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Originally Posted by JSWolf
Up until the book makes it to electronic or paper, the costs are EXACTLY the same.
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But this cost is distributed over all the books (both e and p) that are sold. So if the costs to make the "prototype" eBook was $50,000 and 100,000 books are sold, that cost represents only $0.50 of price of the book.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Yes, the website costs less to run, but you do have to employ someone to convert the book into the different electronic book formats.
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No you don't. This is what software is for. Many sites already have systems set up that store their eBooks in single format and the convert to the customer's requested format when the customer buys the eBook.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
And the website has to pay staff.
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The cost of which is, again, distributed over all the eBooks sold, plus whatever other services that web site is running - making that cost very small. Remember that a web site may be only one of many being hosted by the provider. One staff, many sites = low web site staff costs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
But costs are costs.
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Actually, there are costs and there are costs. You seem to be treating all costs as equal. They aren't.
On a per-book basis, one time costs like writing the book itself, represents an insignificant cost when compared to the paper, the warehousing and transportation costs.
If you break up the selling price of a pBook into the costs that price represents, you will find that the highest of those numbers represent the physical attributes of the pBook. Most of those attributes don't exist for eBooks. The other attributes are replaced by much lower cost electronic versions.