Do you really want cheap ebooks?

I do love a bargain. The notion of being able to buy any ebook – whether it’s Stephenie Meyer or the Bible – for $9.99 is appealing to me. Very appealing.

There’s strong support for ebooks being $9.99 – or less; some say $6.99 is closer to the mark – for all sorts of reasons. Let the readers decide what they are willing to pay. Ebooks are ‘add-on’ sales, so there is no reason for the pricing to be tied to the print edition. There’s no paper, no print, no trucks and planes full of books chugging across the country (or the globe). It’s all cream on the cake for the publishers and the authors, once they’re recouped some minimal costs of file conversion.

But. But. But.

What happens when the digital edition of a book is the only edition of a book? No hardback, no paperback – or if they do happen, they are the follow-up, the cream on the digital cake.

What happens then, when we’re used to paying $9.99 for our ebooks? Will readers be ready to pay more because the digital edition has to bear the startup costs?

There is a lot of hidden work that goes into the making of a book. When I worked as an editor for a trade publishing house and I told people what I did for a living, I got two stock reactions. One was, ‘it must be lovely reading books all day.’ (Like most editors, most of my reading took place after hours, when the rest of my work was done.) The other was, ‘but what does an editor actually do?’

I didn’t know what an editor did either until I was one. I thought books sprang to life, perfectly formed, on the bookstore shelves. I had no idea that each volume started life as a dog-eared, coffee-stained bundle of A4 pages (I’m talking two decades ago), riddled with typos, inconsequentialities, factual errors, non sequiturs, and enough shifts in authorial personality to make a good plot line for “The United States of Tara”.

From that spotty, misshapen lump of wood, the editor would carve a tale that was smooth, flowing and true. A designer would create a cover that was eye-catching and gorgeous, capturing exactly the flavour of the story. Inside, the typography would be enticing, clear and perfectly suited to the tale. The publicity department would build a story around the book that would catch the imagination of every single member of its target demographic, supported by a carefully calculated marketing campaign. The sales team would make sure that no bookseller could resist the charms of our creature.

So what will you expect, accept or tolerate from your $9.99 ebook? Gordon Haff (cnet news) gives a neat commentary on ebook pricing, complete with a breakdown of the actual costs of producing a hardcover novel, at http://news.cnet.com/8301-13556_3-10250017-61.html. Will you be happy to read a book that hasn’t been through the editor’s hands? Do you care if the type is as ugly as sin and the paragraphs and line breaks are as random and irrational as a cat’s affection?

I see the future, and it’s looking a bit ugly from here.