You don't matter - and you never did

[jinlo]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

We have to matter. If any us antimatter, make big boom.

Can't argue with that. But what about unclematter?

[Worldwalker]

If mass-market paperbacks don't matter ... then why do publishers print and sell so many of them? In many case, paperbacks (MM or TP) are the only form a book is released in.

I'd venture a guess that in terms of net profit over the lifetime of a pbook, the people who pay full price for hardcovers are actually in the minority. People who buy discounted hardcovers, people who buy trade paperbacks, people who buy mass market paperbacks, almost certainly bring in more profit, overall, than buyers of full-price hardcovers; the big advantage of HC sales is that they front-load the income, which can be very, very useful if you're a business with ten failed books to pay for and printing bills to meet. I'm just talking about direct sales here, no used books, etc., by the way.

Or look at it on a person-by-person basis: the people who line up to buy some politician's or celebrity's tell-all buy, what, a book every few months? If that? I buy that per week. If you're a business, who matters more to you: the person who spends $25 every 2 months, or the person who spends $10 every week ($80 every 2 months)?

Publishers without customers would be in a lot worse shape than customers without publishers, by the way.

And as for your "art" ... art is art. Do art for art's own sake, or do commercial work for its own sake, but don't expect other people to treat one like the other just because you say so. If people aren't paying you what you think you should get paid for your "art", then you have a problem with confusing the two.

[wvcherrybomb]

Originally Posted by Fbone

This thread certainly has lowered my self esteem.

I have a doctor appointment tomorrow. I'm probably going to have to go on Prozac now that I know I've never mattered. And perhaps years of counseling...

[M0zza]

Lee...

You don't matter... And you never did.





That is all.

[JLeighs]

This thread is rather funny. To the OP: you sound just a smidge on the bitter side.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

I have a doctor appointment tomorrow. I'm probably going to have to go on Prozac now that I know I've never mattered. And perhaps years of counseling...

No you won't.......that would only be for people who listen to the blathering of egotistical, holier than thou, goody goody, pharisaic posters........

[leebase]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

However, I somehow get the feeling that the OP is less about ebook pricing and more about someone not willing to get suckered out of $50 for a print.

It's simply an example from another industry. $50 has never been about the cost of making a print. But before digital technology came along, and people started making their own prints en masse, that they even began to realize that photos aren't that expensive to print. They never were. You were NEVER merely paying the cost of the paper and ink.

The price of a movie at the theater is not tied to how much it costs to print the film. The price of a can of Coke has little to do with the price of sugar and carbonation and the can. The price of Nike tennis shoes has little to do with the cost to make them. The cost to make a Mercedez is not THAT much more than the cost to make a Chevy.

And as such -- when someone finds little value in a product -- they simply don't matter to the producer. They aren't the producer's market. Mercedez could care less what _I_ think about how much their cars should cost.

Far and away, the whiners on this forum simply aren't the market the publishers have been trying to serve. The "used book market" is not a market that means anything to the publishers. The library readers, mean very little to publishers. Paperback buyers mean SOME amount to publishers, but not nearly as much as their main source of income, which is the hard back book market. That's where they make their money.

Lee

[jgaiser]

I'm still not sure I understand where you're going with this thread.

The only people that manufacturers care about are the people that pay the most money?

You're angry because of complaints about the strange pricing (ebooks more expensive that their paperback equivalents) that the publishers are attempting at the present?

That somebody thinks your $50 prints are overpriced?

It's hard to follow a rant when it attempts to go in multiple directions at the same time.

[Kevin2960]

Our Friend LeeBase was out to start a fight,

He does it quite a lot, check his posts,

Deliberately stirring up trouble so much,

I doubt he has time to read,

He's not worth our attention or our company,

In the UK if we DON'T want to talk to someone ...

"we send them to Coventry",

Lee ... A first class one way ticket to Coventry awaits you .... Anytime !

