ebooks...the price ascent to 'Everest'....

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by buze

I don't agree, the fact that the ebooks is unusable outside of your own account, and that you can't resell or even lend it means that is is LESS VALUABLE for the "owner" than a random paperback and that it should be cheaper, by a lot.

I'm afraid that I must repeat that your assertion that "There is very little work required in making the ebook" is quite simply false.

You may well feel that for you, subjectively, an eBook is worth less than a paper book due to the fact that you can't resell it. For me, that's irrelevant, since I don't resell my books. The eBook is actually worth more to me than a paper book, because it never degrades, no matter how often I might read it, and it uses no physical storage space. I live in a small house and don't have room to store thousands of paper books. I can - and do - have thousands of eBooks.

We must all make a personal judgement of what these things are worth to us. I have no problem at all paying the current price for eBooks (typically 60-80% of the paperback price), hence I buy them. If they are not worth the price to you, then naturally the correct course of action for you is not to buy them.

[nogle]

Originally Posted by buze

I don't agree, the fact that the ebooks is unusable outside of your own account, and that you can't resell or even lend it means that is is LESS VALUABLE for the "owner" than a random paperback and that it should be cheaper, by a lot.

You are free to refrain from buying ebooks until the industry complies with your economics.

[DHR]

Using Calibre will shortly be illegal in Canada. Breaking DRM is outlawed in Bill C-11.

A paperback is better than an ebook because you can give it away or sell it when you are done. That's an important reason why ebooks should be cheaper than mechanical books.

Ebooks can also be lost when the platform dies. In the timescale of books, and given how new the platforms are, that isn't an unlikely occurrence.

The only ebooks I have purchased are ones without DRM. I've purchased ebooks from O'Reilly.

[oldyellr]

Originally Posted by DHR

Using Calibre will shortly be illegal in Canada. Breaking DRM is outlawed in Bill C-11.

Calibre does not break DRM at all. That can only be done with an undocumented third party add-on that you have to find and install. That would be like Making Firefox illegal because it enables you to get to pirate websites.

But you're right about changing platforms. I guess I'll have to throw out all the books I have on 5-1/4" floppy disks.

[nogle]

Originally Posted by MrPLD

So... what about books that aren't DRM and aren't restricted as such?

Don't confuse the issue with facts and logic!

[buze]

Originally Posted by nogle

You are free to refrain from buying ebooks until the industry complies with your economics.

And that's exactly what I do as I stated in my previous message. Thank you for failing to come down from your high horse to read the damn thread properly.

[Reader Paradice]

Originally Posted by shannont

What I have noticed is that Kobo is constantly giving discount codes now but there are so few books I can apply them too. This time last year I was constantly scrapping for discount code. It appears the amount of publishers with the fixed pricing has increased.

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I totally agree. I'm starting to ignore the 20-30 percent off 'this weekend only' emails. For the last five books I have tried to apply any of them to....I get the 'sorry, but the publisher does not allow discounts on this book'

"Really? Then this purchaser will move off the purchase page and move onto other websites...." Oh..and Kobo....please send me discount codes on books that they can BE USED ON.......and not the ones, not really selling, and one step from the discard bin.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by DHR

Using Calibre will shortly be illegal in Canada. Breaking DRM is outlawed in Bill C-11.

Which means breaking DRM will be illegal (like it is many places). That has nothing to do with Calibre unless a user chooses to download 3rd party plugins from a completely unrelated source.

A paperback is better than an ebook because you can give it away or sell it when you are done.

For many people that's true. Other than a few rare books that went for big $$$ I've personally never sold a book and rarely given one away although I have loaned them out. For myself the convenience factors that eBooks present are a big plus and I can still load books by loaning out an old reader with the book(s) on it.

Ebooks can also be lost when the platform dies. In the timescale of books, and given how new the platforms are, that isn't an unlikely occurrence.

Entirley possible if you don't pay attention to things and convert older formats at the time new formats start becoming prevalent. ePub is basically just a zip file with XHTML inside (Mobi's basically HTML inside too). I doubt either HTML or ZIP (or the ability to utilize them) are going anywhere in my lifetime so I hope to have a way to read/convert my books even if ePub and Mobi were to disappear tomorrow.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Reader Paradice

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I totally agree. I'm starting to ignore the 20-30 percent off 'this weekend only' emails from Kobo I am getting. For the last 5 books I have tried to apply any of them to....I get the 'sorry, but the publisher does not allow discounts on this book'

"Really? Then this purchaser will move off the purchase page and move onto other websites...." Oh..and Kobo....please send me discount codes on books that they can BE USED ON.......and not the ones, not really selling, and one step from the discard bin.

