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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
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.
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And I would include myself in the 'most of us' who understand this; in fact, if the publishers are still in the business of publishing dead tree books, I'd say the added cost of producing a title as an eBook is approximately zero - the other costs are already absorbed in the publication of pBooks. My point is that despite this, it's not 'most of us' that set the prices - it's the publishers. As avid readers (as I'm sure most people on this site are) I'd be very surprised (seriously, genuinely shocked) if we chose not to read a book we really wanted to read, just because of price or format. Maybe I'm weird, but to me, books are just words; if I really want to read something, little will stop me!
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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.
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Fair enough, but the cost of a whole CDs-worth of songs from iTunes Music Store comes out at pretty much exactly the same as a store-bought CD. And just speaking personally, I can think of any number of books that I wish I'd only bought the first chapter of...
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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.
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If that's just speculation, I'd be happy to confirm it. I knocked about the fringes of educational publishing (as a photographer/illustrator) here in London all through the nineties, and coming from an advertising background the leisurely pace of the whole process had to be seen to be believed.
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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.
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No doubt. As a consumer, I wish they published something I wanted to read. As a co-'content provider', I'm left wondering how the authors feel about seeing the value of their work reduced effectively to zero after a couple of years?
Best, Pete.