Quote:
Originally Posted by ficbot
I'm not sure its true that ebook sales will 'cannibalize' paper sales, since some people (like me) do not buy paper books. I simply don't have any more space for them. So, you sell me the ebook or you don't sell me anything, not having an ebook does not mean I will buy it in paper.
As for pricing, the two issues for me are:
1) I will not pay more to have less privileges. So, if the ebook cannot be sold to the used book store or lent to my friends, and it is infested with DRM which might prevent me from reading it on the device of my choosing, then it is worth less to me than a paper book, and I expect to pay less.
2) I do take into account what other options are available. So, if the paper book is in mass market edition for $7 at the bricks and mortar store down the street, and the ebook is $11.99, I feel justifiably ripped off over this. Since many ebooks can no longer be discounted by the retailer, this is a growing issue.
I think if the publishing industry wants to survive, it needs to understand that the end user reader is now the customer. It's not about what they want to charge, it's about what the customer will pay and if they can't produce books in a way that meets that price, they won't sell as many. I can get books from my sister, from my mom, from the library. If they play dirty and try to price gouge me (see points 1 and 2) I simply will not participate.
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But your not buying paper editions is the definition of "cannabilizing sales". You're not buying both the paper edition and the ebook editon you're only buying ebooks.
I heard Lou Gerstner (former CEO of IBM) speak years ago. He was talking about how IBM had lost the WINTEL server market share to Compaq not because they didn't have the technology advantage, but because they refused to deploy it in the low end server market. They were afraid that if they did they would lose the high margin sales of their UNIX and mainframe servers. They had developed RAID technology and hot plug drives but they let Compaq bring it to the low end servers first. I believe that Mr Gerstner said, "We learned that if you don't eat your own children someone else will."
Companies that think they are large enough to control the consumers learn the hard way. Companies that think they can callude on price to raise prices will learn the hard way. Especially with electronic goods. Consumers can just get it for free.