1. In my local bookstores, the “African American Studies” section includes all works written by African American authors, including fiction, including even the Kimani romances produced by Harlequin. The discussions on the ghettoization of black authors online suggested to me that my experience is not unique. I suppose this says something more about the neighborhood I live in.

2. You’re saying the danger to the careers of black authors is that they have a lack of saturated distribution. My argument is that if NY publishers feel forced to implement a $9.99 price tag, they will drop the authors that do not have saturated distribution, because authors that do not have saturated distribution will no longer be profitable at a $9.99 pricepoint.

3. As I understand it, your argument is, “NY publishers will not feel forced to implement a $9.99 price tag for black authors for a number of reasons.” Well, that may be the case. This is not incompatible with my argument above.

4. I am not making a statement about what WILL happen in the future. I am making a statement about what WOULD happen IF a hypothetical came into play, one that I have seen people advocate for–that is, a $9.99 price ceiling for books. You may not believe that the hypothetical situation will ever come into play. That doesn’t mean I am wrong about what would happen IF it did. It just means you think that the situation I am talking about is not a danger.

And that is fine–that’s what Robin thinks, too.

But I think you’re missing what my argument is: IF we had a flat $9.99 price ceiling, THEN New York publishers would publish fewer black authors.

Saying “but we won’t have a flat $9.99 price ceiling” does not contest the IF.

In context, I am responding to a group of people who claim that publishing will have no problem surviving with a hypothetical future $9.99 price ceiling. And my response is: yes, but it would hurt a certain segment of the market. Right now, we are talking hypothetical futures, and you’re talking about the present. So far as I can tell, what you’re saying is not responding to the argument that I’m making.

As for not understanding how I went from “woe to niche markets” to “the careers of minority authors are going to be destroyed”… if you understand how the niche markets would be destroyed by a hypothetical $9.99 price tag, then it’s simply disingenuous to not get how it works for black authors. You didn’t say it in these words, but you have said it: In this day and age, many minority authors are marketed solely for their niche as a minority writer. Not all of them, of course. It is a travesty that this is true, and I am not advocating their continued ghettoization in the market place. I am pointing out that it is true, it happens, and if that doesn’t change, and IF there is a hard $9.99 price ceiling, some black authors will get dropped by New York.

Also, forming your claim on the AA cultural studies section is odd. For the most part, those non-fiction trade paperbacks and hard covers are books generally assigned for AA studies/literature college courses–hence why they would be printed in that format, since the college student is a gold mine for profits (believe me, I know, since I major in AA studies)–and as with most of the casual book-buying public, HCs and TPBs are considered more prestigious than MMPB.

The placement of books written by AA writers varies by location–the B&N’s nearest to me have AA fiction sections full of street lit, AA studies sections with non-fiction and classic AA literature, while the other authors are shelved in their respective genres (with mainstream authors like E. Lynn Harris, Omar Tyree, etc published in hardcover and placed in the General Fiction section). I can travel up a the highway a few miles, to a Borders located in a predominantly white area, and find a tiny AA section shoved in a corner, with a small selection of fiction, non-fiction, and genre fiction jumbled on the shelves. And if you want to pull the conversation back to Amazon.com, the only thing connecting black authors to black authors in the search box are a few tags. Stick some tags like “paranormal” or “vampire” or “football” on there, and they’ll begin to pop up when someone looks for an SEP title, or the latest Anita Blake novel.

IF the only books available for black readers were the ones priced at $9.99, we might lose authors.

I am honestly baffled by your argument about the $9.99 price point vis-a-vis the status of black authors in the industry. How will Kimberla Lawson Roby get squeezed out of the market when she is published by Kensington? Or Michael Eric Dyson, when his books are generally published by NY publishers? How will K’wan get lost in the shuffle? The only endangerment to their careers that black authors face is the lack of saturated distribution which their non-black counterparts receive, and the tiny opportunity they have to break out (you know, large advances, great promotion from the publisher, prominent reviews–the works).

I just don’t understand how you went from “woe to niche markets” to “the careers of minority authors are going to be destroyed!”.

As for printing costs, of course I was referring to POD.

I have never said that black writers SHOULD be considered niche markets. What I said is that, wrongly, they are treated as one by current publishers. I said black authors are generally put in African American studies sections, rather than in the subject matter sections where they actually belong. I have said white people as a general rule tend not to buy black authors. I don’t think any of this is factually incorrect. I don’t like the facts, but I can’t change them except as they apply to my own behavior. I am not trying to say this SHOULD be the case, nor am I trying to say that black authors SHOULD be treated this way. I am trying to say that as a matter of description, they ARE treated this way, and we should be aware of that.

Of course there are some mass-market black authors. There are also some black authors who are very popular among people of all races. I wasn’t trying to make a statement about every black author–that’s not possible. I was trying to make a statistical statement: If you look at the African American studies section, you’ll see fewer mass markets. Statistically.

As for the rest of your argument, I think you are attacking a different argument than I am making. What I think you are saying is, “the $9.99 price point will not apply to books written by minorities, and only applies to New York publishing.”

