[mcl]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Part of the reason hardcovers cost more than paperbacks is because they are released first.

I buy books for the content, not the container. If the paperback was released day and date with the hardcover at standard paperback prices it would cannibalize hardcover sales because people could get the same content for less.

That's not what I asked. I asked if you would pay the same HC price for a MMPB. And you wouldn't. Because it's not the same thing. Just as we're unwilling to pay HC price for an ebook. Because it's not the same thing.

The $15 price for ebooks is based on the idea that getting the content before the mass market paperback is released is worth a premium over the price of a mass market paperback.

And yet it's roughly the same price as the HC at any store that hasn't buckled under the pressure and become a publisher's agent.

A lot of the these complaints over price are beginning to sound really petty to me. It's like people are saying "Ebooks have no production costs so all we should pay for is the content and that's not worth very much either, so they need to be very cheap."

And yet a lot of these complaints over ebooks from the publishers are starting to sound really petty to /me/. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder, and all that.

As someone who's written novels, I find that cheapening of the value of my time, effort, and creativity very disheartening.

As someone who's purchased novels, I find that gross inflation of the price of ebooks just to make a quick buck very disheartening.


I'm sorry, but there are 4 perspectives here:

1) The writer, who's looking after his paycheck
2) The publisher, who's looking to increase his profits
3) The retailer, who's looking to gain market share, and
4) The customer, who's looking after his paycheck.


The problem here is that the authors are up in arms against the retailer and the consumer, because how dare we take issue with an entire publisher and harm all those innocent authors! We the customers must spend money to support the authors! (See Scalzi's blog for a particularly abhorrent, yet almost verbatim reiteration of this position).

Meanwhile, the publishers are up in arms against the retailer and the consumer, because they're afraid the retailer will unilaterally lower the wholesale price, and they think the evil ebook consumer is devaluing the hardcover prices.

The retailer's being screwed in several ways:
1) by selling ebooks at a loss
2) by losing all revenue for a publisher's works over the period they remain off the shelves,
and ultimately, 3) being forced into an agency model, while
4) losing the goodwill of the ebook customers, the reader base as a whole, and the author base

And with all of this, we have the authors demanding the customers spend more money (to support the poor, suffering authors, don't'chaknow!), the publishers demanding the customers spend more money (by raising ebook prices), and the customers being railed against publicly for daring to suggest that we might just be tired of being viewed as nothing but money vending machines.

You can feel indignant all you want as an author. But as a customer, I'll continue to feel used and, currently, abused by the publishers and, to a lesser extent, the authors. Particularly when you've got people like Scalzi insisting that Amazon is evil for making a stark point about refusing to become a publisher's agent, and insisting that consumers somehow OWE you people a living, just because you produce content.