News come flowing in into our tattle box, this time about the British Telegraph devoting a short editorial (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml;jsessionid=TV0K5TDRZX5R5QFIQMGCFGGAVCBQ UIV0?xml=/connected/2007/10/26/dlebook26.xml) on how leading publishers are increasingly turning towards e-books -- because they have to.

Jeff Gomez, the senior director for online consumer sales and marketing for the Penguin Group in the US, said that publishers had to embrace electronic books if they wanted to survive in the 21st century. "Offering electronic editions for free won't cannibalise the sale of print copies, but will instead give potential consumers an appetite for a book they might have not heard of before," he said.

"Far from causing the book industry's downfall, free access to electronic versions of novels has the potential to be its saviour. And to publishers, struggling for relevance in a digital age, that should be music to their ears."

Thanks to Jorgen (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/member.php?u=795) for the tip!

Related: E-books might be next step in evolution, says S&P research (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15587)

:yahoo:

Interesting comment:

But the vast majority said they would prefer to read it on their laptop rather than a device specially designed for ebooks.

I have to wonder if they are generalizing about any device other than a dedicated one, or if they really mean people would rather read on a laptop than on a PDA or smartphone, etc.

As to another comment:

"Can you imagine someone giving an ebook for Christmas?"

Why not? People give Starbucks cards for Christmas!

As to another comment:

"Can you imagine someone giving an ebook for Christmas?"

Why not? People give Starbucks cards for Christmas!

Another opportunity for Sony to make money.

Another opportunity for Sony to make money.

That Penguin gives away ebooks, considering what Penguin has to offer is great news, but is it really where things should go?

I suspect they are right, ebooks at this stage will probably promote paper book sales. But that will not be the case in the distant future (or midrange).

I would rather have a system of micro-cash, where ebooks are brought for very small amounts.

The point being that authors, translators, coders and publishers should get something for their labour, and as the potential market size is in the millions this could mean a healthy income, for books that sell for 50 cents or less.

Compared to print the costs are much less, stocks do not have to be stored or remainders disposed. It should, over time, be commercially viable to produce ebooks at a very low price electronically, which would be a great thing for all of us.

But only if some form of micro-cash is in use beforehand, otherwise we would see the absurdity of some ebooks being priced close to paper books, when the costs of publication of the former is trivial.

Instead of being free, being nearly free would kick start things, but what is needed is a simple and secure way of sending transactions as little as 0.001 of a cent.

An old Penguin (there are some great old Penguins long out of print), for 5-10 cents would not take long to pay for the scanning and markup costs, and maybe even turn a little profit - that way there is an incentive to keep producing ebooks, especially of out of print works.

Ebooks should aim to make available a new Alexandrian library, where any person can for a few dollars have a huge corpus at their fingertips. For that there needs to be an underlying economy.

Sorry this probably the wrong thread to bring this up, I am new to the forum.

Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

Sorry this probably the wrong thread to bring this up, I am new to the forum.

Not really... the points you've mentioned have been discussed all over this forum! And largely, those here agree with you. Who knows, however, when some sort of "micropayment" system will come about? In the meantime, simply pricing books at a lower cost appropriate to digital files would suffice.

Two things to think about, regarding cost: Firstly, just because it's cheap, doesn't mean more people will buy. My books, for instance, are priced significantly lower than other e-books, but that doesn't mean word about me has been spreading like wildfire throughout the web (trust me, it hasn't), and that I've been getting sales to rival Amazon (trust me, I haven't!). It's a big web-based market, but spreading the word to all those people is difficult, and usually costly.

Secondly, a fair payment in one area can still be exhorbitant in another. Although in the U.S., book prices are (generally) considered on the high side of reasonable, in other parts of the world, the cost of a book could be a day's salary, even a week's salary. You are challenged to price something to get the maximum of profit, but that can be hard to determine in a global market. Will I make more money by cutting my price to a tenth, and thereby get more foreign purchases? Will there be enough foreign purchases to make that work? It's tough to determine.

This is one of the reasons why publishers have it so tough: The market has changed to digital, and they waited too long to deal with the many variables involved with global web-based selling; now they're caught with their pants down, and trying to figure out how to recover (or whether to give up the market and retire).

Those are good thoughts Greg. It would be a pretty optimal solution if we had a wide audience buying many ebooks and low priced non-DRMd editions available for almost every book written. Even if the most recent and popular ebooks always commanded a more premium price.

As far as readers preferring a laptop to a dedicated device, I think it's two-fold:
1) People don't want to be forced to buy and carry and learn a new device unless they are sold on the benefit and ease of use.
2) People say they prefer to read on a laptop because of what I'll call the "magazine e-edition problem". Specifically, remembering that I am a huge e-book fan, what would I say when I fill out the subscription form of a trade magazine for a free courtesy subscription? Even if I really prefer the electronic edition, my answer to the question is that I want paper. The reason is that I don't know what form the electronic edition will be in. It might require a proprietary reader to be installed on my laptop. It might just be more headaches than it's worth. So even if I'd love a pdf version of the magazine, my answer has to be "no thanks" to the uncertain e-edition offer.

