Quote:
Originally Posted by stustaff
Why do we believe an Ebook should be less than a HB?
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Because I can not sell it after I have read it.
I can not lend it to my friends, I can not even let my wife read it, unless I let her use my reader.
The vast majority of paper books are read by more than one person. I own quite a few books that were purchased when my grandfather was a very young man.
Most of Ebooks we are talking here about are protected by DRM and that means that my rights are severely limited.
We are hearing ad nauseum that the actual physical printing and binding of a hardcover is only a very small fraction of the costs. A couple of bucks. A few years ago we have been told by publishers that $30 for hardcover versus $8 for paperback is a fair difference, because the hardcover was more expensive to print and bind.
Let us talk about returns. Books that do not sell quickly enough and are sent back to the publisher and end up in a "buck a book" shop if not in a pulp vat or landfill.
Let us talk about 50% of paperbacks that get the front page ripped and sent back to the publisher and the rest is pulped, or dumped in a landfill.
Let us talk about how much it cost to keep a physical copy until somebody purchases it and how much it costs to maintain 500KB file.