eBook prices?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Baen, like any other publisher, can be hit or miss. I've read some very good books by them and some quite poor. The same as any other "gatekeeper" out there and also the same as no gatekeeper at all. Some books you like, others not so much. For me, at least, it has always been that way, no matter where I get the books.

I would imagine personal taste comes into the mix as well. One person's great writer could be another person's snooze inducer.

I mainly mentioned Baen to bring up the point that I thought they were independent. Apparently they're a division of one of the Big Five? (I'll look it up.)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I mainly mentioned Baen to bring up the point that I thought they were independent. Apparently they're a division of one of the Big Five? (I'll look it up.)

I was under the impression that Baen is "independent" but their printing/distribution for dead tree books is handled through Simon and Schuster. I seem to remember that Baen was spun out the S&S's Pocket Book division.

I purchase the Baen monthly bundles -- it's been a rare month when I haven't enjoyed enough of the books to make the price worthwhile -- and quite often I've found books by new authors that I have really enjoyed. I can't say that I like all the books that Baen publishes but they hit the mark for me far more often than any other publisher since the old Ace doubles. I will admit that I am now waiting impatiently for Oct. 2nd when Uncompromising Honor will have the full ebook released.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Their prices seem to more closely match independent publisher prices (on average $7, it appears) and many of their book covers seem kind of amateurish. And the one I've tried (it was free) seemed poorly typeset and the author seems too "on the nose" through the first couple chapters I've read. But I may have just gotten a "bad apple." Or maybe if I force myself to keep reading it will get better. I've had the book for a few years now.

As you may have read when Baen started selling through other etailers, they had to raise their prices and remove quite a few books from their free library until they could come up with "second editions". As part of the price increase, they increased author royalties. Some of the earlier Baen ebooks I own did have some formatting issues but those seem to have improved over the years. The Baen Free Library and the ebooks they distributed on bound-in CDs were most of the basis of my original ebook library. One of my uses for calibre was going back and converting the original RTF of some of those ebooks to correct some of the issues with the older conversions.

[HLS]

Ebooks are way over priced sometimes more than the paperback which seems illogical given you do not have to pay for shipping, paper, etc.... It frustrates me for i would love to get the new releases from my favorite authors but I have to wait a few months for the price to go down. Paying $14.99 to $19.99 or more for a new release is insane so I sometimes wait 3 to 6 months when they usually go down to $9.99 or so. I sign up for notifications from publishers and thus I can find sales from big name authors. I just purchased a James Patterson book for $2.99

[ZGottlieb]

I actually value my physical books more because those are the ones I treasure to keep and pass to the next generation.

However, I enjoy ebooks because I can read them much faster, any place, and carry a few hundred with me.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rcentros

What's funny about this is that I thought Baen was an independent publisher. Their prices seem to more closely match independent publisher prices (on average $7, it appears) and many of their book covers seem kind of amateurish.

I was responding to a post comparing traditionally-published books to self-published books. Baen are not one of the "Big 5", but they are assuredly a "traditional publisher".

[darryl]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Thanks darryl. I didn't mean to suggest there was anything wrong with your change in habits (due to agency). Just wanted to point out that I don't think it's that common.

I DO think it's a bit limiting (and yes, slightly odd) to exclude TBR material based primarily on the publishing path of the author. I myself am open to reading (and with me, reading automatically includes buying) just about anything--indie or trad-pubbed. So long as it sounds interesting, and someone whose reading likes and dislikes are known to me have offered honest insight into it, I'll give it a shot. Life's too short for me to take the time to decide whether or not I want to punish an author (and potentially myself) for a decision they made that has nothing to with story writing and story reading. *shrug*

I didn't take that suggestion from your post. I think we both understand and accept that we all have our own opinions and ways of doing things and there is generally no right or wrong way. We tend to do what works for us.

My aim is not to punish an author, but this does of course happen in the course of venting my displeasure at the way some publishers are pricing their books. But at the end of the day if I'm choosing between two books and one is twice or three times more expensive I expect to see a significant difference in quality. I don't. Others do, which is fine by me. I'm very happy with the current situation as I'm buying more books, borrowing more books and reading more books at significantly less cost. If I was finding Indie Books to be of materially inferior quality then I too would tend to avoid most of them. Each to their own.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I read opinions on both sides. I read the original report that presented at the trial, as well as analysis on both sides of the questions of that report.

I've also read analysis of both sides on Cotes ruling, which is a very different issue. I've pointed to Jacobs' dissenting opinion of the appeal ruling a number of times here. Specifically, Jocobs said that "Apple took steps to compete with a monopolist and open the market to more entrants, generating only minor competitive restraints in the process". So it's not really the open and closed, Cote is the absolute authority situation that some want it to be.