Same thing with the laptop reading question. There are so many potential headaches and issues that I think people find comfort in sticking with what they know - use their laptop since they already have it with them. Sounds better than spending money and time on a device they don't expect to use much anymore. But make ebook devices familiar and give consumers confidence that there are no DRM/format/cost issues, and they might just find that reading the paper and news and books and magazines on a device is their preference (well, on a great device with a large screen anyway). But lets face it, e-book reading devices are expensive and limited right now, and they do come with DRM/format issues.

In that vein, you can think of a laptop as a large- or full-scale portable device, affording the same familiar tools as a computer (or PDA), but with a larger screen. If the laptop is portable enough, light enough, and power lasts long enough, I'd gladly take PDF versions of magazines to read on it.

Of course, laptops like that tend to be pricey... and their batteries don't last that long. Maybe the UMPCs will save us.

I have a laptop and would not read on it. I cant hold it in one hand while lying in bed. Its not just that though. I use computers a great deal and am very proficient in photoshop but I don't really like them. No attachment at all, they are just tools. My reader on the other hand is my friend. :yahoo:

Not really... the points you've mentioned have been discussed all over this forum! And largely, those here agree with you. Who knows, however, when some sort of "micropayment" system will come about? In the meantime, simply pricing books at a lower cost appropriate to digital files would suffice.

I am very glad to hear this. The truth is that the technology is the easy bit, getting the capital to set it up is the hard part. Making things secure and anonymous (micro-cash rather than micro-payment) is essential and not technically hard or expensive (as these things go).

Two things to think about, regarding cost: Firstly, just because it's cheap, doesn't mean more people will buy... It's a big web-based market, but spreading the word to all those people is difficult, and usually costly.

Very true, however, the marketing problem may be resolving itself slowly.

The problem with the internet is its size and chaos. The thing I would pay attention to is what stems from "Second Life" and soon Sony PS Home. Virtual geography holds the promise of the net self-organising itself. Though it will take some time for this to properly evolve.

A virtual marketplace of booksellers, with virtual shops and stalls is in the interests of buyers and sellers alike. Likewise with common interests of all sorts. That has some long term promise. But until then making anything much known on the net is a hit and miss affair, and thereby expensive without much return.

But it is early days yet in this area. Eink, and cheap readers is making things very interesting (I am a school teacher, and in my area there is great promise).

I am not suggesting that people begin slashing prices, rather the reverse, that the free end starts charging a little, almost a nominal sum, and things meet in the middle.

But we get into the same circle re micro-cash. The real problem here is that financial services are just too damn greedy, they want their transaction fees.

There are other ways, but it would need investors willing to sit until the central account becomes big enough to earn decent interest. As that is likely to take five years or more, not many investors are willing to wait that long for dividends. A pity, a case of greed being fatal to much needed innovation.

Thanks for the reply, and this seems a great forum for my interests.

Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

I use computers a great deal and am very proficient in photoshop but I don't really like them. No attachment at all, they are just tools. My reader on the other hand is my friend. :yahoo:

:shrug: I enjoy reading on my PDA, but it's still just a tool for me. If a tool works, it's great. If not, maybe you need a better tool.

Maybe if your laptop was as good a tool as your reader apparently is, it would also be your friend. :p

Anyway, I wouldn't try it with my present laptop, either. I'd have to upgrade to something much better suited to lightweight, long-life use... maybe a UMPC, maybe a tablet, who knows at this point. Presently, I'm not looking... but if more magazines put out digital subscriptions (even PDFs), I'll start looking!

If you first give out free ebooks, and people actually get their own ereader. You will have more chance of selling ebooks later.

If you first give out free ebooks, and people actually get their own ereader. You will have more chance of selling ebooks later.
Unless these ebooks are in eReader format, they won't get eReader as eReader won't read them. eReader is the name of the format/program used to read eReader format ebooks. when you incorrectly use the term eReader, you confuse people into thinking that's the format these books will be in.

If you first give out free ebooks, and people actually get their own ereader. You will have more chance of selling ebooks later.

Baen has the free book thing right for the most part. Example: When I first wanted to try out David Weber's Honor Harrington series I was able to try the first 2 in the series for free & ended up buying those two & all the rest, including anthologies. I bought the dead tree editions as I had only a PDA as a reader at the time & that's never been an ideal reader for me. Now, I'm sure everyone who might try the series may not like it but maybe that's made up for in more people willing to try it out (since the first 2 are free) & end up liking it.

Free ebooks are similar to when publishers sell pb's of early books in a series for $4 instead of $8 to generate sales of the later books.

Unless these ebooks are in eReader format, they won't get eReader as eReader won't read them. eReader is the name of the format/program used to read eReader format ebooks. when you incorrectly use the term eReader, you confuse people into thinking that's the format these books will be in.

Whoa, deja-vu... I'd swear I've been in this thread before...

The problem with the internet is its size and chaos. The thing I would pay attention to is what stems from "Second Life" and soon Sony PS Home. Virtual geography holds the promise of the net self-organising itself. Though it will take some time for this to properly evolve.

The virtual worlds may make it easier to transcend geographical boundaries, but you still have the same problem of how to get more people overall to see your product, AND check it out and buy it.

