Should you buy an e-Book?

[gastan]

Originally Posted by clintbradford

Is there blame to be passed? Is the author greedy? His distributors? The people who converted from print to eBook? The book distributors? The book stores?

Typesetting has been done by computer for at least the last 25 years. There was no "conversion" from print to eBook.

Once an electronic file of the book is created (for whatever purpose --- submission, editing, typesetting, etc.) it is ridiculously easy to convert to any format you want and to produce an eBook in any format you want.

This leaves three of your suspects as possibilities for greed. Who gets the largest part of the pie? I have my own suspicions (and it ain't, I think, the author).

[taming]

Originally Posted by kevinp

The latest James Patterson ebook is more expensive than the hardcover on both Amazon and B&N. This is ridiculous!!!

The Ebook is cheaper on Kobo than on either Amazon.ca or Chapters-Indigo (big Canadian seller--parent [48% owner]of Kobo Books).

[Monkfishy]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

Articles like that tend to forget all about the large amount of public domain ebooks that are available at manybooks.net or Google.

The article did mention the Gutenberg.org site.

Originally Posted by RyanMWilliams

Many of the ebooks coming out from the 'big six' publishers are expensive, as much or more than the paperbacks. Part of that is release schedule, if the ebooks are coming out at the same time as the hardcover they don't want to set the price too low because they're worried about hardcover sales.

It makes sense that book publishers are more concerned about paper book sales than eBooks. After all, eBook readers are sold by book distributors, not publishers. I guess this is the same kind of transition the music industry went through with the availability of MP3s.

Originally Posted by RyanMWilliams

And, with many devices like Nook or Sony's, you can also check ebooks out of libraries too.

The library system here doesn't loan eBooks, and they don't have any plans to. I spoke to the Technical Director for the library system, and she said the library budget has been cut every year, and they don't have the funds to introduce any new media.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by JeremyZ

Whining here will accomplish nothing.

In the case of the eBook being more expensive, the best thing you can do is to buy the paperback. This will:

• Cost more to produce,
• while selling for less,
• allowing you to re-sell, trade, or give your hardcopy away if you decide you're done with it, or
• keep it for decades without worrying about technology advances making the book obsolete.
• If it costs more to produce and sells for less, it is going to hurt them in the wallet, and they'll eventually catch on.

That doesn't make sense. You are better off not buying anything at all - because then that paperback you are talking about they get nothing at all for, rather than rather significantly more than that. That will hurt them considerably faster.

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by JeremyZ

Whining here will accomplish nothing.
]

I disagree. Vehemently. Go look at the parents of a gaggle of 5 year olds...

[meromana]

What the publishers are doing is shooting themselves in the foot. By keeping prices so high, they hope to preserve their hard-back and paper-back sales, but instead, the effect will be to drive their own authors and any potential new authors away to either small ebook publishers or directly to self-publishing, which is no longer difficult. I believe someone already mentioned Joe Konrath as an example of a traditionally published author who ditched his NY firm to sell his own stuff on Amazon. He's been very successful at it. Before too long, others will join him, and of course, there are the legions of authors who could not get NYC to pay attention to them but write great stuff, who are also self-publishing, and all at reasonable prices.

The $20 ebook is the last gasp of a dying man...

--Maria

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

And that all depends on where you live. I find any book costing under €10 cheap, between €10 and €15 is normal. Above €15 is expensive.

Now, the exchange rate at this moment (according to google, on august 26th) is €1 = $1,26.

I'd buy if it's below €15. If I'd really, really, really want the book, I'd buy above the €15.

No. No. No. No. No. Don't you *get* it? If you state that 15 euros is your 'base acceptable price', the publishers *will* release the crap and garbage at 15 euros and ramp up rapidly for the decent-to-good stuff! That means we end up paying like 30 euros for good authors - without a signed hardcover to go with!

