[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by petermillard

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.

Largely. It won't be zero -- there is some work involved in producing alternate formats for ebooks, and costs involved in setting up the infrastructure to sell them -- but it's a small enough amount that it's shouldn't be all that significant.

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!

What I read is determined by two factors: the time I have available to read the books, and the money I have available to buy them.

Of those, the time is the scarcer resource. There is far more that I want to read, even in freely available stuff like Project Gutenberg editions, than I have time for. As mentioned before, if I could read one book with each eye, I might someday catch up.

And I think that's another point worth considering. Books, whether electronic or paper, are competing for the reader's discretionary time. The time they spend reading a book is time that could be spent watching TV or a movie, or viewing a sports event, or playing a game, or...

But meanwhile, there have been books I've delayed purchasing because available cash flow had other demands on it at the moment.

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...

Oh, me too. Agreed that the cost of an entire CD's worth of tunes from iTunes would likely equal the cost of a CD. the point was that iTunes is based on a model not directly applicable to ebooks unless you count something like Fictionwise which sells short fiction.

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.

Oh, I can well believe it. I know some folks across the pond involved in the process. Some of the stories I hear are boggling. "And they are still in business how, exactly?"

No doubt. As a consumer, I wish they published something I wanted to read.

They publish mid-level action/adventure SF and fantasy. If that's not to your taste...

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?

The authors don't see it that way, and the ones that participate are happy.

Cory Doctorow said something to the effect that "the writers problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity". He makes all of his work freely available in electronic format under a Creative Commons license (and is blessed with a publisher that allows him to do so.) He feels this promotes sales of his paper books, and since he quit his regular job to go full time freelance a couple of years ago, it appears he's correct.

The Baen Free Library promotes authors. Complete novels by authors on Baen's list are made available through the library in a variety of formats, which people are encouraged to copy and share. It allows readers to sample an author's work with no financial investment. They discover they like a particular author's stuff, and buy the author's new one in hardcover. Authors also report nice increases in sales from their backlist as well.

Baen credits the Free Library with driving their transition from a struggling mass market PB house to a thriving hardcover publisher, with a 70% sell through rate.

I fail to see how it reduces the value of the author's work to zero.

Best, Pete.

______
Dennis