Cost of eBooks vs dead-tree books

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

However, it is much easier to turn a P-book into an E-book than the other way around.
That determines the value, among other things.

We find it easier to produce an ebook from wordprocessor source and then extra work is needed to create a PDF for a professional paper book.

It's a huge amount of work to make an ebook if you've lost the wordproccessor files and only have a PDF for print creation.
It's an even greater amount of work if you don't even have the PDF, but only film to make plates or just a printed copy. Though pirates do use paper ARC, often they make only a scanned PDF with maybe an unproofed OCR layer.
PDFs are not ebooks. They are facsimiles either from printed material, or files to create printed material. You need a screen big enough for paper size and original font size with enough resolution. Inherently PDFs describe a page size and layout, not content for an arbitrary size of screen.

So I'd say it's MUCH easier to create a paper book if you have an ebook, even if only in ebook format as you can easily get 100% of the content and style for the Wordprocessor. It's true that images might need to be sourced at higher quality, but OTOH, coffee table book photo content is very tricky to deal with for everything from 4" 150dpi to 10" 300 dpi screens.

[Pajamaman]

Are there any reliable comparison surveys of pbooks and ebooks? A lot of what I'm reading is anecdotal.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Quoth

We find it easier to produce an ebook from wordprocessor source and then extra work is needed to create a PDF for a professional paper book.

It's a huge amount of work to make an ebook if you've lost the wordproccessor files and only have a PDF for print creation.
It's an even greater amount of work if you don't even have the PDF, but only film to make plates or just a printed copy. Though pirates do use paper ARC, often they make only a scanned PDF with maybe an unproofed OCR layer.
PDFs are not ebooks. They are facsimiles either from printed material, or files to create printed material. You need a screen big enough for paper size and original font size with enough resolution. Inherently PDFs describe a page size and layout, not content for an arbitrary size of screen.

So I'd say it's MUCH easier to create a paper book if you have an ebook, even if only in ebook format as you can easily get 100% of the content and style for the Wordprocessor. It's true that images might need to be sourced at higher quality, but OTOH, coffee table book photo content is very tricky to deal with for everything from 4" 150dpi to 10" 300 dpi screens.

I have created around 500 ebooks from paper books without any problems, whereby I did not attach any importance to the layout of the paper book.
But not yet a paper book from an ebook

[Pajamaman]

What's the best way to scan a hardback? I don't have a scanner. I have an iPad.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

One of my favourite articles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160305...rg/blog/?p=358

The pricing of books is very much tied to the expected income of the likely audience. Before I retired I was a programmer, and computer books would start at around $35. After I retired I took up knitting and full color knitting books would go for around $20.

One of my last programming tasks was to write a web based purchasing system for pdf reprints of articles from an academic business (MBA) journal. The price for each reprint was over $100; that was for a single article, not the whole issue.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Once again: less value to you. I've never resold a book in my life. The ability to resell one is of no value to me whatsoever. Nor is lendability. I'm a weirdo. None of my reading friends are interested in the things I read.

Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it's of no value.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Agency eBook pricing came about because of illegal collusion. So it should have been not allowed to continue.

The theory, at least, is that now it's being done without collusion, making it legal. I can't remember which publisher began it again. I think it was MacMillan but I'm not sure. They threatened to remove their books from Amazon if Amazon didn't agree to let them set prices. Amazon first said no but eventually gave in. It was only later that the others began to do it.

If there is a legal way to prevent agency pricing I'd sure be in favor of that. But I'm not sure there is. It does seem anti-competitive to me but I'm no lawyer.

Barry

[binaryhermit]

In 2010(the illegal Apple collusion era) there was a dispute between Amazon and MacMillan that resulted in agency pricing.

In 2014 it was Hachette who brought it back

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it's of no value.

Again, it means it’s of no value to him. Nothing DiapDealer has said contradicts this; his point, if I can be so bold as to interpret him, is that value is in the eye of the individual. It seems your issue is that you think your own preferences are universal and that you wish ebooks cost less since you prefer them, so you’re casting around for justification. Logically it falls apart: you value ebooks more personally, but you keep on coming up with specious reasons for why they’re worth less.

It comes down to this: the value of an item is what a person is willing to pay for it. If the price is equal to that or less, sold! If it’s more, no sale. The underlying cost to the purveyor is a red herring; it’s a baseline in terms of establishing price, but no more.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Ready Player One from Amazon US.

pBook: $10.79
eBook: $11.99

That should never happen unless the pBook is on sale because it's being remaindered.

Maybe the paper book *is* being remaindered at Amazon? At Barnes & Noble the paper book is $15.50 while the ebook is, of course, $11.99, same price as it is at every other store in the US.

Shari

[Uncle Robin]

I'm on a Regency Romance kick at the moment, and I've been adding the books I read to The StoryGraph. Getting the page info requires an ISBN, so although I buy from Kobo, I check Amazon for the paperback details to get the ISBN and page info. Of the last 10 I've checked, in not one instance has the paperback been less than 200% of the price asked for the ebook. The most recent one I checked was 325% of the ebook price. Certainly a large enough differential to make me glad I only read ebooks

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Now, now. Be calm. We are talking books, not politics here.

Facts are facts. Agency pricing isn't illegal and has been tested in the courts a number of times. It's been used by the music industry from digital music for decades. Some here may think it ought to be illegal, but that doesn't make it so. The same judge who found against the publishers and Apple approved the individual contracts between Amazon and the various publishers.

As far as pricing goes, yea, I get that some people want free books, or at least dirt cheap books. Well, there is always PD books and Kindle Unlimited. Might not be the books you want, but they are either free or really cheap. Some of them are quite good. Obviously, enough people buy ebooks at the various price points to make money for the publishers and authors. I know it stinks that authors need to make a living, but there you go.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it's of no value.

Exactly. That's what I've been saying all along. You're the one who's forgetting to type "in my opinion," or "to me" when making your value/less value declarations, not me.

[ottdmk]

Interestingly enough, I came across this thread just after buying Naomi Novik's "A Deadly Education" (currently on sale @ multiple retailers). I'm a fan of Novik's, although I don't own many of her books; I keep meaning to get more.

Looking at the prices for Uprooted and Spinning Silver I was quite dismayed that the publisher was charging so much more for the ebook than the mass-market paperback.

Until I discovered that'd I'd made a faulty assumption. Those books haven't been published in mass-market paperback. They're both only in what I always saw referred to as "trade paperback", simply called "paperback" on amazon.ca ($19.87 CDN) and chapters-indigo.ca ($23).

Which makes it another case of the ebook being the cheapest option. By a fair margin if you're buying from Chapters-Indigo (which I'll admit, I do somewhat prefer. I figure Bezos & co. have enough money coming in, and at least Canada is the primary market for Chapters-Indigo.)

I do find it odd that a successful author like Novik isn't getting a m-m paperback release of some of her books. Is the format on the downswing I wonder?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by crossi

Lots of books, possibly the majority, are the literary version of junk food.
Enjoyable but interchangeable.

I disagree there. If you want literary junk food about vampires, for instance, Twilight and The Summoning would give you entirely different experiences. One I would dislike, one I would love. Books are not fungible.

I have no opinion on the current pricing of ebooks.