Publishers still missing the point on e-book prices

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by leebase

Someone asked "why are we comparing prices to hard backs as I always bought paper backs anyway". Well, because paper backs have always been released a year or so after the hard back. The $9.99 or less paperback wasn't available for sale when the $30 hard back was released. But AMAZON was pricing brand new release ebooks at paper back prices during the high profitability window of the hard back book. It's no wonder the publishers weren't going to put up with this.

This is no different than movies. First movies come to the theater...the expensive theater. They are not offered anywhere else. You want to see Avatar when everyone else is seeing and talking about it....you have to see it at the theater.

If you wait long enough...you can pay $1 to rent Avatar at your local Redbox or see it for free on Tv.

Yet the eBook of an Agatha Christie novel written 70-80 years ago still costs $7.
So not really like movies.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by leebase

"Time Windowing" the ebooks was one of the solutions on the table. Amazon chose to have agency pricing.

"The Movie "Publishers" are in control of when the DVD is released. They do not allow RedBox to make the movies available for $1 when the movies are still in the theater. "

The eBook publishers are in control of when the eBook is released.
They chose to make it available at the same time as the hardback.
That is nothing to do with Amazon.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

The time thing is not necessarily true. Because time wasted on entertainment in a lot of cases would be wasted on tv or video games or movies or whatever.

You think people might just be annoyed if free tv started charging, or video game or DVD prices doubled?

And for most people that read slow - if they can get 3 movies for the price of one book, and watch them all in less time, why get the book ever, if time matters?

Because things are not replaceable? A book is a specific book that you want to read. It is not replaceable with another book or a movie.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

You think people might just be annoyed if free tv started charging, or video game or DVD prices doubled?

Been through that: The switch from broadcast TV to cable was, to the consumer, charging for a service they previously received for free.

Not in actuality, of course... cable service provided more channels than could be gotten with an antenna, and improved reception. But still, consumers wailed about having to pay for TV (and despite the fact that they could unplug and go back to broadcast any time they wanted).

But after awhile, everyone settled down and accepted the charge for TV, and grudgingly admitted that they were getting more for their money through cable than they got through broadcast.

This may be the way things go with ebooks... it's hard to say what price points will ultimately be accepted, it's still too early in the game (cable price opposition and debate took over a decade to quiet down). But historically, consumers tend to accept the new way of things after a period of time, even if they were loudly opposed to it at first.

This is probably why major publishers will continue to offer ebooks at the $7-$12 range, and tout their "superiority" as reasoning for their prices, until people quiet down.

But if independents continue to undercut major publishers in price, and can demonstrate quality equal to the major publishers, the majors will have to lower their prices to compete. And independents may raise prices, feeling their work is (and should be viewed by the public as) equal to major publishers.

End result: A meeting in the middle, perhaps around $4-$7, for all ebooks.

[Mel]

So, when do the publishers get around to providing value for the money? When I'm paying $7.99 for an e-book that is out as an $8 paperback and I don't get the cover art and they've screwed up the formating so that alternating paragraphs are in different fonts I don't see that the prices should be anywhere near the same. The story was an $8 story but the publisher caused negative value that reduced it to $1.99 territory.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

But after awhile, everyone settled down and accepted the charge for TV, and grudgingly admitted that they were getting more for their money through cable than they got through broadcast.

This may be the way things go with ebooks.

Let's compare the broadcast to cable TV conversion with the print to electronic book conversion.

• Cable TV has more content, ebooks frequently have less content. Cable TV offered more channels from day one. In contrast, I have bought premium priced ebooks that had the illustrations removed.
• Cable TV provided better picture quality, ebooks provide lesser image quality. Cable TV added a lot of expensive infrastructure in order to pipe an over-the-air signal over a wire to make it more reliable. In contrast, publishers are making consumers pay for the infrastructure to get simplistic layout and typesetting, lower resolution images, and a world without colour.
• Cable TV was easier to use, ebooks are harder to use. Cable removed the need to adjust the antenna and the stronger signal meant that viewers spent less time adjusting the tuner on their TV and VCR. Ebooks add complications. Even in a world without DRM we have to connect to another computer (via USB or a network) to grab a computer. With DRM we sometimes have books mysteriously fail to work.

So people were paying for cable TV because they were getting a much better product. The only thing that paying for ebooks gets you is a portable library and the ability to be so antisocial that you never have to see a book store clerk.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Mel

So, when do the publishers get around to providing value for the money? When I'm paying $7.99 for an e-book that is out as an $8 paperback and I don't get the cover art and they've screwed up the formating so that alternating paragraphs are in different fonts I don't see that the prices should be anywhere near the same. The story was an $8 story but the publisher caused negative value that reduced it to $1.99 territory.