In anti-trust law at least two wrongs don't make a right. A murder does not entitle the relatives of the victim to form a posse and legally execute the perpetrator. They can report the matter to the police and/or sue civilly. Such is the case here. If Amazon was engaging in unlawful behaviour the publishers should have complained to the DOJ and or sued themselves. Not acted as vigilantes and entered into an unlawful price-fixing conspiracy.

The majority addressed Jacob's dissent and his finding you quote specifically and devastatingly.

More fundamentally, the dissent’s theory — that the presence of a strong competitor justifies a horizontal price‐fixing conspiracy — endorses a concept of marketplace vigilantism that is wholly foreign to the antitrust laws.

Because lower prices improve consumer welfare (all else being equal), below‐cost pricing is unlawfully anticompetitive only if there is a “dangerous probability” that the firm engaging in it will later recoup its losses by raising prices to monopoly levels after driving its rivals out of the market. Id. If Apple and the Publisher Defendants thought that Amazon’s conduct was truly anticompetitive under this standard, they could have sued under § 2 of the Sherman Act. (Whether DOJ would have pursued its own enforcement action is of unclear relevance given the availability of a private remedy.) Failing that,Amazon’s pricing was part of the competitive landscape that competing ebook retailers had to accept. Instead, the dissent invites conduct that is strictly prohibited by the Sherman Act — horizontal collusion to fix prices — to cure a perceived abuse of market power. Whatever its merit in the abstract, that preference for collusion over dominance is wholly foreign to antitrust law. See Trinko, 540 U.S. at 408 (referring to collusion as the “supreme evil of antitrust”). Because of the long‐term threat to competition, the Sherman Act does not authorize horizontal price conspiracies as a form of marketplace vigilantism to eliminate perceived “ruinous competition” or other “competitive evils.” Maricopa Cnty. Med. Soc’y, 457 U.S. at 346 (quoting Socony‐Vacuum Oil, 310 U.S. at 221). Indeed, the attempt to justify a conspiracy to raise prices “on the basis of the potential threat that competition poses . . . is nothing less than a frontal assault on the basic policy of the Sherman Act.” Nat’l Soc’y of Prof’l Eng’rs, 435 U.S. at 695. And it is particularly ironic that the “terms” that Apple was able to insist upon by organizing a cartel of Publisher Defendants to move against Amazon — namely, the elimination of retail price competition — accomplished the precise opposite of what new entrants to concentrated markets are ordinarily supposed to provide. In short, Apple and the dissent err first in equating a symptom (a single‐retailer market) with a disease (a lack of competition), and then err again by prescribing the disease itself as the cure.

With all respect to Jacob he got it badly wrong. Even the best of us can do that. His colleagues on the Appeals Court found he got it badly wrong. They explained why very clearly in the passages above. The Supreme Court elected not to grant cert.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

No, you are reading far too much into the example. I speak in generalities not in absolutes. I actually read a number of indies and have several in my favorites list. I said that the indie market is trying to fill the niche that the used book store use to fill. Note, that used book stores filled a lot of roles. You had the people who just wanted generic books of whatever genre they liked (my mother liked romance). It also filled the role of people who liked specific authors, but didn't want to pay full price, or were trying to find backlist books.

I see now, thank you for clarifying. I absolutely agree that Indie, Inc and especially KU filled the niché of formerly used book store/club patrons that converted to ebooks. The advantage now is, that there is choice of brand new books as well. No longer is the selection limited to other people's "junk they no longer want." There may exist excellent second hand book stores in bigger cities, but not where I live.

As far as traditional publishers being better than indies or self-published, I'm not really saying that. As mentioned before, several indies are on favorites list and I buy a lot of backlist books that are either published via Amazon or self-published. My major focus on tradition publishers isn't on publishers per se, but specific imprints.

So with you not so much a matter of quality, but a matter of curation and ease of finding books you likely want to read.

While Baen was alive, odds were pretty good that I was going to like at least half the books he published in a given month. Being a mostly SF&F reader during long periods of time, there were specific imprints, like Del Rey, DAW, Ace and Tor during specific time period where the books that were published under those imprints matched my taste quite a bit. For example, the Del Rey imprint still exists, but drifted away from my tastes back in the early 90's after Lester Del Rey died. More than anything, it's about liking the selections of a specific editor.

Aye, your pet peeve of curation and discoverability shown in action by example. I do hope your prediction of the Apple Book store going to be curated similar to Apple Music comes true. Not so much that I would like to start buying from Apple, but that I really would want Amazon to do the same, especially for KU.

[John F]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Actually that isn't particularly accurate in the US system of justice. The trial judge's opinion usually has very little influence. A lot of people don't understand how the appellate system works in the US. Frequently, the dissenting opinions in an appellate court has a lot more influence than the majority decision. This is because dissenting opinions tend to be more open and to the point, while majority decisions tend to be rather bland. Scalia was best known for his dissenting opinions.

