The Virtue of High Priced Books

[leebase]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Anyone who thinks they are going to get rich from writing fiction is deluding themself, they would be lucky to make as much as they could get flipping burgers. The main incentive to write is a desire to write, maybe with the hope of peer recognition. Any money you might make from it is just a bonus.

I'm sure there are more than a few authors who would beg to differ.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Giggly is right about a lot of things — whether you put a price tag on your book or not, there will be a lot of people who read it for free. Just like there always has been. So a way of collecting money from some of those free reads would be worth coming up with. But I don't think his idea would work, for the same reason that voluntary donations don't work.

Exactly. If you want to encourage an activity, pay for it. The more financial rewards there are for any activity, the more of that activity will occur.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Something like his idea, with payments being made automatically as soon as the reader reaches the last page, maybe. Or something like the UK library scheme where you get a small payment each time it is downloaded, paid through advertising revenue on the download site. But I can't really see any of the big publishers allowing anything like that.

It really doesn't matter what form the compensation comes from. Advertising. Pay per page. Try before you buy. If the content creators can make a lot of money, they will work very hard. If no one can make much money -- then you are left with hobbyists.

Ergo, the reality that a good deal can be charged for books, and there are a good many people willing to pay those prices -- and such folks are making a good living -- is a virtue. It's good for all concerned.

If we took away copyright, and consider intellectual property to be non-existent -- then we end the profession of book writing. We'll only then have the work that hobbyists create. Have you READ the dreck that hobbyists are creating?

Lee

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I say to myself, "Why spend $14.99 on an Agency 6 title, or even $9.99, or why spend $3.99 on a Smashwords title, when I have hundreds of free ebooks to choose among?"

Because I do have a book budget, and I like supporting authors--I just want to feel I got enough value for my money. So I'll read samples at Smashwords (no sample=no sale); if I'm hooked by the end of the sample and really want to know what happens next, I buy it. If I was cringing at the bad punctuation or couldn't get into the storyline, I don't.

Which means a 10-page sample that's half table-of-contents is a lot less likely to result in a sale than a 50% sample. (WTF, authors, do you think people are cheating you if they get to read half the novel before deciding whether to buy? Are your writing skills so lousy that you think people will walk away if they've read that far?)

Originally Posted by leebase

Nope. It's NICE that we've had libraries and used books for all these centuries, but they are hardly required. It is those who actually contribute financially to the creation of content that enable the creation of content. Billy is not served in ANY way by harming or devaluing the creation of books.

What "devaluing the creation of books?" I don't think anyone's saying authors should work for free. A lot of us are saying that if the goal is "earn $50k for the year I spent writing this book," that may be easier to do by selling 14k ebooks at $5 than 7k at $10. And it's possible that'll be easier to do by selling 28k books at $3. We are also saying it'll be much harder to make that $50k by selling 10,000 hardcovers at $30.

I can't afford Mercedez Benz's, but it's a good thing that SOME folks can. If you lowered the prices of luxury cars to the point I could and would choose to buy them you'd eliminate all reason that such things would be created in the first place.

Ebooks are luxury items like Mercedes Benzes?

Right now, ebooks are a luxury/technogeek item. That's shifting; people want them to be common academic items and casual leisure entertainment. When the cost of readers drops below $100 (we're on that edge right now), they shift from "exotic expensive content delivery system" to "the text version of a Walkman"--and cheap & free ebooks are going to be the majority of what gets loaded onto those readers.

And like music, there's not going to be any way to track "did this person pay for the book he's reading today?"

And the reality is we are nowhere close to the time when actual books and used books and libraries have ceased to exist.

No, we're not. But we're close to the time when used MMPBs are harder to find locally than to buy for $4 each (one penny + shipping) from Amazon. Which drastically changes the amount & types of information that are widely available.

Society will not benefit by making information free. Patents and copywright laws are the foundation of Western civilizations success and prosperity. In the digital age there HAS to be Intellectual Property that can be enforced or we will severely halt the march of progress. No one will spend the time and effort to create works that cannot be protected.

