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Old 01-08-2009, 04:16 PM   #44
Liviu_5
Books and more books
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: White Plains, NY, USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger View Post

I'm just saying it's not as simple as many folk seem to believe.
To me it's pretty simple - the fact that publishers are able to release original mmpb's at 8$ and make a profit on the titles that catch, shows that whatever costs are there - including edit, store discount and so on - are included in that price and while a premium hardcover, price 3x of a mmpb, has some extra costs, the high premium price is simply due to the better, more solid format.

So it comes to utility/value of format and I think that e-books are much more disposable than mmpb's.

Regarding utility, it's trickier since for example I'd rather have an ebook than a print book for many books, so I place some utility on having e, but then you need differential pricing to include the utility preference of each person.

So overall, if e-books move toward a uniform pricing system, format based the way mmpb/tpb/hdc tiers function now there is no question that e-books should go somewhat lower than mmpb's, maybe with the same restrictions, like second editions if hc is released...

Personally though I think that digital allows much more flexible pricing and a reverse auction kind of system is doable - the way the used book market acts today in practice. Hard to say if it's socially practical though since the market kind of ingrained us with "new - fixed price with possible discounts", "used - variable pricing"...

Let's see how Apple will do with their differential pricing...
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