Another grossly overpriced ebook.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Anthem

So many people seem to think the digital nature of the product entitles them to incredibly good prices the likes of which the world has never truly seen

It's not an entirely unreasonable expectation, though, is it? The cost of production is significantly less (paper, printing, transport, storage, warehousing, shelf space, return of unsold books, you name it), and although obviously there isn't a 1:1 price/cost relation keeping prices the same is largely seen as publishers pocketing the difference. And rightly so, in my not so humble opinion.

Add the fact that DRM infested books significantly restrict your legal usage rights (a practically non-existent resale value, if nothing else) on top of that and it's easy to see why the market expects ebook prices to be significantly lower than the pbook counterparts, and reacts the way it does when they are not.

[s1mp13m4n]

Going back to the original issue and question, I feel that an ebook should always cost less that a printed copy. I feel this way because there are no printing costs involved and you are buying the same content. There is no paper, ink, or glue being used, thus it costs less to make an ebook. I feel that an ebook may cost more simply because of supply and demand.....meaning that ebooks are popular and the "in thing" right now so they can get away with a jacked up price because people will pay it.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by s1mp13m4n

Going back to the original issue and question, I feel that an ebook should always cost less that a printed copy. I feel this way because there are no printing costs involved and you are buying the same content. There is no paper, ink, or glue being used, thus it costs less to make an ebook. I feel that an ebook may cost more simply because of supply and demand.....meaning that ebooks are popular and the "in thing" right now so they can get away with a jacked up price because people will pay it.

This!!

I agree with everything s1mp13m4n has said in this post.

I stated in another thread, I do not understand an e-book being 9.99 when the pb version is $7.99 - at no point can I see myself choosing the e-book. In fact, in the case of Amazon, they would lose that sale all together as I would rather drive to B&N or Borders and pick it up in person, instead of ordering it online.

Edited to Add: I do not have a problem paying the same price for an e-book as I would a paperback, I just do not agree with paying more.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

It's not an entirely unreasonable expectation, though, is it?

I wouldn't say that it is an unreasonable expectation but I would label it as unrealistic. Prices will always go up and I am unable to see how a digital means of distribution will change that despite being able to in theory (and you know how much people love to deny the plausibility of theories).

If we end up paying the same amount for the content, whether printed or digitized, I say we come out on top because I think a digitized book has features that greatly increase the desirability over a printed book (even though there are definitely some issues that still need smoothed away). They could say, "Wow, look at this digital wizardry, isn't it super advanced like a PS3 vs Super Nintendo sort of advanced? Isn't that worth a premium?!?!" but they aren't and they probably can't.

I have always regarded the price of a book as the fee for the content and that has greatly buffered my reactions to paying the same price for an ebook while others are scrambling to comprehend how it is that they are not paying dramatically reduced prices for the ebook edition of a book because "Well... the digital production and distribution means the content should be practically free now! Right?!?! Right?!?!". This is non-sensical. My brain was always regarding the value of the content unless I was specifically paying for the container (in which case I was paying prices greatly increased over what the content itself would be were I to be considering that as the sole factor. I paid 65USD for my very special copy of Vanity Fair, for instance. Specifically for the container).

I can understand the desire for a digital utopia. I don't see it happening, though. Nor do I expect it.

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Oh, I think that they probably *could* - the ebook market is practically non-existent in most of Europe, for example, and it's a lot more difficult to digitize a book than to to rip a CD.

You really should have told people. The number of digitized books in German that are available in the darknet is surprising. The choice of illegal books seems to outstrip the legal offerings by far.
Anyway, price obviously is important. While there are always some people who will go for the illegal and free option many people will only choose to go down the illegal route if they consider the legal option (if there is one at all)) as overpriced or inconvenient.

Unless prevented by geographical restrictions publishers of English language books can widely expand their reader base with ebooks. People who are keen on reading English language books don't depend on their local book shops any more and can obtain the books via the web now.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

You really should have told people. The number of digitized books in German that are available in the darknet is surprising. The choice of illegal books seems to outstrip the legal offerings by far.

