Another grossly overpriced ebook.

[carld]

Originally Posted by leebase

Buy the paper back

Lee

I vote for don't buy the book at all, and let the author and publisher know why.

[caleb72]

The whole thing seems to be chaos at the moment. I remember reading the blog of one author who patiently described that the higher pricing on a hardcover than paperback had little to do with production costs and everything to do with release timing - you pay a premium to be able to read the book just after release etc...

With this he argued that if the ebook was released at the same time as the hardcover, we should expect the ePrice to be similar to (or even the same as) the hardcover price.

If you're content to wait for a year and get the paperback, you can also pay less it seems.

However, with the book in question that would mean that the ePrice should be at least the same as the paperback given the timing of the release - so in this example we see something quite different.

If you're prepared to wait this long for "Lost in a Good Book" in electronic format you would think you'd be rewarded with a cheaper price.

And that's why I don't listen to the calm words of authors or anyone else explain why ePrices should be the same when the examples quite often don't really match up with the explanation.

I think the best explanation of ePrices is that publishers will charge what serves their purposes. Whether that is to scare people away from the electronic back into more traditional media, or to maximise profit on a media they think they will suffer from due to piracy I really couldn't say.

For myself, I will pay what I'm prepared to. I bought "The Windup Girl" at $14.95 because I could not bear not to have that ebook in my possession. It's the only ebook I've bought at that price and I'm unlikely to apply the same desperation to many other authors. So in the case of that one example, the tactic to "overcharge" for that book worked - at least for me. Will the gamble work across the board? I guess only time will tell.

Regards
Caleb

[Russell Brooks]

This is a classic case of price gauging. When it comes to ebooks, publishers don't have to pay for shipping, shelf space in bookstores, nor do they have to worry about returns (from bookstores). But publishers don't want consumers to think about that and accept these high-priced ebooks as the norm. If Jasper Ford knew what was best for him he'd leave the publisher and self-publish his book. He'd make much more money.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by thekidsmom

IMO, a 'fair' price for an ebook is at least 25% less than the paperback. Whether that makes financial sense or not to the parties involved, I have no idea. It just makes sense to me that without an actual printed product, the production cost for my version (ebook) is less expensive to produce, and therefore cheaper to buy.

If that is the common consensus, then there is no market for ebooks. If a publisher honestly believes (especially if they're correct) that they will make less money (and you're talking quite a bit less) from ebooks, or even loose money on them, compared to paper books, it would be literally criminal for them to pursue the ebook market at the expense of their shareholders.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Angst

Ok. So why do I have to pay 50% more for the ebook if it costs 10% less to produce?

I did agree that was ridiculous.

[OtterBooks]

I'm displeased when a product I want more costs more than the product I want less. Seems to happen a lot.

[DarkRoast]

I am happy to pay more for a new release... but not that much more. In Australia, some new releases are $25+. That's totally ridiculous. For a special book, I would happily pay $45 for hardcover version because I get a better quality product that will give me years of enjoyment. I think $15 is reasonable for a new release ebook... no more. I won't pay it. Australian ebook prices (maybe even book prices in general) are completely unreasonable.

[brbubba]

Originally Posted by taustin

Not according to at least one professional author. Charlie Stross said in his blog that the cost of putting ink on paper and getting it in to our hands is maybe 10% of the total price. The average book requires about a year of effort on the part of the author, and an equal amount of time on the part of the publisher's staff, between editing, typesetting, proofing, etc. So 10% less than the current edition is entirely reasonable. More than the current edition is, as everyone agrees, ridiculous, of course. But ebooks are not nearly as cheap to produce as many people believe, because most of the process is exactly the same.

I don't know if it's exactly 10% but it is a lot less than 50%. I briefly worked for a publisher back in the day and they would sell books to the big retailers for 50% of the cover price with a buy back policy, meaning if they didn't sell them all they could send them back. That sounds like a no lose situation to me and also explains how retailers can have sales up to 50% off the cover price.

[OtterBooks]

I gotta pay $11 to see a two hour movie.

[Anthem]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention:

I gladly paid $14.99 for Lost in a Good Book (eBook) month or two ago when I purchased it. Because I felt that it is worth that price whether printed or electronic.

Or, I could drive to Borders and buy the crappy Penguin trade paperback for the exact same price locally. Plus tax. Plus driving back again. Plus I'm a germ scared android so I don't just pop in to a store whenever the whim hits me. Making the eBook for the same price hugely desirable.

True, I could purchase from a discounted store like Amazon or even get it used off of the marketplace or eBay or something but I didn't.