Okay, if we assume a properly-formatted book (a stretch, I know), it should still include the cover art (maybe they could offer hi-res versions in the back of the book). The fact that you can buy, access and read instantly is a plus... portability is a plus... and possibly they could provide additional notes/comments in the ebook that aren't in the printed editions. That's a start.

Indies can provide all that, too.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Space on the hard drive, space for the backup(s). Yep, no space at all.

That's peanuts compared to tons of paper taking up a whole room in your house or several trucks across the country to be delivered.

Each of these ebooks is not more than a few hundred KBs. Your hard drive, thumbdrive and broadband connection are all measured in GB these days.

Heck, even your measly cellphone can carry literally thousands of ebooks, no sweat...

Publishers are begging liars.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

• Cable TV has more content, ebooks frequently have less content. Cable TV offered more channels from day one. In contrast, I have bought premium priced ebooks that had the illustrations removed.
• Cable TV provided better picture quality, ebooks provide lesser image quality. Cable TV added a lot of expensive infrastructure in order to pipe an over-the-air signal over a wire to make it more reliable. In contrast, publishers are making consumers pay for the infrastructure to get simplistic layout and typesetting, lower resolution images, and a world without colour.
• Cable TV was easier to use, ebooks are harder to use. Cable removed the need to adjust the antenna and the stronger signal meant that viewers spent less time adjusting the tuner on their TV and VCR. Ebooks add complications. Even in a world without DRM we have to connect to another computer (via USB or a network) to grab a computer. With DRM we sometimes have books mysteriously fail to work.

So people were paying for cable TV because they were getting a much better product. The only thing that paying for ebooks gets you is a portable library and the ability to be so antisocial that you never have to see a book store clerk.

Very good points! Aside from a B&W world being exclusive for eInk readers.

BTW, the thing I don't get with cable TV: why am I getting ads when I already paid for the product? Ads pay open TV, but supposedly I'm paying for cable TV to get it rid of ads and yet...

something smelly... yet, not different from ads in magazines I guess...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Let's compare the broadcast to cable TV conversion with the print to electronic book conversion...

• Cable TV has more content, ebooks frequently have less content. Cable TV offered more channels from day one. In contrast, I have bought premium priced ebooks that had the illustrations removed.
• Cable TV provided better picture quality, ebooks provide lesser image quality. Cable TV added a lot of expensive infrastructure in order to pipe an over-the-air signal over a wire to make it more reliable. In contrast, publishers are making consumers pay for the infrastructure to get simplistic layout and typesetting, lower resolution images, and a world without colour.
• Cable TV was easier to use, ebooks are harder to use. Cable removed the need to adjust the antenna and the stronger signal meant that viewers spent less time adjusting the tuner on their TV and VCR. Ebooks add complications. Even in a world without DRM we have to connect to another computer (via USB or a network) to grab a computer. With DRM we sometimes have books mysteriously fail to work.

So people were paying for cable TV because they were getting a much better product. The only thing that paying for ebooks gets you is a portable library and the ability to be so antisocial that you never have to see a book store clerk.

My intent wasn't to make a direct comparison... and some points are arguable: You give too little credit to the flexibility of ebooks; and remember, when cable first came out, people complained about expensive new wiring run into the house, paying for cable boxes, confusion about changed channel numbers and complicated remotes, byzantine bills (or maybe you don't remember, but I was a teen when cable was introduced to the Washington DC area, so I know what it was like)...

But the point is taken. Major publishers and their ebooks don't seem to offer added value in proportion to their price, or, customers and publishers disagree on how much a particular feature is value-added.

Even so, the question remains: Will publishers have to alter their pricing plans to satisfy customers; or can they wait consumers out, until they give up arguing and fighting, and cave in to the publishers' wishes? Honestly, I think it could go either way.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

BTW, the thing I don't get with cable TV: why am I getting ads when I already paid for the product? Ads pay open TV, but supposedly I'm paying for cable TV to get it rid of ads and yet...

Nope: You pay cable for a clean access to hundreds of channels. The TV shows themselves are paid for with ads... and some of the ads you see go to subsidizing the cable service, (supposedly) lowering your cable bill.

Just like with ebooks, cable service appears to the consumer a bit differently than it appears to the provider. It's those differences in perception that drive most of the argument and angst between supplier and customer. The more both sides understand the other, therefore, the easier it will be to come to a satisfactory medium.

