Wow! I’m so behind the curve on all the release-date drama over Stephen King’s newest book, Under the Dome, which based on critical reception and fan buzz seems poised to become one of his classics alongside works like The Stand and Misery. I completely missed the news, two weeks ago, that Scribner has decided to delay the release of the ebook edition by a month in order to help drive hardcover sales. This has understandably infuriated those Kindle-owning King fans who have been primed–thanks to Scribner’s own massive marketing campaign–to jump on the book when it comes out next week, but who will now have to wait another month.

I sort of get why they did it, or at least I think I do. Scribner wants consumers to understand that the hardcover retains pride of place in the world of release dates, and if you really want a new book you’ll have to pay a premium by choosing the hardcover. They also want to send a message (to Amazon? surely not to consumers, who have no say over the matter) that the $10 price point for new releases is unacceptable.

I also think I understand why they chose King’s new novel, which is the publishing world’s equivalent to an AT-AT walker. They want to ensure that the experiment works.

But did Scribner choose the wrong battle by trying to reinforce this false hierarchy of print over digital? I think they wasted an opportunity to reset ebook pricing expectations with consumers, and they’re wasting marketing dollars too.

Consumers, like publishers, are still figuring out ebook pricing

Before I say why I think Scribner chose the wrong battle, I want to look at consumer expectations. Here is my own evolution in my attitude toward ebook pricing, as an average consumer with what I believe to be a fair-minded attitude about the publishing marketplace.

So that’s where I’m at today regarding pricing of ebooks, at least as a consumer. I don’t think every reader has followed this path–some probably started out at stage 3 because they have a strong identification with the idea that writers should make a living from writing, while others will never leave stage 1 because getting the best deal as a consumer is the most important goal to them. But I think in general, as consumers get more used to buying books digitally and we begin to equalize the trade-offs between digital and print so that one format no longer seems better than the other, there will be less resistance to a more flexible pricing scheme.

Can a blockbuster help educate consumers?

That’s why I wish Scribner had used the release of Under the Dome to push harder for flexible ebook pricing. It’s one of the few titles that might have carried enough weight to be used as a weapon against Amazon in negotiations over ebook pricing.

I wish they had offered the ebook edition to major digital distributors (like Amazon) on the following two conditions:

[Disclosure: I have only an amateur's understanding of anti-trust laws, but my current reading is that it is usually possible to demand that retailers follow minimum pricing guidelines.]

Here’s how it would work with Under the Dome:

Amazon would sell Under the Dome as a Kindle edition on the same day the hardcover goes on sale, but it would be priced at $24.50, which is a discount of approximately 30% from the hardcover price.

On the same page, Scribner would print a statement that explains that because the book is a new release, it is priced accordingly, and that over time as other print editions are released, the price will be reduced.

In other words, Scribner would use the moment of sticker shock to educate ebook consumers that a new release of a blockbuster title should be priced higher than one already out in trade or mass market paperback.

Most shoppers will angrily refuse to buy the ebook at the higher price, and instead opt for Amazon’s loss-leading $9 hardcover version. But what’s important is this: they will have encountered the concept of variable pricing.

The next time it happens, they won’t be as shocked. By the tenth time, they may even come to realize that it’s not unfair to pay a premium for a newly published novel from a known brand.

Variable pricing over time lets readers decide how much they’re willing to pay, but in a manner that remains fair to publishers. If you don’t want to spend more than $10, you can always wait until the ebook version drops in price, which should happen around the same time the trade cover version comes out. If you will pay the higher price because you want the book on the first day it’s released, here ya go.

If no retailer would agree to such an arrangement, Scribner could have sold ePub versions using Adobe’s Digital Editions DRM directly from their website, bypassing retailers entirely for the first month and charging a premium to diehard King fans.

(And hey, creating a stand-alone iPhone edition to sell at a premium price wouldn’t have hurt, either!)

A quick side note: Nick Cave’s digital release of Bunny Munro proves that you can successfully package and sell ebooks at hardcover price points without the infrastructure of Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Scribner could have used a stand-alone app of Under the Dome as a bargaining chip in negotiations with ebook retailers, and made a little profit as well.

Wasting marketing dollars

Finally, there’s another reason to not stagger the release date, and that’s because it’s wasting resources used to promote the book.

One way to look at staggered release dates is to compare what Scribner is doing with how Hollywood promotes and releases new movies. Scribner is following the model of theatrical release followed by DVD release. That’s an inaccurate model to use when comparing hardcovers to ebooks.

A theatrical release provides an experience that still can’t be fully replicated at home, no matter how big we grow our TVs. A hardcover book, by contrast, does not provide any sort of significantly different experience to the reader over a digital copy. Splitting their release dates is more like splitting the release dates of DVD and Blu-ray formats of a movie.

Lets look at Hollywood again. That industry has perfected the art of marketing a new release–the precision with which their marketing campaigns can create not just a need but a group of consumers, then deliver that group to the marketplace on a specific 2-3 day period to maximize revenue, is pretty astounding. Scribner’s campaign for Under the Dome has been similarly aggressive, and I’ve noticed that in the past couple of weeks anticipation for the release date is approaching that felt from a Hollywood campaign.

And yet, when “opening day” comes, ebook buyers will be just as primed to spend money but told to wait a month.

Again, look at how Hollywood has begun to move toward same-day releases of blockbuster films globally, partially to avoid piracy but also to maximize marketing dollars. Why would a publisher want to squander resources by having to launch a second, much smaller campaign for the ebook launch a month later? And how much ill will does the marketing campaign create by priming consumers to buy the book, then denying them the opportunity?

The amazing thing about digital publishing is its flexibility–not just with distribution models, or manipulating content, or adding and removing value, but also with pricing; an ebook can be equivalent to a hardcover or a mass market edition of a book, because it has no physical quality of its own. Treating it like just another physical format that must be scheduled appropriately is a waste of its potential to generate revenue.

I know the publishing industry has hated Amazon’s one-size-fits-all approach since it was first released, but they conceded that first battle to the mega-retailer when they refused to independently price ebooks low enough that consumers didn’t feel cheated.

Now, I think, publishers need to start working directly with consumers to educate them on what fair pricing means. The best way to do this is with blockbuster authors who carry the marketplace power to drive a flexible pricing scheme. I hope another A-list publisher/author combo tries again, and soon.

In the meantime, I’ll wait until the ebook version of Under the Dome comes out, and–especially since it wasn’t available when the hardcover was–I probably won’t be willing to pay more than $12-14 dollars for it.

(Photo: Robert Couse-Baker)