On the pricing of ebooks and why publishers want readers to pay more

Motoko Rich wrote a very interesting article yesterday on the New York Times, presenting the costs involved in producing books and comparing the revenues publishers make from hardcover books and ebooks.

The data presented in the article was simplified and based on rough averages, but the bottom line was quite surprising: publishers can make even more money of e-books priced at $12.99 than they make on hardcovers priced at $26. And not only that, but even with a price tag of $10 for an e-book, the revenues are quite similar to those made of hardcovers.

Here are the profit figures (before overhead):
For a hardcover book with a list price of $26: $4.05
For an e-book, consumer price $12.99: $4.56-5.54
For an e-book, consumer price $9.99: $3.51-4.26

So, it definitely makes sense to see publishers fighting to sell e-books in $12.99, or even up to $14.99, instead of $9.99, as we saw in the case of McMillan and Amazon, and as we learn from the negotiations of the big publishers with Apple on the sales of e-books on the iPad. But it seems that publishers don't feel too comfortable to base their willingness to see higher pricing of e-books just on a pure economic basis (aka making more profits), so they are presenting another reason why e-books shouldn't be sold in lower prices: The implications on bookstores.

The article explains:

Another reason publishers want to avoid lower e-book prices is that print booksellers like Barnes & Noble, Borders and independents across the country would be unable to compete. As more consumers buy electronic readers and become comfortable with reading digitally, if the e-books are priced much lower than the print editions, no one but the aficionados and collectors will want to buy paper books.

“If you want bookstores to stay alive, then you want to slow down this movement to e-books,” said Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, a consultant to publishers. “The simplest way to slow down e-books is not to make them too cheap.”

This is definitely a better cause than just making more money, but is it really the story here? does it really matter to the publishers if their books are sold on BN.com or on one of Barnes & Noble 777 bookstores? I don't think so. Somehow it looks more reasonable that their own good and business success are the first priority when pricing is at stake.

Just take a look at the statement John Sargent, Macmillan USA's CEO, has issued on the Amazon deletion of an appreciable fraction of all of English literature from its store. He writes the following:

In the ink-on-paper world we sell books to retailers far and wide on a business model that provides a level playing field, and allows all retailers the possibility of selling books profitably. Looking to the future and to a growing digital business, we need to establish the same sort of business model, one that encourages new devices and new stores. One that encourages healthy competition. One that is stable and rational. It also needs to insure that intellectual property can be widely available digitally at a price that is both fair to the consumer and allows those who create it and publish it to be fairly compensated.

As you can see,there's no word there about the current bookstores and their survival in the digital age. It's true that higher prices can help smaller retailers, but I still don't think that's what's on the publishers mind when they negotiate the pricing.

In all, we still have to remember that e-books represent only 3%-5% of the market and will take sometime before they'll have a significant market share. Nevertheless, the digital era is here and the publishing industry is changing. Business models are changing. And those who won't know how to adopt to these changes, whether they're bookstores or publishers, will find themselves eventually lagging behind.

And what about the green element? Well, I believe that going green will be part of the new business model for anyone involved in the book industry. As we mentioned here many before, many of the components that don't work well in the current model are also not eco-friendly (for example, the fact that 25% of the books that are printed are not sold and returned to the publisher by booksellers).

Many other components, such as using virgin paper that is responsible for the larger part of the books' footprint will make less and less sense from an economic point of view with the expected regulation that will put a price tag on carbon emissions and with the growing demand of readers for eco-friendly alternatives. The bottom line is that making your business more sustainable is equal in the book industry to making it more economically viable, no matter if it's a hardcover book or an e-book that you're publishing or selling.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Check out our green gift giveaway!

Global Sky's partnership with Eco-Libris is exceeding its goals

Last August we announced here on a new collaboration with Global Sky, a 300-seat Philippines based call center. Their goal was to plant 1 tree for every call center seat filled over the next year, reaching a total of more than 1,000 trees by the end of 2010.

We're happy to update you that Global Sky is exceeding its goals and a US and our collaboration has already resulted in more than 600 trees planted! Global Sky, Inc. is an award winning U.S. owned and managed high quality call center provider with 300 seats based in the Philippines. A Microsoft Approved Vendor and the Winner of 2 "Best of 118 Tracker" Awards, Global Sky counts among its clients Fortune 500 companies as well as progressive entrepreneurs and global executives.

