Comments on: Dime Novels are Back as e-Books — and Expensive

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:08:44 +0000

Well it’s great to see people talking about us :D

Let me address a few things about Dime Novel Publishing.

First, these are original, serialized stories. We are thinking about digitizing a lot of the original Dime Novels but we will provide them free of charge. I think they should be in electronic format as they are fantastic to read! But our stories are designed to lead you into the next. We want readers to be excited about finishing and eager to get to the next issue. Remember that Dime Novels were the precursor to today’s modern sit-com and comic books.

Second, we recognize our pricing model is, well, un-orthodox. Generally, our books run 30-50 pages per issue (they will lean more to the larger size especially given some recent feedback about more description). We predict that an average series will run ~1100 pages of content. I think that’s worth the ~$23.

Third, we will play with pricing. Unfortunately, in today’s distribution model we cannot go lower than $.99 per issue. Neither Amazon nor Apple will allow us. We have the plan to bundle all the issues up at some point into an annual “volume” and sell it for a slightly discounted price. We’d also like to see some sort of subscription model where a reader could subscribe to a series for a cheaper price. Both the annual volume and the subscription are the only real way right now that we can drive down the per-issue price.

Again, thanks for taking the time to discuss. We think what we are developing is really perfect for the e-book generation. Lots of new series will be coming out this year (including some adult-focused).

By: A.J.

A.J. — Tue, 18 May 2010 06:38:41 +0000

Agreed, Mike.
It’s disgraceful what Google is doing, unchecked, to public domain books. Under the guise of making everything free and available, they’re actually monetizing & copyrighting (for themselves) the worlds literary heritage.

By: mikecane

mikecane — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:27:48 +0000

PARASITES. Damn typos. Let me expand. What happens is, someone grabs a public domain book, tarts it up into ePub (just formatting it, no text changes) and then Copyrights it. They then send Google a DMCA notice and the *public domain copy has to be replaced with the “Copyrighted” work — and access goes from Full View to Snippet View!

By: Strodtbeck

Strodtbeck — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:27:07 +0000

I guess it all depends on how long each episode is. If it’s 20 pages then that’s a scam. If it’s 700 pages then that’s a bargain.

By: mikecane

mikecane — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:25:26 +0000

I wonder if these are more parasitics looting the public domain and then slapping THEIR Copyright on them. This has been a big problem with Google Books. Congress and the Copyright Office should not permit such looting of the public domain.

By: Todd

Todd — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:05:35 +0000

100 years ago, $0.10 was more like $2.00. Many of the dime novel series lasted hundreds of books (what you describe as chapters) with each sometimes having a hundred pages or more.

The whole point is that you can afford it because you are only paying $0.99 at a time.