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Originally Posted by murraypaul
And they should be included in the proportion of costs that are attributable to producing a physical book.
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I agree.
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You are defining cost in such a way that excludes:
- Warehousing and distribution
- Retail cost and markup
- Cost of returns
And then saying that the costs attributable to the physical nature of books are only a small proportion. Of course they are, because you have excluded most of the components that go into those costs.
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No. The costs I mentioned earlier are costs involved in acquiring, editing, and preparing a book for publication. All are incurred before the book is actually published in any form. They will be there regardless of whether the book is issued as a printed edition or as an ebook.
Let's factor print out of the equation. Let's assume the ebook is the
only edition of the book. What costs do you believe apply?
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If a producer sells their goods to a retailer, who then sells them to a customer, then you have two sales, one at a wholesale price, and one at a retail price. But as we keep being told, Amazon et al are just acting as agents for the producers, they never actually own the goods themselves, do they. So only a single sale has taken place.
The producers are directly setting the retail price for Agency eBooks and paying the retailers a commission for their services. Amazon does not pay a price to the publisher, they remit the money they have collected on their behalf.
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If you want to look at it that way, fine. But Amazon pays the publisher a different price than the one it charges you. The price
you are charged is the retail price. What do
you call the price they pay the publisher?
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Dennis