Global Sky's partnership with Eco-Libris is part of their efforts to positively impact the environment and to promote greater awareness among its clients of environmental issues. Already, they provide a 10% price discount for all clients who are undertaking similar environmentally focused efforts.

James Stinson, Global Sky's CEO is saying in a press release the company published that "It feels good knowing that long after we're gone, the investments we make in mother Earth will keep on yielding. That kind of productivity is hard to measure." We totally agree with him, and as the Chinese proverb says: "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

We congratulate Global Sky for their achievement and hope this will be another example of how you can do well by doing good, as Global Sky is building its reputation among clients as a socially-responsible company and a trusted partner.

The trees planted on behalf of Global Sky are planted with Eco-Libris partners that work in collaboration with local communities in developing countries in Latin America and Africa, where deforestation is a crucial problem. Planting trees in these places not only helps to fight climate change and conserve soil and water, but also benefits many local people, for whom these trees offer many benefits, such as improvement of crops and additional food and income, and an opportunity for a better future.

The press release is available here.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris


Eco-Libris: Check out our green gift giveaway!

We have a winner in our giveaway of Jeff Garlin's new audiobook 'My Footprint'

Last week we presented Jeff Garlin's new audiobook My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World. This great audiobook, released by Simon & Simon Audio, is about Garlin's journey to reduce his waistline and his carbon footprint at the same time!

We had a giveaway of a copy of this audiobook, courtesy of the publisher, Simon & Simon audio. We asked you to to retweet this post on twitter with the hashtag #myfootprint, and we have a winner.


The winner is Jennifer, aka @knittingmomof3.Congrats, Jennifer! We hope you will enjoy this funny audiobooks. Thank you also for all the rest of the participants!

And if you're looking for another chance to win a free copy of this audiobook, we invite you to join our mailing list. Next week we'll have a raffle of four copies of 'My Footprint' that will be exclusive to our mailing list subscribers. If you're not a subscriber yet, you're welcome to join our mailing list by adding your email on the 'Join Our Email List' box on the right column of the blog. If you will do it by Monday, March 1, you will be among those who will receive the newsletter and get a chance to take part in the raffle.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Avoided Deforestation Partners wants to make living trees more profitable than dead ones

"One ton of carbon dioxide is presently trading on European markets at about £10. A hectare of rainforest stores about 500 tons and therefore has a potential value of £5,000; but, as the New York Times recently pointed out, millions of hectares of rainforest are being cut down to create agricultural land worth £100 a hectare. Why are we allowing people to be deprived of their natural habitats, biodiversity to be diminished and climatic catastrophe to be hastened, and all at a loss of £4,900 a hectare? There are no easy answers, but I am sure that part of the blame, and more importantly of the solution, is down to us accountants." - Sir Michael Peat.

I found this quote in a book I'm currently reading (The Sustainable MBA: The Manager's guide to green Business by Giselle Weybrecht), and it's from an article published by Sir Peat in 2007. The price of one ton of CO2 have gone up since then (about £11.3 if you look at the Spot price last month in the European market) and it looks like this concept that living trees should be more profitable to their owners than dead trees is getting more and more support.

As we reported here before, policymakers globally and in the U.S. are having difficulties to establish a program, such as REDD, that would actually make it happen. The vacuum left is beginning to be filled in with voluntary initiatives. We wrote here last October on Carbon Canopy, and now I've just learned about a coalition called 'Avoided Deforestation Partners' which has similar plans.

According to their website, Avoided Deforestation Partners is an international network of thinkers, strategists and practitioners, founded by leaders in forest carbon policy and project implementation, science, finance, and conservation in 2007, to support international efforts to halt tropical deforestation. It includes environmental groups and companies that represent a range of business interests, from heavy emitters that include American Electric Power, Duke Energy, Pacific Gas and Electric, and El Paso Corp., to other companies such as Starbucks, Marriott and Disney.

As described by Marc Gunther on ClimateBiz.com, Avoided Deforestation Partners is the brainchild of Jeff Horowitz, a 58-year-old architect and newcomer to the environmental movement who has quietly become an influential player as climate change legislation inches its way through a divided Congress. Gunther had a very interesting talk with Horowitz about the coalition's plan to create a "a mechanism through which either regulated companies or unregulated companies, or governments, can make payments to help prevent deforestation in the global south."

