Quote:
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.
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.
It's more than I am often willing to pay - but it's $10 less than the standard price of a new hardcover, and $7 more than mass market. At the very least it sounds like a possible place to start, even if it doesn't work out.
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."
As someone who's written novels, I find that cheapening of the value of my time, effort, and creativity very disheartening.
In the meantime, I have a book I need to be ghostwriting, so I will try to bow out, but I doubt I'll be able to.
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Just as you find the cheapening of the value of your time, effort and creativity very disheartening, I also find the money grubbing monopoly hoarders exploitation of MY time, MY effort and My bank balance absolutely disgusting.
Part of the experience of buying/reading a book is knowing the pleasure one of my friends is going to get from from the same book when I pass it on to them. To think that any DRM riddled, badly formatted and device crippled e-book is worth a even a quarter of a hardback priced physical edition simply because its a ‘first read release’ is sheer lunacy when the only thing you can do is trash it after finishing reading.
And of course, a part of deciding to buy a book does involve some consideration of the container its wrapped in — not just the content therein.
Arkham House luxury prints of H P Lovecraft for example, are beautiful objects in their own right, yet the contents are word for word exactly the same as their downmarket counterparts. The Library of Congress prints of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler are super-bound on acid-free paper while the contents are no different to the 1940-1950’s pulps. Which versions represent better value is entirely in the eye of the purchaser — so persuade me again, what value does buying into DRM offer me?