Kobo discount code can be used on any ebook that's not from an Agency publisher, basucallyny book on their site that they already offer some kind of discount on is a non-Agency book. There are still books issued new every week that are non-Agency (ie: not non-selling, discard material) and the coupons can be used on, as to if those books are of interest to an individual of course depends on the individual.

[Reader Paradice]

Originally Posted by latepaul

You're right of course the problem is remembering to check my wishlist. I guess I need to set reminders in my calendar.

I have used ereaderiq but so far none of the books I've entered into it have dropped the required amount to trigger an email.

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Another way to use the PREVIEW books section on your Touch, is to just download the preview of what you would buy then and there if it would have met your price ticklers. Then, you can not only review that book to see if it might have been an impulse grab/interest....when you need a new read, but can go right away to the buy page from your preview call-up, and see what the book is offered for at that time. This is how I am choosing to use my preview section.

[Reader Paradice]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is nonsense. Virtually all the work that's involved in the production of a book (editing, layout, advertising, etc) is also there for an eBook. The only thing you don't have are the printing costs, which typically account for around 10-20% of total costs. An eBook that is priced 20% lower than the corresponding paperback is, therefore, reasonably priced.

This is complicated by the fact that, in many countries, paper books attract a lower rate of taxation than eBooks. In the UK, for example, paperbooks are "zero rated" for VAT, whereas eBooks attract the standard 20% VAT rate. The VAT therefore puts back the 20% that you might have saved in the production cost of the eBook.

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I know about logistics! You have totally left out the cost of transportation, product handling, and pre-shipment storage of non-digital editions. The price of labour to move product, the huge facilities and real-estate costs associated to warehouse the product (pBook, etc) , ever increasing fuel costs, delivery time frames...is very much a large 'lump' of bringing a book to market; actually....to bringing any form of commerce to market. This can be (with all in), near 30 percent of the product's wholesale cost. So...by your estimations, I estimate that the profit margin can remain to the publisher with an eBook over pBook discounting at the register of 50 percent wholesale price, by downloading that eBook to your reader, rather than shipping from their loading dock, fanning out across the continent, and being received by the book store receiver. MASSIVE money is being saved by migrating to the eBook format for the publishers. They should share 'the wealth' with their customers....in at least 30-45 percent less cost to read, over a pBook. This, in my personal opinion, should be an asking price eBook discount 'standard' across the industry. It should always be ajusted as to the asking price for the same pBook, year-over-year.

Keep eBook adopters happy, keep them congratulating themselves that they were so astute to having picked up an eReader in the first place...and sell 30,000 more copies at 30-45 percent less asking price over pBooks than would had you, at the near asking price of a pBook,...... as I see it clearly headed for this year.

[Reader Paradice]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Kobo discount code can be used on any ebook that's not from an Agency publisher, basucallyny book on their site that they already offer some kind of discount on is a non-Agency book. There are still books issued new every week that are non-Agency (ie: not non-selling, discard material) and the coupons can be used on, as to if those books are of interest to an individual of course depends on the individual.

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Then I guess then that I am out of luck, lol...for the last few books (JFK for instance) have refused the discount code. I must have 'Agency' tastes, I suppose. Hi, OverDrive!

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is nonsense. Virtually all the work that's involved in the production of a book (editing, layout, advertising, etc) is also there for an eBook. The only thing you don't have are the printing costs, which typically account for around 10-20% of total costs. An eBook that is priced 20% lower than the corresponding paperback is, therefore, reasonably priced.

This is complicated by the fact that, in many countries, paper books attract a lower rate of taxation than eBooks. In the UK, for example, paperbooks are "zero rated" for VAT, whereas eBooks attract the standard 20% VAT rate. The VAT therefore puts back the 20% that you might have saved in the production cost of the eBook.

