Penguin to publish new titles simultaneously as e-books [Archive]

zelda_pinwheel

04-12-2008, 11:01 AM

i am looking at the penguin site (http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/aboutus/index.html) right now trying to find the appropriate contact info. so far the most appropriate one seems to be "customer service" ; they don't have a general "contact" by email, although they do have many other specialised contact addresses.

Customer services
For customer service enquires, including online orders, please contact;
Tel: +0870 607 7600
Email: customer.service@penguin.co.uk

Penguin is owned by Pearson group (http://www.pearson.com/index.cfm?pageid=84) and they also have a detailed list of contact info on their site. The info for Penguin UK given on that page is :

Penguin Group (UK)
80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, UK
tel: +44 (0)20 7010 3000
or visit www.penguin.co.uk

alright everyone ! to your keyboards !!

zelda_pinwheel

04-12-2008, 11:33 AM

I have just sent an email to Penguin about this decision. I sent it to
customer.service@penguin.co.uk
and a copy to
visitors@penguin.co.uk (which is actually the address to give feedback about their site).

The text of my email is below : if you think I have neglected to mention something essential, i encourage you to include it in your own letters ;).

Dear Sir or Madam,
I just read an article in the Telegraph entitled "Penguin will publish new book titles as 'ebooks'" by Gary Cleland announcing your decision to release new titles as ebooks at the same time as you publish the print edition.

I heartily applaud this decision as an avid reader and more specifically an avid reader of ebooks, and I am very pleased that Penguin (a publisher whose catalogue I have always appreciated) has shown itself to be open to the changing landscape of publishing formats. I am eagerly looking forward to seeing your new releases in ebook form.

However, this article also mentions your intention to release the ebooks at the same price as the print edition. Given the dramatic reduction in production costs of an ebook compared to a print edition, I find this decision to be quite undefendable. Quite honestly, I cannot justify paying the same price for an ebook as a print book, and cannot foresee doing so.

While I again enthusiastically encourage your decision to take advantage of the brilliant new opportunities for publishing offered by ebooks, I fervently request that you reconsider your pricing policy and allow the customer to benefit from the reduced costs that you will incur in producing them. If you persist in this pricing policy, I fear that this venture will not be the resounding success it could be, which would be a tragic and frustrating setback for Penguin and for readers everywhere.

Should you be interested in opening a discussion with the e-reading populace (or simply finding out what we are saying), I welcome you to visit the MobileRead forums here http://www.mobileread.com/ and invite you specifically to take a look at this thread http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22568 where we recently were discussing different models of pricing and ways that the publishing industry could evolve in light of the emerging ebook technologies which are becoming more and more accessible.

With my sincerest appreciation and encouragement,

A K

P.S. I was unsure of the correct address to send this to ; please don't hesitate to forward it to the appropriate department, or to inform me of a better-suited contact address.

Timoleon

04-12-2008, 12:58 PM

zelda_pinwheel

04-12-2008, 01:05 PM

I think the wise thing for Penguin to do would be to sell the ebook for a dollar or two less than the pbook --- a nice symbolic gesture which shows they realize that ebooks and pbooks are different birds of a feather, and it would create good will within the buying community. By the way, by "pbook" I mean "paperback book" and not hard cover. If penguin wants to charge the same for an ebook as for a hard cover book --- that's a practice that I predict will be DOA.

that's definitely a good start, although i admit i did interpret the article as meaning the same price as a *hard cover* book (or the oversize paper backs which are sometimes released as the first edition, instead of a hardback, and are much more expensive than the later release of the pocket size paperback).

personally, as i have stated elsewhere (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=167743&postcount=4), i think that the price of an ebook should not be more than HALF the price of a pbook.

