Quote:
Originally Posted by conan50
The bigger point I would make is that books have serious competition as entertainment compared to decades ago. They cannot expect to cost as much as they once did. They also have more competition within the book world, now anyone can publish a book, sell it for .99, so that even at $9.99 price point the traditionally published book ought to be ten times better than the indie selling for a buck. And usually they are not much better if at all. Yet traditional publishers want to raise their ebook prices higher. It is suicide. It is the 'buggy whip' problem if they are doing this to prop up hardcover sales.
I will give you a concrete example to the problem: Netflix. $10 a month gets you tons of shows to watch, almost exactly the cost of buying 1 best selling ebook at Amazon.
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First, it seems to me that if Hachette wants to price itself out of the market, it has every right to do so. Corporate suicide is not illegal anywhere.
Second, books do not have more competition now than they did decades ago; they simply have different competition. In my youth, reading competed with actually going outdoors and playing games like baseball. Today, instead of going outdoors to play games, people sit in front of a computer or TV. Basically the same competition, just a different type.
Third, reading was always a minority past-time. It was always an expensive past -time, which is why there was the rise of libraries. But even with the rise of libraries and the making of books available for free, only a limited number of people actually patronized them. Price was not the motivator but interest.
Fourth, the availability of hundreds of cable channels and programs and even streaming services like Netflix do not change the equation. I pay way too much each month for cable access, yet I do not watch a single program (by which I mean I do not watch any programs at all). I prefer to read. But my wife prefers to watch TV and she watches it even though there are no limitations placed on her as to the number of books she can buy or the price. (I spend several hundred dollars a month on books and see no reason why she should be treated any differently.)
Bottom line is that books are not competing with other forms of entertainment. Those who like to read read; those who don't, and they make up the majority of the population by far, seek other forms of entertainment -- and never the twain shall meet.
The real question, I think, is can publishers price books too high for their market. At what point will a consumer not spend the money? I can't answer that as I am atypical. I spent $350 on a 2-volume book set on paintings by
William Bourgereau without thinking twice. Just yesterday I ordered 3 books that cost me over $200. Clearly, publishers haven't priced too high to affect my buying but I suspect that very few readers are similarly situated.
My point is that I won't voluntarily spend 10 cents on other entertainment media, but don't think twice about buying a book I want. That's because I'm a reader and not a movie-goer or gamer.