C|Net: Why e-books cost so much

[Lastblade]

I am surprised they didn't tell us that production cost is in fact negative, subsidizing the price so ebook will obviously cost more than real books.

[Daithi]

[DELETED]

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by DJHARKAVY

The poster that you quote specified PRODUCTION costs.

There are other costs to the book, but once you have the edited manuscript in digital form, and cover art in digital form, the cost of producing the ebook is almost zero.

Editing is part of the production process.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Maybe for you, but not for me.

Edited in order to not outing simian secrets, monkeys too are entitled to a private sphere

[Keroberos]

As the exponential growth of e-books has slowed, some publishers are even whispering their hopes that perhaps the rate of e-book adoption will slow further and print will be viable well into the future.

Head--meet sand. Print is essentially dieing except as a niche market--it doesn't matter if it happens in five years, ten years, or even twenty years, it will happen. The publishers that understand this, and work towards innovating in their market space are the only ones that are going to survive this change.

[ADDED THOUGHT]Also the articles author either does not understand, or is willfully misrepresenting how wholesale pricing works. This,

Wholesale model e-book:
Publisher: $12.50 (roughly 50 percent of $24.99 hardcover retail price)
Amazon: - $2.50 (selling at $9.99)

is incorrect. Wholesale price is based on the number of units purchased. This is how it should look,

Wholesale model e-book:
Publisher: $7.50-$12.50 (Based on units purchased: more units=lower wholesale price), (roughly 30-50 percent of $24.99 hardcover retail price)
Amazon: - $2.50 to + $2.49 (depending on wholesale price), (selling at $9.99)

This is how larger retailers can undercut the prices of smaller retailers (doesn't matter if it's electronic or physical).

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Monkey was perhaps Frathouse Beer Chuggin Champion in the simian class when just a tiny monkey?

Shhhhh... not so loud. I don't want that info getting out.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

...and thereafter enjoy four convenient sized bottles of flat soda.

Only if you don't properly seal up the smaller bottles.

Originally Posted by DJHARKAVY

The poster that you quote specified PRODUCTION costs.

There are other costs to the book, but once you have the edited manuscript in digital form, and cover art in digital form, the cost of producing the ebook is almost zero.

There are some per unit costs for ebook production, related to the DRM, however if I remember correctly, that cost is covered by the retailer and not the publisher, so it could be argued as some what of a moot point, depending on the angle you're talking about. From the publishers stand point, there is no per unit cost, only the fixed costs. All the other costs are covered by the retailer, such as the credit card fees, DRM licensing, server costs, etc. Unfortunately though, Agency pricing doesn't really effectively address those costs.

[laughingdragons]

The cost of the cover art shouldn't even be included in the cost for a lot of ebooks. Half the time or more I get a generic cover.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by laughingdragons

The cost of the cover art shouldn't even be included in the cost for a lot of ebooks. Half the time or more I get a generic cover.

Yeah. I usually don't give a blip when it's a library loan, but if I've just paid $$ and the thing is DRM, at least make it look as adverftised.

[eping]

I think this is a temporary phenomenon.
Currently, the fixed/base cost of eBook is more than paper book. They need digitalization, format conversion. Such work is costly for fewer worker can do it.
There is still no good software in epublishing field as Ms Word or Page Maker/indesign in paper publishing to do the work. Some of the work are now performed by human labour.

But this cost can be lowered by the improvement of the technology, such as ePublishing software and the whole industry system.

Some new software like Sigil and ePub Maker can accelerate their speed and lower their cost greatly, but still not noticed by these major publishers.

[eping]

Btw, there are something make eBook worthy, at least for me,
1 I have no place to store paper books.
2 I can travel with many ebooks and read whenever I want.
3 I can search some keywords.
4 I can change fonts to what I like.

These advantages would be more obvious along with the advance of eReader tech, such as new e-ink device could be developed into something like floppy plastic pad some day in the future.

[bgalbrecht]

When the publishers are claiming that they're making less money per book with the ebook edition, I wonder how true that is. It's probably true with hardcovers, since I think it's pretty accurate that the wholesale price of hardcovers is about half MSRP, and the ebook revenue is 70% of the hardcover MSRP when there's only a hardcover edition. At that time the ebook is usually a couple dollars less than the discounted hardcover, so they're probably getting about a dollar or two less per ebook. I'm not sure whether the retailers get 50% off the mass market paperback, but if they do, that means they're getting 20% more for the ebook than they would for the paperback. So, if most buyers are price conscious, and weren't hardcover buyers in the first place (I'm not), and if the total books sold is roughly the same, the publishers are probably only seeing income/revenue down if most of the ebook buyers switched from hardcover to ebook (and even then, maybe not much), but they're probably not seeing a decrease if most of the ebook buyers switched from buying paperbacks.

On the other hand, with the increased competition from the low cost independents and all the backlist from published authors, they might be having a tougher time selling new books.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Well, whenever I buy an airline ticket, I get charged an extra e-Ticket fee.
Yes, they are charging me more for not having to print and send me an actual ticket. So there is clear precedent

That's nothing new. In the ancient world (around the 1st century A.D.) if you lived under Roman rule one of the taxes you paid Rome was a tax for existing in order to be taxed. So if I were the tax collector back then and you the 'citizen' under Roman rule I could tax you just for being there to be counted and taxed in the 1st place.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by Keroberos

[ADDED THOUGHT]Also the articles author either does not understand, or is willfully misrepresenting how wholesale pricing works. This,is incorrect. Wholesale price is based on the number of units purchased. This is how it should look,This is how larger retailers can undercut the prices of smaller retailers (doesn't matter if it's electronic or physical).

Yea, that struck me too as a and
The wholesale/agency number-comparisons they used were largely apples/oranges. I wasn't sure if it was sloppiness on the part of the reporter or a lame attempt at moving the pea. I didn't care enough to consider it carefully.

I don't really care how they price them. There are enough public domain five-star books out there that I can read until I'm 100 years dead and I'll still not come close to running out. In the rare event that a publisher entices me to actually buy a book, he deserves as much as I'm willing to pay; he must surely have been a marketing genius!

[slex]

In Russia e-books are much cheaper than paper books (2 or 3 times). Bulgarian websites that offer e-books legally do so 20-25% cheaper than the paper book.