Quote:
Originally Posted by ijdod
I'm surpised by their claim they're cheaper. One of the major complaints I have heard against adoption of e-books, is their price. They're often priced at hardcover prices, long after a cheap mass-market paperback is available. This does not entice people to go out and buy them...
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It's partly what Katsunami said (I also only know people who buy the English books, mostly at Amazon), and partly because of the VAT. "Ebooks are cheaper!" Yes. They are (around 80%), if you take the price without VAT. Add 21% instead of 6% and you get almost the same price. (and I've seen ebooks which were more expensive than their paper version) Combined with the fact that there are almost no older books, and the fact that a few larger publishers still refuse to go electronic, and you have an environment where people will go elsewhere for their electronic books.
Drop the VAT back to the normal VAT for books and get those lagging larger publishers to start publishing and get most of those 80.000 books available and you'll see a large increase in sales.