Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
This is nonsense. Virtually all the work that's involved in the production of a book (editing, layout, advertising, etc) is also there for an eBook. The only thing you don't have are the printing costs, which typically account for around 10-20% of total costs. An eBook that is priced 20% lower than the corresponding paperback is, therefore, reasonably priced.
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I've always been curious about this arguement. It assumes that the only difference between an ebook and a paperback book is the costs to actual print a book (which I have heard estimated at $3.50/book).
Certainly there are fixed costs no matter what format you produce a book. You have to pay the author, cover artist, the editor, the publisher, and the seller as well as for promotion when the book is launched (so very time limited costs for advertising if any are bothered with).
Yet as the electronic age progresses those fixed costs have come down. Publishers now demand manuscripts in electronic format to cut editing costs and rely heavily on electronic means of advertising (email lists, social media, fan groups etc). And after the basics of the manuscript are done some real differences start to creep into the equation.
For print books you need to store the books you have printed, pay to ship them to the distributor, and cover the reality that some of them will be damaged/not sell and you will take a loss on them. (If you go print on demand you cut out storage but run the risk that your reader will not want to wait 2-3 weeks for the book). That assumes of course that you can connect your product to the customer. Anyone outside of the city bookstores know the hit and miss choices in smaller stores where you are lucky to find anything except bestsellers or recent offerings and the extra costs of online booksellers where you pay to have them shipped to you unless you buy in bulk.
Electronic books exist as a small file on a server which costs pennies to store, virtually nothing to ship, and you have a 24/7 worldwide distribution network that has no problem stocking all of your books, not just the ones most recently published, to make available to your customers whenever they want. Plus once that e-book is formatted it is ready for you to sell forever (yeah I know formats will change at some point but honestly converting formats in books is getting simpler each year).
As well you limit the accessibility of the book itself. Ebooks that are purchased can not be lent (or can in very controlled ways) or sold. Which means you have sold your book to a reader who is pretty much the only one who can read it- certainly not the case with print books. Meaning that you will sell more ebooks than print groups to the same group of people who want to read the book because you can make each one pay. (Arrangements with libraries vary around the world but some pay for the rights to offer a book so many times and then have to renew that license to be able to continue to offer the book. Quite the bonanza compared with print copies).
I don't expect to pay $.99 for ebooks but would like ebook pricing to reflect the reality rather than illusion that publishers would like us to believe. Personally I think those publishers like Baen who offer books for 30-40% off the paperback prices (and don't raise the ebook prices on older stock once it has been issued) are actually treating readers fairly.