The virtual worlds may make it easier to transcend geographical boundaries, but you still have the same problem of how to get more people overall to see your product, AND check it out and buy it.
Except of course, if where they meet is also where the products are. Think in terms of different cities, or islands, think of the Continent of Literature, Book Island, Reader's city.

Virtual place, becomes virtual market place, no more searching the web but wandering through department stores, small shops and plaza's full of stalls, suburbs of non-fiction etc.,.

Still a ways off, but now much nearer than it ever was before.

Except of course, if where they meet is also where the products are. Think in terms of different cities, or islands, think of the Continent of Literature, Book Island, Reader's city.

Virtual place, becomes virtual market place, no more searching the web but wandering through department stores, small shops and plaza's full of stalls, suburbs of non-fiction etc.,.

And is advertising free there? No premium prices to get your ads in the spots that everyone will see, the way it is in the real world?

And is advertising free there? No premium prices to get your ads in the spots that everyone will see, the way it is in the real world?

Well that would depend very much on what we are talking about.

What I am saying is that there is already evolving a virtual world approach to net communication, which by its nature allows (when the software evolves further) market places to form.

I would assume that means premium virtual real estate goes with big bucks. But how do you shop for books?

Do you always go to the big stores, or the stores with the best selection?

At the moment you throw out adverts into the net wind and hope to get customers. A virtual geography gives you a place to which customers come.

Small vendors end up with stalls and in lanes, big well heeled operations would have posters all over the place, and huge malls (I suppose). Books unlike many commodities have niche-tastes not well served by the everybook in the world approach, besides which in a virtual world you also have staff, with tastes and knowledge of their own.

I am not saying this solves everything, but watch out because it is just around the corner, and new opportunities will be created. The internet is still a baby with a whole lot more growing up to do.

Besides which it is going to take some years for things to flesh out.

Steve, we are trying to get people to stop incorrectly using the term ereader eReader means something and the incorrect usage could cause others to misread what is trying to be said.

Yeah, I know... I was just saying. I agree, we should be clear and accurate with our terms and product names.

I've seen the "virtual geography" idea as it has played out in Second Life, and it doesn't work for me. I find it much more efficient to be able to scan a list on a screen than to have to walk around in virtual space to find something. I don't like wandering through malls, looking for content. I like it even less in Second Life than I do in real life.

The exception, of course, is things that are best represented in 3D. If I were considering buying a house or hiring a builder in a remote location, I'd love to be able to tour a virtual house. Or if I were buying furniture, I could have a model of my own house, and try the virtual versions of different furniture in it until I find something I like. Maybe someday we'll have virtual representations good enough that I'd consider buying one-of-a-kind pottery that way, but we're not there yet. And for buying words, why would I need a 3D representation? I'm not going to read them that way.

On the other hand, I like being part of a community around books, but at this point, I think the site we're on right now (as I'm typing this, and later as you're reading this, whoever you are) is serving that purpose better than a virtual world which imposes "realistic" constraints of time and place.

As I type this, I'm sitting in a real-world library-- a real community of books. I'm here because I have a few hours free and this is a comfortable place to be. The combination of real local space and "flat" or text-based virtual space works well for me.

nekokami, if you ask me, wandering around as a bunch of avatars is a waste of time. The who "second life" thing should be renamed "waste your life".

However, like everything else there are aspects that outweigh others. In this case, it is how any form of Virtual Geography (need not be 3D, but obviously this will bring it about) allows similar things to come together within the same "space" because it is mutually beneficent.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I like Second Life. I just don't like it for shopping. I like it for building toys, and sharing them with others. :D

Interesting (and scary) that Penguin seems to identify eBooks with free books. While eBooks should offer cost savings (if nothing else, to help encourage readers to try them), free is not an author-friendly model. And relying on e to sell p is based on a short-term model which has already expired.

In terms of asking people what they'd read on, if you'd asked them what they'd listen to downloaded music on five years ago, they probably would have said their PC (or maybe on CDs they burned on their PCs). Until people try something, they can't see themselves using it. I agree with those who say that a small portable device makes for a better eReading experience.

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com
(Affordable electronic fiction)

Interesting (and scary) that Penguin seems to identify eBooks with free books.

They just can't grasp a market beyond print.

Hello all, new to the forum,

I've been following the digital paper development and I believe we are on the brink of a revolution in books and the written word in general, similar to the one we've seen in the music business.

Digital music was never truly a mass phenomenon before the advent of the mp3 which allowed the download of music and of the digital music players. In the book scene there are already many suitable formats that allow for mass storage in digital format, but we still don't have a suitable hardware. Reading on a computer screen is tiring, and reading on a backlit screen is hardly relaxing, the e-paper makes these problems disappear.

What it seems to me is writers will be able to benefit from the greater accessibility of their writings maybe selling directly to the reader on a website and if they're really good have the publishers do the marketing, PR and translation work. In this way the role of the publishers will shift to that of a service provider for the writer. In any scenario we'll see a downward trend in books prices as the operating costs for the whole operation diminishes.

