ebook survey

[krischik]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

That's just for the printing. Distributor and retailer costs should also be lower for eBooks.

Printing, distribution and retail together account for 60% (according to your link). All 3 of those should have significant savings with regards to eBooks. That's a pretty big chunk.

My experience is that Web distributors take a cut of 30%. Some add credit card changes on top. And they usually pay only when a certain amount is outstanding.

Martin

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Amalthia

I think it's very hard for a law to change when the regular people don't have the same amount of money as the corporations.

What are corporations? Groups of people, just like us. Trying to make a living for all their stakeholders.

[ekaser]

Originally Posted by krischik

I might be wrong - but as far as I see it eBooks have almost the same cost as normal books. Read:

http://ireaderreview.com/2009/05/03/...ook-publishing

Thanks for the link. Those numbers are pretty close to what I remember reading on previous occasions over the decades. The general rule of thumb (which matches well with 'your' article) that I remember is the publisher gets about %40 of the retail price from the wholesaler, the wholesaler gets between %50 and %60 of the retail price from the retailer, and the retailer gets whatever they can from the customer. (I had thought once, as a young man, of opening a bookstore, and did a fair amount of researching at the time). The publisher has many costs, of course:
%8-%15 to author
%10 printing
%20 all else (editing, proofreading (hah!), graphic design, book design, marketing (book tours, galleys for journalists/reviewers, ads, etc), returns (unsold books)

So, for a brand-new, best-selling author e-book, we should expect something like:
%15 author
%0 printing
%0 galleys, returns
%10 publisher costs
%10-%20 wholesaler/retailer (no brick & mortar, no inventory, no shipping, just servers, electricity and credit card processing for the most part)

There's no proofreading costs (publishers no longer do that, for the most part) and book design and graphic design should be much simpler and cheaper for e-books (just a front cover, no back cover). That means for a $26.00 (current hardcover), worst case should be %45 of that, or $11.70 for a new, best-selling author novel. Now, after the "hardcover" stage (usually the first year), we drop to the paperback price range of about $8. %45 of that is $3.60. After a year of that, there is NO reason why books shouldn't drop into a "back list" category (after all, the books should have paid for themselves by then ON AVERAGE, and the rest is gravy), where eveyone involved should be happy to earn 1/2 of the "new book" rates, or a total of about %22.5 of $8, which is $1.80.

Were I making my living writing books (I make it writing computer programs instead), I'd be happy to have all of my books still available for sale for the rest of my life, earning $2.60 to $3.90 a copy the first year, $.80 to $1.20 the second year, and then $.40 to $.60 cents forever after. I would think the publishers/retailers would be happy with the same deal.

...once they get past the idea of physical books and the structures and costs involved with them.

BUT... as an end-user... the reason I'm willing to pay $26 for a new hardcover book is because it IS a HARDcover book. It's a MUCH nicer, physical object than a paperback book. I'm actually getting more for my larger chunk of cash. With an e-book, it doesn't matter when I buy it, I'm getting the SAME thing. The only difference is whether I get it as soon as it's published ("It's new! It's hot! I've GOT to have it!"), or wait paitently until it's cheaper (and no longer so "culturally hot"). So I think with e-books, publishing has to adjust the framework, not just try to map old physical book ideas and methods into the new realm. As a customer, $10-$12 for a newly released novel (e-book) seems about right. That could be good for about two years, but (again, as a customer and what feels right from that point of view), a price of $3-$5 for the next 2-3 years feels right. After a book has been available for five years, it should cost around $1-$3 dollars. That's my opinion, given today's prices and knowledge of what the involved costs are.

Here's another link to a very interesting and thought-provoking article from Dec 2002 about book costs:

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/fea...ces/index.html