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Brown's latest symbolizes e-book debate

By Motoko Rich and Brad Stone New York Times News Service

Dan Brown's fans have waited six long years for The Lost Symbol, his follow-up to the mega-blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code that is being published in hardcover on Sept. 15. Will those who want to read it in e-book form wait a little longer?

It is a question that Brown's publisher, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, is weighing as it plans the rollout of what it hopes will be a book-selling sensation. The publisher has announced a first hardcover run of 5 million copies, but Knopf Doubleday spokeswoman Suzanne Herz said there has been no decision on when to release an electronic version.

Other publishers are mulling release dates for fall titles. Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, said it had not set a date for the e-book edition of True Compass, the memoir by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy that is being released in hardcover Oct. 6. Twelve has announced a first print run of 1.5 million copies.

No topic is more hotly debated in book circles now than the timing, pricing and ultimate impact of e-books on the financial health of publishers and retailers. Publishers are grappling with e-book release dates partly because they are trying to understand how digital editions affect demand for hardcover books. A hardcover typically sells for $25 to $35, and the most common price for an e-book has become $9.99.

Amazon.com, which sells electronic editions for its Kindle device, has effectively made $9.99 the de facto price for most best sellers, a price that publishers think will reduce their profit margins over time. Barnes & Noble, through its Fictionwise arm, also sells best-sellers in e-book form for $9.95.

Herz said Doubleday was primarily worried about the security of Brown's book, which is being kept under a strict embargo until the Sept. 15 publication date. But she acknowledged that the e-book's possible effect on hardcover sales also was an issue, among others.

Similarly, Stephen King, whose novel Under the Dome is being published in November by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, said via e-mail that "we're all thinking and talking about electronic publishing and how to deal with these issues, ... but I can't say anything right now."

Until now, John Grisham has not allowed any of his books to be released in electronic form. But according to his agent, David Gernert, Grisham is talking to his publisher, Doubleday, about releasing a digital version of Ford County, a short-story collection set for hardcover release on Nov. 3.

Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House, the world's largest publisher of consumer books and the parent of Knopf Doubleday, said the company's standard approach was to release e-books on the same day that a hardcover is published.

But, he said, "we do have discussions periodically about either delaying or accelerating the e-book edition" on a book-by-book basis. Imprints of Random House, in fact, have committed to releasing digital versions on the same day as the hardcovers for upcoming titles from John Irving, E.L. Doctorow and Jon Krakauer.

Many publishers did not want to talk publicly about internal discussions concerning whether to delay the release of e-books specifically on releases by best-selling authors who typically sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of hardcover copies.

This fall is a particularly ripe testing ground for such discussions because many top-selling authors are publishing books. King, Michael Lewis, Michael Chabon, Barbara Kingsolver and Pat Conroy all have books scheduled.

At least one publisher has made a decision to withhold an e-book edition of a forthcoming book to preserve demand for a hardcover edition. Sourcebooks, an independent publisher, is releasing Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse, a novel aimed at children, in September in hardcover. It will hold back the e-book until six months later.

Dominique Raccah, chief executive of Sourcebooks, said she wanted to prevent the cannibalization of hardcover sales. "If you as a consumer can look at a book and say: 'I have two products; one is $27.95, and the other is $9.95. Which should I buy?, that's not a difficult decision," Raccah said.

She said that because Amazon has set the standard consumer price for e-books, the publisher could control only when a book would be released in other formats. Delaying the release of an e-book, she said, was like publishing a cheaper paperback edition months after a hardcover edition.

After The Wall Street Journal reported that Source books was delaying the e-book release of Bran Hambric, many bloggers criticized the publisher.

Mike Shatzkin, founder and CEO of Idea Logical Co., a consultant to publishers on digital issues, said he did not think e-book buyers cannibalize hardcover sales. "People who read e-books don't buy physical books, and people who buy physical books don't buy e-books," he said. E-books represent only 1 percent to 2 percent of book sales.