My point is that publishers *could* give up on e-books. German e-books make up less than 1% of the market. The larger number of illicit e-books is a reason *to* give up the market, not a reason they *can't* give up the market. And since a pirated book doesn't automatically equate to a lost sale, there's no way of knowing how many people who found books on the darknet would have paid for the book if available legally.

Anyway, price obviously is important. While there are always some people who will go for the illegal and free option many people will only choose to go down the illegal route if they consider the legal option (if there is one at all)) as overpriced or inconvenient.

No. Price is *not* obviously important. That's the point that you and your fellow posters don't seem to get, despite all the evidence. Price (meaning the prices charged for e-books now) doesn't seem to matter.

That's what the evidence shows, clearly. I thought that price was going to be important, too, and that agency pricing would strangle the market. But, as I keep saying, the market tripled in one year, despite the fact that the cost of bestselling agency books went up 20-50%. This shows that, within broad ranges, price doesn't really matter, and suggests that the vast majority of e-book readers seem to regard e-books like paper books, and will pay paper book prices for them

Unless prevented by geographical restrictions publishers of English language books can widely expand their reader base with ebooks. People who are keen on reading English language books don't depend on their local book shops any more and can obtain the books via the web now.

Yes.

[Barcey]

Considering the growth of electronic readers in 2010 the fact that they tripled ebook sales in the USA isn't very impressive nor does it mean that pricing doesn't matter. Electronic books are a growth industry so taking a sales statistic in isolation doesn't mean much.

I haven't seen final iPad sales numbers for 2010 but I saw data of 3 million units in the first 80 days. That's explosive growth.

Amazon released their fuzzy numbers that indicated they were selling five times as many Kindles as the previous year.

Nook and Kobo sales are also said to be doing very well and much better then expected.

The comparative growth of the content to the electronic readers would be very interesting data to see. I suspect it's not a pretty picture for the agency pricing.

What's important for the long term health of the industry is customer satisfaction data and how many sales they lost. If you talk to people on the streets and read the anger in internet forums it's pretty obvious that customer satisfaction is not high. Ignoring that isn't a good business strategy.

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

My point is that publishers *could* give up on e-books. German e-books make up less than 1% of the market. The larger number of illicit e-books is a reason *to* give up the market, not a reason they *can't* give up the market. And since a pirated book doesn't automatically equate to a lost sale, there's no way of knowing how many people who found books on the darknet would have paid for the book if available legally.

The number of devices that can be used as readers is growing explosively; besides ebook readers there are iPads, Android tablets, smart phones etc.. Publishers will either serve that market or people will get their content from the darknet. They will not shrug their shoulders and remain with paper books just because the publishers refuse to serve the market. Publishers will earn some money selling ebooks or they will see reduced revenue because people will increasingly get their books illegally.

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

No. Price is *not* obviously important. That's the point that you and your fellow posters don't seem to get, despite all the evidence. Price (meaning the prices charged for e-books now) doesn't seem to matter.

That's what the evidence shows, clearly. I thought that price was going to be important, too, and that agency pricing would strangle the market. But, as I keep saying, the market tripled in one year, despite the fact that the cost of bestselling agency books went up 20-50%. This shows that, within broad ranges, price doesn't really matter, and suggests that the vast majority of e-book readers seem to regard e-books like paper books, and will pay paper book prices for them

Yes.

As has been pointed out already the growth of the ebook market does not compare favourably to the sales figures of reading devices (as far as these figures are known). That's despite the fact that such devices have been mostly bought by people from higher income groups up to now.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by Barcey

What's important for the long term health of the industry is customer satisfaction data and how many sales they lost. If you talk to people on the streets and read the anger in internet forums it's pretty obvious that customer satisfaction is not high. Ignoring that isn't a good business strategy.

There is certainly lively debate here at MR on many aspects of ebooks and ereading.

