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Originally Posted by kennyc
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Good one! We need more debunker links, analysis not beholden to the BPHs.
In that spirit, Nate the Great has gathered a few good recent ones:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...12/#more-32890
All worth looking into.
A couple of good quotes:
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With the legal dispute over ebook pricing going on, one thing we've heard over and over again from the traditional publishing industry and their supporters is that higher prices for ebooks make sense because of all of the "costs" that the publishers have to cover. This is a fundamental error in how pricing (and economics) works. It reminds me of the MPAA folks who demand to know the business model for making $200 million movies. Years ago, someone who understood these things taught me why cost-based pricing will always get you into trouble. If you start from the overall pricing, including overhead and other fixed costs, then you're not basing the price on what the consumer values -- and, more importantly, you're taking away your own incentives to become more efficient and decrease costs. Instead, you're just "baking them in." But the most important reason not to base pricing on overhead costs is that your competitors won't do that, and they'll under cut your price and then you're in serious trouble.
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In all the discussions about why book publishers demand that eBooks should be $15 and not $10, they say it is because they cannot afford to sell books at $10. That is, they cannot cover their legacy cost models on that number. Right. Which is why you must rebuild your cost structure for a digital goods industry with far lower prices. You start by paying your top execs much less than millions of dollars a year. Then you move your offices out of fancy midtown office buildings.
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The negative coverage of Amazon is centered on them selling eBooks below cost in order to reach the $10 price point. But that is a function of publishers setting the cost higher than $10. If the profit-maximizing price for an eBook is $10, then publishers must adapt to set a wholesale price lower than that, even if it means your legacy cost structure doesn’t allow it. And that’s the rub. [By the way, as publishers continue to resist this market force, new "publisher" models are appearing and will replace the traditional functions of publishers with more digital-friendly models.]
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Most of the linked articles bring up similar points the apologists would like to sweep under the rug.
The bottom line is that ebooks are a new medium and new mediums invariably bring new business models and trying to shoehorn legacy cost structures into a digital product is a surefire recipe for massive market share donation over time. Most of these people want *publishing* to prosper in the digital era--they just don't particularly care if the conspirator multinationals partake of that prosperity or whither away.
As for the prosperity issue, consider this:
http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2...een-the-lines/
BTW, the Kobo quote from above come from here:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/ko...big-plans.html
It addresses the Amazon-is-invincible FUD. Specifically, Kobo is having none of it:
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Kobo will launch its self-publishing platform this quarter and plans on expanding to “a dozen” new countries in 2012, the company’s c.e.o. Mike Serbinis has told The Bookseller.
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