I'm sorry but this is wrong. About 50% of the list price of a paper book was allocated to the retailer to run their brick and mortar store (wages, benefits, lease, heat, hydro, computer). The relative cost of running an incremental electronic transaction is trivial. It's outrageous that the "agents" are being paid 30% guaranteed when the brick and mortar stores weren't making that. I don't disagree the production costs are largely the same but paper costs are not a fixed percentage.

Another way to looks at is that the author puts 1 FTE of effort into a book. I'll be generous and say that the combined effort from the publisher (editing, layout, artwork etc..) is 1 FTE. Now add a dollar value to the FTE and you have the cost. The problem is that the publishers have been telling the authors that their FTE is worth a fraction of the publisher's combined FTE. Electronic books are going to force this to be re-evaluated.

The real question is how many books do you have to sell to turn a profit. I think that the $1 price is way too low and the only reason there are so many books at that price point is that the authors have been told that is all they are worth. I suspect the price will work out to the $5 or $6 range where you'd have to sell about 50,000 books to be happy and hope for the lottery win by selling much more.

[p_a_smith]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is nonsense. Virtually all the work that's involved in the production of a book (editing, layout, advertising, etc) is also there for an eBook. The only thing you don't have are the printing costs, which typically account for around 10-20% of total costs. An eBook that is priced 20% lower than the corresponding paperback is, therefore, reasonably priced.

I've always been curious about this arguement. It assumes that the only difference between an ebook and a paperback book is the costs to actual print a book (which I have heard estimated at $3.50/book).

Certainly there are fixed costs no matter what format you produce a book. You have to pay the author, cover artist, the editor, the publisher, and the seller as well as for promotion when the book is launched (so very time limited costs for advertising if any are bothered with).

Yet as the electronic age progresses those fixed costs have come down. Publishers now demand manuscripts in electronic format to cut editing costs and rely heavily on electronic means of advertising (email lists, social media, fan groups etc). And after the basics of the manuscript are done some real differences start to creep into the equation.

For print books you need to store the books you have printed, pay to ship them to the distributor, and cover the reality that some of them will be damaged/not sell and you will take a loss on them. (If you go print on demand you cut out storage but run the risk that your reader will not want to wait 2-3 weeks for the book). That assumes of course that you can connect your product to the customer. Anyone outside of the city bookstores know the hit and miss choices in smaller stores where you are lucky to find anything except bestsellers or recent offerings and the extra costs of online booksellers where you pay to have them shipped to you unless you buy in bulk.

Electronic books exist as a small file on a server which costs pennies to store, virtually nothing to ship, and you have a 24/7 worldwide distribution network that has no problem stocking all of your books, not just the ones most recently published, to make available to your customers whenever they want. Plus once that e-book is formatted it is ready for you to sell forever (yeah I know formats will change at some point but honestly converting formats in books is getting simpler each year).

As well you limit the accessibility of the book itself. Ebooks that are purchased can not be lent (or can in very controlled ways) or sold. Which means you have sold your book to a reader who is pretty much the only one who can read it- certainly not the case with print books. Meaning that you will sell more ebooks than print groups to the same group of people who want to read the book because you can make each one pay. (Arrangements with libraries vary around the world but some pay for the rights to offer a book so many times and then have to renew that license to be able to continue to offer the book. Quite the bonanza compared with print copies).

I don't expect to pay $.99 for ebooks but would like ebook pricing to reflect the reality rather than illusion that publishers would like us to believe. Personally I think those publishers like Baen who offer books for 30-40% off the paperback prices (and don't raise the ebook prices on older stock once it has been issued) are actually treating readers fairly.

[nogle]

Originally Posted by p_a_smith

I've always been curious about this arguement. It assumes that the only difference between an ebook and a paperback book is the costs to actual print a book (which I have heard estimated at $3.50/book).

Certainly there are fixed costs no matter what format you produce a book. You have to pay the author, cover artist, the editor, the publisher, and the seller as well as for promotion when the book is launched (so very time limited costs for advertising if any are bothered with).

<snip>

The calculus is much simpler than all this. Let my desire to read a certain book expressed in dollars = D. let the price of the book in dollars = P

If D>P, then I buy the book. If D<P then I do not buy the book.

Production costs, royalties, profitability of the publisher, ability of the author to make a living from his/her writing etc. do not change my desire to read a book.