Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutchbook
Yet how many people read those?
I worked at a very large european publishing house for a couple of months, and I was told during training that it comes from the fact that for the price of the book, it doesnt really matter if something is physically printed or not. Printing costs are a negligible factor in the costs of books and magazines.
Yet the reader doesnt know or understand it, so they expect a lower price from ebooks.
Also, reader research at that publisher determined that people have an emotional tie to paper; they prefer physical over digital because of the feeling, the smell, the appearance of the printing, etc...
Also, ereader sales have been in the drain for years, and ebook sales didnt show the same figures because they were compensated by the growth in tablets. Perhaps people dont enjoy reading on tablets? If so, I can understand why.
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I expect a lower price on ebooks because they have DRM on them. Can't be sold when I'm done with them, can't be lent to friends. Thus, since my property rights are less than with paper, I don't feel I should pay as much or MORE than paper, in the instance I mentioned, over DOUBLE the cost of paper....
For years, my reading habit was kept going by selling books on eBay/Amazon/Half.com when I was done with them. Then I branched out to buying books from library sales and selling those to keep me in reading material....
And while I may enjoy handling a printed book, I vastly prefer reading an ebook. Printed books usually have too small a font for comfortable reading. And they are much less portable.
I use Overdrive constantly!
EDIT: The other reason I prefer a lower price on ebooks has to do with quality. Too many times I've purchased ebooks that had quality issues ranging from typos to fonts set in a small size that *couldn't* be adjusted in my reader or margins set large that likewise were not adjustable.
In one notable instance, a technical book about making epubs, had some text in a color that appeared as light gray on e-ink and was nearly impossible to read! The same book also had images with text that were too small to read.
Illustrated books with low resolution images that can't be enlarged without turning into a fuzzy pixelated mess are also a turnoff.
I don't mind paying for quality, but it's very hit and miss! And comes down on the side of miss, more often than not.
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