This will blow your mind: Simon & Schuster noticed that when it released e-book and hardcover editions of its books simultaneously, the hardcovers sold less. That said, the publisher will wait four months to release the e-book editions of 35 titles hitting stores between January and April to avoid cannibalism. If you want to read Karl Rove’s Courage and Consequence, for example, without killing trees, you’re going to have to wait four months longer than everybody else. A slew of other imprints — Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martin’s Press and the Hachette Book Group — will soon begin staggering release dates as well.
[NYT]
