eBook prices?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Almost as bad as the time I saw an SF author referred to as "Erotic Attic".

Originally Posted by maddz

Boggle. Now you've got me trying to work out who that could be.

Originally Posted by Apache

Me too.

It was Randall Garrett whose Lord Darcy stories I've just re-read. I vaguely remember this being attributed to Isaac Asimov.

After all, does not a randy garret equal an erotic attic?

What can I say? I'm a sucker for puns.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It was Randall Garrett whose Lord Darcy stories I've just re-read. I vaguely remember this being attributed to Isaac Asimov.

After all, does not a randy garret equal an erotic attic?

What can I say? I'm a sucker for puns.

It's a good thing then that his last name wasn't Garrot.
Apache

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It was Randall Garrett whose Lord Darcy stories I've just re-read. I vaguely remember this being attributed to Isaac Asimov.

After all, does not a randy garret equal an erotic attic?

What can I say? I'm a sucker for puns.

I vaguely recall Asimov mentioning that one of the characters in the Black Widowers mystery series was based on Randall Garrett, so it's quite possible.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I vaguely recall Asimov mentioning that one of the characters in the Black Widowers mystery series was based on Randall Garrett, so it's quite possible.

Glen Cook’s Garrett, P.I. Was named in honour of Randall Garrett.

[Tony1988]

I'm surprised that people who are willing to buy a new 120-300 dollar device every year to read books on, are still complaining about ebook prices. Lol. I look at it this way, you are getting something from a paper book that you don't get from an ebook and there are things you get from an ebook that you dont get with paper. It all evens out in the end.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

I'm surprised that people who are willing to buy a new 120-300 dollar device every year to read books on, are still complaining about ebook prices. Lol. I look at it this way, you are getting something from a paper book that you don't get from an ebook and there are things you get from an ebook that you dont get with paper. It all evens out in the end.

What does the price of the device has to do with the cost of entertainment for it? My cellular Oasis 2 cost more than I paid for my new TV.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

I'm surprised that people who are willing to buy a new 120-300 dollar device every year to read books on, are still complaining about ebook prices. Lol. I look at it this way, you are getting something from a paper book that you don't get from an ebook and there are things you get from an ebook that you dont get with paper. It all evens out in the end.

Interesting point Tony. But I don't think it is a valid one. Every time I buy an ebook instead of the equivalent paper book I save money. My savings in a year would more than pay for my Oasis. Not that I need to buy an expensive reader. Many people read on their phones or even their computeres.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

I'm surprised that people who are willing to buy a new 120-300 dollar device every year to read books on, are still complaining about ebook prices. Lol. I look at it this way, you are getting something from a paper book that you don't get from an ebook and there are things you get from an ebook that you dont get with paper. It all evens out in the end.

Every year? I suppose some people do that. Personally, I'm on my second device in 8 years. I would still be on my first device if it hadn't failed.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

I'm surprised that people who are willing to buy a new 120-300 dollar device every year to read books on, are still complaining about ebook prices. Lol. I look at it this way, you are getting something from a paper book that you don't get from an ebook and there are things you get from an ebook that you dont get with paper. It all evens out in the end.

How many people are buying a new ereader every year? My Kobo Aura One is coming up on two years old and I don't plan on replacing it until a new device is more compelling. I've seen this referenced as one reason that ereaders sales are not soaring -- unlike your smart phone, ereaders basically do one task and there has been no major change in how they do that task. Which might be why my son's newest phone cost over $1200 Cdn while Amazon's high end Oasis 2 32GB clocks in at $490 Cdn and Kobo's Aura One clock in at $250 Cdn. The Aura One LE 32GB is, for whatever twisted corporate reasons, not available in Canada.

As for the cost of an ereader compared to the cost of ebooks? My ebook collection has cost me a lot more than the total I've spent on my ereaders since my first purchase of the original Kobo. About 6% the last time I totalled the costs.

As has been mentioned to death, ebooks do not have the printing, shipping, returns, taxation (you do know about inventory taxes?) or any of the other overhead of a physical book. Much of the production costs is likely spread over HC/MMPB/PB/eBook so that is likely to be pretty much the same for all formats. So I would expect the cost of an ebook to always be lower than a physical book. Yet, I look at the BPH and find that a lot of ebooks are priced over the cost of the paperback.