By definition, aren't the dissenting opinions less influencing: the person expressing the dissenting opinion didn't agree the majority, and the majority are what decides whether the verdict stands. Especially in your Scalia reference (I assume for the SCOTUS), this is the highest level, so his opinion wouldn't be considered by any higher appeals court, and in fact, a precedent has been set for the entire U.S. legal system?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

I didn't take that suggestion from your post. I think we both understand and accept that we all have our own opinions and ways of doing things and there is generally no right or wrong way. We tend to do what works for us.

My aim is not to punish an author, but this does of course happen in the course of venting my displeasure at the way some publishers are pricing their books. But at the end of the day if I'm choosing between two books and one is twice or three times more expensive I expect to see a significant difference in quality. I don't. Others do, which is fine by me. I'm very happy with the current situation as I'm buying more books, borrowing more books and reading more books at significantly less cost. If I was finding Indie Books to be of materially inferior quality then I too would tend to avoid most of them. Each to their own.



In anti-trust law at least two wrongs don't make a right. A murder does not entitle the relatives of the victim to form a posse and legally execute the perpetrator. They can report the matter to the police and/or sue civilly. Such is the case here. If Amazon was engaging in unlawful behaviour the publishers should have complained to the DOJ and or sued themselves. Not acted as vigilantes and entered into an unlawful price-fixing conspiracy.

The majority addressed Jacob's dissent and his finding you quote specifically and devastatingly.





With all respect to Jacob he got it badly wrong. Even the best of us can do that. His colleagues on the Appeals Court found he got it badly wrong. They explained why very clearly in the passages above. The Supreme Court elected not to grant cert.

Once again, I point out that US law is not the same as Commonwealth law. I keep pointing you to sources, but you don't seem interested in educating yourself on the matter. Anti-trust law in the US has two very different schools of thought. If you accept the one school of thought, that anti-trust's purpose is to protect consumers and competition, then Jacob's ruling was devastatingly correct and got to the heart of the matter.

As far as the red herring about the Supreme Court electing not to hear the case, i.e. grant cert, that once again shows a lack of understanding of how the Supreme Court works. Just because the Supreme Court decides not to hear a case, doesn't mean that they think it was decided correctly. It simply means that they chose not to hear it which could be for a number of reasons. Once again, I've already pointed you to a number of sources that discuss the various reasons that the Supreme Court might choose to hear or not hear a case, but you seem to have decided to ignore those.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I see now, thank you for clarifying. I absolutely agree that Indie, Inc and especially KU filled the niché of formerly used book store/club patrons that converted to ebooks. The advantage now is, that there is choice of brand new books as well. No longer is the selection limited to other people's "junk they no longer want." There may exist excellent second hand book stores in bigger cities, but not where I live.

So with you not so much a matter of quality, but a matter of curation and ease of finding books you likely want to read.

Aye, your pet peeve of curation and discoverability shown in action by example. I do hope your prediction of the Apple Book store going to be curated similar to Apple Music comes true. Not so much that I would like to start buying from Apple, but that I really would want Amazon to do the same, especially for KU.

Yep, correct in all matters. Thanks for taking the time and effort to understand what I was trying to say.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by John F

By definition, aren't the dissenting opinions less influencing: the person expressing the dissenting opinion didn't agree the majority, and the majority are what decides whether the verdict stands. Especially in your Scalia reference (I assume for the SCOTUS), this is the highest level, so his opinion wouldn't be considered by any higher appeals court, and in fact, a precedent has been set for the entire U.S. legal system?

Actually not, the influence is on those law students and judges who read the dissent and consider the arguments. The influence is in the direction future rulings go. Scalia's major influence was in pushing the idea that rulings should be based on the clear written text of the law rather than on perceived intent or goal of the legislation in question.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Yep, correct in all matters. Thanks for taking the time and effort to understand what I was trying to say.

We are not too different in that matter. We both want to easily find books that we want to read. I just happen to be lucky enough to find enough good books in KU. Admittedly it has to do with me specifically looking in KU and only if nothing comes up to use a different approach. When it comes to writing skills alone, a good book in KU can easily compete with a good TradPub book. At least with fiction books.

[John F]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Actually not, the influence is on those law students and judges who read the dissent and consider the arguments. The influence is in the direction future rulings go. Scalia's major influence was in pushing the idea that rulings should be based on the clear written text of the law rather than on perceived intent or goal of the legislation in question.

How influencial could Scalia's opinion have been? 1) Apple was found guilty. 2) Scalia didn't even write an opinion on the case.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by John F

How influencial could Scalia's opinion have been? 1) Apple was found guilty. 2) Scalia didn't even write an opinion on the case.

Aren't ALL cases the Supreme Court hears from guilty verdicts?