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View Poll Results: Will you buy an ebook even if a paper edition is the same or less money?
No, if the paper edition is less, I'll buy the paper edition. It's all about the content. 26 14.86%
No, if the paper editon is less, I won't buy the book on prinicple. Ebooks should cost less. 65 37.14%
Yes, I want an ebook because I want what the ebook format offers me. Paper price is irrelevent. 66 37.71%
Other, please explain. 18 10.29%
Voters: 175. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 05-08-2013, 11:13 AM   #16
HarryT
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For obvious reasons, reference books are an exception to the above rule.
Agreed. This is the most recent "coffee table" book that I bought. It has the most wonderful photographs in it which fold out to be more than a metre long. It's going to be a very, very long time before any electronic device can adequately replace such a book.
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Old 05-08-2013, 11:14 AM   #17
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I go on crazy book-buying sprees regardless. The hardcovers are just my barometer for determining the prices I'd be willing to pay.
Yes, that's what I meant. It doesn't sound like you object to ebooks costing as much as a hardcover per se, you just choose the hard cover price as a conveniently available self-check, like my ebay limits or (perhaps) ucfgrad93's $10 figure, yes?

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Old 05-08-2013, 11:45 AM   #18
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My impulse buy limit is around $6 - below that, I'm willing to take a chance on a new author, new genre, something I haven't tried before. If it's an author I follow and really like and want to support, I'll go up to around $10 - no hard and fast rule, just that's about my threshold.

I resent paying more than $10 for something I only license, don't own.

there are a couple of authors that I collect, and will buy in hardback (I'm looking at Lois Bujold here). There's one author I used to collect in both paper and audio, but his new publisher has really jacked up the prices for ever slimmer volumes so high that I'm only getting them in audio these days (I really like the way that they're narrated - to me, on these books, the narrator is so perfectly matched to the "voice" of the book that they're inseparable to me.)
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Old 05-08-2013, 12:26 PM   #19
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I really don't give a damn what the paper book costs. If I'm buying an ebook, it's the ebook price that interests me (not that I'm particularly price conscious when it comes to books - I regularly buy $50+ "coffee table" paper books).
Totally agree. I have no interest in what the paperbook costs because I don't want to buy that, I want the ebook version. How much I will pay for a book depends on the book in question and what I think it's worth not what format it is in. I don't have a set price limit for buying a book, it varies.
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Old 05-08-2013, 02:25 PM   #20
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Both prices being equal, I would buy the pbook. I actually prefer pbooks. And yet I read mostly ebooks, because I prefer library ebooks over going to the library (and racking up late fees), and I have a back log of free and cheap ebooks. I could count on one hand the number of ebooks I have bought for over $6.

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Old 05-08-2013, 02:54 PM   #21
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As Harry says, it depends on the book as to how much I am willing to pay. I have always spent a lot of money on books. My wife always tells people who ask that at least it isn't drugs, cigarettes or women.
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Old 05-08-2013, 02:56 PM   #22
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Voted for yes.
The only reason I might go for the cheaper pbook would be a book where the sample couldn't convince me but that came highly recommended. If I could grab such a book for about 1 € as a pbook I might still give it a try instead of completely passing it by.
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Old 05-08-2013, 02:57 PM   #23
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My wife always tells people who ask that at least it isn't drugs, cigarettes or women.
Apache
Certainly she meant other women....
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Old 05-08-2013, 04:16 PM   #24
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Certainly she meant other women....
I should have read that a little closer.
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Old 05-08-2013, 07:30 PM   #25
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Probably the only reason I would by a fiction pbook is if there were no fiction ebooks od. For many years I was thrilled with a new pbook, but not anymore. Nothing wrong with them just that I vastly prefer ebooks.

They don't have to have special features, special fonts etc.

Availabilty is a big thin, instant gratification ummm

Convenience features of even the most basic readers, such as book marking a book so you can switch to another and go back without worrying about someone tidying the other book away because you could not possibly be reading two.

Price can be a deciding factor, but not between eversions and paper versions, because I do not want paper versions no matter how cheap they are. I don't dislike them, I just vastly prefer ebooks. Kind of like going back to a black and white tube TV or a TRS-80 computer with a tape deck for storage. Magic at the time but...