Years back, there was a comment from Jim Baen on why they did not do short runs on out of print books:

Book Costs and Short Runs

This answer was given to a request to reprint even a few copies of =End Run= which is out of print

The problem is, we can sell maybe a thousand a year while we need to print 15,000 to justify printing at all because a large part of the printing cost is "set-up." Thus if set-up is the same for printing a thousand at, say $4500, while actual printing costs are fifty cents per unit, the actual cost per unit in the first case is a five thousand dollars for a thousand units, or a prohibitive $5 per unit, whereas in the second case the cost is twelve thousand dollars for 15,000 units, or eighty cents per unit.

If I sell books for six bucks that cost me five bucks just to manufacture I'll go broke pretty fast. I get maybe two bucks per book to pay for everything except distribution — the bookstore's profit, authors royalty, manufacturing, cover art, rent and electricity.... everything including baby's new shoes.

I would strongly suspect that the setup costs have not dropped a nickel since that post was written.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As has been mentioned to death, ebooks do not have the printing, shipping, returns, taxation (you do know about inventory taxes?) or any {. . . }



Years back, there was a comment from Jim Baen on why they did not do short runs on out of print books:

Inventory taxes are a fairy story.

Since Jim Baen gave that reply POD has altered the situation.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Inventory taxes are a fairy story.

Not sure about that. Last time I looked, there was a good deal of fun about writing off inventory to improve your tax situation and including WIP in your inventory. The rules may be different in your neck of the woods.

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Since Jim Baen gave that reply POD has altered the situation.

Interesting you would mention POD. Considering how long it has been around -- the first POD book I purchased was from Don Lancaster more years ago than I care to remember, the quality especially for covers is still not the greatest. The POD books I have purchased have had semi-decent to decent quality on the printed pages but the final product has not had the quality I would expect other than one where the producer went to the work of perfect binding with a nice stiff cover.

By the way, what I mean by the quality of printing is that I expect something better than what a Xerox/Ricoh/whomever 1200 DPI production printer turns out. Especially for illustrations, I would prefer 2400 to 4800 DPI.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

I'm surprised that people who are willing to buy a new 120-300 dollar device every year to read books on, are still complaining about ebook prices.

Some people who shall remain nameless, I have no doubt, find ways to make those expensive hardware devices pay for themselves many times over. Gee, I wonder how...

[darryl]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

Some people who shall remain nameless, I have no doubt, find ways to make those expensive hardware devices pay for themselves many times over. Gee, I wonder how...

As I indicated in my earlier post, there are very substantial savings just in the difference between print and ebook prices, if of course you avoid the overpriced agency books. And, as you point out, those who hoist the Jolly Roger save even more. However, it seems that most people choose to pay for their books. At least enough of them to sustain a thriving market. There would still be books even if everyone pirated them, but the standard would very likely be much lower and the choice much more restricted. Morality apart, it makes sense to pay for your ebooks, or at least most of them.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by darryl

However, it seems that most people choose to pay for their books. At least enough of them to sustain a thriving market.

Long may it be so!!!!

Originally Posted by darryl

There would still be books even if everyone pirated them, but the standard would very likely be much lower and the choice much more restricted. Morality apart, it makes sense to pay for your ebooks, or at least most of them.

I won't touch the morality question but I'm not so sure the standard would be lower. Ebooks existed long before e-readers were a thing and before there was a market.

As for choice, perhaps but again, I'm not so sure.

There was a cracker, in the original sense, called ORC+ and he wrote a bunch of assembly tutorials in the early 90s and one of the things he wrote that always stuck with me was:

Those who do a work out of love will always exceed those who do a work for money.

Anyway, I just wanted to provide an alternative view. I'm very glad the ebook market is alive and well.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

I won't touch the morality question but I'm not so sure the standard would be lower. Ebooks existed long before e-readers were a thing and before there was a market.

As for choice, perhaps but again, I'm not so sure.

There was a cracker, in the original sense, called ORC+ and he wrote a bunch of assembly tutorials in the early 90s and one of the things he wrote that always stuck with me was:

Those who do a work out of love will always exceed those who do a work for money.

Anyway, I just wanted to provide an alternative view. I'm very glad the ebook market is alive and well.

There doesn't seem to be any meaningful data on what would actually happen. Certainly I think Copyright goes much too far at the moment. However, I suspect the standard would be closer to that of fan fiction in the absence of any monetary reward to the author. And some of our most talented authors may well not write or not write as much or as well. And, as lovely as it sounds, a labour of love by a talentless author is most unlikely to be better than a work by a talented author done simply for the money or the hope of it. I suspect that the demise of copyright would more likely result in authors finding other ways to be paid rather than a diverse and quality body of work done for no reward.

I think the best of all worlds on this is likely a sensible system of copyright, though any review should look closely at whether a statutory monopoly is the best way to reward authors. Certainly we can and should do a lot better than we are currently.