You don't matter - and you never did

[leebase]

To my fellow forum participants all upset at the cost of ebooks. You seem to be under the impression that you matter. Well, you don't. You never did. You never paid $25 to $30 for a new hard back book. You used the library, borrowed from a friend, bought at garage sales -- or perhaps you bought the paper back when the really cheap mass produced version came out.

So -- continue on. Use the library. Buy from the remainder bin at Costco. Wait until your best friend reads the book she bought and then borrow it. Troll through the neighborhood yard sales and buy books for pennies.

You simply don't matter to the publishers and you never did. You have never supported the art and you never will. That's ok. There should be used books for the rest of your reading lifetime.

What you can't have -- and never could have -- are the first run desirable books at the price you are willing to pay. You didn't value books enough before ebooks to pay that price -- and you don't value them now. As such -- your opinion doesn't matter to publishers who cater to the millions of folks who actually pay the freight. They did before, and they will continue -- because they value the art enough to actually pay the price that the industry is willing to work for.

The rest of you can simply do whatever it is you always did. Heck, go ahead and steal books via whatever excuses you tell yourself is ok. It doesn't matter, because you don't matter. You never did.

Lee

[desertgrandma]

Do you feel better now?

[leebase]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Do you feel better now?

Nothing like a good truth telling to make one's day. But, by all means, meander over to any of the incessant "ebooks cost too much" threads and spit some more against the wind.

Lee

[gollu]

Originally Posted by leebase

It doesn't matter, because you don't matter. You never did.

Lee

I am so lucky you matter enough to come and open my eyes. I give you mine non-matter thanks.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by leebase

Nothing like a good truth telling to make one's day. But, by all means, meander over to any of the incessant "ebooks cost too much" threads and spit some more against the wind.

Lee

mmm......sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.

If your rant is that we refuse to pay as much for a digital copy of a book as a paper hardback.....good luck.

[Abisha]

I am trying to resist adding fuel to the fire, but -ju-st-can-'t-re.....sist!

Okay, I guess I can resist, but the original poster's comment made me ROFL! Of course Lee, I welcome your nonsensical rants for my amusement any day of the week. Though do your best to lay off desertGrandma shall we?

[hpjrt]

I never minded paying full price for hard cover books that were of great interest to me. I knew the cost of reading something "first" ... and chose those books accordingly. With other offerings, I was willing to wait the 8 months for the mass market version to come out.

Am I willing to pay the same price for a newly released ebook as I might be for a hard cover? Absolutely not. With an ebook, there aren't the costs of producing a hard cover. There's no paper ... no binding costs ... no shipping and no storage costs. In fact, theoretically, once the manuscript is input [and preferably proofread] it's a simple matter of bouncing the input version into various formats ... and you have an ebook.

The costs of producing a hard cover, of shipping a hard cover and of warehousing a hard cover dictate, in part, the cost of that hard cover. Without those costs, the publisher could charge less for the ebook and still make the same margin of profit and pay the author the same royalty. It's really a no-brainer ... and all the condescending diatribes you can muster can't argue with the cost savings of ebook production over physical book production.

Mary

[bgalbrecht]

In reality, those of us who used to buy mass market paperbacks matter. We didn't buy hard covers or trade paperbacks, and waited for the book to come out at the lower price point. If the publishers choose to eventually drop the ebook price to MMPB prices (or less, since I can get 10% off of any MMPB at B&N's website), we will buy. If not, we'll just buy something else, or not at all, and we'll tighten the publishers' margins even further. And if the publishers were smart, they'd price their ebook backlist even cheaper after the book's been out for a long time to compete with the used books. Sure, they're never going to compete with the garage sale down the block, but they could compete with Half Price Books and the book closeout chains, and the rest of the used book stores. Even the publisher CEOs admit that the pricing is not about cost, but timeliness of access, with the brand new books having a price premium for being timely.

The real problem with ebooks is that they can stay in print indefinitely without cost to the publisher, and so they are competition to all the new works. How do you price the old books so they don't cannibalize the new works, but maximum the total revenue for each book? The publishers surely don't know, and neither do I.

[leebase]

Ebooks by and large, are cheaper than hard backs by about the amount that credible sources tell us is the cost savings. But it's not good enough that an $18 hard back is sold for $14.99. Just listen to folks who swear vengeance against publishers if an ebook costs more than $9.99.

Those are the folks who never spent $25 for a hard back, who never supported the art. That they won't spend $12.99 to $14.99 doesn't matter because folks like them (including me) never mattered.

The people who pay are the only ones who ever matter. Just like as a photographer it doesn't matter to me if someone thinks $50 is too much for a professional print as such people simply don't value my art enough to pay for it. I spend my time caring about the folks who do care for and are willing to pay for art.

Lee

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by leebase

The people who pay are the only ones who ever matter. Just like as a photographer it doesn't matter to me if someone thinks $50 is too much for a professional print as such people simply don't value my art enough to pay for it. I spend my time caring about the folks who do care for and are willing to pay for art.

Otherwise known as "suckers."

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by leebase

To my fellow forum participants all upset at the cost of ebooks. You seem to be under the impression that you matter. Well, you don't. You never did. You never paid $25 to $30 for a new hard back book. You used the library, borrowed from a friend, bought at garage sales -- or perhaps you bought the paper back when the really cheap mass produced version came out.

So -- continue on. Use the library. Buy from the remainder bin at Costco. Wait until your best friend reads the book she bought and then borrow it. Troll through the neighborhood yard sales and buy books for pennies.

You simply don't matter to the publishers and you never did. You have never supported the art and you never will. That's ok. There should be used books for the rest of your reading lifetime.

What you can't have -- and never could have -- are the first run desirable books at the price you are willing to pay. You didn't value books enough before ebooks to pay that price -- and you don't value them now. As such -- your opinion doesn't matter to publishers who cater to the millions of folks who actually pay the freight. They did before, and they will continue -- because they value the art enough to actually pay the price that the industry is willing to work for.

The rest of you can simply do whatever it is you always did. Heck, go ahead and steal books via whatever excuses you tell yourself is ok. It doesn't matter, because you don't matter. You never did.

Lee

If course we matter. Where else do you think they get their money from, the book fairies? Not all of us avoid "paying the freight."

[dsvick]

You're absolutely right, those people matter very little to the publishers. On the other hand, the publishers also matter very little to those people.

It is not the bargain hunters that you find arguing so much in those threads, yes, some of them are, but for the most part the people doing the arguing are the same people that did go out and spend the money on the first run hardcover editions.

The publishers don't care, but why should they? Why spend their time and effort trying to find the magic price point at which those people will purchase when, for many of them, that point will always be absurdly low. Big deal. There are plenty of people out there that the publishers do care about that they will listen to

[SkyDream]

Originally Posted by leebase

It doesn't matter, because you don't matter. You never did.

Actually, no one matters. Even you.
Ask the universe. It just didn't know you.

[jgaiser]

Actually Lee, i do matter. Us bargain-basement buyers have kept a whole used book industry in business. We spend our money in the local community and buy the cheap ones. If there was a way to buy 'used ebooks', I'd be buying.

In the meantime, I'll continue to b*tch about the high cost of some ebooks, keep a look out for cheaper ones and occasionally spend a bit more on something i really want to read.

Nice rant, though...

[abookreader]

That post reads like a chapter in the WalMart cashier employee manual titled "Customer Service, Who Gives a Shit?"


Actually I take that back, WalMart cashiers generally don't think I matter, but they nearly always give me a Hello.