Comparing ebook vs pbook prices

[ApK]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I didn't say I expected those rights, I said that I wouldn't want to pay the same amount for something that was missing them.

You use word like "missing" and "lose". You don't apply those words unless you expect the missing or lost thing to be there in the first place.

You don't say that hiking boots are missing the ability to bake bread or that a stained glass window has lost it's prize-fighting ability.

ApK

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by ApK

You use word like "missing" and "lose". You don't apply those words unless you expect the missing or lost thing to be there in the first place.

You don't say that hiking boots are missing the ability to bake bread or that a stained glass window has lost it's prize-fighting ability.

ApK

We're talking about the price of ebooks and pbooks, both providing the same content. Why isn't it relevant when one doesn't have something the other does?

[crossi]

I simply won't buy ebook novels for more than $6.99. There are more that I want in that price range than I have time to read so I'm not depriving myself. Besides by waiting often a book on my wish list drops into my buy range so why not wait and read some other books while waiting.

There are several authors who used to be paper autobuys that I feel are consistantly overpriced as ebooks. I haven't bought any of their books in several years. I won't either unless their prices drop. If they don't I don't much care, I've plenty of other authors to read.

Ebook price often doesn't seem to reflect demand at all. I've seem plenty of ebooks on Amazon with high prices and really bad Amazon Best Seller Rankings. Don't know if the rotten ranking is caused by the books themselves or the asked price but either way price is not reflecting demand.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by rkomar

True, but the comparison is to paper books, which you can lend out and resell and keep regardless of whether the publisher can/wants to keep paying to keep your book in the DRM servers. I think BeccaPrice's point is that, you lose those rights when you buy an ebook over a pbook, so why pay the same amount if you value those missing rights?

No reason you should pay anything that you don't want to for a consumer product. No reason anyone has to sell you this same product at the price you want to pay.

Some prefer paper books, some prefer ebooks.

If the right to sell your book is paramount, buy the paper copy. If reading the book as an ebook is paramount, buy the ebook copy. Or if price is paramount, buy nothing.

Worrying about whether you arepaying more than x dollars for an item seems a bit limiting on the individual doing the worrying. I also know individuals who won't nuy am item because it is too cheap.

Setting an arbitrary price limit either way seems to imply that you will buy anything cheap or anything expensive. Not really true, but very definitely limits choices and in the long run, possibly means you buy a fair number of things, based more on price, not on what you want or need. Sort of like a preprogrammed on/off switch in your brain.


Helen

[ApK]

Originally Posted by rkomar

We're talking about the price of ebooks and pbooks, both providing the same content. Why isn't it relevant when one doesn't have something the other does?

Because the IP content is the only thing about them that is the same.
Yet it's everything else about them, which is decidedly different, that some people seem to be insisting ought to be the same.

It's IS relevant that one has something the other doesn't, and it's presumably those things that will make you choose one over they other.
My issue that some people will buy one, then complain that it's "missing" or has "lost" something that it never had, that only the OTHER thing had, or that some people will ascribe value to one thing based not on what IT has, but on the other thing, and what that other thing has.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

If the right to sell your book is paramount, buy the paper copy. If reading the book as an ebook is paramount, buy the ebook copy. Or if price is paramount, buy nothing.

It also seems reasonable to me, if price is paramount, to buy the cheapest format in which the content is available to you, if you want the content, and the specific properties of ebooks or pbooks don't really matter to you.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by ApK

Assume we're talking about a book that you are interested in buying, and if there was no paper edition to compare to, you would indeed be buying the ebook at the offered price.

Several threads about e-book vs. dead-tree-book price and value going on.

This has probably be polled before, but as the ebook/ereadrer market continues to grow and evolve, it's worth revisiting.

Please see if you can legitimately fit your opinion into one of the specified choices before choosing "Other" but if "other" it must be, please explain in a post.

Thanks!

ApK

I recently bought A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, a nearly-1500 page behemoth of a novel, because as far as I could tell, it was not available as a true e-book. (likewise with all of Seth's novels).

That having been said, I still do buy both "kinds" of books. I like E-books for the reasons most people do, but there's something profoundly nostalgic yet still current to me, about a paper book. People still need 'em, and still read 'em.

When I've grown fond of a book and want to keep it, AND if it is cheaper - then paper it is.

[4691mls]

I read mostly library books, but when I do buy a book, I don't compare prices between paper and ebooks.

I am more likely to buy a novel on ebook. How much I am willing to pay would vary depending on how much I want to read the book, but I would not compare the ebook price to pbook prices.

If I want a cookbook, or some kind of book with lots of color photos, I would buy a paper book. I would not look at ebook prices.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by ApK

I'll sometimes set an "absolute limit" for stuff like bidding on ebay, but as a responsible adult, I'm free to bend my rule on a case by case basis in accordance with my judgment. It's just a mechanism to help control irrational spending impulses (a governor, as I mentioned above).
Do you, ucfgrad93, perhaps do the same, or are you more rigid about it?

I'm pretty set on that price point. However, I have made exceptions. For example, I bought The Sword of Shannara Trilogy for $19.00, but since it is really 3 books, each one individually was less than $10. Most of the time if it is over $10 I put it on my Amazon wish list and wait for the price to drop.

[DrNefario]

I voted Other, probably for the same reason as others. It doesn't specifically matter to me what the pbook version costs. If the ebook version is good value, I will buy it even if the pbook is better value, but what I consider good value varies depending on how much I want to read something.

I don't typically buy new pbooks any more, but I do still buy them remaindered and used.

I've been buying a lot of Agatha Christie in used paperback lately because I'm not willing to pay the full ebook price - I just want to read it cheaply and pass it on. I ought to use the library, really, but I prefer to own the copies so I can operate at my own pace. (Which is to say, I've bought loads of them and hardly read any. ) I did buy the complete short story collections in ebook because the pbooks are unwieldy and I'll probably work through them quite slowly while also reading the novels.

[CyGuy]

That absolute maximum I will pay for any ebook is 50% the price of a new paperback for the same book. I will only pay that much if I really really want the ebook. Ebooks should cost much less than the paper product...

[ApK]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I voted Other, probably for the same reason as others. It doesn't specifically matter to me what the pbook version costs. If the ebook version is good value, I will buy it even if the pbook is better value, but what I consider good value varies depending on how much I want to read something.

Why did you vote Other? You precisely match the Yes option.

Originally Posted by CyGuy

That absolute maximum I will pay for any ebook is 50% the price of a new paperback for the same book. I will only pay that much if I really really want the ebook. Ebooks should cost much less than the paper product...

Any particular reason for that 50% figure? It just seems like a large amount to discount it unless you buy used paperbacks.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Any particular reason for that 50% figure? It just seems like a large amount to discount it unless you buy used paperbacks.

Agreed. Printing accounts for no more than about 10% of the price of a paper book. To expect a 50% discount on an eBook is not economically feasible.

[DiapDealer]

When I buy a book, I really don't put very much thought into it at all. If I fancy a book, and I haven't already spent a buttload that month on luxuries/entertainment, I buy it. The thinking part comes later--during and after the actual reading part.