The Virtue of High Priced Books

[leebase]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Why not reduce the price again at some point after the mass-market paperback is released?

They do. Ebooks that are released at the same time as the new hard backs are indeed dropping in price.

With ebooks, though, there can be fine tuning of when to lower the price. As long as an ebook is selling at a certain rate at a certain price, publishers will keep the price there.

With paper books, publisher have to schedule manufacturing and distribution. They have to guess how many books to make in advance. They have to decide when they want to release the paperback long before they actually do. With ebooks, there is no such need. Prices can go up and down as the market demands.

If publisher's DON'T lower the prices -- then many folks will simply buy the paper back or used copies of the paper books.

Lee

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by leebase

No one would have the incentive to create ebooks of backlist works if they could only sell them for $.25 each. By all means, go ahead and buy that used paperback book at the garage sale for $.25. No one need buy the ebook unless they DESIRE to at the price sufficient to encourage it's creation.

$3 would be the average price of a second hand paperback bought mail order, which would be the only way of getting something you actually wanted rather than choosing from what is available for 0.25 at a jumble sale.

If the cost of creation is the only barrier to pricing them at second hand paperback levels, why don't they just download a pirate version that has been created by a fan for nothing and sell that? It seems to work well enough for the people who sell PD books on Amazon. Sherlock Holmes is one of their best selling Kindle titles, so the availability of free copies obviously has no influence on sales.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Last I heard the average publisher advance was $5,000, nowhere near enough to quit your job, and you would still need to have a finished book to get that. Even if you wanted to give 90% of your income to a publisher you would be better off testing the market on Amazon first. Publishers only care about what they think they can sell, so if they can see something that already has a few sales and/or positive feedback they would be more lkely to look at that than some random manuscript someone sent them last year.

I'm amused at the "everything should be free" guy trying to comment on the best way authors can go to make money.

The point remains standing -- an author needs incentive to write books. Financial incentive is the best known. The more an author makes, the more of his energies he will spend trying to create books. If he can make SOOO much money that he no longer spends his time writing, his success will ensure MANY folks will spend their time trying to earn those rewards.

It is the financial reward that is KEY to ensuring the creation of books. And that's why high prices that are successful are virtuous. It's a good thing for book lovers if book creators make a great living at writing books.

Lee

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by leebase

ok, back to reality. He can't quit his job because he isn't making enough money self publishing. Others have, sure. Very few compared to the many that try.

That's true of pretty much anything. Where there are many examples of people quitting there job after putting a $.99 app on the Apple iOS store there are problem 1000 devs that have done the same thing and made less than $10 after a year.

Also, just because there are thousands of free apps in that store doesn't keep people from paying for the $9.99 ones. however, many do consider an iOS app that cost more than $1.99 over priced.

That's just the way the market works. Why do we think ebooks (books even) will be any different?

BOb

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by leebase

They do. Ebooks that are released at the same time as the new hard backs are indeed dropping in price.

With ebooks, though, there can be fine tuning of when to lower the price. As long as an ebook is selling at a certain rate at a certain price, publishers will keep the price there.

Fair enough. I'll admit that I haven't paid that much attention to whether or not publishers were doing that. I have bought one or two books for around £3 that were written by a relatively well-known author, and not self-published. I honestly had no idea whether or not that was common.

My point was that it is possible to compete with second hand paper books. The books I bought for about £3 were books that I'd have bought second hand in paper, and now that I've got a Kindle, I'm happy to pay £3 for them as ebooks.

[Lucid_Dreamer]

I price my books based on length. My first book is a book of short stories and I priced it for two bucks simply because it was short and I couldn't bring myself to charge much more than that for a digital file. If I do a novel I'll put it for 3 dollars probably,depending on length. I only have published an ebook so far, so I imagine it's different for paper books and rightfully so.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by leebase

One is not harmed by something existing one cannot afford.

That may be strictly true by your definition, but "one" very much can be harmed by not affording something that exists. That includes things like medical care-- and knowledge. And it is better for "one" and for society as a whole if both are as inexpensive as possible.

[elcreative]

And here we go with a mix up over what's being talked about... if you read what most people are posting, they are actually talking about fiction not non-fiction. I'll agree you can learn things from fiction but it does not equal knowledge and it is not essential... also extrapolating from leebase's comments (which clearly relate to books and fiction) to things like medical care and knowledge, is simply being disingenuous by trying to equate things which are clearly not equal.


