[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Ask the customer what the price should be, and of course you'll get a low answer. The problem is what occurs when that answer is lower than the minimum you must charge to make money on your product.

Baen's history says that minimum is considerably lower than $14.99 for entertainment-oriented fiction. If other publishers aren't as efficient and profitable as Baen, that's a sign of their bad business planning, not consumer greed.

"figure out how you can deliver to that price point, increase the product value or go out of business" is easy to say but far more complicated in practice.

What would you recommend to add value to an ebook?

• Ability to re-download from different locations. (Most ebook stores don't promise this indefinitely.)
• Author's notes not included in print editions for lack of space.
• Personalized cover page: "this book originally purchased by [name] on [date] for [purpose]," details selected at time of purchase.
• Multiple formats--some stores provide this; some don't.
• Previews of other books by the publisher, not just blurbs but first chapters of a few books in the same genre.
• Login code to a discussion site only available to paid club members & people who bought the book.
• "Suggested reading" list--collection of websites related to various topics in the books.

A creative publishers can think of plenty of ways to add value to an ebook, even without getting into multimedia options.

What different rules? Virtual or physical, the product has a cost, and the producer has an amount it has to make to stay in business. That fact doesn't change because something is virtual.

There's been no evidence that filesharing reduces profits. No evidence that the Agency prices have increased publisher & author profits.

The disagreement comes over what the costs of making the virtual product are. For publishing and ebooks, the fact that the product is virtual drops the print/bind/warehouse/distribute steps, but those don't account for anywhere near as much of the production costs as many folks like to assume.

They cost *something,* which means pricing the ebook higher than the pbook is gouging--charging more just because they can, not because the customer gets more, and not because it costs more to produce.

Pricing the ebook higher on first release of the hardcover, and dropping that price to match the pbook later, is not gouging--the customer is getting a bonus: early access. But keeping that price higher than the paperback is no longer providing the customer with anything, and it's not necessary for profit, or the paperback wouldn't be worth printing.

Plenty of businesses have price gouging. It's not always considered unethical; limited-appeal items generally charge all the market will bear. Books, however, in any format other than special collectors' editions, are not considered limited-appeal items; people object to being informed "we've decided to make 15% more profit on this version because we think you'll pay for that." And they *especially* despise being lied to about it, which is what a lot of publishers are doing when they release their "how much it costs to make an ebook" statements to the press.

People don't mind paying Baen $15 for e-arcs and also buying the book later--and Baen flat-out says: we're selling these because we can, because we think you'll fork over this much money. Think it's too much? Wait, and get get the improved version for less than half of that. E-arcs are *entirely* price gouging; the *only* reason to charge more for them than for the final ebook is "because we think you'll pay." And people do, and are happy with it--because Baen is transparent about their reasons, and doesn't treat its customers like thieves, not even if they got an unauthorized copy from somewhere else.

Some people don't think the $15 Amazon ebooks are overpriced. If there's enough of them, that'll be the eventual price-point for ebooks.

I suspect there aren't actually enough of them, just as I suspect Baen couldn't support a substantial part of its company selling e-arcs.