Why are ebooks so expensive?

[OtterBooks]

troll.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Piper_

I expect they will, as time shows what great customers we are.

You betcha.

I wish ebooks were cheaper, too. I just don't have a magic price or percentage of the dtb price I'm looking for. I make my purchase decisions on a book-by-book, author-by-author basis. Regardless of the medium.

I'm shallow... I'm only in it for the words.

[VicLavigne]

Originally Posted by witeowl

That's the crux of the matter. Everyone assumes that paper, printing/binding, and transportation add up to a large chunk of the cost of books, but it doesn't seem to be the case. It reminds me of the old fact(?) about fountain drinks: the most expensive part of the beverage is actually the ice (electricity), and the cheapest part is the soda itself.

ETA: A quick search revealed a NYT article which identified the cost of printing, storing, and shipping a hypothetical $26 book at $3.25.

I still think that sounds unrealistic, but I'll bite...... new release ebooks should therefore run an average of $3 cheaper than hardback books. Ebooks that have paperback counterparts should be a certain percent cheaper than those. That would make a good deal, and I'd have a hard time believing the publishers couldn't accommodate it, other than greed.

Vic

[stonetools]

I think the OP is asking, "Why doesn't the publishing industry price and format ebooks the way us cool techie hipsters think should be priced and formatted?"
In my experience, ebooks are on average cheaper than pbooks. Heck, you could build a very good library of 1000 ebooks and not pay a dime. Try doing that with pbooks.
If you are focused on buying bestselling nonfiction and fiction, ebooks could be expensive -though less expensive than buying the same in dead-tree books. Cast your net a little wider and be patient in looking for discounts and you would be surprised at how well you can do.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I think the OP is asking, "Why doesn't the publishing industry price and format ebooks the way us cool techie hipsters think should be priced and formatted?"

I think, given that the OP has made exactly two posts so far, your tossing out a judgment of him/her like that is the purest of trolling.

In other words, par for the course for you.

I also think that-- just for the heck of it-- we should make sure that arman68 has more karma than you before the day is over. I've done my part.

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I think the OP is asking, "Why doesn't the publishing industry price and format ebooks the way us cool techie hipsters think should be priced and formatted?"
In my experience, ebooks are on average cheaper than pbooks. Heck, you could build a very good library of 1000 ebooks and not pay a dime. Try doing that with pbooks.
If you are focused on buying bestselling nonfiction and fiction, ebooks could be expensive -though less expensive than buying the same in dead-tree books. Cast your net a little wider and be patient in looking for discounts and you would be surprised at how well you can do.

Boy, you are out of touch with reality. Go look at the agency priced books again and say that.

[Leyor]

Very good question OP.

I think the main reason is that publishers is treating the digital media like their traditional market model. If consumers get used to the idea of the actual initial product costs being disgustingly low, compared to what we actually buy it for, it'll be very hard to return to a higher price point and the potential profit associated with it.

When you have a growing market like this, it's all about consumer habits. A lot of book reader suffers from a form of Stockholms syndrome, where they beyond buying the product places an ethical value in supporting the author, unfortunately it's hard for those consumers to extricate the author from the publishers, considering them virtually identical.

The more consumers who obtains low or free books and demand DRM free products, the faster we'll see a market adapt to meet those consumers needs.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by taustin

Common sense may dicatate that, but reality disagrees. At most, 10% of the cost of producing a book goes to putting ink on paper (less on more popular books).

We've had this before: printing is only part of it, warehousing, shelf space, transportation and dealing with returns and the associated personal cost isn't cheap. Why are ebooks so expensive? Because they ask what they think the market will bear; the cost of production, whatever that means for the end price, is significantly lower.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by Piper_

Plus, sales should be increasing dramatically, to stay in proportion to sales of devices, which are selling like hotcakes, and the reports I've seen show that the #1 reason or one of the top 3 reasons people gave for buying an ereader was the cheaper cost of ebooks vs paper.

Personally, I'll gladly pay the premium for new releases, but I don't see how publishers can expect people not to complain when there are so many situations like this:

George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 4-Book Boxed Set:

Kindle Edition $35.99
Paperback $19.77

You can thank the agency price-fixing agreement...err...model...for that.

Paperbacks are still a relatively free market - the standard product producer / seller & price competition between sellers model.

Ebooks are on the agencies-agree-to-the-same-pricing-scheme plan.

The result is the price you see above.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by taustin

Common sense may dicatate that, but reality disagrees. At most, 10% of the cost of producing a book goes to putting ink on paper (less on more popular books).

Yes, and over 50% of the cover price goes to distributors and wholesalers. Whereas with ebooks only 30% of the sale price goes to Amazon or whoever else sells it. Which means that if the intention is to make the same amount of profit on both realbook and ebook, then ebooks would be priced about 30% lower than realbooks. It would also be unfair to include the cost of proofreading in ebook prices, since we all know that they don't bother fixing the mistakes that they find in the proofs for the print version.

[shanghaichica]

Maybe they should just give them away for free.

[DMB]

In the UK ebooks are subject to tax (VAT) and print books are exempt. Really unfair and it does affect prices.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by taustin

Common sense may dicatate that, but reality disagrees. At most, 10% of the cost of producing a book goes to putting ink on paper (less on more popular books).

The problem is that publishers have spent the last 100 years trying to persuade us otherwise.
For many, many years the publishing model was to publish expensive hardcover and sell it to all those that couldn't wait. Then when they ran out of customers willing to cough up $39, they printed Trade Paperback format to try to milk the customers that were still waiting. Finally, Mass Market Paperback was printed and sold at $7.99. In the meanwhile lots of people went to second-hand bookstore (were you can't take your e-book after you finish) but that is another story ...

Publishers never *ever* told us that the production price difference (actual paper and binding) between the hardcover ($39) and MMPB ($7.90) was less than 1 dollar.

Only now, when they are trying to justify high prices of bunch of ones and zeroes they tell us that the majority of price is in authors royalty, editing, typesetting, cover illustration, marketing, ...

Dear paper publishers, trying to gouge us on e-books, I wish you Many Happy Returns ;-)

[astra]

[outlander78]

Hmmmm ... General's Daughter price has dropped from $9.99 a few months ago. I wonder what drove that decision?