Where your eBook money goes

[raac]

There's an interesting thread on Slashdot about the recent Amazon/Macmillan bust up. In particular, scroll down and see what user " raddan" has to say since works for Macmillan. He references a previous post which links to a page that shows you where the money goes when you buy a book. He argues that eBooks aren't cheaper to produce for the publisher (at least not yet): http://www.uncp.edu/bookstore/pdf/textbook.pdf

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[mcl]

Except that almost all ebooks are digital versions of existing paper books. Those costs would exist even if ebooks didn't. You don't re-edit an ebook version of a paper title. You don't have massive additional administrative or marketing overhead for ebooks. And so on.

[raac]

yes, I agree with you, but it seems the publishers may not see it that way.

Personally, I feel that if you buy physical copy then you should have the right to download the e-book.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by mcl

Except that almost all ebooks are digital versions of existing paper books. Those costs would exist even if ebooks didn't. You don't re-edit an ebook version of a paper title. You don't have massive additional administrative or marketing overhead for ebooks. And so on.

Given that the publisher only has a couple of dollars production margin to work with, it's actually not that surprising that ebooks may not be significantly cheaper.

In the current market you need to create at least three different versions (Epub, Kindle, Ereader) and possibly a fourth (PDF), with three different DRM schemes. That adds costs.

Also, since not all ebooks are sold at the same venues as pbooks there are additional marketing costs. Sony doesn't sell paperbacks.

As for setup costs, why should ebooks get a free ride and let the other versions cover all of it? The basics should be split among all editions, with ebooks carrying their share.

[raac]

I agree there are set up costs and I suspect the sticking point is that publishers haven't sorted out a production pipeline and are worried about piracy. However, creating ebooks in different formats is completely straightforward. Calibre does it pretty easily. In fact, they must have books already digitized and marked-up in order to go to press. It can't be so hard to write a perl script to convert that to ebook.

[mcl]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Given that the publisher only has a couple of dollars production margin to work with, it's actually not that surprising that ebooks may not be significantly cheaper.

In the current market you need to create at least three different versions (Epub, Kindle, Ereader) and possibly a fourth (PDF), with three different DRM schemes. That adds costs.

Also, since not all ebooks are sold at the same venues as pbooks there are additional marketing costs. Sony doesn't sell paperbacks.

As for setup costs, why should ebooks get a free ride and let the other versions cover all of it? The basics should be split among all editions, with ebooks carrying their share.

I'm sorry, but "press button 1 for epub conversion, press button 2 for kindle conversion, press button 3 for ereader conversion" is not a significant overhead cost. Most publishers these days use PDF-to-offset printing, meaning the original work starts life as a PDF. The cost of a computer, a low-level grunt, and the conversion software is trivial. Also note that the conversion needs to be done exactly once, not once for every copy of the title to be sold.

No, sony doesn't sell paperbacks. But I can promise you that Sony's eating those marketing costs. Without such marketing, there's no market for its own ereader line. I can also promise you that the retailers specializing in ebooks (I.e. the business that are not in the class of business that sell both ebooks and pbooks, as you mention above) are eating those marketing costs, since that's the core of their business. What the publisher is advertising is the CONTENT, not the FORMAT. Again, that content-based advertising has already been done for the paper book. I've yet to see a single big ad campaign anywhere for "PUBLISHER's new e-book version of paper book TITLE! Buy it now at STORE!" And I can pretty much promise you I never will. Nor will you. It's not a separate campaign. Therefore, it's not a separate cost, Q.E.D.


Why should ebooks get a free ride? Because by and large, they ARE a free ride! No significant extra effort goes into creating an ebook from an existing pbook. No significant extra money goes into storing, distributing, or advertising an ebook created from an existing pbook.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by raac

However, creating ebooks in different formats is completely straightforward. Calibre does it pretty easily. In fact, they must have books already digitized and marked-up in order to go to press. It can't be so hard to write a perl script to convert that to ebook.

Calibre makes it LOOK easy. Having watched Calibre evolve and improve over time has shown me how much work actually goes into such an endeavor. I don't think its trivial at all.

