Quote:
Originally Posted by mcl
You obviously didn't read what I wrote. They specifically DO NOT share the costs of editing or marketing, as there are no separate editing or marketing processes for ebooks. The pbook is edited. The pbook is marketed. The ebook is sold as just another format, and requires nor receives any significant additional editing nor marketing. For all intents and purposes, the ebook is nothing more than the TPB or MMPB version of a hardback, in terms of the editing. And there's a near-total lack of format marketing for the ebook, so you can't even compare the marketing of the PBs to ebooks.
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There are certain costs which apply to every book regardless of the format it is produced in. These costs include editing and marketing. The question here is should those costs be passed along to all consumers, or should one specific group of consumers bear the brunt of these costs so that other consumers may receive the benefit of lower prices?
The truth is, the book is edited before the process forks to either ebook or pbook. HC, TPB, and MMPB all have their share of such costs figured into their cover price. Why should ebooks be exempt?
Why are ebook buyers so special that everyone else has to pay for editing and they don't?
If the book were released only in e-format then those costs would have to be passed along to ebook buyers. Why does the presence of a paper edition make that any different?
The shared costs of producing a book should be appropriately shared among all formats, paper and electronic alike. Anything else is inequitable. Saying that one's own preferred format can be priced lower because all the other formats will pick up the costs sounds selfish to me.