The interview is available at http://www.greenbiz.com/podcast/2010/02/12/growing-money-trees

It will be interesting to see if initiatives such as this one or Carbon Canopy will succeed in a place where policymakers seem to fail. And it's even more interesting to see if these initiatives can help promote broader programs such as REDD. We'll keep you posted!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Green printing tip no. 35: Is Direct Mail Dead?

We are back today with a new tip on our weekly series of green printing tips, where we bring you information on green printing in collaboration with Greg Barber, an experienced eco-friendly printer.

Today Greg is presenting us with a column he found while researching research the internet for new Green Tips. This column is dealing with direct mail and how to make it more efficient and successful, and it's written by Leslie Tane. Now, if you're asking what's so green about making direct mail more efficient, the answer is that greater efficiency will reduce the waste involved in it.

If after reading Tane's tips, you're still looking for further green guidance on direct mail, you're welcome to check out our tip no. 26 about this issue, as well as Jennifer Kaplan's excellent column "9 Ways to Eliminate Direct Mail Waste". We hope all of these resources will get you a better idea on how to make your next direct mail campaign more eco-friendly.

Is Direct Mail Dead?

Tip #35

It's the age of the Internet - e-mail marketing, social networking and blogs. So why would you do printed, direct mail marketing? No one reads that stuff...do they?

Well, you might be surprised. According to the USPS, advertising mail represented 63% of all mail received by households in 2008. Of that, 79% of households either read or scan advertising mail sent to their household and 11% respond and take action.

Compare this to e-mail marketing: Mail Chimp's research indicates the average open-rate for marketing e-mail is about 25% and the click-through/take-action rate is only 4.28%. I'm not a numbers person (is there a graphic designer who is?), but it's pretty clear that direct mail is
far from finished.

There are some things to keep in mind when designing direct mail to increase the chances of your potential customer following through:

1. Take advantage of variable data printing. When I started out, there was one main option for printing in color: offset printing. How times have changed. Not only is it affordable to digitally print short-runs of your printing projects, it's possible to customize your projects using variable data printing (VDP).

For example, say you're designing for an organization's annual fundraiser. If the organization has a database of past donors, including their names, and the years and amounts they've previously donated, it's easy to print that information right in the body of your piece. It personalizes the experience and can make a call for cash less of an intrusion and more of an appeal.

2. Have a clear call to action. A few years ago, I got a letter asking me to support the Fourth of July fireworks display in my town. I take my kids to that event every year and was ready, pen in hand, to write a check. I scoured the letter only to find that there was no return address, no phone number and no way to easily send the money. Sure, I could have looked up the number and contacted them, but expecting your recipients to do that is expecting too much. I never sent the check.

Make sure you provide a clear way to respond to your direct mail. Is there a number to call? A Web site to visit? Make it obvious.

3. Speaking of Web sites, use yours to track the results of your direct mail campaign. Personalized URLs or Web addresses that incorporate the recipient's name are becoming more and more widely used. At the very least, each direct mail piece that goes out should have a dedicated phone extension or Web landing page, so that you can track your results.

4. Design something different. I often save a few weeks worth of direct mail I receive, so that I can have a base of real-world samples. I'll spread them out on my desk to look at them. Then, I'll design something that looks different. If I'm seeing a lot of close crops of faces, I'll pick and image with a person far away, or, even more likely, avoid a picture of a face at all.

Lots of primary colors? I'll go for an off-shade of green. Not many large fields of color? Maybe, that would work for my design. You can't steer clear of all existing designs, but you want to make your direct mailing stand out. The best way to get a feel for what's out there is to look at some of it with a critical eye.

One of the best things about direct mail is that even on a smaller budget, you can get great results.

For additional information on greening your next direct mail campaign, please call Greg Barber at (973) 224-1132, or email greg@gregbarberco.com.

Also, if you have any questions you would like us to address in future tips please email us to info@ecolibris.net .

Latest tips:

Green Printing Tip #34 - What should we look for in buying copier paper?

Green Printing Tip #33 - Do I have a Green Marketing Give Away for Trade Shows?

Green Printing Tip #32 - Is Tree Free Hemp Paper still available?

You can find links to all the tips we published so far on our green printing tips page, which is part of our green printing tools & resources.

You can also find further valuable information on Greg Barber Company's website - http://www.gregbarberco.com.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green printing!