$9.99 is my *MAXIMUM* price I'll pay for a fiction ebook! Decent ebooks had better run around $7.99 and the garbage-to-crap had better be weighing in at around $3.99! (That's before VAT, sales tax or whatever 'rip-off' your local government steals from you. )

Derek

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Monkfishy

Wow! What are they thinking? It's obvious that eBooks are the future of publishing, and that people would buy more eBooks than paper books, if the prices were reasonable. Also, don't they realize how many books are available for free?

Great way to encourage the underground eBook piracy market, publishing industry!

What you mean to tell me you aren't stupid enough to run out & get the HC right now because you just HAVE to read it right now because it is on the shelves to buy right now!

[Monkfishy]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

What you mean to tell me you aren't stupid enough to run out & get the HC right now because you just HAVE to read it right now because it is on the shelves to buy right now!

Um… What?!

What I mean is that the only people I personally know who read eBooks get plenty of those through means they're not specific about. I happily wait for mass market paperback editions to come out for most books. However, I think meromana put it best, that the publishers are shooting themselves in the foot. You'd think that MP3 peer-to-peer sharing would have taught them something.

I still want an eBook reader, but if the eBooks on my wish list are more expensive than paperbacks, I may use it a little less than I might have.

[SameOldStory]

Everybody's has opinions on how things should work. Ad it will take a while to work itself out.


If you HAVE to have the latest big seller you will pay more for it. Me? I can wait. I have lots of books to read.

Just about everyone here buys more books now than ever before. With few exceptions most of my books are between $3 and $6.

Tell us what kind of books you like and I bet we can find enough cheep books to keep you reading for the rest of the year. And they aren’t going to all be old books either.

[Monkfishy]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

Tell us what kind of books you like and I bet we can find enough cheep books to keep you reading for the rest of the year. And they aren’t going to all be old books either.

Was this addressed to me? Like the title of the thread and article, I'm still trying to decide whether to buy an e-Book reader, and which one to buy. And yes, most of what I read is pretty current.

[Joseph Mitchell]

I really don't think there's any legitimate excuse for an ebook to cost more than a paperback when it should be substantially less expensive with all the costs of manufacturing, shipping, and warehousing eliminated. It's really just price gouging by the major publishers. There's no excuse for it.

[SameOldStory]

In that your first post was about the expense of ebooks. Yes

"One thing I hadn't realized (not having bought an eBook reader yet), is that eBooks can cost as much or more than a paperback."

If you're looking for the latest Dan Brown blockbuster that's going to happen. The publisher is paying these guys a significant amount of money. And they want to make it back.


"I always wait for books to come out in paperback, and buy them as cheaply as possible - usually the mass market edition."

If you don't, as indicated, need to buy the newest hardcover blockbuster book as soon as it's published, you win. You can probably wait to get the ebook version at the same price as the paperback book, eventually. And at sometime after that it'll be even cheaper.

But if all you want are good ebooks, of whatever type you like, you should be able to buy them at used book prices. I'm talking NEW stories by some very good authors. As I said, I spend between $3 and $6 for new books.

To make it very clear, Yes buy an ereader. If you read a lot you'll save money.

[JeremyZ]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

That doesn't make sense. You are better off not buying anything at all - because then that paperback you are talking about they get nothing at all for, rather than rather significantly more than that. That will hurt them considerably faster.

You're right, Blue Tyson. But that would require agood bit more effort. I'd have to find it in a library, or illegally online. We're all about convenience here in the e-reader world.

[J. Strnad]

You're on a website dedicated to ebook readers and asking them if you should buy an ebook reader? Would you go to an automotive website and ask, "Should I buy a car, or stick with my horse?"

Look into your local library system and see if they let you check out ebooks and what their selection is. If you find titles you want, you'll need a reader that reads the "epub" format, like Nook and Kobo and Sony.

If library check-out isn't an issue, the new Kindle seems to be a winner.

That's just IMHO, of course.

The high ebook prices are either, a) a final, desperate attempt by publishers to keep their terminally ill hardcover business afloat, or b) the new paradigm, demonstrating that people who prefer ereading will pay a premium price for e-content. Roll the bones and take your pick.