I'm not saying copyright should be abolished--I just want it shortened to as little as possible that works as an incentive for wide distribution, and for the focus of it to go back to commercial exploitation, not casual sharing.

Copyright infringement penalties are huge because they were designed to go after corporations, not individuals. If they're going to be focused at individuals, the whole legal structure has to be reconsidered: what's a "public performance?" Does it include six guys in a bar singing a pop song to a girl to flirt with her? Can they be sued for infringement?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by leebase

Ergo, the reality that a good deal can be charged for books, and there are a good many people willing to pay those prices -- and such folks are making a good living -- is a virtue. It's good for all concerned.

The expensive books I've seen tend to be limited to about 500 copies. So even if they are getting 50% of the list price (which is very unlikely) they would only be making about $10,000 per book.

Originally Posted by leebase

If we took away copyright, and consider intellectual property to be non-existent -- then we end the profession of book writing. We'll only then have the work that hobbyists create. Have you READ the dreck that hobbyists are creating?

That's because they are not good writers, not because they don't write for a living. There are lots of good writers who treat it as a hobby and are happy with what little they make from it. There are also bad writers who do make a living from their writing, by writing for whatever is the latest craze.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by elcreative

And here we go with a mix up over what's being talked about... if you read what most people are posting, they are actually talking about fiction not non-fiction. I'll agree you can learn things from fiction but it does not equal knowledge and it is not essential...

It does equal cultural mores, philosophy, ethics, and how to cope with disasters and strong emotions. I recently blogged about the value of fiction books:

I bought Stranger in a Strange Land at a library clearance sale for 50 cents; it shaped how I thought of religion and relationships. I picked up I Never Promised You A Rose Garden at Goodwill for less than a dollar; it taught me a love of language and that actions and motives don't always match well. I borrowed Daughter of the Bright Moon from a friend; I fell in love with kickass female characters and started playing with divination tools. The Illuminatus! trilogy was half-cover-price in the used book section of the local comic store; I found the joy in seeing conspiracies everywhere, even though how true they are has nothing to with how plausible they are. (Also, it started me on a five-year quest for the Principia. But that counts as nonfic, and I'm talking about novels.) I read mom's copy of Scruples, which I'm sure would've appalled her, and learned that giving head is one of the most empowering acts a woman can commit. And I may not be ready, even yet, to discuss what Flowers for Algernon means to me. (Pay for it? Are you kidding? I'm sure they made literature collections for schoolkids in the 70's that didn't have it, but I don't remember any.)

We learn facts from nonfiction. We learn how to live from fiction, from the stories and legends we grow up with. The idea that "people don't need access to good fiction" is ridiculous.

No *particular* bit of fiction may be essential to anyone's education, but that's not the same as "it's fine if modern fiction is priced out of range of the 40% of readers with the lowest incomes."

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I don't understand this stuff, how do you say that one book felt like 6.99 but this other one only seemed about 2.50? It's very subjective right? Are you basing this on personal historical reading data?

Now that I log my books on goodreads, I rate and review them when I am finished. It upsets me to pay more than $2.99 for a one or two star book. But a one star book is just a purely awful book, and the only value for the money is the pleasure of savaging it in a review. A two star is a book that is awful but not awful enough to savage, there is no redeeming quality here for the money, the best that can be said is that maybe I got it for free on promotion or something. But for $2.99 or under I just don't feel as ripped off. It sometimes upsets me to pay $9.99 or more for a three star book too, especially if it's on the low end of three stars in quality. 3 stars should have mmpb or lower price.

For books I haven't read yet, I think "how much do I want this book?" Imagine me standing in B&N browsing.

I MUST HAVE IT (autobuy authors' work or something that seems irresistible-- I will buy it no matter the price.

I'd like to read it. -- I will buy it IF I think I can spare the money. Or maybe if I read the first line and am interested as opposed to enchanted, I say Hm.

Hm. Not sure. Will it ever show up at the library? Probably? Maybe I'll put it on hold there or see if a friend buys it and I can borrow it. Or maybe I'll just pick it up if I see it there. Is it available in ebook? this is a hardback at $20 and the ebook will probably be $9.99 so I'll buy it in e.

