MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Paul Cornell blogs about ebooks and piracy

dkperez · 12-25-2010, 02:42 PM

I'm certainly not a learned as some of you are about the real costs of the publishing business, but to me the whole process seems counterintuitive...

I remember in the "old" days being told a hardcover was so expensive because of the cost of publishing. That the author only got a few cents because the editing, printing, delivery, advertising, and returns were the "huge costs"....

Now, we have a form of "book" with drastically reduced costs (still have to edit and format, deliver electronically and advertise, but paper? printing? returns?), and now the litany of costs from the publisher changes to say that there's NO reason these ebooks should cost significantly less than hardcovers and far MORE than paperbacks.......

SOMEBODY is lying...

I wasn't around at the beginning of the industrial revolution, but this seems like a bunch of Luddite publishers attempting to prevent time and technology from moving on and forcing them to change a business model that's

I find it ridiculous that I cannot take the item I've purchased and dispose of it AS I CHOOSE. I cannot give it to my sister, cannot sell it at a yard sale, cannot auction it on Ebay, cannot take it to the local Half-Price Books and sell it to them..... Nor can I BUY a different ebook at the Half-Price Book store... SO, I'm forced to pay more for the product than the equivalent paperback would cost, AND I cannot recoup any of my cost at the time I wish to dispose of the item.

I can understand authors wanting a reasonable return on their work, but like many commodity products (think wheat or corn), this seems another case where the middleman is claiming huge costs, charging large amounts for the product, and returning very little to the original producer...

I have absolutely NO sympathy for the publishers and encourage authors to do their own distribution of ebooks whenever possible. Consumers would be able to purchase at prices lower than a paperback, and the authors would get to keep a far higher percentage of the profit.

And if consumers find ways of reducing their costs for the products in ways the publishers don't like, that's too damned bad. There should be a free market in used ebooks, retailers should be allowed to set their prices and discounts, and spurious efforts to prevent that in the name of preventing "piracy" is guaranteed to cause exactly the activity the publishers are attempting to prevent. The technology is changing, and the buggywhip manufacturers will be gone soon enough.

12-25-2010, 02:42 PM	#23
dkperez Groupie Posts: 184 Karma: 1047931 Join Date: Dec 2010 Device: nine	I'm certainly not a learned as some of you are about the real costs of the publishing business, but to me the whole process seems counterintuitive... I remember in the "old" days being told a hardcover was so expensive because of the cost of publishing. That the author only got a few cents because the editing, printing, delivery, advertising, and returns were the "huge costs".... Now, we have a form of "book" with drastically reduced costs (still have to edit and format, deliver electronically and advertise, but paper? printing? returns?), and now the litany of costs from the publisher changes to say that there's NO reason these ebooks should cost significantly less than hardcovers and far MORE than paperbacks....... SOMEBODY is lying... I wasn't around at the beginning of the industrial revolution, but this seems like a bunch of Luddite publishers attempting to prevent time and technology from moving on and forcing them to change a business model that's I find it ridiculous that I cannot take the item I've purchased and dispose of it AS I CHOOSE. I cannot give it to my sister, cannot sell it at a yard sale, cannot auction it on Ebay, cannot take it to the local Half-Price Books and sell it to them..... Nor can I BUY a different ebook at the Half-Price Book store... SO, I'm forced to pay more for the product than the equivalent paperback would cost, AND I cannot recoup any of my cost at the time I wish to dispose of the item. I can understand authors wanting a reasonable return on their work, but like many commodity products (think wheat or corn), this seems another case where the middleman is claiming huge costs, charging large amounts for the product, and returning very little to the original producer... I have absolutely NO sympathy for the publishers and encourage authors to do their own distribution of ebooks whenever possible. Consumers would be able to purchase at prices lower than a paperback, and the authors would get to keep a far higher percentage of the profit. And if consumers find ways of reducing their costs for the products in ways the publishers don't like, that's too damned bad. There should be a free market in used ebooks, retailers should be allowed to set their prices and discounts, and spurious efforts to prevent that in the name of preventing "piracy" is guaranteed to cause exactly the activity the publishers are attempting to prevent. The technology is changing, and the buggywhip manufacturers will be gone soon enough.