it is a question of production costs : the price of a paperbook can be justified by saying there is the cost of the paper and the ink and the binding and the shipping and the overhead involved in storage facilities and the salaries of all the people involved in each of these steps. these are costs which are eliminated in the case of an ebook. the publisher saves money, and should pass the savings along to the customer, which will in turn encourage the customer to buy more books from that publisher, because they will appreciate the honest dealings of this publisher and want to continue to do business with them.

katania

04-12-2008, 01:50 PM

that's definitely a good start, although i admit i did interpret the article as meaning the same price as a *hard cover* book (or the oversize paper backs which are sometimes released as the first edition, instead of a hardback, and are much more expensive than the later release of the pocket size paperback).

personally, as i have stated elsewhere (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=167743&postcount=4), i think that the price of an ebook should not be more than HALF the price of a pbook.

it is a question of production costs : the price of a paperbook can be justified by saying there is the cost of the paper and the ink and the binding and the shipping and the overhead involved in storage facilities and the salaries of all the people involved in each of these steps. these are costs which are eliminated in the case of an ebook. the publisher saves money, and should pass the savings along to the customer, which will in turn encourage the customer to buy more books from that publisher, because they will appreciate the honest dealings of this publisher and want to continue to do business with them.

I totally agree with the idea of the e-bookprice beeing half of pbooks, for all the reasons stated above.
Could not have said it better.
:)

BooksForABuck

04-12-2008, 04:12 PM

vivaldirules

04-12-2008, 08:35 PM

An excellent idea to write Penguin, ZP. I have followed your lead and have emailed them, too.

zelda_pinwheel

04-12-2008, 08:49 PM

Most hardback publishers release hardbacks first at a high price because there are customers who don't want to wait and who are willing to pay more. It isn't like a hardback costs twenty dollars more to make than a paperback, after all. Unless Penguin decides to release hardback and paperback simultaneously, they'll want to price eBooks relative to whatever paper books they have available. As we saw with The Da Vinci Code, when paperbacks become available, the eBooks can then be discounted.

As I've mentioned on Mobileread before, BooksForABuck.com offers fairly dramatic discounts on eBooks relative to pBooks for two reasons: (1) the POD technology we use for pBooks is expensive per book; and (2) we don't have a huge network of retailers who could sabotage our core business if they thought we were underselling them by directly offering eBooks at a discount. In an earlier life I worked distribution channels and believe me, this is a huge issue. (It's still an issue in the eBook world. Fictionwise, Mobipocket, etc. require that publishers not systematically undercut them with eBooks).

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com

I do understand this, however i still think ebooks should be priced significantly lower than pbooks. i could accept the idea that the ebook would have a higher price when the book was first published (just like the high price of the hardcover book), and then be discounted appropriately when the cheaper paperback was available. however even when it is a "new" book, there is no justification for selling ebooks at the same price as pbooks. the ebook could start at half the price of the hardcover, and then when the paperback is published be reduced to half the price of the paperback. that way, publishers still take advantage of the "impatience factor" in their market, but also make a concession to the customer to pass along the savings on the production cost. there's "making money", and then there's "highway robbery". a show of goodwill on the part of the publishers will probably do miracles for the ebook industry.

An excellent idea to write Penguin, ZP. I have followed your lead and have emailed them, too.

brilliant !! wonderful !! :2thumbsup: i hope you won't be last. oh, i should mention : anyone may feel free to plagiarise any or all parts of my email, if they are feeling lazy but still civically inclined ;). consider it to be in the public domain.

AnemicOak

04-13-2008, 12:54 AM

So what's different than what they've been doing? Penguin's always been one of the highest priced ebook publishers. I guess this just means they'll offer every single title they bring out as opposed to almost every title like they already do.

Penguin is really bad for not lowering the price of a book when the paperback release comes out. Sometimes it takes over a year after the paperback release for the ebook price to drop from the hardcover equivalent.

Since it's unlikely that publishers will follow Baen's pricing at this time it'd be nice if they'd at least follow the lower pricing for ebooks someone like Simon & Schuster does.