[Penforhire]

True, but the point is that variable cost (converting a book) is low once the fixed development cost (translation software) is spent. Don't forget Calibre does much more than translation. Most of us don't cut publishers much slack on the cost to prep e-books. I sure don't. That cost is sunk when they produced the p-book.

[Lemurion]

Calibre goes out the window once DRM comes in. DRM licensing costs can easily eat half the cost savings from production if not more.

While a lot of the costs may be sunk when they produce the pbook, that's not the same as all of it.

[mcl]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Calibre goes out the window once DRM comes in. DRM licensing costs can easily eat half the cost savings from production if not more.

While a lot of the costs may be sunk when they produce the pbook, that's not the same as all of it.

Not my problem. The publishers are the ones, by and large, who insist on DRM, since they view all their customers as potential criminals.

[ondabeach]

Originally Posted by raac

There's an interesting thread on Slashdot about the recent Amazon/Macmillan bust up. In particular, scroll down and see what user " raddan" has to say since works for Macmillan. He references a previous post which links to a page that shows you where the money goes when you buy a book. He argues that eBooks aren't cheaper to produce for the publisher (at least not yet): http://www.uncp.edu/bookstore/pdf/textbook.pdf

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Wow, I can smell the Bovine Feces from here!!!! He was clearly talking to a brain dead audience, or at least one that he had utterly no respect for.

If it costs them as much to produce an eBook as it does a dead tree book then they need to sack their IT department in it's entirety and hire some people that know what their doing.

Wise up you guys, we know you're lying through your teeth, most of us are actually smarter than you and your tales of woe are getting oh so tiring.

This goes out to all the dead tree publishers out there, especially those trying to maintain their strangle hold on authors and readers wallets by moving to overpriced DRM infected eBooks. You may as well stick to the dead tree books becasue you're wasting your time if you think people are stupid enough to continue supporting your bloated parasitic asses. DRM-free ePUBs are here and authors can self publish on their choice of sites for free, and without fear of rejection, and make more money, and not have to take your crap, so choke on an iPad and die already.

We have DRM-free ePUBs, all but a few dedicated ereaders and every computer platforms from phones to read them on, sites where authors can self publish and readers can buy their books cheap. What the hell do we need you for????

Come on everyone, the only way for us to free ourselves from these muppets and have cheap transportable eBooks is to get behind sites like www.zuluexpress.com and the rest of us small guys and kick the big boys off the block.

[raac]

@kjk
I realise the conversion algorithms may be complicated, but once they're written (which they are) then it's just a matter of passing a file through a filter. This is basically free.

@mcl
you say that e-books are a free ride, but they're not really because they share a lot of the costs of the paper book (e.g. editorial and marketing). They must therefore contribute to that. As e-book sales go up, paper will go down. If there were a soar in the sales of under-priced e-books the publisher would loose money. It's possible publishers don't want to create a precedent for very cheap e-books for this very reason. I agree with you that they're too expensive but it's not fair to call them a free ride.

[raac]

Also worth a read:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...outsiders.html

[mcl]

Originally Posted by raac

@mcl
you say that e-books are a free ride, but they're not really because they share a lot of the costs of the paper book (e.g. editorial and marketing). They must therefore contribute to that. As e-book sales go up, paper will go down. If there were a soar in the sales of under-priced e-books the publisher would loose money. It's possible publishers don't want to create a precedent for very cheap e-books for this very reason. I agree with you that they're too expensive but it's not fair to call them a free ride.

You obviously didn't read what I wrote. They specifically DO NOT share the costs of editing or marketing, as there are no separate editing or marketing processes for ebooks. The pbook is edited. The pbook is marketed. The ebook is sold as just another format, and requires nor receives any significant additional editing nor marketing. For all intents and purposes, the ebook is nothing more than the TPB or MMPB version of a hardback, in terms of the editing. And there's a near-total lack of format marketing for the ebook, so you can't even compare the marketing of the PBs to ebooks.

ebook sales will not go up, because at the moment publishers are doing all within their power to see that they don't: DRM, delayed released, grossly inflated pricing, outright unavailability, bullying retailers. They don't want ebook sales to go up, because they're fighting tooth and nail to protect hardback sales.

[mcl]

Originally Posted by raac

Also worth a read:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...outsiders.html

Oh, you're one of the stross/scalzi followers. That explains it.