The paperback is dead … long live the ebook!

The paperback is dead long live the ebook!

Many of us like to cuddle up with a book. There is something comforting about the rustle of paper. Memories of childhood flood back as we turn the pages. We tell ourselves that there's no way the paperback is going to die: there are too many people, like us, to keep it alive.

It's time for a reality check.

Bookshops are closing and it's not because people have stopped reading. They haven't. The success of Dan Brown and other celebrity authors puts the lie to that. Bookshops are closing because paper books are appallingly expensive to distribute.

As with all other products, it comes down to price. Charge too much and people stop buying. Ignore the protests of those who say that royalties and printing costs are the killers. They're not. Authors of paper books receive a pittance for their labours in percentage terms and printing costs are relatively small, particularly for big runs.

Give a moment's thought to distribution. The books have to be taken from the printery to a warehouse where thousand upon thousand of titles are stored. From there they go to the individual bookshops where they are placed on shelves. If they fail to sell the bookshop staff must rip off the covers and send them back to the distributor for a refund. It is an immensely costly process.

Think of your local supermarket. Do you remember the days when there were two or more brands of olives (salad cream etc) on the shelves? Even that small range was judged to great and supermarkets cut back on choice.

Now think of the bookshops. They are expected to offer hundreds of titles in dozens of different categories. That can't be done without pushing prices to a level where people stop buying. It's not surprising that many big chains have adopted the supermarket approach and are confining their main effort to a few blockbuster titles and a few established authors. That way the books can be distributed in containers - much in the same way as baked beans.

As an author, I would find all this intensely depressing if it were not for the advent of the ebook. In a single stroke the distribution problem has been solved. Books can now be delivered from the publisher to the reader at the click of a mouse. That means book prices can be brought down to levels where readers will start buying again. The development and upgrading of the iPad, Kindle, Nook and other user-friendly devices will hugely speed the process.

I have converted one of my novels, Curtin Express, to digital form. As a paperback, it retailed for $25. The ebook has just gone on sale at Amazon for $3. It is illustrated by over 130 photographs. Readers can see the forbidding terrain that my young hero battles as he flees from his pursuers - not just read about it. The electronic version is a superior product at a far lower price. Yet, despite this very low (opening) price, my royalties are not significantly less than when the novel was published as a paperback.

To see what I mean, go to:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004J8HRIW and judge for yourself.

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