Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
The way I see it, most people who read eBooks, one reason they do so is a lower price. They don't buy hardcover books. They don't pay hardcover prices. So, pricing an eBook at hardcover priced is just going to piss people off. I did like the idea of an eBook (pBook still in hardcover) at $10. And the next release to be priced at say $5. That would be reasonable pricing and sales (IMHO) would skyrocket.
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I see where you're going with this, but I think you're looking at it from the opposite direction from the publishers. The way the market is these days they're less interested in getting the price-conscious eBook buyers to buy the latest books than preserving their revenue from the time-conscious hardcover buyers.
If Patrick Rothfuss' new book was to come out as a $10 eBook on launch day, a certain number of the "gotta have it now" crowd who would have happily bought the hardcover would buy the eBook instead. There would also be a number of price-conscious buyers who would buy the $10 eBook immediately, rather than waiting for the cheap eBook, discount hardcover, or mass-market paperback.
The question is whether they would gain more revenue from the people buying the slightly more expensive eBook version now in preference to lower cost options later, than they would lose from people buying the significantly less expensive eBook version now in preference to the hardcover option now.
The key point here is that lowering prices like that is going to to do more to modify the buying habits of existing customers rather than adding new customers to the mix - so the overall sales increase won't be as significant.
Your suggestion would increase the sales of books that don't have a built-in audience, which is good, but they're not the ones the publishers survive on. This model would disproportionately lower the publisher's revenue from their best-selling books - and could put some of them out of business.
Once eBooks become the main sales channel, prices are going to have to be revisited, and brought lower. But until that happens, the publishers are going to have to play things cautiously now so they can still be here later.