Stewing

I have only done some preliminary curiosity research, but I can't help but wonder: who exactly is making money off the digital media introduced by e-readers?

My own experience has been limited not only by platform, but perhaps more importantly, duration.  I received a Barnes and Noble Nook for Christmas and while I enjoy fiddling with it on a daily basis, I find I spend more time using the web browser than actually reading books.  Advertisements generate the belief that the over 2 million books available would be over 2 million different books, but I am under the impression that this may not be the case.  There are a multitude of versions of older books available; those for purchase, those offered through googlebooks, as well as other digitized forms.  While this does mean relatively easy access to obscure Irish cookbooks I otherwise would only wonder about or forget after an initial google search, I still cannot find some more modern books.

Amazon has nearly every book for which I have ever searched.  But it comes at a price.  The lure of $0.01 books lasts until the final moment of checkout when the $3.00 shipping charge drags the total price closer to the electronic version available.  On Amazon, the person making the sale earns the money.  Nothing is given to the author for a used book sold cheap.  It is an online market for used books that moves outside the purview of authors and publishers that spent so much time creating something from which they hoped to make money.  I love used bookstores, and equally, used book markets online.  I am a sucker for cheap or free books, with which I have filled my bookshelves at school and am beginning to do electronically with my Nook.

No one earns any money with free books.  It is a beautiful moment when literature escapes the market that sometimes nurtures, often corrupts the initial ideals of hopeful writers.  And yet, I sympathize with the struggle to achieve publication.  I have worked blinding submissions for a small academic journal for the past year.  Often I read terribly uninteresting pieces, but even the unoriginal work reflects months of research and effort to generate a thirty page document worth at least an initial look.  Despite that investment, we only publish 7% of submissions, none of which receive monetary compensation.  And yet, these academic authors know that walking in.

Mainstream authors, on the other hand, have different expectations.  When an author submits a manuscript to a publishing house, the hope is to achieve successful publication, which includes successful marketing that will lead to sales, sales that in turn encourage trust between author and publisher for future submissions.  When I purchase a new hardcover book from Barnes and Noble, the author receives only a tiny portion of the proceeds.  Most of the profit goes to the entity selling the good.  With e-books priced so much lower than the tangible product, my wonder concerns whether or not there is a proportional decrease in profit to the author.  And what about authors whose initial contracts never anticipated this new medium?

Who makes this money, then?  Barnes and Noble, for the sale itself?  Amazon, as the sale occurs through the Kindle technology owned by Amazon?   Some reviews indicate the business model these companies share reflects a desire to offer hardware at a fairly reasonable price so that the consumer will spend more purchasing books for the device.  The subsequent purchased would generate the profit that would justify the technology.

But what about self-published e-books?  There is a growing market seeking to introduce authors who have bypassed the tradition model of publication.  Instead of going through a publishing house, they circumvent the system and offer their work purely electronically, striving to work out contracts for print publication contingent on their electronic success.  If their book makes it to an electronic market, they would presumably receive all the proceeds, but if that is the case, then why do authors continue to use the traditional publication model?

I am only beginning to involve myself in this new corner of the market, but my excitement for free and unusual books comes hand in hand with continued reservations and fears for the potential deterioration of the tangible version.  Will hardcover and paperback go the same way as CDs?  More expensive and tending toward the collectable?

I don't know.
Perhaps I will make an Irish stew and consider the question some more.