Game Change, the political blockbuster of the moment, is currently sitting atop Amazon’s bestseller list, but don’t expect to be able to read it on your Kindle or any other e-reader. In an attempt to capitalize on hardcover sales, publisher HarperCollins has stalled the release of the digital version, unexpectedly activating a spectacular wave of consumer dissatisfaction culminating in a highly mobilized campaign to obliterate the book’s rating on Amazon.com.
With the digital edition of Game Change embargoed until February 23, most of the book’s single star reviews are from furious customers who found that they can’t buy the heavily marketed book in their preferred format.
“The publisher’s decision to delay the Kindle edition only robs them of incremental sales while creating anger among their customers,” says one reviewer. “It seems to me they need new folks in the marketing department who are more in tune with today’s marketplace, and executives who are willing to make principle-driven decisions.”
Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader have meet with surprising success, and the recent CES trade show indicates a slew of new digital readers in the pipeline, but the market is still in its infancy. It may be an anti-consumer move, but it should be no surprise that HarperCollins is attempting to stake out the rules while customer habits are still pliable.
The problem, though, is that alienating the e-reading demographic is a dangerous move at a time when digital books are enjoying an unprecedented level of enthusiasm. With the intense amount of press coverage for the highly topical Game Change, there’s an additional layer of momentum that is being snuffed for the digital market instead of exploited.
Hardcover books have also always been seen by publishers as premium items, with lower-cost paperback editions following months later, but that practice has grown increasingly problematic—with fewer readers willing to drop $40 on a hardcover, publishers are more frequently skipping that stage altogether. This is even more of an issue with e-book customers: these are people who have spent a lot of money on their device with the return being much lower pricing on digital product, released simultaneously to its dead tree counterpart.
It seems like HarperCollins is taking its cues from the movie studios, who have also enraged customers in recent years by delaying digital rentals in much the same way. The Hurt Locker showed up this week in the iTunes Store, for example, only available to buy for $24.99 until the $5.99 rental kicks in next month (prices for the HD versions). At the beginning of January, direct-mail DVD service Netflix submitted to a deal with Warner Bros. to delay rentals for a month after the retail release date (the same restriction imposed on rental service Redbox has instigated a lawsuit).
On paper, it’s a no-brainer business decision: the margins on digital product are thin, and the digital-direct market is relatively small. The concept fails, however, when the human behavioural element is brought in. You can’t compete with convenience, and when you have a consumer base that is practically begging for digital content—even hobbled by DRM—it’s a stupid move to throw up ramparts.
The same thinking almost destroyed the music industry, which has never recovered from years of roadblocking its customers. Even though digital music is widely available now, shoppers would never tolerate disconnected release schedules between CDs and digital tracks. Music labels also wouldn’t dare, given the alternative path of least resistance: “free.”
At the time this article was written, Game Change had 145 one-star reviews, 131 of which were protesting the lack of a Kindle version. Despite overwhelmingly positive reader reviews on the text itself, the stunt has pulled the book’s rating on Amazon down to only two stars, effectively punishing the authors along with the publisher.
By the end of 2009, Amazon said that the Kindle was its bestselling item across all categories, and revealed that e-book aficionados buy 1.7 more books than the pulp-only consumer. With the cost of e-readers poised to drop precipitously, digital books are having a watershed moment. HarperCollins can no longer presume that readers will accept the format offered to them, and playing fast and loose with the tech-savvy and fickle e-book audience is a jeopardous PR game.
Many of the Amazon customers poised to buy Game Change are now claiming to boycott the book on principle, either not bothering to read it at all, or finding a way that doesn’t give HarperCollins an additional sale.
“If I DID decide to read it a month after its hardback release,” says an pro-Kindle commenter, “I would borrow one from someone who bought [it].”
Says another: “Sorry, authors.”
Photo by Marc Lostracco.
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The same thinking almost destroyed the music industry, which has never recovered from years of roadblocking its customers.
One error in that sentence. You meant to say “almost destroyed the record industry”. The music industry is thriving, thank you very much. The record studios? Well, they still make money, just not as much as 10 or 20 years ago.