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Originally Posted by Harmon
This is the part that puzzles me. . . . I'm willing to agree with the argument that the public is entitled to a better deal than that produced by the normal market, since the book market involves a time-limited monopoly granted by law to the seller. What I don't get is why anyone should believe that the price of a pbook version and that of an ebook version of the same book should bear any particular relationship to each other. Why shouldn't a paperback version be cheaper than an electronic version
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It seems we agree in bafflement. Thank you for stating your case calmly and clearly, but I need help in understanding what seem to me to be leaps.
You seem to be disputing the idea that the cost of production should partially determine the price of the object. To do this, you appear to be making two different arguments:
1. That charging too much is for a thing is a traditional and time-honored mode of capitalism and various levels of excess should be tolerated because you don't mind paying more personally and/or the practice is already common.
Counter: But if that were true, then price fixing wouldn't be an issue. Besides which, virtually everything is priced above its value. The question is not whether it is overpriced but how much and in relation to what.
If every winemaker got together and decided to charge $3,000 a bottle for merlot, there's very little we could do about it and some people would pay. But do you really want to live in a world in which only the wealthy and the financially irresponsible have access to merlot (and, no, the trick answer is not
I prefer Malbec)? Where is the civilized line between reasonable and infinite increase where demand is infinite?
2. In your view, paperbacks have been perceived traditionally as the cheapest form of a book, especially in relation to hardbacks. Additionally, you not only prefer eBooks to paperbacks but feel they are classier and more convenient. Therefore, even though paperbacks cost substantially more to produce than eBooks and the same argument against convenience applies to hardcovers as paperbacks, you personally wouldn't mind seeing three tiers of pricing with the least expensive and least secure format priced higher than the second-least expensive and second-most secure.
Counter: First, the ubiquitously cheap paperback has been limited to pulp and cutouts since the mid-80s. The dimestore paperback is a fond and distant memory, as any student with a textbook purchasing list will attest.
Second, pricing eBooks higher than paperbacks due to greater convenience has no parallel model. Mp3s are never priced higher than CDs -- they are impermanent and lossy -- and there is an equivalent loss of advanced formatting and image resolution whether an individual book uses either or not. Pictures universally look worse. Complex layouts are impractical for the moment. If the original is in color, then the eBook either is not or cannot be seen that way (at least on a pre-Mirasol eInk screen). Even devices that allow for color layouts do not offer the resolution and clarity of a physical book.
And so on.
It makes no sense to adopt one pricing model for film, music and art and an astronomically inflated one for publishing, which involves the least amount of work of any of the media and preceded them all in terms of basic tech. What you have is the least technically involved kind of media possible distributed by people who are behaving like cell phone providers. News flash, publishers: Your jobs and expenses aren't nearly that demanding or complex.
Higher resolution FLAC files are more expensive than mp3s but not nearly as expensive as CDs nor CDs as expensive as SACDs, HCDs or DVD-A. For reference, see this price list on Boomkat, but there are many other examples.
Typical pricing
In media, thus far, the scheme goes like this:
High-resolution media (Blu-Ray, SACD)
Standard resolution media (DVDs, CDs)
Legacy media (vinyl, etc.)
High-resolution files (24-bit-92k FLAC; few other commercial examples)
Standard resolution files (FLAC, ALAC, DVD-quality files)
Lossy files (mp3s, movie files optimized for iPods, etc.)
Logically speaking, publishing should look like this:
Gorgeous full-color illustrated editions
Standard hardcovers
Standard paperbacks
High-resolution color editions with special features
Standard color editions
Lossy editions (ePub, mobi, etc.)
Also:
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What I don't get is why anyone should believe that the price of a pbook version and that of an ebook version of the same book should bear any particular relationship to each other.
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With all due respect, what I don't get are arguments that imply aberration on the part of the person with whom one disagrees, as in,
in what vicious parallel universe would a human lab rat with forelegs feel compelled to believe that Steamwizard guides to Harry Potter books were worth reading? Answer (and I'm not a Steamwizard guide to Harry Potter fan): In what universe, parallel or otherwise, would someone not?
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I can easily imagine a situation where a publisher would price the hardback higher than the ebook (due to the beauty and permanence of the hardback,) the ebook less but still higher than the paperback (due to the portability of the ebook) and the paperback less than either (since it's a one-read throwaway.)
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The thing to be clear about is this: unique value to the user versus a potentially useful but common side-effect. Lack of physicality is an aspect, not a feature, of
any digitized file. Thus, less clutter is an indirect benefit of all digital files, not a feature built specifically into an ebook file. The
potential benefit costs nothing to music and film lovers and should similarly cost nothing here.
We're heading for a world in which physical books are largely gone, but that doesn't mean book publishers can or should charge people for their attendant decluttering. Lack of clutter is an end result and not a feature. Writers are not visiting our houses, cleaning out our closets and donating things to Good Will, nor does Microsoft charge more for applications that take up less space.