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#31 | ||
Wizard
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Device: Nook
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So the above example of a $5 paper book that sells for $4 as an ebook isn't actually realistic, unless you are willing to accept lower quality. As in, less editing, very little proofreading, and amateurish layout. All of which have suffered greatly in recent decades anyway. $4.50 would be more realistic, perhaps, but for the average book, the difference will be minimal. Quote:
Unfortunately, there is an unrealistic, unworkable expectation that eventually, when things settle out, ebooks will be priced at less than paperback books are now. And it just won't work, unless we accept significantly lower quality. Ebooks will be, eventually, the death of hard backs (except for bestsellers, perhaps). Hard backs sell for quit a bit more, and profits are based on a percentage of the retail price, not a fixed amount. So hard backs are significantly more profitable per book than paperbacks. When publishers eventually realize they won't be able to sustain a business model where the first releast of a book (hard backs) sells for several times as much as the eventual paperbacks, they will have no choice but to raise the mass market price (which will be for the ebook). People will tolerate hard backs being a lot more than paperbacks because they are a different physical products, with obvious advantages. But any difference between the ebook you buy on the day of its release and a year later will be improvements on the later release as typos are fixed and such. Eventually, it will setting in at a price probably somewhat higher than current paperback prices are, but that will be from the day of release. Alternately, publishers will simply do even less editing, proofreading, etc., and the quality of books will continue to decline even more than it already has. Personally, I'd rather pay hard cover prices for ebooks than stop reading because books suck so much. |
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#32 |
Wizard
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Device: Nook
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The day you can produce that AI based program you will, literally, go down in history as the smartest programmer who has ever lived. Many have tried, billions have been spent working on such technology, and we still end up with "There are eels in my hovercraft."
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#33 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Karma: 128354696
Join Date: May 2009
Location: 26 kly from Sgr A*
Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000
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2- Note that I didn't say *exclusive* retailing; Harlequin maintains their storefront in parallel to their sales via Kindle, Nook, etc. 3- Also, online retailing allows for aggregation through portals. (Tiger Direct, J&R, and dozens of other online retailers sell direct from *their* websites in parallel to sales thrugh Amazon, Buy.com, eBay, etc). If every single publisher did their own ebook retailing, they could sign up with any portal they chose to serve as a front end. And at that point the Agency Model wouldn't be just price-fixing but a real business model. One added virtue of this approach is that indie bookstores, the oh-so-beloved dying breed, could set up retail portals to aggregate the publishers' content as they saw fit; an indie shop specializing in SF (like the long-gone Moonstone Bookcellars in Washington, DC) could front for Tor, Orbit, Baen, Smashwords, or whatever.) The real problem is that, in the face of massive disruption of their business model, instead of looking at the necessary major revamp of their business model, publishers keep looking for simplistic low-effort magic bullets. The least they can do is the most the will do. That just won't do. Oh, as to epub fragmentation: that is the *one* thing nobody can blame on Amazon. Who to blame is a whole different topic for the GENERAL DISCUSSION forum, I think. ![]() |
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#34 | |
Wizard
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Device: Ipad, IPhone
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#35 | |
Wizard
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Device: Kindle Paperwhite
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#36 |
Wizard
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Location: The Heart of Texas
Device: Boox Note2, AuraHD, PDA,
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I believe there is a history of "Creative" Accounting wherever "Intellectual Property" or
"Talent" is concerned, and it is not a pretty history. Luck; Ken |
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#37 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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There is another problem that makes the agency publishers greedy b@st@rds. Why is it they allow sales/discounts on pBooks, but eBooks have to be a fixed price. No sales. No discounts. No club membership. You can do all these things with pBooks. But eBooks, heck no. That's a big part of the problem.
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#38 | |
Are you gonna eat that?
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Location: Phillipsburg, NJ
Device: Kindle 3, Nook STG
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i think its a combo of both. not only are they paying outrageous prices but what they bought can only be used on the one device. its publishers giving both middle fingers to the consumer. i could live with one or the other but both is just going too far imo. |
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#39 | |
Resident Curmudgeon
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Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
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#40 | |
Is that a sandwich?
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Device: Nook Glowlight Plus
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Mr Stross doesn't like Amazon but you have to admit they make it easy to find and purchase your ebook. With a few exceptions they have everything. |
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#41 | |
Is that a sandwich?
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Device: Nook Glowlight Plus
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<sigh> Why does the entire industry (retailer/publisher/customer) make things so complicated? |
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#42 | |
Wizard
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Device: Nook
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Quote:
(As a side note, his numbers are also consistent with my own personal experiencce - 30+ years - in retail. The general rule of thumb is that a manufacturer that wants to stay in business needs to figure out what it costs to produce their product, and give it an MSRP - manufacturer's suggested retail price - of six times that. The exact multiplier varies by industry, lower if the goods are quite expensive, higher for cheaper goods. I've been involved in game publishing, and 10:1 is a bit low there, where print runs are so much smaller, so it seems *entirely* reasonable to me.) |
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#43 |
Grand Master of Flowers
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Location: Naptown
Device: Kindle PW, Kindle 3 (aka Keyboard), iPhone, iPad 3 (not for reading)
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This. Disintermediation just won't work on a large scale because it would be hugely inconvenient to consumers. It works for Harlequin because the have a well developed market presence: when I was a kid in the 70's, even I knew that my grandmother read "Harlequin Romances," not just romances. And it works for Baen, with their focus on military sci-fi. But, yeah, it won't work a company like HC, with 80,000 new titles every year. I think one of the big six recently closed their online e-book sales presence due to lack of consumer interest.
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#44 | |
Guru
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Location: St. Louis
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http://kriswrites.com/category/on-writing/ |
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#45 | ||
Interested Bystander
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Device: Note 4, Kobo One
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And this analysis ignores, as they all seem to do, that you have to pay to print and ship all the copies, many of which will end up being destroyed rather than sold. So the costs should be apportioned over just the copies that actually sell, to get your per-unit costs. |
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