Onemack

04-13-2008, 01:56 AM

From today's Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/12/npenguin112.xml):

It is good that they are releasing ebooks but I don't see how they can justify them being at the same cost as pbooks.

Why should they justify their pricing? They are in the market place and they will have to react according to their sales figures. Dont forget no profit = no Penguin book company. Personally I don't buy ebooks based on their low price but on their ease of purchase, the currently low prices are a bonus, as is the fact that some titles are impossible to readily find in bookshops without spending a great deal of time and effort.

John

Donnageddon

04-13-2008, 04:35 AM

some titles are impossible to readily find in bookshops without spending a great deal of time and effort.

John Well, I am not sure how hard it is in Canberra, but in Baghdad I can see how there might be a bit of an inconvenience involved.

M.H.

04-13-2008, 07:10 AM

Why should they justify their pricing? They are in the market place and they will have to react according to their sales figures. Dont forget no profit = no Penguin book company. Personally I don't buy ebooks based on their low price but on their ease of purchase, the currently low prices are a bonus, as is the fact that some titles are impossible to readily find in bookshops without spending a great deal of time and effort.

John

Where I live, any ebook that I have been interested in has been easily available as a pbook but not the other way around and my comments are based on that.

If an ebook costs the same as a pbook I will buy the pbook and then sell it after I have read it. That is not good for the publisher who may possibly have lost an additional sale.

If the ebook is cheaper then after I have read the ebook I keep it (with DRM I don't legally have any choice). This way the publisher benefits. I would suggest that the difference in price should be at least equal to the second-hand value of the pbook. For many pbooks that may only be Â£1 but that would be enough for me to buy the ebook over the pbook and I'm sure the publisher would still be making more profit and would be keeping second-hand books off the market.

zelda_pinwheel

04-13-2008, 08:19 AM

If an ebook costs the same as a pbook I will buy the pbook and then sell it after I have read it. That is not good for the publisher who may possibly have lost an additional sale.

If the ebook is cheaper then after I have read the ebook I keep it (with DRM I don't legally have any choice). This way the publisher benefits. I would suggest that the difference in price should be at least equal to the second-hand value of the pbook. For many pbooks that may only be Â£1 but that would be enough for me to buy the ebook over the pbook and I'm sure the publisher would still be making more profit and would be keeping second-hand books off the market.

interesting additional point. i wonder if the publishers have thought of that. you should write to penguin and tell them how you feel. ;)

Prospect

04-13-2008, 09:13 AM

If the retail prices for ebooks were determined by the production cost per sold unit, then the prices should probably be much higher for ebooks than for pbooks because of the convertion costs and - relative to the paperbooks - the extremely low volume.

Production costs are however only one of many factors when the price is set. This is particularly so when it comes to products consisting mainly of IPR (ebooks, software or heavily branded items)

Steve Jordan

04-13-2008, 10:50 AM

Publishers still think of their sales in terms of per-unit costs, and use that to set prices and determine profits. E-books clearly skew that model, but it may be that Penguin has decided for the time being that an e-book is most similar to a hardback, i.e., a limited popularity item, that they feel they can price highly to make their profit.

Regardless of the actual or perceived costs involved, it's still a good idea to contact Penguin. Informing them of your opinion of the price of their e-books is the best way for them to gather data on what the public wants, which may influence any future adjustment of their pricing plan. And the more people who respond, the more Penguin is likely to consider e-books popularity to be higher than they expected, and a possible candidate for lower pricing to drive higher sales.

Steve Jordan

04-13-2008, 11:21 AM

FYI, I just fired off an e-mail to Penguin, too:

I recently read an article in the Telegraph stating that Penguin would be releasing e-books concurrently to print releases. As a reader (and writer/publisher) of e-books, I applaud this decision, and I hope that Penguin will expand its plan to all of its lines in the near future.

