[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by petermillard

One of the things I've found telling about this thread (and others before it) is that even here on MobileRead, amongst people who 'get' the whole ebook concept, we can't actually agree on what features we want for the concept to reach critical mass - or rather, perhaps, everybody's ideal feature set is different.

Correct.

Why? A book is a book; if it's a book I really want to read, I'll pay the asking price for it. I may have a quick hunt around to see if I can pick it up cheaper elsewhere, but if I want it I'll buy it. If it was available as an ebook, and I didn't want a hard copy for posterity, then I'd happily buy that at the asking price - who wouldn't?

People who understand that the costs of an ebook are considerably lower than for a paper edition, and expect those lower costs to be reflected in a lower price. That is, most of us.

Most of my reading 'for pleasure' is fiction, and I can usually contain myself long enough for the paperback edition of a title to come out; half the price of the hardback, and it's exactly the same words! Publishers produce hardbacks first, because it's seen as a premium product, that can command a higher price.

And makes them (and the authors!) a lot more money. I buy hardcovers of stuff I really like, because I want durable reading copies.

Of course, it would be nice if publishers responded to logic and reduced the cost of eBooks to correspond to their reduced production cost - but why would they? Music downloads from iTunes Music Store aren't cheaper than buying a whole CD, are they? Publishers are in business to make profit, and if they can maximise profits for little extra cost, they will.

iTunes is based on the idea that you don't want the whole CD -- you want to cherry pick specific songs. This is not an option for novels.

Publishers would drop the price if they figured out that lower prices would lead to increased sales and higher profit. With no manufacturing, distribution, or warehousing costs for ebooks, they have a lot of margin to play with in determining the sweet spot.

But publishing has historically been stupid. I've heard a speculation that part of that is a carryover from the old days, when publishing was a trade a gentleman could engage in. Those folks had money and didn't care if they actually made money on books - publishing was a respectable occupation for folks in their social class. Old habits die hard.

Here's a thought (unpleasant); what if publishers decided to pitch eBooks as the premium product, published 6 months ahead of hardbacks; what would people be prepared to pay for that? Hardback price? Hardback price plus 25%? Who knows - and I suspect (hope) we'll never get to find out for real.

As mentioned, Baen books does roughly that with their "Webscriptions" program. It's doing well enough that the chap who set it up and runs it is making a nice living. They don't charge hardcover price, put they charge more than the PB edition will cost.

My two-penneth.
Cheers,
Pete.

______
Dennis