That all may very well be true, but what I am saying is, “Those few people who are calling for a universal $9.99 price ceiling need to realize that this will not be possible in the future without cutting out some valuable segments of publishing.” These two arguments are not in contradiction with each other. The fact that you think black readers will pay more than $9.99 for their books doesn’t contradict the fact that IF the only books available for black readers were the ones priced at $9.99, we might lose authors.

A few sidenotes: the current $9.99 Kindle pricing is subsidized by Amazon, and so it won’t have an effect on authors’ royalties, as the author is paid as if the price on the book were higher than the $9.99 Amazon collects. It’s well-known that Amazon loses a few dollars on those books. But Amazon cannot subsidize this price indefinitely; hence the debate about pricing that is raging now.

As for this:

It’s much cheaper to print trade paperbacks than it is to print mass market paperbacks.

This is only true for print on demand, not traditional offset printing.

As I said before, most black writers are published by major NY publishers, and their books are priced according to their genre and format(romance novels by Francis Ray, Brenda Jackson, et al are priced the same as those written by Lisa Kleypas or Rachel Gibson), and the latest hardcovers written by Kimberla Roby Lawson or Steve Harvey are given that $9.99 Kindle price at Amazon.com–and it certainly isn’t hurting their sales or their niche.

Those black authors who self-publish don’t release their books in e-book format because the technology has not penetrated black fiction readers as heavily as they have non-black readers. And if books are priced at a premium, sales numbers show that black readers are willing to pay $16-25 for books written by their favorite authors.

So using minorities (black authors, especially) as a part of your claim, when you have neglected to mention the buying patterns for the majority of their readership, pokes holes in your argument. And again, if a non-black reader does not want to purchase books written by black authors, price does not matter.

As for niche books as a whole, they will always be more expensive because of the small audience interested in the work and the costs of printing small print runs–nothing will change that unless they begin purchasing their own printing machines (take a look at Lightning Source’s prices; it’s much cheaper to print trade paperbacks than it is to print mass market paperbacks).

And you’ve forgotten about Smashwords and Amazon’s own Kindle program, to mention the two biggie indie e-book “publishers”–I’ve seen quite a few small presses, whose print books are sold for $10+, upload digital copies of their books to Smashwords and then sell the e-book versions at reasonable prices. I think you’re looking at this from the wrong end–niche books are usually self-published or derive from small presses, and the authors/owners are pretty savvy about pricing and costs (or are getting there) because they cannot take the hits Macmillan or Harper Collins can. And with more and more self-published authors and/or small presses moving to the e-publishing model (ebook release, and then print release for popular titles), the price point is a bit of a moot thing. This is strictly a battle for NY publishers to hash out, and I really don’t think indies–at least not those I’ve come across or know personally–have anything to fear since they are, at the end of the day, entrepreneurs and small-business owners as well as authors.

I guess I never even considered it because there are some niche books that I buy priced $15 and up; and those are considered _good_ prices. Recently I bought a couple for around $50, before my good customer discount (thank you, FLGS). With the size of the book and the contents, that was judged pricey but reasonable.

Some of those niche books are available as ebooks, too, and none of them are priced at more than the hardcopy. Many of the them are the same price & I can think of one that the ecopy is 1/3 the price of the physical book. And that last is an absolute genius of an idea. There are people who will pick up the pdf (hey, it’s only $10) and then go on to buy that $30 hardback. Thus the publisher can go on to sell those $15 supplements, both e- & hardcopy.

But if you browse through the $9.99 boycott tags, while MOST of them are applied to books that are general purpose, some are applied fairly indiscriminately, and I do worry that if consumers reach the point where they won’t pay over $9.99 for books that this could become a problem.

I’m not saying it’s going to happen. I am not even saying it is in danger of happening. I am only saying that when talking about conglomerate book pricing, this is the footnote I have to add to the debate swirling around out there.

It’s not unreasonable to pay more for some e-books. Just not most of them.

I completely agree with you–as far as the major corporate battle exists, the argument for pricing general fiction at $34.99 in e-format, complete with unlendability and DRM restrictions that make it impossible to even port books between computers, let alone to a few trusted friends. I think there’s a certain future-myopia that’s afflicted at least some, where they want to hold on to the old ways of doing things just because that’s what they’ve always done.

I just don’t want small presses and niche books to become a casualty of the current corporate battle.

Which is too bad, because as someone who won’t pay print prices for digital books, I will pay a variety of prices for print books. I’ve paid 30, 40, even 50 bucks for a print book (a lot more for textbooks), and I have not begrudged (most) of those purchases.

So I’m not sure the problem is that the public does not, per se, expect a hard price ceiling for print. I think the problem is more that the failure of publishers to differentiate between print and ebooks (thinking, for example, that if they suppress the ebook market by delaying availability, they will force readers to buy more expensive paper copies) has helped to create a somewhat illusory battle over the “value” of content. In other words, their refusal to value the differences in form outside of ‘the trade model (hardback and trade pb) rules and must not be overruled,’ has resulted in a battle artificially pitched over the value of content.

Because it’s not these specialty books that are driving this debate — if it were, we could, I think, legitimately be talking about the devaluation of content. Instead, I think this is really about