A point I'd like to suggest, though, is that Penguin may want to reconsider the pricing for those e-books. The article suggests that e-book prices will be the same as newly-released books, which will generally be hardbacks. I have discovered through my own research that e-book readers do not believe e-books should cost the same as hardbacks, due to the significantly lower costs in production, storage, transportation, and maintenance that e-books enjoy. Such pricing may serve to alienate Penguin to many of the customers it hopes to attract, e-book readers, and readers in general, and I'm sure that is not Penguin's intent.

Although you will certainly manage to make sales through some early adopters, I think Penguin would be better served with lower prices for their e-books, perhaps at the level of paperbacks, or even lower (for the same economy of pricing points I made above), to earn significant sales from e-books and make it worth the publisher's while. Speaking for myself, I would balk at an e-book priced at a hardback level, and even at a paperback level... but I have bought many e-books priced below paperback prices, a level that I consider much better suited to the medium.

I will also point out that I have managed healthy sales of my own e-books, which are priced below typical paperback sales. I have also seen a fivefold increase in sales from dropping my prices during promotions by as little as 20%.

I would appreciate your passing this message on to those in Penguin and/or Pearson Group who make these decisions. I wish Penguin great success in their endeavor, and hope to be a regular customer in the future.

Again, I encourage everyone else to write Penguin and make your voice heard.

CCDMan

04-13-2008, 02:17 PM

Penguin's eBooks are going to tank faster then the Titanic sank. Nobody wants to pay the same for an eBook as the pBook. That's just bad business sense.

Clearly you have not been in business. There are only a few things that drive pricing:

1) Competition
2) Quality/Functionality
3) What the consumer is willing to pay

(2) is pretty much a non-issue for ebooks unless they really screw up something so that leaves (1) and (3).

Competition consists of paper books and other similar ebooks. Other similar ebooks (major publishers) mostly have a similar pricing structure. So that leaves paper books. There are back to the same 'ole dead horse of keeping/swapping/trading vs. ebook DRM and convenience. I will not argue that once again - clearly it depends on the buyer, as we see here from the differing opinions.

Then there is (3). Time will tell.

BTW, you will note the absence of "fair pricing" as a factor. There is no such thing in any business. You get what you can get, period. That's the system.

delphidb96

04-13-2008, 02:48 PM

Clearly you have not been in business. There are only a few things that drive pricing:

1) Competition
2) Quality/Functionality
3) What the consumer is willing to pay

(2) is pretty much a non-issue for ebooks unless they really screw up something so that leaves (1) and (3).

Competition consists of paper books and other similar ebooks. Other similar ebooks (major publishers) mostly have a similar pricing structure. So that leaves paper books. There are back to the same 'ole dead horse of keeping/swapping/trading vs. ebook DRM and convenience. I will not argue that once again - clearly it depends on the buyer, as we see here from the differing opinions.

Then there is (3). Time will tell.

BTW, you will note the absence of "fair pricing" as a factor. There is no such thing in any business. You get what you can get, period. That's the system.

As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, we're still too early in the development of the e-book market for consumers to drive pricing. Right now it's more of a "Hey! I've got ebook versions available. Come buy what I've produced!" stage. IOW, production-driven. Next, IIRC, comes sales-driven, where the producers - the publishers - crank out all sorts of stuff and expect their sales staff to sell, Sell, SELL! Finally, as the market matures, we'll reach marketing-driven, in which the customers' desires and tastes drive what the publishers release as ebooks.

Derek

Steve Jordan

04-13-2008, 03:06 PM

delphidb96

04-13-2008, 03:32 PM

BTW: Just thought I'd point out that the article indicates Penguin's intention of releasing e-books with print books only in certain lines... it does not suggest that it will be everything they print.

And that's why I see them as being in production-driven mode. It's kind of like they're saying, "Oh! Look what we've produced! Come hither and marvel at our ingenuity! Buy LOTS of what we deign to produce!"