Sorry for any freaky grammar, I'm not a native speaker

What it seems to me is writers will be able to benefit from the greater accessibility of their writings maybe selling directly to the reader on a website and if they're really good have the publishers do the marketing, PR and translation work. In this way the role of the publishers will shift to that of a service provider for the writer.

I agree with you. The question is whether the publishers will embrace their new role or try to protect the existing distribution model. If they don't I see there will be a "YouBook" type of service where you can see which books are getting the most discussion and hits and then go to the authors website and buy the book.

The publishers will then see their profits drop, blame piracy and lobby for tougher DRM laws.

JamesNune "I've been following the digital paper development and I believe we are on the brink of a revolution in books and the written word in general, similar to the one we've seen in the music business."

Too right!!, these are the very early days. It is not the beginning of the end of the printed word, but it is going to be a gigantic shift on what is committed to paper and what is not, and just how much wood is given over to printing. Ironically, ebooks will probably support more on-demand printing and auto-binding, what will probably vanish is the huge piles of remainders which end up being pulped.

I would also strongly agree that e-ink is the technology, or reflective "monitors" are critically important - reading has never been good on CRT and LCD (the later much better than the former). I am new to this forum as well - I was very much taken by surprised on how many e-ink devices are coming onto the market (none in Australia yet). This is a very good thing.

Some signs of what may evolve are already apparent. The publisher/retailer, rather than publisher - distributor - retailer seems a useful model, and one uniquely suited to digital communications. Self-publishing is part and parcel with this, and roles for freelance editors and copy-fixers, will make some headway.

However, it comes down to money and while I love things being free, the fact is that authors, especially, need to earn money on their writing so they keep writing.

Small, even nominal payments, are not yet practical, that is a technical restraint. I would like the people who scan old books, format them to be paid, precisely so they continue doing so, and doing more.

Free is not good, nor is paying near paper prices for digital works. I would hope in the fullness of time, that prices come down smallish amounts, and most of what is given for free is charged at least a few cents. I would like to think that someone in the Third World could buy literature at very little cost for them.

Micro-cash is really needed in this area. Even if Gutenberg charged as little as .01 cent for raw text, they could always give the money to a charity. That would be a good thing IMHO. I would like to see free formatted books charge a a single cent, and in the end a new best seller for a for a few dollars, and most commercial ebooks for a dollar or two (or less).

The scale of consumption would have to change dramatically to support this kind of pricing, but paying for things has to become a lot simpler and the banks/financial houses should not get away with a transaction tax (one of the main reasons it is not viable to charge too little for most things). Micro-Cash (anonymous transferable scripts) rather than Micro-Payment (transactional, levy based imposts) is the key, unfortunately it is out of our hands for the most part.

Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

JamesNune "
I would also strongly agree that e-ink is the technology, or reflective "monitors" are critically important - reading has never been good on CRT and LCD (the later much better than the former). I am new to this forum as well - I was very much taken by surprised on how many e-ink devices are coming onto the market (none in Australia yet). This is a very good thing.


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

Actually Hiebook seems only to be available in Australia. It is a nice reader by the way.

http://www.einfosolutions.com/hiebook.htm

Dale

However, it comes down to money and while I love things being free, the fact is that authors, especially, need to earn money on their writing so they keep writing.

Agreed, I believe the writer will be able to have a bigger share of a lower priced book, while the editors and the retailers will have to invest in premium versions of books like illustrated hard-cover editions for example, which are beautiful on a bookshelf and can't be replaced for the digital version.
I don't think the p-book is going to disappear, not while there are people around that know that the physical book as an object has meaning and emotional depth. Although I make a point of having a physical version of "Remembrance of Things Past" or of "The book of disquiet" I wouldn't mind saving shelf space on the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" series which I would be more than happy to read and store on my e-book reader.
I trust that everyone in the business will be able to make a profit, albeit being forced to innovate beyond their present model to do so.



The scale of consumption would have to change dramatically to support this kind of pricing, but paying for things has to become a lot simpler and the banks/financial houses should not get away with a transaction tax (one of the main reasons it is not viable to charge too little for most things). Micro-Cash (anonymous transferable scripts) rather than Micro-Payment (transactional, levy based imposts) is the key, unfortunately it is out of our hands for the most part.


I don't really know much about micro-cash... where can I find more info on it?

"I don't really know much about micro-cash... where can I find more info on it?"

Actually - nowhere that I have found. Micro-payment yes, plenty, but no real debate, and nothing much more than schemes and the agreement that it is a good idea.

There have been many micro-payment schemes, all involve some sort of transaction fee (the cheapest I found several years ago was 50cents per transaction). None has taken off, and I think for good reason.

Micro-cash is my own phrase, to differentiate between a transaction based system and an anonymous script exchange, where profits and costs are covered from having all real money in a single account and gaining interest from that, in order to make transactions free.

The only other method is to a have strict percentage of each transaction. I don't know how others feel, I would mind such a tax if at 5% or less, but when it climbs to 10% or more, I just don't like them having their fingers in my pocket.

A few schemes exist, which deal in real money accounts, but make no provision for seriously small amounts, or being able to convert accounts back into real money - the one my kids use is Sony's which works on deposits rather than access to credit cards (I have been burnt by this a few times).

