Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
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.
|
Ok, let's take your argument:
title A has cost X associated with it.
In the past, cost X was passed to the consumer as part of the price of item N.
Today, item N costs the same and covers the same cost X that always existed, but now there's a new item -- P -- that you're arguing should bear its own share of cost X.
If you really wanted to be equitable, you'd raise the price of P ***AND*** lower the price of N, since some of the cost X which was buried in the price of N is now not being borne entirely by N, but by both N and P together.
But that's not what's happening.
And since that's not happening, the profit that the publisher always made off N isn't held constant with the introduction of P (due to cost equalization). The profit is increased, because N is still bearing all the cost of X, but that cost is being used as an argument to raise the price of P.