On David Baldacci's "Writer's Cut" and eBooks: When Is the Book Itself "the Whole Shebang"?

By Stephen Windwalker
Originally posted at Kindle Nation Daily 3.17.2010

I've been a David Baldacci fan for over a decade, and I've easily read over half of the books he's published since his stunning 1996 debut with Absolute Power. From everything I've heard he's a decent guy -- among other things, in addition to spinning a great yarn, he's a national ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and he funds his own literacy foundation, the Wish You Well Foundation. I'd love to keep reading his books on my Kindle, and I probably will do so. Since I and many other Kindle Nation readers are conscious both of content and price, it is worth noting that his most recent bestseller, True Blue, is priced at $9.99 in the Kindle Store. There are, also, over a dozen Baldacci backlist titles in the $6 to $8 price range as well as a couple of children's books and other titles that fall outside that range.


And it's good to see that he and his publisher are doing some thinking about ebooks, as evidenced in this piece by the AP's Hillel Italie Monday. They are bringing out an "enriched" electronic version of his next novel, Deliver Us from Evil, which will include passages deleted from the final text, research photos, an audio interview and video footage of Baldacci at work.  They are  calling this the "writers cut," which is a nice marketing touch, and the Hachette Book Group's senior VP Maja Thomas is quoted saying that the "enriched" ebook will cost $15.99, with the "regular" e-book to start at $14.99, and come down to $12.99 "once it becomes a top seller."

This is interesting, and worth watching. For now, about five weeks before the book's April 20 release date, pre-orders of the ebook are for sale in the Kindle Store for $13.60. The beginning date for the so-called "agency model," under which Hachette and other publishers intend to mandate rather than suggest the retail prices of ebooks, is said to be on or about April Fool's Day, so it may well be that Kindle owners could save $1.39 by pre-ordering the "regular" ebook now. On the other hand, since there's probably about a 15-second over-under on how long it usually takes a Baldacci title to become a bestseller, it is equally possible that one would lose 61 cents by pre-ordering the book.

I do wonder how many Baldacci fans will want to pay $15.99 for the enriched version, which sounds more like something that would "play" on an iPad, an iPod Touch, or a SuperKindle or Kindle Multi than on any Kindle model that is currently available. So I have questions:

• Will the advent of "enriched" or "enhanced" ebooks drive readers to see multimedia features as a must-have for ebook readers?
• Will the same phenomenon drive Amazon to put its foot on the accelerator to speed up development and release of a SuperKindle?

Baldacci told Publisher's Weekly's Jim Milliot that, for readers who are interested in the creative process, the enhanced e-book "will give them the whole shebang." I am interested in the creative process, but I have been raised, and educated, to see the book itself as "the whole shebang," to join Baldacci in using the academic terminology.

A few weeks back I spent a small sum -- I think I was driven to make the purchase by a tweet that told me I could get it for 99 cents -- to download the Vook version of an Anne Rice story to Betty's iPod Touch, just to see what the experience was like. I hate to sound like someone from back in 2009, but I have to admit that the whole time I was dutifully clicking on, watching, and listening to the embedded video footage, I was impatient to get on with the actual process of reading the story.

Which makes me wonder if there may not come to exist a line of demarcation, between one type of "reader" and another. If so, we may find that for those who use the existing Kindle models and other existing dedicated ebook readers, the book itself will continue to be "the whole shebang."

For owners of shinier, more colorful devices capable of "playing" Rice's Vook or Baldacci's enriched ebook, there will be new content and, it seems, higher costs. As Baldacci told AP:

"For a long time it seemed all people were talking about was pricing and the timing of the e-book. And I want to bring it back to the books themselves, to the content, because that's what should matter. I want people to have a great experience and give them a behind-the-scenes look at what I do, the way you would have it on a DVD."

I don't know where this will lead. My memory may be fuzzy, but I do not recall this concept working out all that well for the film or music industries.

As an author, I wonder if a similar demarcation will develop among writers. Some of us will finish writing a book and believe we are finished, whereas others will know that it's time to call the video production team for the next stage in what Baldacci calls "the creative process."

I do not mean that to sound snarky, which is why I did not quote Baldacci as saying, "I have a pretty cool office, if I do say so myself," presumably in response to the reporter asking him why someone would want to pay extra to see video of him sitting in his office.

I'm just trying to observe that we do not all see the world, or books, for that matter, in the same ways.