Aus Gov't report advises banning geoblocking

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

I haven't read through the entire thread, so pardon me if I raise a point that has been dealt with. Could it be possible that electronic books are priced higher in Australia simply to maintain parity with prices of physical books? Electronic texts are obviously cheaper to transmit anywhere, but if the prices reflected that it would gobble up the physical books market in Australia by virtue of being more affordable.

I think there is something in this, not all publishers are doing it, but for some that seems to be part of their pricing strategy.

There is something similar in other countries too, where the ebook is priced higher when only the hardback is available, and drops in price when the paperback is released.

In both cases the high price for the ebook has nothing whatsoever to do with higher cost of the ebook, it is simply a way to extort the maximum from the buyer.

[darryl]

The question has been raised on this thread as to the reasons for the high price of books in Australia. The answer is actually quite complex, and certainly not definitive.

Without writing an essay on the subject, I will simply say that Australia has always fostered an environment conducive to price discrimination against Australians, justifying the preservation of such an environment on flimsy arguments of public interest. This has been going on throughout Australia's existence, and has become somewhat of a tradition across the Board. It is by no means limited to only Books. One example is the continuation of legislation restricting parallel imports even to this day in respect of some industries. Such laws and attitudes, combined with Australia's relevant affluence, have effectively issued an open invitation to foreign companies to rip-off Australians, an invitation which has been eagerly accepted even by some of the World's best known companies. I have posted in other threads how I was able many years ago to import paper books from Amazon for my own reading cheaper than I could purchase them locally, even with the postage costs, not to mention being able to obtain books not released or available locally. Anecdotally, with the legislative restrictions, Australian booksellers at the time could have purchased cheaper retail in the US than wholesale here.

In the case of digital products competing with physical products, companies seek to preserve the status quo. So, for example, Adobe does not want to undermine sales of its boxed products by selling the digital versions cheaper, just as the large publishers are reluctant to undermine paper book sales by selling the ebook versions cheaper. Nor, of course, do they wish to damage the market for regional rights, which was perfectly logical for physical goods but is a totally artificial construct in relation to digital products.

So, why do large foreign companies charge higher prices to Australian's? Because they have always done so, and the regulatory environment in Australia has always allowed and even encouraged them to do so. And, of course, they don't wish to stop doing so just because of little inconveniences like the internet and digital products.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The books you're complaining about, that *can* be bought for less by faking location are *licensed* to the local market as well as the original. Well, the issues I'm questioning isn't the manufacturing cost of the print edition but rather the cost of the license from the author or original publisher (plus the cost of staying in business). Digital or physical, the author wants to get paid. And get paid enough net to make it worth the transaction. (Note that in the recent EU VAT adjustment, the reaction of many authors selling direct was to simply stop selling to the EU as the cost of reworking their store for compkiance excessed the volume of sales.)

Again, I wonder if the license cost for the australian market is going to be only a proportional 6% of the US license.

I went and actually looked at the numbers (easy to find online, really) and for 2012 the trade book business in the US totalled US$16B while the Australian total ran US$900M (at your inflated prices) of which some 40% were imports. So, as far as local book vendors are concerned their market is actually 40% smaller than an equivalent population in the US.

Looking at it from the point of view of the original author (or his agent) licensing a book that got a typical low 4-figure advance, selling a regional license for US$100-300 is probably not an option as drawing up the contract alone is going to cost about as much. That 6% of US license cost doesn't look too reasonable for anything other than bestsellers...

So, looking from the outside, I'm going to guess that in addition to higher book prices, you folks also face a mid-list availability problem and that a good portion of those 40% imports are for books not available locally at any price.

I'm thinking that instead of arguing for circumventing geoblocks over price, a better case could be made over availability.

There are a lot of unjustified assumptions going on in here, but most important is the idea that the region is contracted separately*. What makes you think that a mid-list author even has much say over where their book is distributed by the publisher? If they have conflicting contractual obligations there is a good chance the publisher won't touch the book anyway. And even if they do have a say, there's a really good chance that it's covered by the original contract with just a yes/no as to where it should go**.

The bigger publishers already have a presence in Australia, the smaller ones have representatives that might deal with several, so operating costs can be mitigated according to need. Warehouse space is no longer the issue it once was - adding books to Print-On-Demand queues is not expensive or time-consuming. (Yes, we have printers down here too. ) Availability has, in the past, been a problem, but there is little excuse for it now.


* See this Konrath link: ""Territory" refers to where in the world the publisher is allowed to exploit these rights. In several of my contracts, Territory encompasses the entire world."

** Australia is not like the U.S., expecting books to have new covers and new editing just to appease the masses (or, more accurately, what the U.S. publishers think the masses need). Typically, we get the U.K. edition if one has been made, otherwise we get whatever's going.