For context, here are parts 1 and 2.
Last week, Macmillan blinked:
“There are times in life when differences should be put aside,” Macmillan CEO John Sargent wrote in a memo to librarians obtained by Publishers Weekly. “Effective on Friday (or whenever thereafter our wholesalers can effect the change), Macmillan will return to the library e-book pricing model that was in effect on Oct. 31, 2019. In addition, we will be lowering some ebook prices on a short term basis to help expand libraries collections in these difficult times.”
It was a futile and pointless fight to begin with. I think Macmillan knew this and they were waiting for something they could blame for backing down. The coronavirus epidemic allows them to save face.
Since theaters are closed and millions of people are furloughed from work, people are looking for cheap entertainment to fill their free time. This is a big moment for ebooks, whose supply chain capacity is limitless in good times and bad. Libraries and digital vendors are well-positioned to fill that void.
Consider this. Macmillan is headquartered in downtown New York, so their doors are shuttered. The overhead required to run a company of that size is in millions of dollars per day, on top of printing costs and paying author contracts. For the time being, it's good sense for Macmillan to go into hibernation and subsist on existing ebook sales and licenses. I guarantee their new releases on tap for the next month are a drop in the bucket compared to their current catalog, both in sheer numbers and in quality.
When money's tight, few people want to pay double or triple the average ebook price for a new release. Quality is too variable to sink that much into a single book. Both my books are available for just a dollar. For the sci-fi nerd, Tendrils to the Moon tells the story of the first commercial expedition to colonize the Moon. I tried to make it as scientifically realistic as possible. Seeds of Calamity, my second book, is an action-adventure story set in space, with a wild detour to Mars.
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