All these seem to be closed systems, Sony accounts to buy Sony gear etc.,.

Micro-cash requires a real account to pay into, and take money from, paying for banking fees only when the user desires to put money in or out into their real world account. Some transaction schemes allowed phone cards to be used for paying in (a good cheap way of putting in small amounts - still costs though).

Linden Dollars in "Second Life" get real close to this, so someone somewhere along the line will eventually get the concept and start making it available more widely - if it is transaction fees it is micro-payment (which nothing seems work), if it fee-less for transactions at least it is micro-cash.

Sorry for the confusion.

Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

DaleDe thanks for the heads up - on the Hiebook, I will be looking for it for pricing and usefulness. The LCD is a bit of draw back, both in power use and reading (I say this however in ignorance). Other than that it looks good.

I dare say I will be waiting for a few readers to arrive before buying anything, unless the Heibook is very cheap ; ).

um, just so you know, jeff gomez, who's quoted above,
just went to work for penguin, so i'm not all that sure
that what he says should be taken as "their position"...

to the extent that it is, it's not ignorance on e-books,
as gomez is the author of the "print is dead" blog...
(with the corresponding "print is dead" paper-book,
which just came out, not to mention the "print is dead"
podcasts, which he is popping out on a regular basis,
soon to be followed, i'm sure, by "print is dead" cereal
and matching his-and-hers "print is dead" pajamas...)

> http://printisdeadblog.com/

did the article mention that he's a marketing guy?

-bowerbird

p.s. forget the hiebook. it's a dead-end machine...

Paypal has a sort of micropayment system, in that you can deposit money with them and make payments out of it, but they still charge vendors a transaction fee, I believe.

I should have been clearer, it is e-ink readers I am most interested with. The fact is that LCD while good compared to many things, is not a good reading device.

nekokami Transaction fees are killers. I looked at paypal some time back, it then had hefty fees (on a micro scale that is), also at the time there was a scandal about money be siphoned off (which may or may not have been true and has been anyhow resolved - I have heard no new rumours about it since and it has a good reputation).

Transaction fees of any kind work against micro-payments. With these small amounts it is just another needless hassle, when really the idea thing is just to accumulate sales and then when there is a fair bit there to cash it.

With encryption, serial numbers, simple accounting there are literally hundreds of different ways it could be done. The real problem is that financiers tend to be very very greedy, I believe we will get something when makers of digital material (ie downloadable) find they need a better way to do business than credit cards.

I will however have another close look at paypal, who knows maybe they have already cracked it.


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

paypal transaction costs to business for small amounts 2.9% + $0.30 USD ($0.00 USD-$3,000.00 USD)

Selling things for 50 cents means mostly paying paypal.

I could swallow 2.9-5% but not the 30 cents, which does not sound much is actually a killer. I'll write to them, but I am sure their answer will be is that 30 cents covers accounting costs.

The reason I favour an encrypted script system is that it cuts down on accounting, people will only bother depositing scripts when they have accumulated a fair amount, and for small frequent payments, getting $10 of change from your account might last months.

Hence it should not be a question of processing every transaction, that should remain private between customer and seller, until the seller wants to deposit their earnings and a customer needs to withdraw a "purse" of cash from their savings.

Bigger payments can be done on a transaction basis, but little ones need something much smaller to oil the cogs of digital commerce.

Anyhow it seems like a long wait until we see a ¤1% (€0.01 - 1 cent) broken into ¤1‰ (€0.001) and a ¤1µ (€0.0001), or prices like ¤5µ, ¤5.7‰ - perhaps I should address the porn industry, once they are persuaded everyone else will follow.

:sigh: You're probably right about who to ask to push this issue, little though I like the idea.

It really does seem that if you put the money in an account that the holder can collect interest on, they could skip the base transaction fee. But I don't know what the real costs of accounting are-- I can barely keep track of our own expenses at home! Maybe there's an efficiency breakthrough that still needs to occur.

When people tend to talk about micropayment for retail products (yes, at this point it's only a concept), they are talking about carving up cash into smaller increments, say, a hundredth of a cent increments. Today this is actually done with large bulk purchases of small items, but only on paper, with amounts usually rounded up to the nearest cent for accounting purposes.

If you use a system (like PayPal) that charges a transaction fee or tax as a percentage of the sale, you can always approximate the micropayment model by figuring out what is the minimum amount you can sell a product, and lose no more than 1 cent in fees. Example: If you charge 5 cents on a product, and have a 5% fee, you'll actually lose 20% because 1 cent is the smallest amount they can take... you lose on the deal. But if you charge 20 cents, the fee you give up is exactly 1 cent. The larger the fee percent, the smaller the payment can be, to bring you down to 1 cent.

20 cents or less sounds like a very small amount to charge for a book, though if you are popular enough, you could still make a lot of money. Presently it's very hard for anyone but the most popular author to sell exclusively online this way, and make enough to live on. The rest of us would only make a supplementary income at best. But it's so early in the e-book selling model, there hasn't been much experimentation to see what will work and what won't... we're all just guessing and stabbing in the dark, and hoping we find the best selling model.

