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Hi All,
Interesting comments. I really must work out what DRM means!
As to publishers profits, I used to be involved in the publishing industry, but it was a long time ago. As a sales manager selling the then new desk top publishing computer an Apple Mac! We really took over the industry with that revolution!
The key thing that the publisher used to do is calculate how many books they would need to sell to break even. They would then work out how much money they wanted/expected to make and then print a run based on this. This is the reason you get the low price shops selling £24 books for £2. Simply because they sold what they wanted then the sales ran out of steam.
About 30 plus years ago I bought approx 20,000 books based on this principle that the publisher was just not selling them. They cost a few pennies each and I sold them on markets for about 25 - 50% of the marked value. Great bit of of business!
Whilst the publisher does have overheads, the main one being payment to the author, there is a considerable difference between ebooks and printed books. However, as mentioned briefly by others I really do think they are missing a trick. There are a lot of people who would buy ebooks but not the printed version, ie a different market segment. There are also a lot of people, me included who would buy both.
I mentioned elsewhere that I own both pdf copies of photography books and the printed versions. For me they both have a place. If I could now get a proper ebook version I would be over the moon.
Regards
Chris
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