Stars fall in Amazon protest about ebook prices

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by leebase

It's refreshing to you continue to stand up for sound economics. Too few on these forums have any understanding of how things really work.

Thanks! As a freelancer, I've had plenty of exposure to pricing factors that the customer never considers. If my rates were restricted to what some guy on the Internet thinks my costs "ought" to be, I'd be out of business in 3 weeks flat.

What puzzles me at this time is that people (including myself, at times) react in a thoroughly irrational way to prices and price changes. Sometimes they will just accept a $30 surcharge tacked onto an airline ticket, other times they'll vow eternal vengeance over a $3 increase. Numerous external and irrelevant factors seem to determine what qualifies as a "fair price."

Neither traditional economics nor common sense have a place for these issues. Perhaps some of the behavioral economists have figured it out....

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

But the market is unstable. If the prices for ebooks are low now, it will be very difficult to compete later. Plus I keep thinking that the extra costs that are related to ebooks only also contain the cost of adding DRM. Sort of like saying: "I can only sell this book to you if I chain it down. You are going to have to pay for the chain." What if Amazon wants to have more expensive chains?

Amazon owns its chains. It doesn't have to pay so much for them as everyone else does.

[JSWolf]

I do feel that Amazon reviews should only be allowed by people who bought the item in question. Also if it's the case of a book, the review should say what version it is based on what the reviewer bought.

Remember the poor reviews of the Kindle based on nothing more then the way it looked before anyone actually had one? That was a case of abuse of the system for sure.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Thanks! As a freelancer, I've had plenty of exposure to pricing factors that the customer never considers. If my rates were restricted to what some guy on the Internet thinks my costs "ought" to be, I'd be out of business in 3 weeks flat.

What puzzles me at this time is that people (including myself, at times) react in a thoroughly irrational way to prices and price changes. Sometimes they will just accept a $30 surcharge tacked onto an airline ticket, other times they'll vow eternal vengeance over a $3 increase. Numerous external and irrelevant factors seem to determine what qualifies as a "fair price."

Neither traditional economics nor common sense have a place for these issues. Perhaps some of the behavioral economists have figured it out....

So does anyone actually know how much of a book's cost is the printing, the paper, the shipping, the storage, the cost to the store to stock it and so on for things related to a paper book that are not related to an eBook? I know eBooks have the cost of DRM added to them. But the storage costs are minimal, no shipping costs, no printing costs, no warehousing costs, no costs to have it on the shelf etc. These are the things we should know to know how much less an eBook actually costs to make then the pBook.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So does anyone actually know how much of a book's cost is the printing, the paper, the shipping, the storage, the cost to the store to stock it and so on for things related to a paper book that are not related to an eBook? I know eBooks have the cost of DRM added to them. But the storage costs are minimal, no shipping costs, no printing costs, no warehousing costs, no costs to have it on the shelf etc. These are the things we should know to know how much less an eBook actually costs to make then the pBook.

Slate magazine ran an article about that a few months ago that was discussed here on MobileRead. There was some disagreement as to the accuracy of their numbers, though, I believe.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I do feel that Amazon reviews should only be allowed by people who bought the item in question. Also if it's the case of a book, the review should say what version it is based on what the reviewer bought.

Remember the poor reviews of the Kindle based on nothing more then the way it looked before anyone actually had one? That was a case of abuse of the system for sure.

There are online stores that only allow ratings/reviews from people who bought *that* product from *that* store; they get a lot less reviews.

If someone bought you a book from Amazon for your birthday, should you be prevented from reviewing it? Should the buyer, who hasn't read it, be expected to forward your review?

It might be nice to have a "what version are you reviewing" checkbox--hardcover, paperback, ebook, 1st edition, 4th revision, whatever. But that's a lot of code to write for something the most people are likely to skip, or just go with whatever's on top.

Amazon has decided that *any* reviews are to be encouraged; they don't try to sort out who has a "right" to review, or what criteria a review needs to be based on. This has let them put together a huge database of ratings & comments; they trust that, on average, they accurate reflect the opinions of the majority.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It might be nice to have a "what version are you reviewing" checkbox--hardcover, paperback, ebook, 1st edition, 4th revision, whatever. But that's a lot of code to write for something the most people are likely to skip, or just go with whatever's on top.