Someday I might even try the method I outlined above, just to see how I fare in the market with 20 cent books. Will the word get out? Will people make impulse buys of my books at 20 cents, where $2.50 was too much? Will my sales increase overseas, where $2.50 is a much larger proportion of daily income and not as disposable as it is in the developed countries? Who knows? No one... until someone throws it at the wall, and sees if it sticks.

What it seems to me is writers will be able to benefit from the greater accessibility of their writings maybe selling directly to the reader on a website and if they're really good have the publishers do the marketing, PR and translation work. In this way the role of the publishers will shift to that of a service provider for the writer. In any scenario we'll see a downward trend in books prices as the operating costs for the whole operation diminishes.

As Barcey accurately pointed out, publishers ARE resisting the diminishment of their roles, as are the bookstores, and the traditional distribution channels. That's why the development of e-books has been so glacially slow. Their influence is weakening, but still strong. It will probably take an exclusive e-book release of incredible popularity to suddenly convert a major portion of the populace to accepting and reading e-books at once. But in the meantime, e-books will continue to erode the traditional publisher's position in the market, until they are forced to adapt to the new market.

Sorry for any freaky grammar, I'm not a native speaker

Actually, your grammar wasn't "freaky" at all... it's better than many native speakers!

Steve Jordan while I am advocating micro-cash, and while experiments in pricing are as a whole a good thing I recommend caution. The net is a thick wood where many good things are practically lost in a forest of shoddy trees.

The determinate will not be isolated actions, but a major lead taken once e-ink (good cheap and robust readers rather than just the technology) becomes an established device capable of going into the educational market - that s a little way off at the moment. Device prices at, or just below, the $100usd would be a good sign.

I don't believe that is long off perhaps 3-5 years, or one mass purchase away (ie adopted by one Educational system somewhere in the world).

The critical bit is when we see high quality text books commissioned for e-book production, textbooks of such quality that they bestow a tangible educational benefit on their readers (very different to the poor quality of many textbooks in use today in the English language).

The price that this can come in on can materially determine prices elsewhere (they will be low for the textbooks because of the amount of sales they can generate). If these substantial works came in at the 10-20cents level, then well written and popular novels would probably settle in at the $5 level, and the bulk of the rest of fictional writing, at a couple of dollars or less. Naturally public domain works may well shift down to less than 10 cents.

That structure in general uses a commodity of definite advantage (hefty, expert written Maths and Science texts), capable of arranging other prices around it - a centre of gravity.

The fact that education is dragging its feet, shows two things; one is conservative reservation, but the other is that the technology, and the content, needs to develop further.

The last part is the more important factor.

The fact is that education is the largest single market (bigger ones exist for the reader technology, but in terms of content there is an inherent similarity that exists nowhere else).

Well written textbooks of the highest quality, is the one section of digital content capable of pegging prices around itself naturally.

My feeling is, for many buyers, a new novel (not a known best seller) priced at 20 cents would at the moment look like the price of rubbish and have no real effect. A centre of value is needed first.

PS when I recently looked up Paypal there was also a 30cents surcharge on the vendors side of a transaction. I may have misread the site.

Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

PS when I recently looked up Paypal there was also a 30cents surcharge on the vendors side of a transaction. I may have misread the site.

Yes, there is... so, in PayPal's case, you'd have to add enough to your charge to cover the 30 cents, plus the tax loss. Obviously, for micropayments, PayPal's model wouldn't work well (not that it's designed to work for micropayments).

Google Checkout seems to be cheaper.
https://checkout.google.com/seller/fees.html

igorsk Thanks, I just checked out the site, similar to Paypal I am afraid.

The free transaction bit is tied up in a way I find difficult to understand.

There appears no provision for fractional amounts.

A true micro-cash system is a problem because it depends on having a very large real bank account before it starts even paying its setup and running costs, and this would take time, perhaps five or more years, if it were successful (no guarantees there either despite my enthusiasm).

That's why they all go for transaction fees.

My hope is that micro-cash gets set up by a business consortium of those already in net-commerce goods and services, on the basis it underwrites their main business, rather than becomes an immediate profit enterprise (in effect its should be run as a trust).

I am serious - the main players in the market of selling electronic medium is the porn industry. Not ebooks, or anything legit, but porn (just a fact I am afraid).

If any of that industry is reading this post - please think about it, simple anonymous micro-cash, no direct credit cards (lets admit it folks you are not trusted), no impost on spending hence per item charges that can be quite small and often repeated.

I am serious - the main players in the market of selling electronic medium is the porn industry. Not ebooks, or anything legit, but porn (just a fact I am afraid).

Trust me... we know! The porn industry has ridden the bleeding edge of media forever, and it always will. It's a good possibility that, if anyone works out a per-single-purchase micropayment system, it'll be the porn industry.

(If they haven't already. Has anyone checked?... :D)

Yes, there is... so, in PayPal's case, you'd have to add enough to your charge to cover the 30 cents, plus the tax loss. Obviously, for micropayments, PayPal's model wouldn't work well (not that it's designed to work for micropayments).

So it would seem that Fictionwise has the best system where you prepay in to their micropay account and then they do not charge a transaction fee. I also noticed that Amazon has started selling .49 small ebooks but I don't know what they do about the fees.

