|
I've always been of the mind that eBooks should never cost more than their hardback or paperback equivalents. How much less is going to be variable and is something the publisher or author has to determine. The thing about eBooks that I think most publishers have problems getting their heads around is the complete removal of the supply part of the economic equation. Your supply is limitless - it mostly doesn't matter how big the book is, you don't suddenly have to reprint if you sell out (because how are you going to sell out) and so long as the store site doesn't go down, you can sell the book until the heat death of the sun. Clearly there are storage costs and bandwidth costs for the seller and there's going to be costs for the publisher/author in preparing the file (and maybe even some maintenance costs if you have to go back and fix mistakes) but there's never a reason for the eBook to go "out of print" other than those involving the store. If bandwidth and storage costs are borne by the store (and should be a part of the store's cut), eBook's should in theory cost the publisher/author less to produce than a physical book.
Having just recently released 2 books as eBooks only, but then bundling those eBooks into the rest of the series as both eBooks and paperbacks, I was amazed at the necessity for difference in cost.
This is based on Amazon's self-publishing platform:
eBook containing 6 novellas (about 180k words) - List price is $4.99 and I make about $3.40 per book on that (except in some markets where I only make $1.75)
Paperback containing those same 6 novellas (about 561 pages) - List price is $20.99 and I make about $5.13 on that which seems high - however, in order to use their Expanded Distribution (which puts the book into places like Ingram so that brick and mortar stores can order the book), I have to price it that high and I only make $.93 cents per book on those sales.
Barnes and Noble and Smashwords are similar numbers though B&N's paperback pricing is a little different, though not enough for the retail price to change.
Now I don't have the overhead that a publisher does, so I can afford to price things cheaper, and I can't credibly say what the difference in costs are them. However, if their volume of sales allows them to sell a hardback $20, selling an eBook for $20 is, in my opinion, completely out of whack unless they just don't expect the eBooks to sell at all. These days, I can't fathom that being a possibility unless you are talking about a market where Internet penetration is back in the Stone Ages.
|