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Originally Posted by elena
I don't understand why the costs would be higher for an e-book than for a p-book.
Don't editors have digitalized versions of works that are intended for p-books release only, or do they have just original manuscripts and go through copying them by Benedictine monks? |
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Originally Posted by Slite
Which probably would be cheaper.... Don't the Benedictines take a vow of poverty?  |
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Originally Posted by Dave Berk
I think that according to their perverse logic, when you pay $25.95 for the ebook you actually pay for at least five other people who they are sure will pirate the ebook off the darknet.
I don't agree with them at all, but I'd imagine their reasoning as follow:
1. Piracy is here to stay (ebook stealing, ebook copying.... call it what you will)
2. It is cheaper to produce ebooks. But, the market for them is smaller and for each copy sold a few will be pirated.
3. Lets price the ones we sell high enough to cover the pirated copies as well.
It's really a vicious cycle because the high price will lead to more copies pirated... and so forth.
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interesting perspective. you may be right that that is their reasoning but i really hope not.
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I think the publishers are secretly wishing for Amazon to fail. Amazon is currently the one who is leading the advance of ebooks reading, at least in the eyes of the uninformed public. If they will fail, eInk demand will drop. More important, there will be less incentive for the hardware companies to improve on eInk. Ebooks will then be deemed as a failed market. And that's what the publishers hope to achieve. Because, let face it, if there will be a good enough device, an Infopad, so to speak - printed books will go the way of the dodo. And the publishing business, the way it's done today, will follow.
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i think amazon has the weight and momentum *already* not to fail. even if it did, with the sudden influx of new devices on the market i think ebooks have gotten some serious momentum of their own. i think we've passed the point where ebooks can "fail", although it may still take some time for them to reach the tipping point (but i think it's close).
i do not think printed books will *ever* go the way of the dodo, at least not in my lifetime ; there will always be reasons it is preferable to have a certain book or kind of book in paper rather than digital form. i think ebooks and paper books are complementary. what *might* happen, as was suggested on a different thread, is that mass market paperbacks go the way of the dodo, to be replaced by ebooks ; but even that will not happen until readers are MUCH cheaper and more universal. like mp3 players are now.
regardless, the publishing business must change, you are right about that, just as the music industry and the film industries had to change. i think they still have valuable roles to play but they must redefine themselves and accept that the model they have been using for X hundred years is no longer viable with the new cards being dealt.
what i hope is that the publishing industry will avoid the mistakes the music industry made, and it is still early days so perhaps they will. there are indications of both possibilities ; there is HarperCollins trying to charge 26$ for an ebook (with drm) on the one hand, but there is also PanMacMillan selling all their ebooks in drm-free epub.
I know that i will try to buy as many books from PanMacMillan as possible, to show them that i support their model, and i will also continue to be quite vocal about what i consider acceptable and not acceptable in an ebook i purchase. hopefully voting with our wallets can influence the outcome.