[L.J. Sellers]

I think the point is that people who don't buy $26 hard covers are the same people who won't spend more than $9.99 on a e-book. I don't think this is true. I'm one of those people who don't buy hardbacks, for many reasons, but I don't think much about the price of e-books I really want. All consumers matter.
L.J.

[abookreader]

If the used book market means nothing to the Publishers - then why in the heck did they sue Amazon to try and get it shut down?

Of course publishers would prefer to sell eBooks at higher prices and of course publishers would love it if eBook buyers would simply buy at release day for the same price as the printed book. Win/Win for them.

BUT publishing retail isn't all that different than any other retail and in the real marketplace suppliers who do not meet what their customers want to buy at the price customers are willing to pay - fail.

And then maybe they get a government bail out but that's a different story.

Trying to wrap all that up in some sort of but if you don't pay higher prices you aren't supporting the art kind of argument is false. Even artists must eventually sell in a supply and demand market - or they starve. or become waiters instead of artists.

Either way. Customers make the decision. Attract them or turn them away by telling them they don't matter. Because really if the "publishers" want to do that, there will almost certainly be another supplier right around the corner who thinks they do matter.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by 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.

I've got an idea: let's apply a generalization to the entire user base of mobileread and state it as fact!

Originally Posted by leebase

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.

Indeed. These people do exist. Some of them probably on mobileread. Huh. Looky there.

Originally Posted by leebase

The people who pay are the only ones who ever matter.

Yeah... I pay for books. Lots of them. And before my ereader, I used to buy hardcovers all the time. Now I don't. Why? It's not because I "don't matter" to the industry (I'm a 20-something female with tons of disposable income living in a $100k+ household...). It's because I've made a decision to vote with my dollars, and my dollars no longer buy hardbacks. I'm less pissed about pricing than I am about availability... Charge me $15 a book, but make it available the same damn day as the hardback!

Originally Posted by leebase

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.

Ah. Bad day at work, eh? There, there, it's ok. You keep telling people they don't matter, I'm sure that will make them want to buy your "art".

[GA Russell]

But the problem isn't that the big publishers make most of their profits from hardback sales. The problem is that they cannot be trusted.

They used to say that the cost of materials was a big part of the price. Now they say it's not.

Now they promise that the price of eBooks will come down for backlist titles, but we see on another thread that the price of the Catch-22 eBook is comparable to that of a new release.

They ask us to trust them and we don't. Lee, you give us permission to pirate the eBooks, but the publishers are not willing to do so. If they were, I would have no problem with the OP.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

The only people that manufacturers care about are the people that pay the most money?

Another way of putting it is: not everyone is a member of a company's target market. Gucci could care less what _I_ think about the price of their purses, as I would NEVER pay anything close to what they charge. They aren't going to change their prices based on emails I send them and ratings I put on their products online.

Originally Posted by jgaiser

You're angry because of complaints about the strange pricing (ebooks more expensive that their paperback equivalents) that the publishers are attempting at the present?

Angry? No. Amazed at folks who can't grasp that "cost to produce" has very little relation to "price" no matter how many times they are informed. Sure.

Originally Posted by jgaiser

That somebody thinks your $50 prints are overpriced?

Nope. It's just MY "shoe on the other foot" scenario. I am far from the most expensive photographer, but I'm not the cheapest either. No matter how little I charged (when I was starting out) -- there was always someone who thought it was too much. You learn that you don't need to worry about folks who think you charge too much. They aren't your customers. They don't value what you do. You market yourself to folks who DO value the service you provide.

Folks here seem to think the publishers are doing them some kind of wrong. As if the publishers have some obligation to provide their products at prices those who don't value their products very much would set for them.

Lee

[tompe]

Originally Posted by dsvick

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.

Really? I do not believe that. It is not consistent with empirical observations. The people that matter is the ones buying the bestselling hardcovers. And most of them are people not buying so meny books at all. And that is not the kind of people that complain about the prices here.