Dale

So it would seem that Fictionwise has the best system where you prepay in to their micropay account and then they do not charge a transaction fee. I also noticed that Amazon has started selling .49 small ebooks but I don't know what they do about the fees.

Dale

Amazon only accepts US credit cards for the $.49 ebooks (Amazon Shorts).

Amazon only accepts US credit cards for the $.49 ebooks (Amazon Shorts).

Yes, but do they eat the .40 cents that a credit card charges?

Dale

That Penguin gives away ebooks, considering what Penguin has to offer is great news, but is it really where things should go?

I suspect they are right, ebooks at this stage will probably promote paper book sales. But that will not be the case in the distant future (or midrange).

I would rather have a system of micro-cash, where ebooks are brought for very small amounts.

The point being that authors, translators, coders and publishers should get something for their labour, and as the potential market size is in the millions this could mean a healthy income, for books that sell for 50 cents or less.
Greg Schofield
Perth Australia

Why doesn't Penguin just open a subscription site with several levels of access.

1. Free eBooks using whatever Penguin books they want plus public domain books gathered from any source on the WEB.

2. For pay subscriptions at various prices, with the cost based on the country code in the subscriber's IP address. Maybe one book a month for 2 to 5 USDollars for US subscribers. .5 to 2.5 Euros for addresses in the EU, 1.2 Canadian dollars, etc. The Servers can adjust the math based on exchange rates with a country-by-country load factor.

3. This way Penguin can led the way to a sort-of World-Wide market for eBooks from every publishing house that wants to join, and provide eBooks in every language selling all the time, everywhere.

Just a suggestion.

I think it is ironic that it is a Penguin guy saying this since Penguin has been a late adopter of ebooks AND because it has made no real effort to provide its books in ebook format on any consistent basis.

jeff gomez just got hired at penguin. maybe they're changing...

(ok, yes, i _did_ kind of laugh at the ridiculousness of that idea
when i typed it. but still, it's _possible_, right? yeah, sure it is.)

-bowerbird

I think it is ironic that it is a Penguin guy saying this since Penguin has been a late adopter of ebooks AND because it has made no real effort to provide its books in ebook format on any consistent basis.

I was kinda thinking something similar. A fair number of the books I've been looking for recently are from Penguin or one of its labels. I've seen no consistency in what's made available, or what formats a particular title is made available in. They do seem to have gotten better in the pricing department than they used to be.

Yes, but do they eat the .40 cents that a credit card charges?

Dale

Given how big Amazon is, they likely process it themselves and reduce the cost.

Given how big Amazon is, they likely process it themselves and reduce the cost.

However it works, it works. They are not passing on charges to the end user. That is the point of micropay accounts to avoid extra charges. Fictionwise does it by keeping an account with money in it and Amazon uses a different system to defray the costs, but how is conjecture. Both seem to have a micropay system that works for them.

Dale

However it works, it works. They are not passing on charges to the end user. That is the point of micropay accounts to avoid extra charges. Fictionwise does it by keeping an account with money in it and Amazon uses a different system to defray the costs, but how is conjecture. Both seem to have a micropay system that works for them.

Dale

It's not a bad way to approximate the intended micropay system, but as it doesn't actually deal with increments of a dollar below 1/100th its value (one cent), is it really a micropay system? Or just low pricing at work?

It's not a bad way to approximate the intended micropay system, but as it doesn't actually deal with increments of a dollar below 1/100th its value (one cent), is it really a micropay system? Or just low pricing at work?

Well, I guess that since you originally brought up the issue in this thread you will have to define what you meant :)

I do think this is a reasonable topic and, in this age of a worthless penny, something that can use a reasonable solution to allow low cost purchases. (I guess on reflection the penny isn't worthless, it is actually worth more if you melt it that its value.)

Dale

Well, I guess that since you originally brought up the issue in this thread you will have to define what you meant :)

Actually, GregS brought it up. I just picked up the ball!

When I talk about micropay, I'm talking about a system wherein I can buy a single item for a fraction of a cent, say, 15 hundredths of a cent, or 0.0015 dollars, and be charged precisely 0.0015 dollars. I don't know any system that doesn't simply round up to the nearest standard increment (0.01 dollars, or 1 cent) when making such transactions, including mass purchases by industries and manufacturers who regularly deal with small items worth a fraction of a cent. I'm pretty sure no retailer does it with consumers without rounding up to the nearest cent.

The micropay you've been talking about is "very low prices," but still prices rounded to the nearest standard increment. What Amazon and Fictionwise are doing, is not what I'd call micropay, just "very low prices," achieved by absorbing fees themselves and not passing them on.

Somebody please let me know if my use of the terminology is wrong, or if someone's using an actual micropayment system that I don't know about.

As far as I am concerned, Steve Jordan is spot on in definition.

Moreover, he is absolutely correct that the Amzon case is one of simply low prices, not micro-cash.

Minuscule amounts may never be applicable to ebooks, but it is not hard to imagine selling short stories, book review emagazines and such like for fractions of a cent.

Likewise, historical pictures and illustrations.