I actually value the eBook higher than the print book in this case because I want the things that the eBook version can give me that the printed book cannot. Both are $14.99, but the amount of convenience minus the amount of work I am required to do in either case actually makes the eBook version worth more than the printed book (to me).

So I paid the asking price with gusto and two minutes later I was reading it in the crook of the arm of my couch, adjusting the fonts, and smiling copiously as Thursday continues her delightful adventures.

The truth is that some people will look at a $14.99 eBook and scream bloody murder over the outrage of a book priced in a way that other people might consider to be perfectly fair and the opposite of outrageous. I'm accustomed to paying QUITE A BIT more than a measly $14.99 for books that I truly want to read. If they had released the eBook version at the hardcover price all over again, now that would seem weird, but they didn't and they simply matched the trade paperback price and I would rather have the eBook over the trade if they are both at the exact same price.

Oh man, long winded apologetics look horrible on me!

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by taustin

If that is the common consensus, then there is no market for ebooks. If a publisher honestly believes (especially if they're correct) that they will make less money (and you're talking quite a bit less) from ebooks, or even loose money on them, compared to paper books, it would be literally criminal for them to pursue the ebook market at the expense of their shareholders.

I don't believe that this is a viable option for most publishers. The ebook genie is out of the bottle and the publishers have no chance to push it back. Provided some book is even moderately popular either the publisher will publish an ebook version or someone else will do so. Price gauging is also risky. People who wouldn't dream of stealing a book from their local book store will act quite differently when faced with the option to download a DRM infested ebook for 24 Euros from a book store or to simply download the same book without DRM for free from some server in Russia. Unlike with HD films you can download books even with a slow internet connection. Up to now publishers were able to ignore this development as people reading ebooks were still quite a minority. With the spread of ebook readers, smartphones, iPads, Android tablets etc. this is going to change massively and publishers will have the same problems as the music industry.

[nashira]

Originally Posted by DarkRoast

I am happy to pay more for a new release... but not that much more. In Australia, some new releases are $25+. That's totally ridiculous. For a special book, I would happily pay $45 for hardcover version because I get a better quality product that will give me years of enjoyment. I think $15 is reasonable for a new release ebook... no more. I won't pay it. Australian ebook prices (maybe even book prices in general) are completely unreasonable.

Book prices in Australia are, as a rule, unreasonable by default. So says the $50 novels I've brought over the years.



And most of them weren't even hardbacks.

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by Anthem

I gladly payed $14.99 for Lost in a Good Book (eBook) month or two ago when I purchased it. Because I felt that it is worth that price whether printed or electronic.

The publishers just love people like you. The question is, are there enough of you around to keep them in business.

The industry looks to be entering a crisis mode right now, and I don't think pissing off your customers is a very good way to prepare for that.

[rhadin]

As some have noted, the real question is simply "what is this particular book worth to you in this particular format?"

When it was first released, I bought Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch for $28.80 (36% off the $45 list price) in hardcover. The book has been sitting in my TBR pile since it was purchased. Part of the problem is that it is so big (approximately 1200 pages), it is difficult for me to hold these days. The other half of the problem is that the more I use my Sony Reader, the less inclined I am to read a pbook; I really enjoy the ebook experience.

So what to do? I decided that I really want to read this book so it was worth my buying the ebook version at $29.99, which I did earlier this week. Bottom line is that this book was worth a total of $58.79 to me to get it in the 2 formats I wanted: hardcover for insertion into my permanent library and ebook for ease of and pleasurable reading.

I grant that my buying habits are not the norm. But neither are the buying habits of most people in this thread who complain about price. I think the reality is that most ebook buyers are not comparison shoppers. I think that most people who bought or were given a Kindle buy their ebooks at Amazon and do not consider whether the same book can be had elsewhere for less or more. Similarly, most of those who bought or were given a Nook shop at Barnes & Noble and do not comparison shop. If this were not true, there would be no economic justification for the proprietary formats/DRM schemes Amazon and B&N employ.

I also think that the reality is that most of these ebook buyers simply buy a book that interests them at the then going price without thinking twice about it.

I clearly have no objective data to support my beliefs, but I do know how my friends and neighbors who have bought or were given ebook-reading devices shop for their books. And this is why, regardless of the complaining about pricing done here on MR, publishers are able to successfully impose the agency model on the consuming public.

[HarryT]

Personally I see absolutely no problem with spending $15 on a good book. That's less than I'd spend for a take-away pizza. A book is worth more to me than a pizza.