Why are some e-books more expensive then their physical version?

[TallMomof2]

I'm still waiting for the publishers to drop ebook prices to match MMPB prices. As it stands, if I want a book with DRM I get it from the library (which eliminates a couple of the big publishers, MacMillan is one) or not at all.

[Worldwalker]

The complete works of William Shakespeare are smaller than some pictures I've come across on badly-built websites. In epub, they're a hair over 2 MB.

Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is 140k. That's about the size of a picture of my cat.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by fishface

the ebook version was considerably lower, you'd have your own customers moving away from the print version to the ebook version resulting in potentially a net loss of profit.

No. They can sell a cheaper eBook than a paper book, but still have the SAME profit.

[stargazertony]

Originally Posted by *reg*

I think there would be a lot of people like me, who upon seeing the ebook is more expensive than the paperback, don't buy either - out of some sort of principle (and wait until the price drops), but rather go to the next book on their 'to buy' list. So the publishers end up with no money at all from me. Or am I odd, and people still do buy them even though they are more expensive?

This is what I do. There is no book that I need to buy. There is no publisher I need to buy from. In addition, since agency and the rise of the price of e-books from publishers, I have searched for and found many great books from "indies" and others that are really inexpensive or even free. I have even started to reread the classics, and most of them are free. In addition, if you pay attention, there are many free books you can get from say, Amazon, B&N, and others that can just be downloaded. I already have enough books in my library to keep me going for years.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

No. They can sell a cheaper eBook than a paper book, but still have the SAME profit.

Or greater.

Consider your typical genre paperback. The author gets no more than 50 cents in royalties per book sold during the brief time (usually about 90 days) that book is on the bookstore shelves. And most of the time, once that first printing is sold out or remaindered, there is never another. If that same author publishes that same book as an ebook through Smashwords, he can sell it for just $1 and still make more per book sold. And it's never out of print.

The same, with different numbers, applies to publishers. They can make more profit on an ebook priced at a fraction the price of a pbook. They're just short-sighted ("We have to protect our (lower-profit) hardcover sales!") and/or simply greedy.

[MartinParish]

It's absolutely absurd to charge MORE for an ebook than for a printed book, or even the same price, given that no paper and printing costs are involved. But if you really want the book, who else can you buy it from? It's greed, no doubt about it, but there's no one to stop them

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by *reg*

I'm quite new to this whole e-reader/e-book thing. Anyway was just browsing some websites and looking at possible purchases, and along the way I quite often noticed that sometimes the e-books would be a couple of dollars more than the paperback version.

How the jeepers does that work? There is no printing, paper, transport and so on involved with an e-book, so how can it be more expensive.

Can someone please explain what I am missing?

As a result I didn't purchase the e-book or the paperback version.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes. The major publishers have what's called an "agency agreement" with the bookstores, which means that the stores are acting as their agents, rather than as independent retailers. That means that the publishers dictate the prices.

What you will generally find is that, as time passes, the price of a particular book will fall. "Back catalog" books will normally be a lot cheaper than new releases.

Hah! You guys don't know how lucky you are. In France, the selling price of paper books is fixed by the editor, by law. The price is printed on the cover, and it never goes down. However, after the first edition (priced between 12 and 20 euros usually), if the book is successful enough there will be a cheap paperback edition at 6-7 euros. But this paperback is not published by the same company, and so far the e-books we have available in France are published by the original publisher, at the original price. I have seen a few books that are several years old, sold in electronic version at almost 3 times the price of the paperback!

[saoir]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Hah! You guys don't know how lucky you are. In France, the selling price of paper books is fixed by the editor, by law. The price is printed on the cover, and it never goes down. However, after the first edition (priced between 12 and 20 euros usually), if the book is successful enough there will be a cheap paperback edition at 6-7 euros. But this paperback is not published by the same company, and so far the e-books we have available in France are published by the original publisher, at the original price. I have seen a few books that are several years old, sold in electronic version at almost 3 times the price of the paperback!

This is a completely astonishing and shocking thing. It is all the more astonishing when one realises that the book world is on the edge of a precipice and these publishing companies who have become dependent on this kind of super-profit, and who are trying to hold back the tide, have absolutely no hope of surviving the change.
And if the French Gov think they can hold back the tide in some idiotic effort to 'save and protect the French culture from Americanisation' then it is even more deluded than usual.
Illegal copies are exploding on the internet. The ridiculous amounts of control over pricing that some countries have allowed the publishers cannot survive the changes that are happening and these publishers have no excuses. They have seen the writing on the wall for years now and they deserve absolutely no sympathy.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by saoir

And if the French Gov think they can hold back the tide in some idiotic effort to 'save and protect the French culture from Americanisation' then it is even more deluded than usual.

As far as I understand, the idea was to protect small bookshops who would not be able to compete with large outlets, pricewise. But I may be wrong, and maybe there is some hidden motive of protecting the French culture. Most intellectuals and politicians seem to support this policy, but then, most French intellectuals and politicians seem to be afraid of any kind of freedom. We are a nation of irresponsible children, and now it sometimes looks like we have elected a child as our president. But I digress.

I used to be very much opposed to this policy, but now I honestly don't know. I wouldn't like the French publishers to become too much like American ones. Except that they probably already are... I don't like the idea of culture as a mass-market product, at the cost of quality. However, I doubt that protecting the publishers' margins has much influence on that. Or on protecting small bookshops...

[amoroso]

Originally Posted by saoir

It is all the more astonishing when one realises that the book world is on the edge of a precipice and these publishing companies who have become dependent on this kind of super-profit, and who are trying to hold back the tide, have absolutely no hope of surviving the change.

See: Publishers’ strategic decision to resist ebooks left them screwed.

[amoroso]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I used to be very much opposed to this policy, but now I honestly don't know. I wouldn't like the French publishers to become too much like American ones.

As an Italian, I'd gladly take the American business attitude for my country's publishers, and leave the culture thing to authors.

[J. Strnad]

Books and music are a couple of the greatest values in the world. Given the number of times I listen to a song I love, $1.29 is cheap. I'm not a fast reader and it takes me several hours to read a book, usually in small bits of time over days and even weeks. For this much entertainment on demand, $5-10 is a bargain.

There is so much content out there...so many struggling musicians, so many wannabe authors...that it becomes devalued monetarily. That's a problem for the creators (like me), but it's a godsend to consumers.

Big publishers have maintained high prices because they controlled the supply. They still control the supply on bestsellers. But the dam is leaking more and more every day and people are finding alternatives to their high-priced offerings. The bestsellers that everyone must have are going to dwindle in number while most reading takes place around the edges of the mainstream market.

[bitemeok]

Also consider that after a book has been out for a while it's easy to find used copies for sale, often (from Amazon) you can get a book for $4 (shipping included). As someone who sells books on Amazon I've often bought a book used from one vendor, read it, and then sold it on Amazon for more than I paid for it. But it's not even legal (as far as I know) to resell you e-books. Large publishing houses, like large music companies, have a hard time adjusting to new technology and end up aleinating their customer base as a result.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

As far as I understand, the idea was to protect small bookshops who would not be able to compete with large outlets, pricewise.

Yes, this is what Stephen King claimed he was trying to do when he windowed the ebook for Under the Dome. Then a price war broke out between Walmart, Target and Amazon.

[Sandra Edwards]

The publishers aren't exactly happy about the ebook revolution either. They're afraid of anything they can't control.

Sandy