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Shadoe · 06-04-2011, 05:33 PM

I think, at the end of the day, it's just greed. When paperbacks came out after hardback, they were cheaper to produce, and so were sold for much less - and that's the model we all got accustomed to. Now ebooks come out and are cheaper to produce so SHOULD be sold for a lot less, right? Of course not! The publishers set the price and tried selling ebooks at the same price as the hardback and the paperback and people still bought them. (Some publishers set the ebook to a price twice as high as the paperback, especially when the book is old or out of print.) So why should the publisher cut back on the price of the ebook when the difference in cost is just extra money in their pocket? Why make $5 when you can make $10?

I've also seen comments from publishers claiming that when you buy an ebook, you're also paying for all the pirated ebooks that the publisher could have sold, but didn't. Again, greed.

It's not that an ebook takes more in the way of servers and employees and computers and internet. The publisher only has to make ONE copy of the book electronically, and that's little more work than adding some links and clicking Save As. Then upload the one copy to multiple sites. It's the work of a day or two, tops, for some hapless clerk that gets paid a pittance.

06-04-2011, 05:33 PM	#61
Shadoe Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 12 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: New York Device: Kindle	I think, at the end of the day, it's just greed. When paperbacks came out after hardback, they were cheaper to produce, and so were sold for much less - and that's the model we all got accustomed to. Now ebooks come out and are cheaper to produce so SHOULD be sold for a lot less, right? Of course not! The publishers set the price and tried selling ebooks at the same price as the hardback and the paperback and people still bought them. (Some publishers set the ebook to a price twice as high as the paperback, especially when the book is old or out of print.) So why should the publisher cut back on the price of the ebook when the difference in cost is just extra money in their pocket? Why make $5 when you can make $10? I've also seen comments from publishers claiming that when you buy an ebook, you're also paying for all the pirated ebooks that the publisher could have sold, but didn't. Again, greed. It's not that an ebook takes more in the way of servers and employees and computers and internet. The publisher only has to make ONE copy of the book electronically, and that's little more work than adding some links and clicking Save As. Then upload the one copy to multiple sites. It's the work of a day or two, tops, for some hapless clerk that gets paid a pittance.