Oh, gosh I kind of want to read this but it's a romance(/mystery/whatever) and most romances are $7.99 mmpbs and this one is a $14.99 trade...how much is the ebook? $9.99? Maybe if I wait the price will go down. Put it on the wish list and wait. Check the library.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

What "devaluing the creation of books?" I don't think anyone's saying authors should work for free.

Sure we do. If information is free, then authors would have to work for free.

And we have PLENTY of folks saying ebooks are priced too high. They fail to see the virtue that is inherent when a product can be sold for rich rewards. Most post was to highlight this virtue. I see ebooks priced higher than I wish to pay for them. I don't consider that to be a bad thing.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

A lot of us are saying that if the goal is "earn $50k for the year I spent writing this book," that may be easier to do by selling 14k ebooks at $5 than 7k at $10. And it's possible that'll be easier to do by selling 28k books at $3. We are also saying it'll be much harder to make that $50k by selling 10,000 hardcovers at $30.

I don't think many people have that in mind at all. It's most assuredly "I want stuff for cheap". And, hey, that's part of our wonderful system as well. The buyer desires to get more for less. The producer desires to get more for their work. The market is a wonderful thing.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Ebooks are luxury items like Mercedes Benzes?

Are you suggesting they are a need like bread and milk?

Who wouldn't want to have a Mercedez Benz or other luxury car? They are priced out of my reach. I certainly don't get upset about their prices. I just buy cheaper cars.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

cheap & free ebooks are going to be the majority of what gets loaded onto those readers.

It will be a SAD thing if ebooks take away the money there is to be made in authoring books (not just authoring, but the whole value chain). If there becomes little money to be made via ebooks, and ebooks dominate all books, then book makers will look elsewhere for their livelihoods.

I'm glad Smashwords exist -- we are all richer that there is a place like Smashwords. If all "bookdom" became like Smashwords, we'd ALL be poorer for it.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

And like music, there's not going to be any way to track "did this person pay for the book he's reading today?"

Sure there will. DRM hopefully will improve, but it's not going away. And if piracy becomes the norm, then we arrive at Smashwords, a terrible place to be THE place that bookdom devolves to.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'm not saying copyright should be abolished--I just want it shortened to as little as possible that works as an incentive for wide distribution, and for the focus of it to go back to commercial exploitation, not casual sharing.

I don't have any disagreement with you on that regard. Copyright can be adjusted, fixed. But without copyright we wouldn't have professional authors.

Lee

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by elcreative

And here we go with a mix up over what's being talked about... if you read what most people are posting, they are actually talking about fiction not non-fiction. I'll agree you can learn things from fiction but it does not equal knowledge and it is not essential.

Good fiction provides more than entertainment; it contributes to perspective, emotional maturity and intellectual growth. Fluff fiction is no worse than fluff non-fiction read as entertainment: movie star biographies, stories about race horses, political mud-flinging books, true crime etc. The education from fiction resides at a deeper level, since the human experience is more than raw facts. Read nothing but non-fiction and you'll end up knowing more than you understand. imo.

[covingtoncat73]

Actually, I just bought some dead tree books on Amazon. It is true that these are books I wanted in my physical collection and I posted a thread about what format I would buy them in a few days back. I found them all in used hardcover from a penny to $1.99. Most were a penny. WITH shipping, they were $22 and for this I got 5 hardcover books, condition "good." I am giving some other books to my brother to make room.

Anyway, since I intended to add those to my dtBook collection, they are not the best example. I discovered this Kathrynne Valente, whose work I have not read yet but seems the kind of thing I would be into. Her eBooks are $10 or more and there are no cheap, used hardcovers as of yet. I'll try some of her stuff from the library but, if her eBooks had bee .99, I'd have snapped up all of them. If they had been $5, I'd have bought at least one and she would've gotten money from me. Anyway, I sure do love it when I can find a used hardcover for $1 on Amazon! :?)

