Why do many e-books cost more than paperback?

[Robert Marquard]

Another probable reason for the publishers not understanding ebooks is that ebooks are the job of the IT department. IT departments are understaffed and are placed in the hierarchy somewhere below clerks and only slightly above the cleaning personnel.

[athlonkmf]

I have the feeling that the publishers are seeing the ebooks-format more like a huge dump for non-selling titles. At least, that's what's happening to the manga of tokyopop at the connectstore. Instead of throwing in some winning titles from renowned artists, they throw some unknown artist's titles for sale....

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

I have the feeling that the publishers are seeing the ebooks-format more like a huge dump for non-selling titles. At least, that's what's happening to the manga of tokyopop at the connectstore. Instead of throwing in some winning titles from renowned artists, they throw some unknown artist's titles for sale....

Judging by the rising popularity of e-books on smartphones (see this thread), maybe the issue has more to do with lack of belief in the Connect store, rather than an aversion to releasing top material...

Besides, releasing "non-selling" titles is okay... in many cases, there's someone who'd like to see that material, and will be glad to get it (just like old paperbacks).

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Hmm. Where do you see the fact that reading hardware which most people would consider decent has only very recently come into the world fitting into that paradigm?

It is clear that reading hardware is improving by leaps and bounds with all these advances in miniaturization, so I think that the e-book market is bound to increase. The way I see it however is that hardware follows content, which then gives rise to more content and so on, and that's the crux of the matter here.

Since there is no easy way to translate your print content to e-form, and let's face it however wonderful Gutenberg and the like are, people mostly want to read new stuff, very few people are going to spend hundreds of dollars on a dedicated device and then oodles more to get that content on, so the adoption rate for e-books will increase slowly no matter how wonderful the new device is

Only a cool multifunction device that easily reads books and many people want would accelerate dramatically that, and even so the issue of how you generate enough revenue from digital content at prices people are going to pay remains.

Who knows what the future will bring, maybe Google will strike a deal with publishers and offer huge amounts of e-books in a way or another, maybe Amazon will do something, maybe One Laptop will come with something for content

There is a huge industry out there with lots of vested interests and e-books have this potential of changing dramatically things, but the external pressure to force the industry to embrace then quickly is just not there at least yet...

Ultimately nothing to do with reading hardware. Were there a magic wand included with your pc that in 10 minutes takes your print book and makes an html or whatever format you want out of it, you would soon see everyone sporting a Sony Reader, Iliad, Bookeen, Ebookwise or whatever

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Ultimately nothing to do with reading hardware. Were there a magic wand included with your pc that in 10 minutes takes your print book and makes an html or whatever format you want out of it, you would soon see everyone sporting a Sony Reader, Iliad, Bookeen, Ebookwise or whatever

Yeah... and if only we could get publishers to open up their archives of print and digital material to that "magic wand"...

I'm personally more a fan of the multi-use device that also does e-books well, but I agree, making the content available is key. One thing to consider is this: A new content player (say, a new and popular comic or book series) could be converted to e-material, making it easier and faster to get digitally, and spur the purchase of readers. The rest of the content field, seeing the success of a particular set of readers and formats, jump onto the bandwagon... and we're off!

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

It is clear that reading hardware is improving by leaps and bounds with all these advances in miniaturization, so I think that the e-book market is bound to increase. The way I see it however is that hardware follows content, which then gives rise to more content and so on, and that's the crux of the matter here.

I have to respectfully disagree here, Liview_5. I don't think that the hardware follows the content. If that were the case, we wouldn't have things like the venerable EBookWise 1150, or the more recent bloom of e-ink devices, because there's not all that much content. There certainly wasn't back when RocketBook was failing to launch, in fact that's a large part of why it didn't make that much of a splash.

I think that the hardware people have been waiting for content, and the content people have been waiting for hardware (or at least using its lack as an excuse to hold back).

I also disagree on the multifunction device, but that's largely a matter of user preference. Though, I will say that if a multifunction device that people want, from which they can also read were the ticket, then the Palm would have revolutionized the e-reading industry.

I expect that historians will decide that it did have a significant impact, but not a complete revolution.

Just my two bits.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Digital information can be backup and restored if need be. A paper copy can be damaged and never able to be retrieved. If you have a book that is out of print and you cannot find a copy for sale, then if yours gets damaged, you lose it forever. But if you say backup your ebooks onto say multiple DVD (just to be safe) and store one copy offsite, then if your house blows up, the copy will still be accessible at sometime in the future.

I chuckle every time I hear something about archival storage. So many mediums disintegrate over time- color photographs, cheap books (only the ones printed using quality paper and binding materials will last over time), etc. How long are commercially printed (not burn-it-yourself) cd's and dvd's rated to last- 25 years? I bought a Phasewrite drive and the disks are rated to last 100+ years, but I don't think you can buy a Phasewrite drive any more.

Yes, the solution is to carve your important data into stone, like the Egyptians did.....

[orcinus]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

I chuckle every time I hear something about archival storage. So many mediums disintegrate over time- color photographs, cheap books (only the ones printed using quality paper and binding materials will last over time), etc. How long are commercially printed (not burn-it-yourself) cd's and dvd's rated to last- 25 years? I bought a Phasewrite drive and the disks are rated to last 100+ years, but I don't think you can buy a Phasewrite drive any more.

But that's all beside the point! It's not that anyone's talking (is there) about the longevity of digital *media*, but digital *data*.

How much effort (and/or time, cost, energy) does it take to copy a text file to another media? Versus how much for restoring and reprinting a book (or a stone tablet)?

