Penguin: Publishers need the e-book to survive

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

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

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

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).

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

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

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by GregS

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.

[da_jane]

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.

[bowerbird]

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

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by da_jane

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.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

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.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

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

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

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?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

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

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

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.

[GregS]

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.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by GregS

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

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

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.