Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
Price is almost everything to many of us.
When Baen changed pricing on e-books to permit distribution through other channels, it hit hard on my impulse buys.
To those of us in the USA:
Have you noticed your snail mailbox is mostly empty?
The price of stamps is one factor. (printing costs is another). Bulk mail Advertising has cut waaaay back.
Volume is falling: The Post Offices solution to declining volume? Raise Postage rates (again).
When I was a child a first class stamp was 3 cents (Air Mail was more).
If you only look at the 'adjusted for inflation' numbers, the current rate looks great 
The numbers leave out all the other (efficiency? We are talking USPS here  ) progress in mail handling, the adjusted rates should have been lower.
Early color TV's were $600 (1956, unadjusted). Today you can get a 55inch HDTV for that amount. Progress:? Efficiency: yes |
Good points. I hadn't thought about the junk mail thing in awhile. We had to get a bigger mailbox a few years ago because of the junk mail. Now we get just a few pieces a week.
I think another issue with ebooks is the value proposition. If I spend $15-$20 on a hardcover book, even after I read it I have a nice book with a beautiful cover sitting on my shelf, and I can give it away, resale it, it is a multi-purpose device and something of an investment. I get absolutely none of that from a $15 ebook. That is why my price point is about $5.99 for a trad-pub ebook, or if a new release that I absolutely need right now, maybe $9.99. Amazon has known this about me and other readers of ebooks for years, they know my impulse buy is .99 - $2.99 which is why they really want Indie books priced at $2.99 and offer a better slice of the pie for authors at that price point.
Traditional publishers know how, sometimes, to turn out a readable book, and that is about it. They really don't get what I consider the value of their ebook to be.