Yes, a book can endure longer in proper conditions, but digital content can be copied and distributed a few orders of magnitude more easily. That's the whole point.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

This is a common refrain, but I think its spurious. After all throughout history the fraction of society's total information output that is preserved has been increasing, not decreasing. Sure a paper book or a stone tablet will last longer than a CD or a disk drive, but that doesn't mean much. The cost/difficulty of making copies of paper books/stone tablets means that most of them wont be preserved over the long term, while digital information will.

Don't get me wrong, my being here is proof enough of my enthusiasm towards the ebook.
I don't know how long you've had computers but I've been using them since the first personnal computers in the early eighties. And I have no programming experience and no curiosity about it whatsoever, just basic tinkering abilities, barely over average.

What I can tell you is that you can not trust digital information as it is to survive as it is. The digital world is controlled. It can be changed and outdated any time they wish it to as they have done often enough. I could enumerate the list of devices that lie on top of the pile of useless computer junk and talk of each one until tomorrow but I won't. Instead I'll tell you about the software, OS, and data. There is nothing of the data from all periods that has survived more than two generations (6 years). Some of it I was able to transfer with great difficulty. Most of it is still on their support media and the devices used to read it no longer works. Do they still make 5 1/4" readers? The 3 1/2 400k can't be read by the one I have in my still functionning outdated computer. Even if it could it would tell me "Can not find the application that created the file. Would you like to search for it over Internet?" Most every creation I've done is locked out in that old technology. Some of it is lost and I have absolutely no way of retrieving it. Data is trapped by hardware.

You might say that I'm exagerating and that today's digital control is far more stable and reliable. Well! I'll answer "Let's talk about it in twenty years"
By then, computers will be smaller than an SD card with hundreds of terrabytes of info that will still be incapable of reading the beautiful drawing I made and stored on that 400k floppy or that Bernouilly Zip drive.(I should have done it on canvas) That DVD vault of pictures will have corroded to crumbs as many CD Roms have started to do, and most magnetic based support will be jumbles of useless partly erased garble. But that book I have and treasure will still be there... I'm making sure that its value is understood.

As long as we rely on profiteering companies for research and development of digital media we can not have the stability and durability to "preserve". I am not against them, they roll the economy, employ a lot of us and bring us a lot of entertaining toys. There is a lot more to humanity than that and it has to be preserved correctly. Or has it been decided that it is'nt worth it and has to die off? Who, tell me who... has the right to decide? The E-bael we criticize is a symbol. It's a bright representation of the state of anarchy the digital world lays in. We're so busy hacking and working that we don't have time to notice the big picture?
They like it so. It suits them pretty well if I may add.

The state of flux in which floats the Digital World is very different from the material world we're trying to fit in it. Water and earth. It's simple as so. Waves and waves of changes just like fashion. Someone said of fashion "The proof that it's useless is that we have to change it all the time". Could it be the same as what we store on digital support? In many ways, yes and it should be! New voices and new ways of doing things make the world evolve. Artist and designers' work, even software are an expression of humanity that warrants preservation for examination by further generations. (If we don't kill this planet first )

My message is this. "Don't rely on just one way of writing down a message, whatever it is. There is a reason for everything and everything deserves to last."

[kovidgoyal]

I'm not saying that digital storage is a perfect solution, all I'm saying is that it's better than paper. You give examples of the difficulty of maintaining digital information that you've had, because of device incompatibilities over the last 20 years. But think of trying to maintain paper copies of information at a time when printing was still a new technology. I'd say it would be well nigh impossible for a private individual to do. The very fact that you can now maintain some personally created digital information is a great leap forward.

[NatCh]

One point here, is that the digital storage is totally dependent on electricity. If we were to lose the infrastructure, the paper would still be available, but the e-books would only last as long as our batteries.

Even with e-ink, that's still less than 4 weeks.

Well, it'd last longer, but it wouldn't be accessible.

[kovidgoyal]

If we lose electricity catastrophically, we'll have a lot more to worry about than accessing stored information. Food, for example.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by NatCh

One point here, is that the digital storage is totally dependent on electricity. If we were to lose the infrastructure, the paper would still be available, but the e-books would only last as long as our batteries.

Even with e-ink, that's still less than 4 weeks.

Well, it'd last longer, but it wouldn't be accessible.

Worse, it depends on a decoding tool! Writing as soon as it is seen by someone who can decipher it, is understood. Personally I don't know what the heck with those ones an zeros. They seem to reinterpret them every once in a while.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

If we lose electricity catastrophically, we'll have a lot more to worry about than accessing stored information. Food, for example.

Very true, but eventually someone might want to read Battlefield Earth.

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Worse, it depends on a decoding tool! Writing as soon as it is seen by someone who can decipher it, is understood. Personally I don't know what the heck with those ones an zeros. They seem to reinterpret them every once in a while.

Yah, we have internalized the tools for deciphering the written word, but even so, we sometimes need a Rosetta Stone and an extremely clever linguist.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I'm not saying that digital storage is a perfect solution, all I'm saying is that it's better than paper. You give examples of the difficulty of maintaining digital information that you've had, because of device incompatibilities over the last 20 years. But think of trying to maintain paper copies of information at a time when printing was still a new technology. I'd say it would be well nigh impossible for a private individual to do. The very fact that you can now maintain some personally created digital information is a great leap forward.

I agree with you more than I led on or I wouldn't be here. When I gave the analogy of this book it was that I wished e-anything to last as long as their physical counterparts. There is no way in the actual state of e-babble (pun intended) that things will last. We will need a movement no less than worldwidly revolutionnary to stabilize several standards. There is no support media that will stand data through time superior to paper yet. The only promise is to continually retransfer data ad infinitum with reinterpretations as languages are replaced. Find an error in that process!
If to preserve a book you were to take a text, rewrite it to reprint it, and scrap the original it would feel just the same as this e-promise. No security of transmission and what about the compound of human error?