But anecdotally -- asking friends and acquaintances who have acquired ereaders over the past year -- my impression is that customer satisfaction is, in fact very high. There must be a very small number of people who honestly tried an ereader, read at least a couple of books, and then decided it wasn't for them as a category. On the contrary, anyone I know (myself included) would not want to "go back" to paper exclusively.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

As has been pointed out already the growth of the ebook market does not compare favourably to the sales figures of reading devices (as far as these figures are known). That's despite the fact that such devices have been mostly bought by people from higher income groups up to now.

But would you necessarily expect it to? Many people buy reading devices to read free books, rather than to buy commercial eBooks. I read mainly classics, and very rarely buy books from sites such as Amazon.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

The number of devices that can be used as readers is growing explosively; besides ebook readers there are iPads, Android tablets, smart phones etc.. Publishers will either serve that market or people will get their content from the darknet.

Or publishers will serve that market *and*people will get content from the darknet. Like music. Exactly like music.

They will not shrug their shoulders and remain with paper books just because the publishers refuse to serve the market. Publishers will earn some money selling ebooks or they will see reduced revenue because people will increasingly get their books illegally.

Maybe. If publishers made no, say, German-language e-books available, I doubt that they would lose any noticeable amount of business simply due to the complexity of scanning and uploading books. It's much easier to just strip DRM from an already existing e-book.

As has been pointed out already the growth of the ebook market does not compare favourably to the sales figures of reading devices (as far as these figures are known). That's despite the fact that such devices have been mostly bought by people from higher income groups up to now.

1. It has been *asserted* that the growth of the ebook market does not compare favorably to the increase in sales. It has not been demonstrated at all. Show me the evidence that more than 3 times as many people own e-book readers now than did one year ago. Keep in mind that many people own multiple devices capable of reading e-books (I do), and that most people who buy an iPad don't use it to read books.

2. At some point, of course, e-book sales will level off, and the sales-per-reader number may decline. I haven't seen any evidence that this has happened yet, and I'm not even sure how meaningful this number is: there's certainly no reason to assume that people with e-book readers will all buy the same number of books.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Anthem

Prices will always go up

What? I'd have gladly accepted "prices will fluctuate" or "merchants will try to maximize their profit", but it's certainly not true that "prices will always go up".

... and I am unable to see how a digital means of distribution will change that.

The value, both perceived and real is smaller, and the same is true for the cost of production. A "just" price (i.e. one that is accepted by the buying population at large) will need to reflect that.

I have always regarded the price of a book as the fee for the content

It's not, though. You are paying for a physical product.

... should be practically free now! Right?!?!

I don't think anybody said as much, no.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

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.

Why do you think this? Opting out of the e-book game is as easy as...not releasing an e-book. It seems to me that if a publisher perceives e-books to be a hassle (and particularly if consumers have what publishers consider to be an unrealistic expectation of what they should pay), then that publisher would simply say, (insert Eric Cartman voice here) "Screw you guys! I'm goin' home!".

And I'd be hard-pressed to blame them, really, with people claiming that e-books (which are easier to search, more portable, smaller, and far less perishable) should cost less than throwaway paperbacks.

The idea that writing only has intrinsic value if it has a physical presence is almost comical to me, if it wasn't so sad. It's an idea that needs to be stamped out.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

It's much easier to just strip DRM from an already existing e-book.

And yet by far the largest share of German ebooks on the Darknet consists of titles not available legally. Old books, new books, out of print books ... all dutifully scanned, proofread and released as .pdf. Oh, you do see the occasional .epub, stripped of DRM and released that way, but it's clearly a minority.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Why do you think this? Opting out of the e-book game is as easy as...not releasing an e-book.

You wish. You can, obviously, decide not to release a book at all, but once you do you might as well release a legal ebook as well. If you don't, do you really think there won't be an electronic version? There will be, but since you're not selling it there's no way to make money that way. Stupid move.

And I'd be hard-pressed to blame them, really, with people claiming that e-books (which are easier to search, more portable, smaller, and far less perishable) should cost less than throwaway paperbacks.

They are cheaper to produce, and less valuable (no resale value, e.g.)