But yes, I'm eager for some of their titles, so if those titles are chosen, I'll probably buy them. :)

Derek

lee1234

04-13-2008, 10:01 PM

Someone should write to Penguin and ask them to lower their e-book price.

lee1234

04-13-2008, 10:02 PM

By the way, does anyone know what format their ebooks will use?

Moonraker

04-14-2008, 05:07 AM

I have recently purchased an ebook on the Penguin UK site:

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/epenguin/stepbystepguide.html

It seems they have Microsoft, Palm or Adobe Reader formats at the moment.

Their catalogue is quite small - 195 books and many are PD.

Does anyone know why I have to use Internet Explorer to download DRM'd ebooks? It seems Firefox is not acceptable on any site including Fictionwise and my library.

jgray

04-14-2008, 05:48 AM

Does anyone know why I have to use Internet Explorer to download DRM'd ebooks? It seems Firefox is not acceptable on any site including Fictionwise and my library.

I know that is true if you are buying a LIT ebook. I don't know about the other formats. As to the LIT ebooks, that is Microsoft's doing. The way they do the DRM activation requires their browser (surprised?) and won't work with anyone else's browser.

Moonraker

04-14-2008, 07:07 AM

I know that is true if you are buying a LIT ebook. I don't know about the other formats. As to the LIT ebooks, that is Microsoft's doing. The way they do the DRM activation requires their browser (surprised?) and won't work with anyone else's browser.

That doesn't surprise me in respect of Lit books.

However, My library does not stock Lit books. They have .pdf and .prc only. When I download a Mobipocket .prc it tells me I need IE. The ebooks just won't download using Firefox.

zelda_pinwheel

04-14-2008, 07:37 AM

Someone should write to Penguin and ask them to lower their e-book price.

@ lee1234 : see posts 5 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=169696&postcount=5), 8 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=169702&postcount=8), 9 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=169714&postcount=9), 14 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=169839&postcount=14)...

perhaps "someone" could be you as well ?

zelda_pinwheel

04-14-2008, 07:39 AM

I know that is true if you are buying a LIT ebook. I don't know about the other formats. As to the LIT ebooks, that is Microsoft's doing. The way they do the DRM activation requires their browser (surprised?) and won't work with anyone else's browser.

yes i discovered that as well the first time i bought a drm-ed LIT book. not surprised but very cranky about it, since i make it a point never to use IE if i can possibly avoid it. bloody Micro$oft, they're on my list....

TallMomof2

04-14-2008, 08:00 AM

That doesn't surprise me in respect of Lit books.

However, My library does not stock Lit books. They have .pdf and .prc only. When I download a Mobipocket .prc it tells me I need IE. The ebooks just won't download using Firefox.

I use Fictionwise all the time and have no problem downloading any format EXCEPT DRMed .lit with Firefox. The only time I fire up IE is when I have to download a DRMed .lit.

jgray

04-14-2008, 09:36 AM

My solution is a bit technical for some folks here, but I'll tell you what I do. I setup a virtual machine and installed a separate copy of Windows in the VM. I have IE and a few other things installed in that VM that I don't want on my regular PC. When I need to buy a DRMed ebook, run a Java app, etc. I fire up the virtual Windows. You can use either VMware Player or VirtualBox for the VM. Both are free.

On my real PC I run Firefox. I haven't had any problem with it for the non-DRMed stuff. Of course, when buying ebooks with DRM, I go with LIT. Until recently, there wasn't anything I could do with a DRMed PRC. Even now, I still go with LIT, as the HTML used is a bit more standard than the Mobipocket variety. This makes it a little easier to repurpose for my reading needs.

Olympus

04-14-2008, 10:12 AM

The response from Peguin received within the hour

Dear Olympus <edited ...:-)>

Thank you for your interest in Penguin's e-book publishing plans. This is of course new territory for us and so we are very interested in the response of our readers. Our pricing decision is one we have adopted globally for the time being. We see the e-book as simply a new way for readers to access the work of our authors and so the price will be the same as the print price of the edition currently available. So, if a book is in hardback priced at £18.99 that will be the e-book price and once that book goes into paperback at, say £8.99, the e-book price will be dropped accordingly.

