Quote:
Originally Posted by BuddyBoy
Actually Gudy, MMPBs do cannibalize hardcover sales, which is why they aren't usually released at the same time as the hardcover.
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I know, I didn't contest that. What I contest is that this is an argument for the ridiculously high ebook prices one sees everywhere. Sure, put the book out in hardcover and ebook first, at essentially the same price (modulo an offset to account for the lack of rights the customer has with a DRMd ebook compared to the hardcover). No sense in not squeezing as much money as you can out of the "early adopters", after all.
But as soon as the paperback comes out, the ebook price must drop to slightly below that in order to milk the mass market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BuddyBoy
Publishing houses aren't charities, you know.  |
Precisely, which, given that no-one has stopped putting out MMBP editions, means that they are making money from those. Which also means that there is no good reason why they wouldn't make a similar amount of money from a similarly priced ebook.
In other words, there is a relatively simple pricing rule in here: the ebook version must not be more expensive than the cheapest paper edition out there, and DRMd ebooks must actually be cheaper in order to account for the decreased utility (no lending, no re-selling, etc.) and hence value to the consumer.
Now, there is a lot of discussion about how much cheaper DRMd ebooks should be, but the simple way to find out is to ask the market. Right now, the market apparently says mostly "No" to the current pricing structure. The alternative is of course to follow the Baen example and just not bother. It seems to work quite well for them, I note.