of AU$9.95. The result has been sales that have exceeded more than 250,000 copies in their first three months — a phenomenal sales pace. The series has proved so popular that the company is issuing even more titles in this low cost format.
Obviously, this launch has been a success. That being said, it does raise the question of whether the same type of campaign would work in a market where the price of the paperback is undercut significantly by an e-book.
The answer would appear to be “yes.” Many of Penguin titles are available in public domain editions, which can be had for the low-low price of free. And customers seem interested in the nostalgic design of this re-issued series. Plus, paperbacks have a way of getting into non-traditional retailers, such as grocery stores, where they can be purchased as an impulse buy.
But what do you think? In the age of e-books, does the cheap paperback, indeed, have a future?
Tell us your thoughts on the matter in the comments below or via Twitter using hashtag #ppdiscuss.
By Chip Rossetti In the fall of 2004, I was an editor at a New York publishing house, [...]
• Cognito Comics is launching an immersive digital graphic novel called Operation Ajax, [...]
Jill A Tardiff
4 months ago
Yes, simple equation:
Kindle = $259; Nook = $259; iPad = $499; mass market paperback = $7.99 (average).
Unless there is a impetus to make available cheaper/energy-efficient readers (much like the Nicholas P. Negroponte/MIT effort to create the $100 laptop-computing for developing countries), these devices will remain the possessions of relatively privileged consumers. This doesn’t even start to scratch the surface the discussion about the economics of paperback publishing (author-agent-publisher connection).
Jack W Perry
4 months ago
The inexpensive paperback will always have a role. It is easy to carry, disposable, perfect for the beach. Although many will use expensive devices like iPad and Kindle to read, there are those who will continue to want a break from the computer screen – regardless of how easy on the eyes.
Cheap paperbacks are the perfect impulse item.
Jan Whitaker
4 months ago
Yes, it will have a continuing role as long as there are outlets to sell it. The curious thing about Penguin though is that the cover is “generic.” While full of historic brand symbolism, it does not have the usual advantage of colorful design that most paperbacks have in abundance — and which, by the way, e-books do not have.
Joel Friedlander
4 months ago
There’s an irony in buying a $400-900 device to read “cheap” ebooks. The low-tech paperback is firmly entrenched and it seems like it will be a long time before there are enough reading “devices” to lure buyers away from a product that they already know how to use, and which requires no “user’s manual” to operate. The day will come, but it still looks a long ways off.
Andy W
4 months ago
Yes, it does. As other posters have pointed out, e-book readers are NOT cheap. Also it seems that many publishers, especially academic ones are keeping UP the price of e-editions so as not to undercut their traditional dead tree offerings, whether hard or softcover. At the lower end of the market, paperbacks are the perfect impulse buy, eg at an airport terminal or railway station.
I also don’t like the idea of having your whole library on a small electronic gadget which can just as easily be lost or left on the beach as a small paperback !
Natalie
4 months ago
The other day I settled down on the train and went to turn on the Kindle I had borrowed. The battery was flat. That doesn’t happen with paperbacks – and they are just as light to carry. I love my Sony Reader and the ease of carrying around many titles on it, but as other people have said – for the beach, or for the ease of reading and eating simultaneously – or doing anything messy, I’m happy to have a paperback – which then carries with it the memory of the orange I ate that day
.
The Great Geek Manual » Geek Media Round-Up: March 8, 2010
4 months ago
[...] Publishing Perspectives wonders In the Age of E-books, Does the Cheap Paperback Have a Future? [...]
Sridhar Balan
4 months ago
I think it would be better to relate this to Andrew Wilkins’s piece on Penguin’s paperback campaign. As Wilkins has shown, Lane did not necessarily originate publishing when he launched the paperback at the price of a cigarette pack. While the marketing of paperbacks has a logic of its own, what Lane tried was to make the paperback as indispensable to the smoking individual as a cigarette pack. Today, the jusr is still out on whether books are a ‘must have’ item for people.
While comments have been made on the comparative costs of e-books (device + book) vis-a-vis the paperbacks, a lot will depend on ease of readibility on the screen. Bill Hill in Seattle is precisely engaged in such a task through ‘The future of reading’. If smart e-readers can hook a younger generation to reading through gadgetry, their social influence would be revolutionary.