If you have any further questions with regard to Penguin's e-book publishing plans, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Best regards
Penguin Online

zelda_pinwheel

04-14-2008, 10:16 AM

Dear A K,

Thank you for your interest in Penguin's e-book publishing plans. This is of course new territory for us and so we are very interested in the response of our readers. Our pricing decision is one we have adopted globally for the time being. We see the e-book as simply a new way for readers to access the work of our authors and so the price will be the same as the print price of the edition currently available. So, if a book is in hardback priced at £18.99 that will be the e-book price and once that book goes into paperback at, say £8.99, the e-book price will be dropped accordingly.

If you have any further questions with regard to Penguin's e-book publishing plans, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Best regards

Penguin Online

(the bold is mine).

I'm pleased to see that they claim to be very interested in the response of their readers, and also that they mention they have adopted this pricing decision for the time being. Perhaps this means we can convince them to modify it. i also notice they make no distinction between the *content* (the text) and the *container* (hardcover, paperback, ebook...) ("We see the e-book as simply a new way for readers to access the work of our authors"), as we were discussing on a different thread here. perhaps we should mention that to them.

in any case, the key point to retain is that apparently they listen to their readers so YOU ALL SHOULD WRITE TO THEM ALSO (the sooner the better) if you want to see some reasonably priced ebooks from penguin.

[EDIT : i see they are sending the same reply to everyone, apparently. however, this probably still means that *someone* at Penguin is reading our mails, and should not discourage us from continuing to write.]

JWLaRue

04-14-2008, 03:20 PM

zelda_pinwheel

04-14-2008, 03:41 PM

ZP,

Sure looks to me like they basically blew you off. You're correct, they haven't figured out the advantages and disadvantages of the content and container now being separate things.

Doesn't make me want to deal with them at this point.

-Jeff

well, i think you're partly right (they haven't figured a *lot* of stuff out) but i'm not sure i would go so far as to think they "blew me off". they did send an identical letter to at least 2 of us (and probably everyone who wrote), and i would have appreciated a little more reactivity, but at least they went to the trouble to answer at all, and *claimed* at least to be very interested in what readers think of this new-to-Penguin market. this is why i think MORE PEOPLE SHOULD WRITE and also why i replied to their email as follows :

Dear Penguin,

Thanks very much for your reply. I am really pleased to hear that you
are open to hearing the reactions of your readers. I do understand
your point of view, that ebooks are a new way to access books. I also
appreciate very much your intention to reduce the price of the ebook
following the release of a less expensive paperback edition. I think
most readers have integrated the publishing model of "if you want it
right away, you have to pay for the more expensive hardcover edition",
and I think this model can be applied to ebooks as well (more
expensive for new books, price reductions for older books).

However I think there is an important distinction to make between a
paperbook and an ebook, not least because once you have read a
paperbook, if you don't want to keep it, you can sell it in a
second-hand bookshop, thereby somewhat reducing its initial cost to
you (even if artificially). This is not possible with an ebook.

Also, more and more readers make a distinction between the *content*
(the actual text of the book) and the *container* it is delivered in
(hardcover, paperback, ebook...). Just as no reader would pay the same
price for a paperback as they would a hardcover, I think very few will
be willing to pay the same price for an ebook container. A hardcover
is clearly more expensive than a paperback to produce, therefore the
price difference can be justified.

However following this logic, an ebook is significantly *less*
expensive to produce (no costs for paper, ink, printing, binding,
shipping, storage, handling, inventory management...). These are
significant savings for the publisher. My opinion as a reader and
buyer of books is that following the logic outlined above, an ebook
should be priced at half the price of the paperbook, at most. This
provides for paying the author, editor and publisher, but takes into
account the absence of other costs in the production chain.

