Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
It seems to me that the publishers were quick to start issuing new titles as eBooks. They also were quick to let them be sold at the same time as hardcover editions -- with the eBooks commonly sold at paperback prices. That, to me, refutes the technophobe meme.
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Publishers sold eBooks with hardcover editions to retailers for the same amount as the hardcover. If a hardcover came out at $28 then the list price for the eBook was the same for most, if not all, of the big 5 (big 6 at the time). Then both hardcover and eBook would be discounted from that list price to whatever street price a retailer wanted to offer them at. eBooks never came out at the same time as hardcovers for around the average mass market price of $8. It was the retailers cutting into their own profit that were discounting eBooks just like they do with paper books. When agency came along mass market paperbacks and ebooks generally sold for exactly the same $7-$10 price with paperbacks sometimes discounted below list while the eBook couldn't. Same for hardcover more or less. A hardcover with a $14-$17 street price would generally be $13-$15 as an eBook and trade paperbacks with a $10-$12 street price would be $10-$12 as an eBook. Maybe we buy different kinds of books, but that's commonly how things fell out for me personally.