Arthur Klebanoff on e-book price strategy in WSJ

The Wall Street Journal looks at the emerging trend of lower priced introductions for new e-books in an article titled, “E-Book Prices Get Slashed” that quotes RosettaBooks chief executive Arthur Klebanoff as a leading e-book publisher who sees the strategy as a sales booster. “We had two Kurt Vonnegut novels priced at 99 cents last November in separate Daily Deals (in the Kindle Store) — his ‘Breakfast of Champions’ and ‘Mother Night,’” Klebanoff said. “Each title sold in one day the number of copies comparable to what we might have sold in a year.”

Read the complete Wall Street Journal article here.

The eReader Independent

U.S. Title Merchandising Goes International

February 13, 2012

... And Open Market rights will never be the same

Kindle Stores are now open in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. From many other markets, a Kindle device owner can order Kindle titles from the U.S. store, and it is just a matter of time before many other Kindle Store markets are open.

Each of these Kindle Stores is robustly stocked with English language e-books. In the UK Store, those titles will be sourced either from a UK publisher with exclusive UK rights or from a U.S. publisher with world English rights. The other stores are all part of the Open Market and as such most of the time can be accessed nonexclusively by either the U.S. or the UK publisher.

For print books sold in brick-and-mortar bookstores, typically the UK publisher covered the EU and Asia, and the U.S. publisher covered Latin America and most of South America. But digital distribution changes all of that.

RosettaBooks has worldwide English rights for about half of its catalog and Open Market rights for many more titles. So RosettaBooks titles are currently populating these international Kindle Stores.

Kindle has recently begun merchandising U.S.-sourced English language titles in its UK and Germany stores.

The #1 title in the RosettaBooks catalog, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, was recently the beneficiary of this expanded promotion. On January 28, 7 Habits was the Kindle Daily Deal (at $.99 for 24 hours) in the United States and rose to #1 all categories in the Kindle Store. On February 10, 7 Habits was the Kindle Daily Deal in the UK Store (99 pence for 24 hours) and rose to #2 all categories. On February 12, 7 Habits was the Kindle Daily Deal in the Germany Store (1.09 Euros for 24 hours) and rose to #1 all categories.

This merchandising “trifecta” illustrates the beginning of a major expansion of opportunity for English language titles. Until now, Open Market rights for print books were usually a modest part of the overall copyright value. All of that is about to change due to the international marketing of e-books.

About Us

RosettaBooks launched in 2001 with a list of 100 preeminent backlist titles.

Since then, RosettaBooks has led in every emerging ebook promotion:

Palm bestsellers including the first free ebook sold together with a device (“Palm for the Graduate” including an ebook copy of The Graduate)
Adobe time-limited ebooks (using Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None)
Microsoft eReader free upgrades (led by Red Alert, the basis of Dr. Strangelove)
The first ebooks distributed on an airplane
The first library demonstration of a subscription offer with unlimited downloads and limited time use
The first demonstration “tying” a high quality audio book with the text of an ebook (Michael York’s recording of 1984)
Many more.

RosettaBooks pioneered in protecting authors’ rights by successfully defending a litigation filed by Random House.

Everything changed with the launch of the Kindle in 2009. RosettaBooks was invited to become a Kindle alliance partner focused on backlist title acquisition with extensive site promotion for titles with short-term Kindle exclusivity. This alliance made worldwide news in December 2009 with the publication of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, a book which has sold 15,000,000 copies since publication nearly 25 years ago and sells more than 150,000 copies annually in the United States alone. For nearly two years, the title has been the number one exclusive title available in the Kindle Store.

RosettaBooks expanded its original 100 title list to more than 500 titles by the end of 2011 and its revenues more than forty times as Kindle opened the markets worldwide.

In 2011, RosettaBooks pioneered the short inexpensive original ebook with:

More Kindle Singles than any other source including three number one bestsellers
More than 50 Destination Guides in partnership with NorthStar Travel Media
Crimescape, a growing line of original true crime pieces edited by Marilyn Bardsley
The Galaxy Project, a line of science fiction novellas

RosettaBooks is now the leading independent e-book publisher. RosettaBooks plans in 2012 to publish hundreds more quality backlist titles and to launch new high brand value original content lines with hundreds of titles.

Why should you publish with RosettaBooks?

Results: RosettaBooks pays out over $1,000,000 annually to rightsholders
Promotion: RosettaBooks implements over 100 promotions annually on the major e-tailer sites with excellent public relations support
Reach: RosettaBooks distributes internationally through all major e-tailers
Scope: RosettaBooks licenses the entire line of successful authors
Terms: RosettaBooks pays the highest standard royalty (50% of net receipts to 2,500 copies and 60% of net receipts thereafter) for the shortest term of license (five years) for the narrowest grant of rights (enhanced rights withheld)
Collaboration: RosettaBooks for more than ten years has been a pro-author, pro-agent e-book publisher

If you have a project to offer RosettaBooks, please contact [email protected].