More importantly, we could see shifts in copyright payments on the net, where individual works, illustrations etc.,. could be paid directly to an author's account as items are sold. This could well work out to very small fractions of a cent on low priced items.

Micro-cash is for me the oil for the cogs of ecommerce, something we need in order that authors, publishers and editors are paid for their work in a market place where reproduction is virtually free and potentially where the market, for all sorts of electronic goods and services, might, in the near future, be counted in billions.

As far as I am concerned, Steve Jordan is spot on in definition.

Moreover, he is absolutely correct that the Amzon case is one of simply low prices, not micro-cash.

Minuscule amounts may never be applicable to ebooks, but it is not hard to imagine selling short stories, book review emagazines and such like for fractions of a cent.

Likewise, historical pictures and illustrations.

More importantly, we could see shifts in copyright payments on the net, where individual works, illustrations etc.,. could be paid directly to an author's account as items are sold. This could well work out to very small fractions of a cent on low priced items.

Micro-cash is for me the oil for the cogs of ecommerce, something we need in order that authors, publishers and editors are paid for their work in a market place where reproduction is virtually free and potentially where the market, for all sorts of electronic goods and services, might, in the near future, be counted in billions.

well if you look at the model Fictionwise uses it is easy to see how this could be done at any decimal point you choose. (Although a penny is not a bad start) It is all electronic transfer from a predefined base. The only trick is the cost of doing the transfers. This is where the money system falls down.

Dale

The only trick is the cost of doing the transfers. This is where the money system falls down.Yup, the only way it could work is for the volume to be high enough that the cost per transfer drops down to ten-thousandths or hundred-thousandths of a cent, the lower the better, obviously.

Sorry to keep intruding. There is an important difference between store system, and a general payment, or cash system. Unless the money can be moved independently of vendor it is trapped.

Transaction costs are minimal, they can be considered free. After all that is involved is a small piece of encrypted information to travel through to a server. The processing is negligible as well, for it is the overall costs of having the servers, the software and the bandwidth which in this way are all fixed capital.

Maintaining the service 24/7, with security, is another fixed cost. The fact is that it makes no real difference whether a few thousand transactions are dealt with in a week, or a billion a day, so long as the processing and bandwidth support the higher amount of traffic.

So when banks complain of costs of transactions, they are basically lying, there are no variables, just fixed costs which would be there regardless of the number of electronic transactions. What they are doing is double-dipping, they use your funds to invest and profit from that, and then charge you for using your own money.

Remember electronic transactions mean more money actually spends more of the time resting in the bank - in the old days it would be taken out, spent and only later processed back in, from the banks point of view, this meant it left the system - most of our money stays in the banks hands most of the time, and when convenient the differences between banks is reconciled.

What costs in other words adhere to transactions themselves, or even accounting for them? Practically none.

Given a big enough account in a real bank, earning just normal bank interest, there is more than enough capital to keep transactions going without customers or vendors paying anything.

The trick is to grow the account to the point where it is paying for all that is needed, don't believe a thing about the costs of transactions, they long stopped the practice of little men flying about the world with briefcases chained to their hands, and rows upon rows of accounts processing through calculators - then transactions had a real cost interestingly the charges did not exist as the banks absorbed these as part of doing business and attracting depositors.

...the lower the better, obviously.

Well, until it reaches the point where the author isn't getting enough from the transactions to pay their own bills.

Although I can see micropayments for many kinds of information, I suspect that books will always be considered art, and as such, will command higher prices than other products. Full-length novels may never become objects of micropayment due to that reality--unless a patronage system or advertising support is standardized, paying the artist's way and making income from their books supplementary only.

The micropayments might apply to the advertisements, actually. But I think much of the point of the micropayment system for books would be to reduce the transaction fee. We started this by noting that systems such as PayPal charge a minimum of US$.30 per transaction, as well as a percentage of the sale price, and noted that this amount is much too high for low-priced items.

Or maybe I got lost somewhere in the thread....

Sorry to keep intruding.You're not intruding, you're participating! And making good points besides. :grin:

Well, until it reaches the point where the author isn't getting enough from the transactions to pay their own bills.By "the lower the better" I meant the costs of the transactions on a per transaction basis. The lower that cost per transaction gets the less it eats into the money being transfered and the less of a bite it takes from the author's portion -- I think you and I agree on that point: the author should and must be able to profit from his labor. :yes:

Of course GregS's points on the actual transfer/transaction costs come into play more there. I think you may be missing some variables, GregS, or weighting them too lightly, but that's nit-picking. I think you are correct that the interest on a large account would far out-strip the transfer costs.

I'm not sure that applies for the "average" account, though, the last statistics I encountered on the matter held that most Americans (I've no idea on the rest of the world) keep very little cash in bank accounts for any length of time, so those transaction fees may be more important to banks on "typical" accounts than on a large one like you're talking about.

That being said, I do notice that my bank charges me to use their Bill Pay solution, but they don't seem to charge me for using online payment options for my credit cards, insurance payments and mortgage. And they charge me for using someone else's ATM, but not for using my card for Debit purchases, even when I get cash back. So something's ... odd there somewhere. :chinscratch: