Quote:
Originally Posted by EdwardM
<<SNIP>>
I'd actually buy books if the publishers were pricing them they way e-books were promised several years ago - cover cost minus production cost. If a $6.99 book cost $5.00 to print and ship, I should expect to pay $1.99, not $6.99.
|
That'd get you eBooks from a distributor at a price of around $5.99-$6.49 (after subtracting the print-and-ship cost). Purchasing direct (or semi-direct) from the publisher -- as at Baen* -- could potentially remove some or all of the distributor's cut, bringing the cost down to about $3.00. It would be
quite unrealistic to expect the prices to go much below that point. Most publishers are not, in fact, tremendously profitable. And they have real expenses both for production of books that you see (marketing, artwork, etc.) and also editorial costs for books that never get published. It takes time and energy to winnow the slush-pile. And to look at non-slush submissions. And to run the business in general. And...
Certainly ebooks can be profitably sold for lower prices than most publishers are currently aiming at -- Baen's doing quite nicely on it, thank you very much! But the numbers pdurrant gave show pretty clearly why you won't see prices much below what Baen is charging any time soon.
The BIG feature of eBooks, IMHO, is that they need never go out of print!
Xenophon
*Note that Webscriptions is a separate business, albeit one with a very close relationship with Baen. The "Evil Henchman" who runs webscriptions has to make a living too, so you can't expect to completely get rid of the distributor's cut. Further, if you are buying from Fictionwise (or any of the other eBook distributors), they have to make a living and keep the lights on and servers humming. Their cut may be (should be?) a smaller percentage than a bricks-and-mortar distributor/retailer, but it's not going to go away either.