If there are 10 books I really want, and I am sure there are thousands, and some are noticably cheaper, I will buy in the lower price range. Same as I ill buy chuck steak at $2 a lb instead of Kobe beef at $40 a lb. or a $14 bottle of wine instead of a $200 bottle of wine. It is about what I can afford and how much I want it.

I would no more think of telling a publisher how much to charge for a book, then I would tell a grocer how much to charge for a steak, or a car manufacturer how much to charge for a car. If I can pay the price doesn't mean I will and sometimes I do without other things to buy something I really cannot afford but have just got to have.

Luckily with ebooks there are so many choices. You can buy them, borrow from the library, or read public domain.

And as near as I can tell the selling price is determined by demand. Not supply and demand as in Kobe beef, but by how many people want to read a certain book right now which is pretty much the way it has been with paper books in the last 30-40 years. If demand is high they print more, if it is low they sell the remaining stock cheaply.

The publishers and authors want to make money, but then so do I. perhaps by asking a higher price they are depriving me of the price of a cappucino or a cheese burger but there is no force or coercion involved. I either pay the price or I don't, no painful comparisons to other formats are necessary.

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Old 05-08-2013, 07:45 PM   #26
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My impulse buy limit is around $6 - below that, I'm willing to take a chance on a new author, new genre, something I haven't tried before. If it's an author I follow and really like and want to support, I'll go up to around $10 - no hard and fast rule, just that's about my threshold.

I resent paying more than $10 for something I only license, don't own.
I pay about $500 a year for cable and I don't seem to own it. My sister pays about $12,000 a year for rent and could be evicted if they decide to rebuild. Perhaps one can own everything one uses over $10, but I don't suppose many are that fortunate.

I can't legally resell the shows I watch on cable and my sister cannot rent her apartment to anyone else without permission. Not all that different.


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Old 05-08-2013, 08:13 PM   #27
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oh, I know, and I know it's illogical, but I do find that I rarely buy an ebook for more than $6 or $7 - it has to be something special for me to go over that amount.
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Old 05-08-2013, 08:15 PM   #28
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Originally Posted by speakingtohe View Post
I pay about $500 a year for cable and I don't seem to own it. My sister pays about $12,000 a year for rent and could be evicted if they decide to rebuild. Perhaps one can own everything one uses over $10, but I don't suppose many are that fortunate.

I can't legally resell the shows I watch on cable and my sister cannot rent her apartment to anyone else without permission. Not all that different.


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True, but the comparison is to paper books, which you can lend out and resell and keep regardless of whether the publisher can/wants to keep paying to keep your book in the DRM servers. I think BeccaPrice's point is that, you lose those rights when you buy an ebook over a pbook, so why pay the same amount if you value those missing rights?
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Old 05-08-2013, 08:25 PM   #29
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True, but the comparison is to paper books,
The misapplied, inappropriate comparison.

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which you can lend out and resell and keep regardless of whether the publisher can/wants to keep paying to keep your book in the DRM servers.
Because there is a physical item to do so with, which there is not with an ebook, and there is no DRM server involved, which there sometimes is with an ebook.
They are different things with radically different physical properties, so why would you expect them both to have the exact same use properties?

If one wants the properties and rules of a physical item, one should buy the physical item. One should not buy a different thing then expect it to have the properties of something else.

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I think BeccaPrice's point is that, you lose those rights when you buy an ebook over a pbook, so why pay the same amount if you value those missing rights?
You don't lose them. You never had them and you had no good reason to expect to have them. Cuz an ebook is not a pbook.

You do, however, get a whole bunch of DIFFERENT benefits that pbooks can't possibly have. THOSE are the things you should be considering when you decide how much to pay for it. Aside from the value of the content itself, of course, which I agree is comparable in either format.
Similarly, when choosing a pbook over an book, you might want to consider the it's properties, like the money you may get back in future resale, when considering if it's price is worth it.
You wouldn't say "I'm losing the ability to carry this weightlessly along with thousands of others in my pocket, and get instant online delivery, so I should be paying less for this pbook" would you?

Last edited by ApK; 05-08-2013 at 08:36 PM.
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Old 05-08-2013, 08:33 PM   #30
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I didn't say I expected those rights, I said that I wouldn't want to pay the same amount for something that was missing them.
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