Publishers have historically hidden their inner workings from the public, and this is now turning around to bite them in the digital era. They have a lot of damage control to do, if they want to find that happy medium with their customers.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Even so, the question remains: Will publishers have to alter their pricing plans to satisfy customers; or can they wait consumers out, until they give up arguing and fighting, and cave in to the publishers' wishes? Honestly, I think it could go either way.

That implies there are only two groups' interests involved: publishers and book-reading customers. There are also authors, whose interest in customers is similar but not identical to publishers' interest; they, too, are looking for ways to connect with customers to make profit. But they're often concerned with more than raw income--they want some level of recognition (most authors wouldn't agree to take a large lump sum for a single book and burn it, never releasing the text to anyone), and they want their works to enter the collection of literature available. "Wants to be read" means a willingness to take a risk of less profits, or less immediate profits, in order to find readers. The fact that happy readers are usually future customers is a nice followup.

Publishers don't care about books being read; they care about books being bought. And while I grant that some authors only care about getting paid, I suspect the vast majority want their works read--not enough to release them all for free, but enough to consider a non-paying reader something of value. That changes what strategies they prefer to use to get paying customers.

As authors realize that publishers only provide part of what they're seeking, they'll look for other options. Some find that self-publishing gets them more of what they want. Some find that smaller, less-restrictive publishers are better.

The agency-pricing, one-purchase-per-reader publishers are being squeezed from multiple directions--and one of those is from the people who make what they want to sell. The publishers have a lot of inertia, which is big value in the business world, but the internet is really, really good at jumping past corporate inertia.

When the NY Times starts allowing self-published books on its bestseller lists? The $14 new ebook will go into its death throes.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I respectfully disagree. We do not have a free market in books, nor has the US ever had one. Any book under copyright is not in a free market. Only the holders (and their assigns) of the copyright have a right to produce the book, under whatever terms and price they so choose. Not free at all.

The exact thing same is true of all property. Property is fundamental to a free market, and copyright is a type of property.

If I own a piece of farmland, I can offer it for sale for whatever I choose. If you don't like the price, you can buy a different piece of property that is cheaper. But you can't buy my piece of property.

Scarcity is not part and parcel of a free market, plenty is. Yes, there are periods of scarcity, but they are followed by much longer periods of plenty. Only when free market are constrained, are there prolonged periods of scarcity.

The publishing industry uses copyright as a method to impose scarcity and maintain higher prices. And to prevent futher competition, they keep extending it further and further...

Well, first of all, lots of things are scarce, but that doesn't prevent there being a market in that product. Second, there is no scarcity, artificial or not, in the e-book market. Publishers will sell as many books as people want to buy; it's a lot easier to do that with an e-book than there is with paper books. E-books will never sell out.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

That implies there are only two groups' interests involved: publishers and book-reading customers. There are also authors, whose interest in customers is similar but not identical to publishers' interest; they, too, are looking for ways to connect with customers to make profit. But they're often concerned with more than raw income--they want some level of recognition (most authors wouldn't agree to take a large lump sum for a single book and burn it, never releasing the text to anyone), and they want their works to enter the collection of literature available. "Wants to be read" means a willingness to take a risk of less profits, or less immediate profits, in order to find readers. The fact that happy readers are usually future customers is a nice followup.

I don't consider authors who want recognition over income as part of this equation; if they don't care what money they make, they can give their books away, or pay to have them distributed, or just shout to the skies that they've written a book.

The ebook pricing debate has nothing to do with them. It's a debate between those who primarily want a practical income from books in order to sustain a business, and those who primarily must pay for books.

The debate does have bearing on independent authors who want a practical income, and therefore, are on the same side with publishers in trying to maximize their profit for their work.

To be honest, if someone came to me and said, "We want to option your book for a possible movie, Jed Hackerson is set to direct, it will mean taking it out of circulation, but here's a check for $20,000 for the rights"... I'd take the cash. And buy a car. And wouldn't care if no one ever read that book again. That's because I have no pretentions about my work, but I know it's good, and that's good enough for me. (Maybe I'd negotiate a time clause allowing me to re-release the book if the movie deal falls through after some period of time.)

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I don't consider authors who want recognition over income as part of this equation; if they don't care what money they make, they can give their books away, or pay to have them distributed, or just shout to the skies that they've written a book.

Recognition means more sale means more money.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

To be honest, if someone came to me and said, "We want to option your book for a possible movie, Jed Hackerson is set to direct, it will mean taking it out of circulation, but here's a check for $20,000 for the rights"... I'd take the cash.

Ask for more
The verdant serie as movie would have some potential mind you.