E-books to outsell print by 2018 says new report

[TCSimpson]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I do agree (if this is your opinion) that the current eBook price on your link, $14.99, is high for an author who seems to come out with a new book every 3-4 weeks.

J. K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith, who I'm sure puts in more work on each book, came out with a new one today for which Amazon is charging $25.20 for hardcover (from Amazon directly) and $9.99 for the eBook. This, of course, does fit my eBook-is-cheaper-for-the-first-couple-years thesis. Maybe both eBook prices have a little something to do with the Hachette dispute, since I'd think the reverse pricing ($9.99 for last year's Patterson, and $14.99 for today's J.K. Rowling) would make more marketing sense.

When it comes to ebook vs hardcover, I think you're absolutely right. What bothered me, and some I know, wasn't the new release hardcover price vs ebook price, but ebook vs the mass market paperback prices.

Also, I won't sit here and say the publishers are wrong for doing what they feel is in the best interest of their business, although I might disagree with them, but that in the process the reader gets squeezed. As for Patterson himself, I think they might just be abusing the fact that he has a massive following and all the ghost writers that allow him the rapid release schedule.

In turn stuff like that reflects badly on the whole, perhaps a case of Peter paying for Paul et al.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Maybe both eBook prices have a little something to do with the Hachette dispute, since I'd think the reverse pricing ($9.99 for last year's Patterson, and $14.99 for today's J.K. Rowling) would make more marketing sense.

I don't believe that the ebook prices have anything to do with the dispute, since the Patterson book is the same price at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo. The Silkworm, on the other hand, is $9.99 at Amazon, $11.99 at B&N, and $14.99 at Kobo.

Shari

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by TCSimpson

Where did I mention DRM as annoyance to my friends? I quoted TOR, the publisher, the imprint, AFTER they did a survey of their readers and authors, and I quote:

“Having been in direct contact with our readers, we were aware of how frustrated many of them were by DRM. Our authors had also expressed concerns at the restrictions imposed by the copyright coding applied to their ebooks. When both authors and readers are talking from the same page, it makes sense for the publishers to sit up, listen and take note—and we did!

We know, that our readers are earlier adapters of technology, the first in-line to experiment with new formats, new reading experiences and new devices. In part it’s the nature of the genre—a pushing of boundaries and imagination and it’s what we all love about the area. For us, we felt a strong sense that the reading experience for this tech-savvy, multi-device owning readership, was being inhibited by DRM leaving our readers unable to reasonably and legally transfer ebook files between all the devices they had. DRM was an irritant taking away the flexibility and their choice of reading device and format, the very things that made the ebook so desirable a format to begin with."

Who said anything about ad infinitum or reading the same book over and over. Let's say I bought a kindle, but for whatever reason, I now wish to try a Nook Color instead. So here's my kindle books, here's my Nook. I tend to buy books in bunches, many I haven't read yet. Let's say I have no idea how to remove DRM and want to read the books I ALREADY BOUGHT from kindle/Amazon, but now on my new Nook. Guess what? I can't. It would necessitate me going to PURCHASE those books all over again. OR taking my kindle, which I don't want to because I've already moved on to a NEW device.

Sorry I took "most I know aren't" as referring to friends as it seems an unlikely topic to get into with non friends, and probably read more into that paragraph than you intended being as the rest of the post seemed to be about DRM. I stand corrected. I assumed your friends and yourself perhaps read Tor because it had no DRM. You did not explicitly state that.

Helen

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

??? I said nothing other than that your bias is completely uninteresting and merely shows that YOU don't like them. That was not, in fact, my quote at all.

(By coincidence, I happen to like his books. But I would and do jump to the defense of books that I don't like, as well. For instance, HERE. In other words, it is not personal. Well, the book itself isn't personal, but I take your vitriol personally, on principal.)



22¢ per sale, according to this link: http://the-digital-reader.com/2011/0...obe-tax-today/

That is 22¢ less profit per sale, when the margin for books is apparently sending the publishers into (fake) anxiety attacks regardless.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. I am aware of the 22 cents although I think I have seen lower somewhere.

