Rising cost of ebooks

[ppearce]

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/0...estion_ebooks/

[drofgnal]

I've noticed the publisher wants 19.99 for his new series ebook set to start a week from tomorrow. At that price he can keep it.

I'm considering buying the hardback when its released with its usual 30% off and making sure I lend it to as many as I can to read for free, in protest!!!

[Lexi Revellian]

There are some real bargains to be had in independently-published ebooks, that make up for grasping publishers.

I'm about to blog an interview with Eric Christopherson, and he's sold more than 6,000 copies of his thriller, Crack-Up. He charges under a dollar.

[J. Strnad]

I'm ALL FOR publishers charging $19.99 for their ebooks! It's that much less competition for me and my $2.99, DRM-free, geo-restriction-free tome.

I think that all ebooks from big publishers should cost 50% MORE than the hardback (for the convenience of having an ebook), should be tied to only one ereader or less, and they should be sold only in the hometown of the author. The files should disappear after three days and have to be repurchased.

Oh, and they should be written in pig latin.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I've noticed the publisher wants 19.99 for his new series ebook set to start a week from tomorrow. At that price he can keep it.

I'm considering buying the hardback when its released with its usual 30% off and making sure I lend it to as many as I can to read for free, in protest!!!

19.99 what? This is a world-wide board, and since you don't say in your profile what country you're in, we also don't know what currency you're referring to.

It's £9 at Amazon UK, as a matter of interest.

[haroldgh]

The publishers keep saying these things, but nobody believes them. I wonder why that is? Maybe it's that the consumers know they're lying right to our faces? Could be.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

I'm ALL FOR publishers charging $19.99 for their ebooks! It's that much less competition for me and my $2.99, DRM-free, geo-restriction-free tome.

I think that all ebooks from big publishers should cost 50% MORE than the hardback (for the convenience of having an ebook), should be tied to only one ereader or less, and they should be sold only in the hometown of the author. The files should disappear after three days and have to be repurchased.

Oh, and they should be written in pig latin.

Not to forget that the font should be upside down and whenever you change font layout it will move in reverse to your setting.

[carld]

Apple takes its standard 30 percent cut, leaving an unheard-of 70 percent for the author. (Amazon offers a cut-out-the-middleman option as well but gives as little as 35 percent to the author.)

This is intentionally misleading. Bad journalism there Wired.

[JeremyZ]

Yep, that's all we can do. Remain vigilant, and vote with our wallets.

I'll buy a paperback in a New York Second and give it away when I'm done before I'll buy an e-version for more money. I figure it hurts them because it costs more to physically print a book than to distribute electronically.

Amazon was really going to bad for us when they were trying to keep prices to $9.99 or less. The publishing industry just has not learned what Bezos already knows yet: namely that success comes from being fair & honest, (as opposed to greedy & dishonest) and from having excellent customer service.

There are enough books out there that we will always have somthing good to read without having to get shafted.

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I've noticed the publisher wants 19.99 for his new series ebook set to start a week from tomorrow. At that price he can keep it.

I'm considering buying the hardback when its released with its usual 30% off and making sure I lend it to as many as I can to read for free, in protest!!!

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I've noticed the publisher wants 19.99 for his new series ebook set to start a week from tomorrow. At that price he can keep it.

I'm considering buying the hardback when its released with its usual 30% off and making sure I lend it to as many as I can to read for free, in protest!!!

I agree 100%! Not only that - it's actually more than the hardback. Unfortunately, buying the hardback is exactly what the publisher (in this case, Penguin) wants you to do. Not me. Instead of a sale from a reasonably priced ebook they will receive no sale at all from me.

[haroldgh]

The real problem is that ebooks are extremely small, which makes them very easy to pirate in mind-blowingly massive quantities. You can download a 6GB torrent of ebooks in an hour or two, containing tens of thousands of books, enough to read for free until the day you die. Publishers need to open their eyes and realize that if ebooks aren't reasonably priced consumers will just turn to illicit avenues. "My way or the highway" doesn't cut it when your product is trivially easy to steal with negligible consequences.

But of course they won't drop their prices, because they're wed to their dying business model, just like all the other content providers. They'll heavily litigate their former customers, and over time, they'll bleed to death. And that's not a good thing for anybody, because the lack of centralized monetization will mean less books for us to read.

[robins777]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I've noticed the publisher wants 19.99 for his new series ebook set to start a week from tomorrow. At that price he can keep it.

I'm considering buying the hardback when its released with its usual 30% off and making sure I lend it to as many as I can to read for free, in protest!!!

There is no way I would pay that sort of money for an ebook either. Even though I really do like my Kindle and have read more books on it in the last 2 weeks than I normally do in month I certainly wouldn't pay more than the paperback version for a book. I have purchashed several book for my kindle since I got it and all of those have been very reasonably priced at under £2.50 (about $4) and for an ebook I wouldn't pay much more.

[[Ahmed]]

Originally Posted by haroldgh

The real problem is that ebooks are extremely small, which makes them very easy to pirate in mind-blowingly massive quantities. You can download a 6GB torrent of ebooks in an hour or two, containing tens of thousands of books, enough to read for free until the day you die. Publishers need to open their eyes and realize that if ebooks aren't reasonably priced consumers will just turn to illicit avenues. "My way or the highway" doesn't cut it when your product is trivially easy to steal with negligible consequences.

But of course they won't drop their prices, because they're wed to their dying business model, just like all the other content providers. They'll heavily litigate their former customers, and over time, they'll bleed to death. And that's not a good thing for anybody, because the lack of centralized monetization will mean less books for us to read.

same problem as with mp3s and the music industry.

You'd think they have learned by now, but no, they are about to repeat the same mistakes all over.

When I read things like:
"“People would have heart attacks if they knew all the costs associated with digital publishing,” says Maja Thomas, senior vice president of the Hachette Book Group’s digital division. Tacking an e onto a book requires antipiracy software, digital warehousing, extra legal support, and programmers to adapt each title for Android, iPhone, Kindle, and all the other formats. That’s on top of the regular costs of turning a manuscript into a finished product."
I wonder... why don't the just *show* us these costs? I'd like to see how much a digital warehouse for ebooks costs. Is it gold plated? And I also wonder why they have to write the "antipiracy software" (provided by amazon) for every single book. Same with extra legal support. None of these statements appear to be true.

[ChaoZ]

I especially doubt these "costs" compare to that of prepress, printing, physical warehousing, transport logistics, returns etc. What the hell is digital warehousing anyway? 500 kilobytes on a server rack somewhere?

[haroldgh]

Originally Posted by ChaoZ

I especially doubt these "costs" compare to that of prepress, printing, physical warehousing, transport logistics, returns etc. What the hell is digital warehousing anyway? 500 kilobytes on a server rack somewhere?

Yep. And if you sell your book through a storefront like amazon, barnes and noble, etc, they take care of all that stuff for you. That's what their cut is for.

It's just all BS, and it's going to kill the publishing houses. They're freaking out flailing around trying to protect themselves and doing exactly the wrong thing.

It's analagous to the music industry and MP3s, but even more so. A MP3 file is 5-6MB for a couple minutes of music. You may listen to that song dozens or hundreds of times over the years. It has ongoing utility. A book is 500KB, and you're likely to read it once. Books are both tiny and incredibly consumable.