Who wants to read an E-Book?

Over the weekend, Amazon and MacMillan book publishing got into a little scuffle over how to price their e-books. Amazon wants all e-books to be priced at $9.99 to entice people to buy a Kindle and read using their technology. When the Kindle first came out I remember an army of nay-sayers claiming people would never pay for both the expensive gadget as well as the 10 dollars for each book, but that is in the past and the venture has been successful enough.

Still, Amazon refuses to price e-books at anything other than $9.99, which has angered publishing companies. The bookseller take a loss by pricing them so low, but they make up for that loss by selling Kindles. The publishing companies believe that pricing e-books this low can last forever, and will even take a less percentage of profit to have their products priced higher. Apple will allow publishers to price their own books for the iPad, and they want the same from Amazon as well.

But the real question is not about Amazon or MacMillan or Apple. It is, why would the consumer want to pay close to the price of a regular book for an e-book? They're not thinking about the author who put so much time and effort into the tale they're reading. The reader is thinking about what they get for their money.

They do not get a tangible product they can lend to their friends. They get words on a screen, which can be found just about anywhere one looks on the internet. So, if you want to price e-books higher, there should be an incentive to purchase them over a hardcover or paperback copy, shouldn't there?

Well how about we borrow some marketing practices from other mediums.

1. Downloadable Content: It is popular for videogames in the digital age to offer free downloadable content with pre-orders of all the big releases, whether it be extra missions, or unique equipment. Maybe include a short story download, an extra chapter(not essential to the story of course), or access to those in the future.

2. Embedded Soundtrack: Set the mood with fitting music to accompany whatever chapter or page the reader is on.

3. Commentary: DVDs have optional commentary, so maybe e-books should have optional notes written by the author to clarify certain things, and expand on certain reasons for taking the path he/she did when writing the narrative.

1. Allow readers to upload their own notes and commentary, like when you buy a used book for class and most of the important stuff is already highlighted.
2. Access to commentary and opinions of reviewers, or academic essays in the case of certain books

4. Include concept art: We live in a visual culture. Some video games and movies offer concept art with their Collector's Edition packaging, so why not have an artist rendition of major scenes or characters included?

-- Steve Creswick
Ad Doctor