|
Interesting an well written post, addressing a lot of current topics.
I am the opposite, books are an impulse buy and I haven't rented a movie since the days of VCR.
$15 is high for me as well these days, but nothing to do with value. And nothing to do with lower priced or free books. I have a TBR list a mile long and most are available from the library. I buy books only as gesture to an author I particularly admire, new or old. I admit to being a bit flummoxed when I was thinking of buying a Harlen Coben book and it was $27.99.
I have bought thousands of books, in the past, and stopped when it was impossible to keep the ones I already had, never mind adding any. Price was always my last concern unless I was broke.
And low price is not an incentive to me to buy a book. Free is not an incentive either, although I have read many a free book I enjoyed. (library and gifts usually, but one fanfic.)
Of the hundreds of people I have discussed ebooks in person with, and prior to ebooks paper books, not one has mentioned price as far as I can recall. Many of these people do complain loudly and voraciously about the price of gas, food and even rent and utilities, so they are budget conscious.
I think that publishers are interested in getting people to read more. It is in their best interests. But like many of us they want to make money hand over fist and I don't see that as anything but business.
Books, songs and movies are all different. people will listen to a song happily many times a day, some will watch the same movie over and over. Lot of people reread but not usually more than once a year. The people buying them are different too.
If a person buys 10 songs a day, they can listen to all of them the same day. If a person buys 10 movies a day they will soon have a backlog unless they have almost nothing else to do. I am sure that there are people in the world who could read 70 books a week (10 books a day) but they are far and few between.
The potential market/income is different. If publishers though that people would suddenly start buying books at the same rate as songs if they were a dollar each, they would possibly consider it. I know several people who buy a at least 10 songs a week, week in, week out, and often more, and but I know no one who buys 10 books a week, every week, except for serious collectors of freebies.
Then again I don't know anyone who buys/rents 10 movies a week, but I suspect there are a fair amount. I also suspect that there are a lot of people like yourself who just find listening/watching more enjoyable these days and cheaper/easier to acquire. More power to you.
While lowering the cost of books to $1 is not a bad thing for me personally, neither is lowering the cost of T-bone steak or Havarti cheese to $1, and yes I shop shamelessly at Dollar stores unfortunately. I just don't see it as a model that publishers can adopt and pay authors, proofreaders etc. a living wage, any better than farmers would be able to feed those cows that provide the steak and the cheese.
Helen
|