Quote:
Originally Posted by Mivo
It is partly, perhaps mainly, because of the different markets. The recommended prices differ from region to region, depending on what is established and accepted. You'll find the same in other areas too, e.g. electronics and video games, though the diffences are not as drastic as with books.
The situation is similar here in Germany. I wanted to pick up a copy of Dan Brown's Inferno a while ago and saw the e-book price tag of 20 euro (26 USD). No go. A couple of months ago I wanted to buy the Neverwinter Saga books in the German iBooks store. They only offered me the German translations and would not even let me buy the English originals. In both cases I bought nothing.
Sure, I could jump through hoops and fake my location, tunnel my connection or do all sorts of things to buy e-books at US prices, but I instead take the hint and vote with my wallet. I don't pay outlandish prices and I don't sneak around for the privilege of giving a publisher my money. In a world where there is no shortage of e-literature, and certainly no lack of ways to get what you want to read, market restrictions and vastly different pricing schemes for identical products are astonishingly short-sighted approaches.
More recently I started to buy from indie publishers and authors. Not only is this extremely affordable, but it is also offering access to books that don't follow the beaten track of whatever the large publishing houses deem worth printing (so much seems same-y).
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I hear that a lot from american friends. Voting with our wallet is a concept they are attracted to, but I feel like we're not on an equal footing compared to the heavy marketing and the lack of hope we face from the opponents.
Okay you won't give money or visibility to the book, but publishers have massive advertisements and people are so isolated they don't really feel like their voice could matter. Therefore not buying Dan Brown's book will not really make the market understand it has to adapt, and people will still buy/sell at higher prices simply because they can.
And I'm kinda thinking about these indie authors, but I don't read only for the content but also for the social factor. Speaking about a classic book and discussing the ideas in it with others is a good part of what I like in reading
But maybe I'm mixing indie and self-published. I just fear that now that we can all publish on the internet, any moron can too and a publisher is like a reassuring light in the night pointing toward the worthy books. Which is obviously not always true and often misleading.