No medical care = very bad.
No knowledge (probably non-fiction) = very bad.
No fiction = maybe irritating, annoying whatever but (by most of the world's definitions) not even noticeable except for those who have the luxury of the spare time and finance required.

Originally Posted by ardeegee

That may be strictly true by your definition, but "one" very much can be harmed by not affording something that exists. That includes things like medical care-- and knowledge. And it is better for "one" and for society as a whole if both are as inexpensive as possible.

[Lucid_Dreamer]

non-fiction books are really expensive though. Especially text books haha.

But yeah as for fiction books, I think it's okay to charge a lot for a printed book, especially if it is longer. But for short books or ebooks,I think it should be lower.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Lucid_Dreamer

non-fiction books are really expensive though. Especially text books haha.

But yeah as for fiction books, I think it's okay to charge a lot for a printed book, especially if it is longer. But for short books or ebooks,I think it should be lower.

I have said for yeas many times on this forum... I will happily pay the same for an ebook as you would charge for the paperback. But, not more... there is no reason to pay more.

If an ebook is priced more than the currently available published paper version available on Amazon I'm not going to buy it.

For example, if the only version out is a HardCover for $14.99 that should be the price of the ebook. Once a paperback is out for $9.99 that should be the ebook price. Once the paperback is priced at $7.99 that should be the ebook price. Well... you get the idea.

BOb

[Lucid_Dreamer]

That makes sense. I just feel bad putting a higher price on a digital file haha. Like I said it depends how long the book is. I couldn't justify putting a higher price on my current ebook because it's only some hundred and ten pages typed. So I slapped a 1.99 price tag on it and called it a day.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by leebase

The point remains standing -- an author needs incentive to write books. Financial incentive is the best known. The more an author makes, the more of his energies he will spend trying to create books. If he can make SOOO much money that he no longer spends his time writing, his success will ensure MANY folks will spend their time trying to earn those rewards.

Anyone who thinks they are going to get rich from writing fiction is deluding themself, they would be lucky to make as much as they could get flipping burgers. The main incentive to write is a desire to write, maybe with the hope of peer recognition. Any money you might make from it is just a bonus.

Giggly is right about a lot of things — whether you put a price tag on your book or not, there will be a lot of people who read it for free. Just like there always has been. So a way of collecting money from some of those free reads would be worth coming up with. But I don't think his idea would work, for the same reason that voluntary donations don't work.

Something like his idea, with payments being made automatically as soon as the reader reaches the last page, maybe. Or something like the UK library scheme where you get a small payment each time it is downloaded, paid through advertising revenue on the download site. But I can't really see any of the big publishers allowing anything like that.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

That's just the way the market works. Why do we think ebooks (books even) will be any different?
BOb

I agree. The ebook market isn't different.

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

That may be strictly true by your definition, but "one" very much can be harmed by not affording something that exists. That includes things like medical care-- and knowledge. And it is better for "one" and for society as a whole if both are as inexpensive as possible.

That's just not thinking things through. If services and products are "as inexpensive as possible" there is little incentive to provide those services and products.

Millions of dollars are invested to come up with a pill that can be manufactured for ten cents each. If you only then charge 11 cents each for the pill "because it now exists" then you'll never again see someone spend the millions trying to come up with the new pill.

So yes, there is a very good virtue in the existence even of medications that someone can't afford. Poor "Billy", his lot in life remains unchanged whether the pill exists but is too expensive, or doesn't exist at all. But the rest of society would suffer greatly were "Billy's ability to pay" become the place where pricing is set.

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by elcreative

I'll agree you can learn things from fiction but it does not equal knowledge and it is not essential... also extrapolating from leebase's comments (which clearly relate to books and fiction) to things like medical care and knowledge, is simply being disingenuous by trying to equate things which are clearly not equal.


No medical care = very bad.
No knowledge (probably non-fiction) = very bad.
No fiction = maybe irritating, annoying whatever but (by most of the world's definitions) not even noticeable except for those who have the luxury of the spare time and finance required.

I agree with you. And YET, it's STILL demonstrably true the high priced medicine is also a virtue.

I take a blood pressure medication that is generic. It is generic because there is a time limit on patents. Once that time limit expires, then the cost of the drug plummets to near the cost of manufacturing it. Today's high priced drugs are tomorrow's generic drugs. Society benefits even when individuals can't afford the latest/greatest drugs.

Were there no such protection (copyright, patents) then there would be no ability to recoup investment plus profit. It is a virtue and blessing for society that so much money can be made in creating drugs because THAT's why folks invest in making drugs.

Lee