The $15 Boycott: Will you be participating?

[bgalbrecht]

One problem I'm seeing with the Agency 5 ebooks is that they are pricing the ebooks at parity with the mass market paperback cover price when one is available, but B&N and Amazon are discounting the MMPB so the ebook ends up 10%-20% more expensive than the MMPB. In the old days, when they priced their books at MMPB price, I could usually find a sale somewhere (usually Fictionwise) that would drop the price down to 15% - 50% off, but not anymore. I look at it and say to myself "Do I really want this book enough to pay more than I would a real, tangible book that I could resell when I'm done with it, especially if I didn't like it?" and so far, the answer is usually "No." Between paper and ebooks I already own, and stuff in the public domain, I probably have enough unread material to last me until I die. The publishers have not provided compelling reasons for me to pay a premium for a new work, or for the hideously overpriced "Classics backlist", like the Jack Higgins books with a $15 list price and maybe discounted to $10. I'd love to replace some of my older works in my collection with ebooks, but I'm surely not going to do so when then ebook costs several times what I paid for it originally.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

I can't agree with that. What they will do is destroy traditional publishing which is on borrowed time now that ereading is starting to really pick up steam. They'll follow pretty much the same model as the recording industry has, but way, way faster.

In the context I wrote my comment "publishing" should if I remember correctly be read as traditional publishing. The question was who started the war.

And the result won't be less good books published, but way more good books published as those big publishing houses will lose their status as the gatekeepers for the publishing industry. There will also be a ton more crud published, for sure, but there are going to be more and more on-line communities that help readers find the good stuff.

Maybe or maybe not. Remember that traditional publishers is not just gatekeepers they also help writers to develop and become better writers.

[Hellmark]

$15 is simply too rich for my blood. I've really never paid that much for books before, and can't afford to start doing that now. Too many good books in my price range to start with, anyway.