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

For example, if the only version out is a HardCover for $14.99 that should be the price of the ebook. Once a paperback is out for $9.99 that should be the ebook price. Once the paperback is priced at $7.99 that should be the ebook price. Well... you get the idea.

And when the DTB is out of print, the ebook should be priced around half of the lowest priced DTB to compete with the used market? I don't see that ever happening with the A6 publishers, because they view backlist (and worse, discounted backlist) as direct competition with new releases. It might actually be a better deal for many authors if the publishers created a new pricing tier to compete with the used book market if it can be shown that such a move would extend the sales window sufficiently to make up for the loss in revenue from the final price drop. I don't see the A6 publishers ever experimenting with it though because I think they have the mindset that any discounting cheapens the brand and cannibalizes the new book market.

[crich70]

I think there is one positive to pbooks being so high. It makes the lower priced ebooks seem more attractive to the buyer. Of course it does have the downside of drawing people who can't afford the high priced pbooks to the pirate ebook versions to a degree too. I mean if you can't afford the high priced pbook and there isn't an official ebook version of a given title people are more likely to search out the pirate ebook versions.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by leebase

I don't have any disagreement with you on that regard. Copyright can be adjusted, fixed. But without copyright we wouldn't have professional authors.

We had professional authors before copyright and we will have them when copyright is abolished.

The internet tends to level things, doing what it's designed to do.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

We had professional authors before copyright and we will have them when copyright is abolished.

No, we didn't.

Writers were either independently wealthy or had patrons who gave them sinecures. No one was able to make a living as a writer until the copyright act was passed.

John Milton (who lived before the copyright act) made 5 pounds from the first edition of "Paradise Lost."

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

No, we didn't.

Writers were either independently wealthy or had patrons who gave them sinecures. No one was able to make a living as a writer until the copyright act was passed.

John Milton (who lived before the copyright act) made 5 pounds from the first edition of "Paradise Lost."

Interestingly Milton was in favor of abolishing copyright, from my reading of aeropagitica. Where does this 5 pounds figure come from? Would that have been enough to feed Milton for a few months? How long did it take him to write Paradise lost?

Maybe we don't need professional writers then? Copyright is an experiment, it is time to evaluate the data, and change course if needed.

[forcheville]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

John Milton (who lived before the copyright act) made 5 pounds from the first edition of "Paradise Lost."

Hmm. If Milton had confronted the possibility of making 5000 pounds from a popular copyright-protected epic poem, he might, given a certain level of venality, have written a crowd-pleasing one about King Arthur.

I'm glad he didn't.

[Leyor]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

No, we didn't.

Writers were either independently wealthy or had patrons who gave them sinecures. No one was able to make a living as a writer until the copyright act was passed.

John Milton (who lived before the copyright act) made 5 pounds from the first edition of "Paradise Lost."

You're attempting to rewrite history here. Besides that the source of the actual income is irrelevant, if we're defining who could actually live off writing, it's just plain factually inaccurate.

After the introduction of paper presses, which must be seen as the milestone for making books commercially available to the public. Many authors, publishers etc. made a good living for several hundreds of years.

It's actually an interesting fact that with the introduction of Copyright in the UK in 1710. The UK compared to Germany who did NOT introduce copyright for another 127 years, experienced an increase in price, a reduction of actual works being made, and a steep reduction of the actual works reaching the public.

Germany with no copyright laws flourished however, outputting 10 times more original works pr. year. As for the individual authors earnings. Sigismund Hermbstädt, an unknown chemistry and pharmacy professor in Berlin, earned more royalties for his "Principles of Leather Tanning" published in 1806 than British author Mary Shelley did for her horror novel "Frankenstein," which is still famous today.

Whats interesting is that they had to deal with MANY of the problems copyright defenders worry about today, like others copying their work and selling it for a profit. They had to find ways around this by actually developing smarter business models, creating fancy editions for their wealthy customers and mass produce cheap paperbacks for the common workers.

Here's an interesting article about the situation for those actually wanting to read more about it:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...710976,00.html

In closing I'd like to say that:

There's no virtue to high priced books
On the contrary, in a historical content, high priced book hurts everyone except the publishers. EVEN the authors.