Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
As to the production costs of ebooks vs pbooks, I think the issue is largely irrelevant to the question of ebook prices. Its LIKELY that it costs about 10-20% less to produce an ebook, but so what? Most ebook enthusiasts want ebooks to cost 50-70% less than pbooks , or say that ebooks should be free. THey're not going to be satisfied with a 10% cut.
In any case, we should always remind ourselves that the chief factor determining the price of a book is when its released. That's how it always will be.
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Wait, how are the costs of printing and shipping only 10~20% of the cost of a printed book?
Take the raw document, run it through a data processing engine like Smashwords and Bookie Jar have, and then five or ten minutes later you have ebooks in all major formats and probably the minor ones as well. What you're *not* having to pay for is paper, ink, people to run the printing machines, amortization on those printing machines, glue, the guy who runs the binding machine, amortization on the binding machine, the guy who packs the books into shipping cartons, the shipping cartons themselves, each stage of shipping (and believe me, that can add up), customs fees if you print overseas, and a hella lot of other stuff.
Stuff that adds up quickly. Now, where are your numbers?