Looking for an affordable and special green birthday gift?

What's the connection between Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, Lisa Marie Presley and Lauren Conrad?

They were all born on February 24! If you're also celebrating your birthday today - happy birthday to you too!

We love birthdays and therefore we're happy to remind you of the option to celebrate a birthday of friends, family members, colleagues and anyone you care about with Eco-Libris!

Eco-Libris is offering you now to plant trees to balance out the books of your loved ones who celebrate their birthday. Not only that new trees will be planted to balance out their books, but they will also receive our stickers with a beautiful birthday card made of recycled paper. And we also try to keep it affordable - the added charge for the birthday card is only $1.5.

All you need to do is to choose how many of the birthday person's books you want to balance out on our special birthday gift page (http://www.ecolibris.net/birthday.asp), change the shipping address on the payment page to the address of the gift receiver and we will take care of the rest!

This is also a great green add-on if you're buying a book as a gift for the birthday person, especially if you're buying her or him a green book.

The birthday cards we send are made by Doodle Greetings (see picture above of one of their cards). Not only these cards come with a beautiful design, but they are also eco-friendly - printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and are made chlorine-free and acid free. Sounds like a good fit with Eco-Libris stickers!

And of course, if it's your birthday and you want to give yourself a green gift - get yourself a nice green book and plant a tree for it with us!

Happy Birthday!
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!

New audiobook: My Footprint by Jeff Garlin (and there's a giveaway as well!)

Jeff Garlin is a funny guy. Well, he's a comedian. But he's also a serious guy and in August 2008 he decided to set up an impressive goal: Reducing both his physical and carbon footprint. His journey is documented in a new audiobook released today by Simon & Simon Audio: My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World.

Garlin is a comedian and actor and is probably best known for his work on the great series 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', where co-stars with "Seinfeld" creator Larry David. Garlin also spent three seasons on NBC's Mad About You in the role of Marvin, and has a variety of television and film appearances to his credit including Dr. Katz, Arrested Development, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Late Show with David Letterman, Tom Goes to the Mayor, The Daily Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Daddy Day Care, and WALL-E. He has also had his own HBO half-hour comedy special.

Garlin's journey is not an easy one. Each of these tasks is challenging in itself, so getting them together looks sometime like mission impossible. But Garlin is doing his best and is sharing every bit of this huge effort in this audiobook. His struggle is sometimes painful, but almost always funny. This is not only because Garlin is a talented comedian, but mainly because he, as he describes himself, 'takes his work seriously, but not himself'.

Garlin hopes that being healthy and green becomes a big part of who he is —if not now, he says, when? He is working at the same on both of these goals, but mainly focused on the physical footprint. I guess it makes sense for him as its an ongoing issue he's dealing with for a long time, and it also became a real threat to his health. Nevertheless, he's also taking the green task seriously, getting advice from Ed Begley Jr., fighting with his wife to change the windows to ones with better isolation and even making an heroic effort to take the bus (we're talking about Los Angeles..).

Now this is the time to say something about the audiobook format. I believe 'My Footprint' is one of the cases where the advantages of hearing a story in this format are so obvious. Garlin is telling the story (he's reading it to Leonard Nimoy by the way) and as a comedian he knows to tell a story. Listening to this audiobook, I found myself laughing again and again, and I had this magical feeling I'm attending one of Garlin's comedy sets at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood. Not to mention the fact I found myself shouting at him 'No, don't touch this bagel', or ' Leave that pizza alone'.

Hear an excerpt from the audiobook:

Disclosure: We received a copy of this audiobook from the publisher (Simon and Simon Audio).

GIVEAWAY ALERT!!

We're giving away a copy of this audiobook, courtesy of the publisher, Simon & Simon audio!

How you can win? Very simple. All you have to do is to retweet this post on twitter with the hashtag #myfootprint at the end of your tweet. We will have a raffle on Friday, February 26, 4:00PM EST between all the readers that will retweet by then. The winner will be announced the following day.

And if you're looking for another chance to win a free copy of this audiobook, we invite you to join our mailing list. Next week, we'll have a raffle of four copies of 'My Footprint' that will be exclusive to our mailing list. If you're not a subscriber yet, you're welcome to join our mailing list by adding your email on the 'Join Our Email List' box on the right column of the blog. More details will be sent on our March newsletter next week.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!