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#16 |
Steerage Class
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Location: Pacific Northwest, USA
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If the time scale is months, rather than years, this is reason to celebrate indeed! Woohoo!
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#17 |
Opinionated [but right]
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This is great news.
Random House have been among the most forward-looking of the publishers when it comes to ebooks. I have many reasonably priced ebooks from their Modern Library collection. Let's hope the pricing on this new material is equally realistic. |
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#18 |
Addict
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This is fantastic news! Perhaps it will precipitate other publishing houses to follow suit?
I do hope they stick with a mutli-format approach to provide maximum options for customers. The annoying thing at the moment (although it is improving) is that some titles seem to be only available in Kindle, some others in Adobe, some in Mobi, etc. To have a publishing house seem to be adopting the approach of planning to provide eBooks in a variety of the most common formats for readers is awesome! The proof will be in the pudding, of course, but I am ever hopeful. It's a pity they didn't really take the revolutionary plunge and try an alternative to DRM - maybe e-tagging of the book with name and credit card, etc. But I guess they're locked into whatever the current formats employ, and maybe the laws of the land? Interesting also, since there was a discussion on eBook pricing recently, that they seem to tie their pricing into the paper versions of books: $17.95 for electronic editions of hardcover titles $9.95 for electronic editions of trade paperback titles $6.99 for electronic editions of mass market titles Not sure what relevance the binding of an edition has for the electronic price, except to justify higher prices? Perhaps this is just old info in their help section, that will change when they begin this mass digitization process? Or perhaps it's harder to digitise hardback books, although that sounds like a stretch to me for almost double the price. I guess also hardcover content tends to be more often things like text books, etc, that are more expensive? Or is it because they are hardcover that they are more expensive? Anyway, good news overall... |
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#19 |
Actively passive.
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Publisher's Weekly reporting on the news.
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#20 | |
WWHALD
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Location: Mitcham, Surrey, UK
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Quote:
Do people think that mean just Random House titles, or titles of Random House imprints, too? I'm really, really, really seriously hoping it means the latter; as Vintage is a Random House imprint... |
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#21 | |||
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
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#22 | |
Resident Curmudgeon
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#23 | |
WWHALD
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![]() There are others, but that would do very nicely for starters. |
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#24 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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#25 |
Actively passive.
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I prefer trade paperbacks. I don't buy hardback, but like the size and format of trade paperbacks. They fit fine in any bookshelf I've ever had. I like they way they fit in hand and I find the typography to be in general better than typical paperback. Before I switched to e-books, my purchases were almost exclusively trade back.
I will agree that it isn't rational to price e-books on print edition prices, but that's the model publisher's have adopted: the current edition of the book sells for X, regardless of format. |
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#26 |
Wizard
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this is great news! although to be sure, i'd prefer it was weeks instead of months...
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#27 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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Trade paperbacks being of higher cost also keep the cost of eBooks higher.
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#28 |
Actively passive.
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You're confusing cause and effect, I think. Trade Paperbacks don't have any effect whatsoever on the cost of eBooks. The only thing that affects the cost of eBooks is the labor and infrastructure necessary to produce them. What you mean to say is that publishers PRICE eBooks based upon the current printed edition. And the blame for that is to be placed on publishers; it isn't an inherent negative in the trade paperback format.
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#29 |
Enthusiast
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With respect, Taylor514ce, what affects the price of electronic books is supply and demand. The cost of infrastructure and labor has an indirect effect on supply, but so do a lot of other factors, in particular the opportunity costs of deploying capital on e-books rather than, for example, trade paperbacks.
If trade paperbacks sell for a lot, it makes little sense to spend on the necessary infrastructure and labor to produce e-books, unless you also can sell them for a lot. So I think Mr. Wolf is correct in saying that the higher cost of trade paperbacks pushes up the cost of electronic books. |
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#30 |
Actively passive.
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I read your post several times. Perhaps my lack of education in economics is showing, but I have a hard time understanding phrases such as "the opportunity costs of deploying capital".
The cost to produce an eBook isn't based on the selling price of a trade paperback, which seems to be the argument, here. Are you saying if publishers wouldn't spend money producing trade paperbacks, eBooks would cost less because there would be more money overall in "the bucket"? I don't see that, either, because trade paperbacks make a profit. In short, I don't see any direct link between production of trade paperbacks and the cost/price of eBooks, other than the artificial pricing structure of eBook selling price = current print edition price. Hard covers also "sell for a lot", yet that hasn't stopped an investment in eBook infrastructure. |
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