So, taking your example, when you release a hardback at £18.99, the
ebook could be priced at around £9.50. Then, when the paperback is
released at a price of £8.99, the price of the ebook would be reduced
to £4.50. Given that ebook production costs almost nothing to the
publisher once the initial file is created, even at these
significantly lower prices the publisher does not have to fear a loss,
and in fact may dramatically increase their sales.

I feel sure that if a publisher passes these savings along to their
readers in the form of ebooks priced less than paperbooks, this will
in turn encourage the customer to buy more books from that publisher,
because they will appreciate the honest dealings of this publisher and
want to continue to do business with them.

Thank you very much for your attention,

A K

seriously, maybe i'm naïve but i do think if enough people write to them saying they will not pay hardcover price for an ebook, they will be forced to listen because they want to sell books. *what* are y'all waiting for ???

pilotbob

04-14-2008, 03:53 PM

seriously, maybe i'm naïve but i do think if enough people write to them saying they will not pay hardcover price for an ebook, they will be forced to listen because they want to sell books. *what* are y'all waiting for ???

That's is a well written letter and very eloquent. My question would be, where do you come up with "half". That seem arbitray to me. My thought would be that if you remove the "cost" to the publisher of printing, binding, layout, distribution, wholesale (if they sell the ebook direct) of a printed book then from there they can determince the price for the ebook. For example, if the make "$5" per printed book (assuming they sell 100% of the) then the ebook price should start at "$5".

Anyway, this could be less or more than half... but think it is maybe a more reasonable way to come up with a "suggested" retail. Also, remember retailers can price stuff as they want, they do not have to follow the suggested retail.

BOb

zelda_pinwheel

04-14-2008, 04:10 PM

That's is a well written letter and very eloquent. My question would be, where do you come up with "half". That seem arbitray to me. My thought would be that if you remove the "cost" to the publisher of printing, binding, layout, distribution, wholesale (if they sell the ebook direct) of a printed book then from there they can determince the price for the ebook. For example, if the make "$5" per printed book (assuming they sell 100% of the) then the ebook price should start at "$5".

Anyway, this could be less or more than half... but think it is maybe a more reasonable way to come up with a "suggested" retail. Also, remember retailers can price stuff as they want, they do not have to follow the suggested retail.

BOb

where do i come up with half... well, to be honest it *is* arbitrary ; in the manifesto of the site mozambook (http://mozambook.free.fr/index2.htm) (free public domain ebooks in french) they propose this as a reasonable compromise for the price of ebooks and their logic seems completely defendable to me, so i'm spreading the word. if the *actual* production costs were greater than 50% of the pbook price, i agree with you, it is reasonable to modify this figure (i doubt we could ever hope to see a publisher sell an ebook for *less* than half of the pbook price). however i find it frankly kind of insulting when a publisher releases a hardcover at 20€ and the ebook at 19€. what is even the point of that reduction ? it almost seems like they are taunting us.

as for retailers, obviously they don't have to follow the suggestion of the publisher, however they are subject to competition, and i don't mind checking 2 or 3 different sites to see which is the least expensive when i buy...

you know the expression, "vote with your pocketbook"...

pilotbob

04-14-2008, 04:17 PM

you know the expression, "vote with your pocketbook"...

Yep... which is basically my choice rather than a letter writting campaing... not that I fault you guys for doing it. I applaud it.

However, my personal limit for an ebook is $10. If it is more than $10 I generally won't buy it. I'll wait for the price to come down. There enough out there in the <$10 set of ebooks that I will be fine for quite a while. I also have another basic personal rule that I don't start reading a series unless all have been released. (Broke it twice, Harry Potter and Sword of Truth). So a sub-rule now is all books in series must be <$10 also.

My only fear would be the publishers thinking... Gee we put out ebooks and no one buys them, let's stop doing it. When a price reduction might increase their sales 10 fold.

BOb