I meant how much profit, overall not per individual copy. Saving 22 cents per book is significant, but if the profit margin is higher than 2.2% on a $10 book it doesn't take that many more sales percentage wise to drive up the profits.
At a profit margin of 22% per book selling 11 books instead of 10 is the break even point. Pretty sure they manage that at least in overall library sales for popular items. Probably better on individual sales.

Of course I am sure you know all that, just trying to be clearer.

And while not your wording, not saying you even agree, I disagree that the Adobe fee is a tax. Lots of fees I don't like. I go to the bank and exchange USD to CAD costs me 3%. Change it back it costs me 4%. (of course I have the USD account now to avoid that). But I often can't buy US goods without and additional fee over and above shipping and taxes. These, like Adobe DRM are fees not taxes. In fact Adobe is simply a charge for services bought and they do not hold a smoking gun to the publishers head. Same with the banks.

Publishers do not have to use Adobe DRM, and I do not have to buy or borrow books with Adobe or even Amazon DRM.

It may come to a point that paper books are not available for people to read or study from and then we will have a legitimate bitch.

Helen

[eschwartz]

The famous "Adobe tax" is meant to be tongue-in-cheek and as such I insist on refering to it as such.

Point taken.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

According to the Barnes and Noble site, that mass market paperbook is available for pre-order and will not be released until September 30. Amazon is selling those low priced paperbacks through third party vendors that are likely selling import copies.

I do agree (if this is your opinion) that the current eBook price on your link, $14.99, is high for an author who seems to come out with a new book every 3-4 weeks.

J. K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith, who I'm sure puts in more work on each book, came out with a new one today for which Amazon is charging $25.20 for hardcover (from Amazon directly) and $9.99 for the eBook. This, of course, does fit my eBook-is-cheaper-for-the-first-couple-years thesis. Maybe both eBook prices have a little something to do with the Hachette dispute, since I'd think the reverse pricing ($9.99 for last year's Patterson, and $14.99 for today's J.K. Rowling) would make more marketing sense.

I just checked the price from Sweden om amazon.com and it is $17.59. So more like what you tought would make more sense.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by TCSimpson

When it comes to ebook vs hardcover, I think you're absolutely right. What bothered me, and some I know, wasn't the new release hardcover price vs ebook price, but ebook vs the mass market paperback prices.

This happens. But most of the time when people complain about it here they compare the price of a paperback edition that is not releases yet with the current ebook price. So it does not happen as often as people complaints here seems to indicate.

[rem736]

thinking long-term (talking a hundred or more years into the future), the only viable solution is electronic. i think that as resources become more scarce (trees in this case), it would be natural to think that e-paper will be dominant. it will be luxury to have anything printed on paper.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by rem736

thinking long-term (talking a hundred or more years into the future), the only viable solution is electronic. i think that as resources become more scarce (trees in this case), it would be natural to think that e-paper will be dominant. it will be luxury to have anything printed on paper.

The kind of trees used for making paper aren't going away anytime soon, at least from harvesting. I would say that books are more likely to disappear because we proles will only be able to afford tiny boxes to live in, and won't have space for paper book libraries.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Nah, still plenty of clay tablets written 6500 years ago that would be around. It is strange that we went from clay tablets which can last thousands of years, to vellum and papyrus and other organic materials that deteriorate rather quickly (a few centuries), to digital medium that gets outdated within a few years. You would be hard pressed to find many floppy diskettes with intact data from the 1970s and 1980s, or VHS/Beta tapes that are in great shape. Even DVDs will lose data over the years. And now we have cyberspace books that can be saved on various memory types, but 20 years from now those memory types will possibly be obsolete. It looks like we are constantly choosing book mediums on which to record our written words that are progressively shorter lived. Maybe in the future we will return to an aural/oral culture where words reside only in our brains, like they did pre-history.

Loved this comment Jack - had to share it with my wife!