Oh, God, yes. I was reading reviews for an ebook yesterday, and they were talking about the binding and the sound effects. Apparently Amazon had merged the reviews for the ebook, a rather nice printed edition, and the audiobook. That was really helpful. Not.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So does anyone actually know how much of a book's cost is the printing, the paper, the shipping, the storage, the cost to the store to stock it and so on for things related to a paper book that are not related to an eBook? I know eBooks have the cost of DRM added to them. But the storage costs are minimal, no shipping costs, no printing costs, no warehousing costs, no costs to have it on the shelf etc. These are the things we should know to know how much less an eBook actually costs to make then the pBook.

There isn't any way to come up with absolute answers for this, because a lot of the costs are both per-unit and variable by quantity: it costs $X per book to ship a few books, but $X/2 if they ship at least 1000 at a time. In order to sort out how much the book costs to produce per-unit, they have to decide how many units to make, and how many shipments they'll be divided into, and so on.

(And publishers never mention returns when they discuss costs of bookmaking. It's like we're supposed to pretend those books don't affect the prices of the ones that do sell.)

A print run of 25,000 has a different per-book cost from a print run of 5,000, even if they have the same paper, setup, and so on. And, of course, they don't want to discuss how much variation is in the payment-to-authors part; they average that across entire lines. They could average all the numbers across all their production lines, but doing so just gets useless numbers--of course they don't spend "fifty-five cents per book" on advertising. They spend thousands of dollars advertising the big bestsellers, and nothing advertising the midlist besides publishing a "what's new this month" catalog.

The real issue in the price statements is how much is duplicated on both sides: author advance, editing costs and advertising are calculated for ebooks as if the pbook didn't exist. They don't say how much *more* it costs to produce an ebook, added to what they're already paying to produce the hardcover; they say how much it would cost to produce one as a stand-alone product.

[Angst]

Giving a book a low rating because the ebook price is higher then the pbook price is a valid form of rating. Every consumer has the right to value a product based on it's price. If the price is too high, the ratings suffer. This method of valuation applies to everything at Amazon, not just ebooks.

Now, please excuse me. I have some ebooks on Amazon I need to rate.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Amazon owns its chains. It doesn't have to pay so much for them as everyone else does.

I thought that that might be the case. But I was talking about conspiracy theories, and I have a good imagination. I was just saying that Amazon might decide to use the extra money that comes out of not reducing the price of ebooks to develop a new DRM, maybe a more expensive one, one that would justify a higher price for ebooks.

I envision the evil mastermind hiding in the shadows looking at a screen that shows the increase in profits while being in a conference call with the publishers. And then he would say: "Gentlemen, it’s time to begin phase two".

[DJHARKAVY]

Originally Posted by Fabe

Ultimately we are paying for the value of the content, not the cost of the packaging. There is no reason what-so-ever electronic books should cost less or more than a hard or paperback edition. It comes down to what the market will bear.

There are reasons in terms of value.

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

There are dozens of publishers who focus on electronic books. Most do both print and e-book but many are ALL e-book.
[...]

These costs apply regardless of whether a book is published electronically or on paper.

And those costs are already applied when the book is published as paper and mostly don't need to be paid again when the book goes electronic.

[vaughnmr]

"Ultimately we are paying for the value of the content..."

For me, that's the whole basis for the discussion. I have to deal with drm/geo restrictions. I can't loan, gift, or sell the product, in fact the seller will not even sell it to me, he "licenses" it to me, and can take it away at any time if he so chooses. The agency cartel publishers are selling this product as though it has the same "value", but it doesn't.

[0utis]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

"Ultimately we are paying for the value of the content..."

For me, that's the whole basis for the discussion. I have to deal with drm/geo restrictions. I can't loan, gift, or sell the product, in fact the seller will not even sell it to me, he "licenses" it to me, and can take it away at any time if he so chooses. The agency cartel publishers are selling this product as though it has the same "value", but it doesn't.

Right on. This is my main complaint. Recently, I bought an ebook that was almost twice the price of the hard cover, but that's OK, it was my decision. It turns out that book is not my kind of thing, but I know someone who would appreciate it and I'd love to give it to her. Legally, I can't. This doesn't benefit the author either, he is losing a potential reader who might buy his future books.

[Russell Brooks]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I still buy ebooks if the price is the same as the paper book. I'm paying for the entertainment of reading the book, not the paper.

With print books: Ink, paper, book cover, shipping, warehouse storage, shelf placement (or in-store book pyramid) costs.

Ebooks: none of the above.

There's no excuse as to why an ebook should cost as much as a print book. They're much less costly to produce. Print books cost less than $3 to make. How much does an ebook cost to make in your opinion?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Russell Brooks

Print books cost less than $3 to make. How much does an ebook cost to make in your opinion?

It depends on how many you sell. The infrastructure needed to distribute the book and put DRM on it cost money.