Thread: Why e-books?
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Old 03-28-2016, 09:15 AM   #182
darryl
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer View Post
Naturally I disagree with your opinion entirely, but hey .... that's why we have opinions.

Regardless of medium, the stories/message/knowledge books impart hold equal value for me. The media then adds or subtracts from that value (thus why the advantages ebooks provide make me value them higher than other media). The savings publishers may realize because of the nature of epublishing have no bearing on my valuation of their product.

I'm happy that the medium I prefer is quite often cheaper than the others, but I 'm perfectly willing to pay an equal price (or slightly more) for ebooks. *shrug*
Very logical and reasonable. And I also value the ebook format more than the printed formats, to the point that I doubt I will ever buy another printed book for myself to read. However, it does not follow that the format that has most advantages to me, even if all of such advantages were objective, should be the most expensive. This is particularly so when the format concerned is significantly cheaper to produce. In such a case only a lack of price competition can lead to such a result.

At the moment we are in a position where the Big 5 seem to be inflating ebook prices in the ultimately futile belief that to charge inflated prices will save their outdated print book business models. And the further mistaken belief that their titles are so superior in quality as to not have to compete with KDP and other Indie/Self-Published titles.

The pricing of paper editions is valuable information simply as confirmation that ebook prices are being inflated over what they would be if set properly according to the market conditions. Forget the price of paper books. If you pay the Big 5 asking price for ebooks for many titles imho you are being ripped-off.

Also, one parting question? Given publishers are setting prices how do you tell when they are quite simply asking too much and you would be ripped-off purchasing at that price?
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