On Saturday, new media expert Seth Godin criticized Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy for her digital stance–calling her “a high-ranking book publisher who should know better.”
Last week Reidy wrote a year-end letter to her colleagues, voicing her disapproval for a bookselling market driven by “the perception that ‘digital’ means ‘cheap.'” Godin wrote a post responding to her letter, urging publishers to accept and adapt to the new digital price scale.
Here’s a key excerpt: “If I’m an upstart publisher or a little-known author, you can bet I’m happy to sell my work at $5 and earn seventy cents a copy if I can sell a million. Smart businesspeople focus on the things they have the power to change, not whining about the things they don’t … They don’t have the power to demand that we pay more for the same stuff that others will sell for much less.”