Do some publishers have any idea?

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Doing both is not mutually exclusive (unless you have moral and or legal issues with DRM removal). You need some kind of device anyway to read. Buying devices for others, even if they are family, should not be a decision for you alone to make. I would at least wait for some hint of: I wish I had my own reader for outside reading instead of the tablet. Worth considering is the DRM removal option anyway. It opens the choice of reading device and ebook store (well limited to those that can be DRM freed).

I haven't said I haven't gone down the DRM removal road, but once again, why should I have to. And for me anyway, that is more about making sure I have a usable backup of what I own, despite others disputing that ownership.

As for people buying their own reader, well normally that would be something they do for their own account, not an extra device on someone else's account. Whichever way you look at it, if we want to share with each other, we all have to buy multiple devices for multiple accounts.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by maximus83

That is an interesting idea I had not considered. This is a pretty good idea just loaning the whole device, I assume the premise being the ebook is tied to the physical device and won't be used elsewhere. But for those who cloud sync as I do, what's to stop them from just simultaneously reading the device on a phone or whatever, while loaning say their Kindle to somebody else? Seems like maybe this could still get iffy, I don't know. Maybe not a problem. I've never tried it.

Loaning a device????? Mmmmm sounds a bit crazy to me.

People complain about books returning in a bad state, and they aren't exactly fragile compared to an ereader or tablet.

You can read about all the careful users out there that still somehow end up with a cracked screen. Not to mention, accidentally leave it on public transport. etc , etc.

Not a cheap problem if it becomes one.

And then, while you loan it, you might need another device for yourself. And seriously, I would not limit myself to reading on a phone, so someone could use my device, that would be silly ... depending on duration and material of course.

Gawd, I learnt long ago not to loan CDs to people, and they are relatively cheap. At least a physical book can still be usable in most cases of damage.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

To me, a book is a book. I think most people get indignant at e-book prices because they are of the opinion that ebooks are not "real books".

Not sure I have come across anyone with that view.
An ebook is a real book and an ebook costs less to provide to the customer than its physical counterpart.
End of story really.

Some continue to see this discussion as my personal gripe and my personal view. It isn't. It is about what is fair. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's not even about whether books should idealistically cost more to match their supposed true value.

It is simply that ebooks by their very nature, should cost significantly less than their physical versions.

It is also about the behavior and practices of many publishers, and that goes back beyond the advent of ebooks.

If some publisher is in a pretty predicament now, I wonder who should be blamed? Hardly the customer or the author, who generally have very little control.

[Timboli]

Another reason I prefer ebooks, is because of the behavior of publishers.

This year for instance, I have read a few Terry Brooks novels, some of them paperbacks. Two of those have what can only be described of as microscopic print, and I bought them online unseen.

It is disgraceful really. The publisher clearly printed them on the cheap. The print is not dark either, so even a penny pinching of the ink. Both those novels are less than 400 pages, so no need for the print to be so unbelievably small.

I am one of those who is still lucky enough at my age, to not need glasses. So I can read those paperbacks unassisted, but it is more tiring when everything is so small and close together. Depending on lighting conditions, sometimes I use magnifying glasses, but because I have long arms, and they are set to work at a specific distance, my arms get tired holding the book up so close.

P.S. Because I am a big fan of Terry Brooks, and because I am mid way through reading his series within series, the publisher calls all the shots, and I am at their mercy. They have all the power.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Timboli

Some continue to see this discussion as my personal gripe and my personal view. It isn't. It is about what is fair. Nothing more, nothing less.

No, it's about your personal perception of what constitutes fairness, which may not tally with other people's.

You're suggesting, if I understand you correctly, that it's "not fair" for a publisher to charge the same for an ebook and a DTP, because the ebook costs less to produce. The reality is that book prices are determined by what the market will bear, not (primarily) by overheads. A publisher has a right - indeed, a legal duty to their shareholders - to engage in legal commercial practices which maximise their profit.

If optimal profits result from charging £5 for an ebook, it would be foolish to sell it for £4. There will always be a correlation between price and sales, and publishers have decades - centuries, in some cases - of experience in determining what price point will maximise their income.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Timboli

Call it complaining if you want, but I see it as a discussion about what is both fair and unfair.

When I think discussion that is something different than trying to convince others how your point of view is the only acceptable one. You are very argumentative about your own opinion. That is perfectly fine and everybody is entitled to their own opinion. It becomes slightly annoying, biased, unfair when you shoot every singly differing opinion down. Your favorite phrase is that it doesn't make sense. Not just to you, but universally. And then the condescending "doesn't make sense, but I will answer anyway." That is very rude, might as well phrase it "you are so wrong and stupid, let me prove it to you." What a coincidence (pun intended incase you missed it), you beat the dead horse and use it against me. I am both shocked, and at the same time honored that I managed to push the right button.

The rest of what you say is nonsensical, but I will answer it anyway, just in case you were serious and not exactly the smartest kid on the block.

There. Maybe you think you are entitled to say such a thing since you are both older than me and think yourself more intelligent. That you are older is a simple deduction from you mentioning you been buying books for over 5 decades. I just started my 5th decade of living last year. As for intelligence? The chance of a random person being more intelligent than me is lower than the other way around. That goes for you probably just the same. That is unfortunately inconclusive data to go comparing yours with mine. I will just ignore the insult and answer truthfully to the real question you are asking. At least what I can gather, anyway.

The rest of your post just confirms what impression I had, so I just snip it and sum it up: You are a book addict concerning reading books, rereading books, collecting books, buying books. You mentioned at least once (probably more than once in this thread alone) that you already have enough to last past your life expectancy (estimated and actual) and that you are content with it. That, of course, usually is a lie. I truly believe you have enough to last your lifetime, what I do not believe is that you are content with your reading material. And you confirmed it. For reading, you would probably be fine, but not for satisfying you buying and hording addiction. I got that from reading between your lines. Your lines have a lot less room between them than my lines, since I am a person of few words. I usually try to only say something I think important. You are the opposite, and I don't mean that in a bad way. You are a story teller. Probably would make a good author yourself if you wanted to.

Was I truly serious with what I said? Absolutely. The important part is between the lines not put there. The missing part is that you would never accept my proposal of stopping to buy books. Because you don't want to as you love buying books. Except some are too expensive that you would like to buy. Too expensive by your standard of fairness. A lot ofthings are too expensive for me as well. The way I deal with it personally is to only look in my price range and see what I would like to read. Works for me, may not work for you.

So there is that, an attempt to get you thinking.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Need to change it? Why do they need to? The big publishers are commercially successful. Why change a successful business model?

Because purely and simply they can't defend their pricing model for ebooks, which is what they try to do.

In other words, they pretend to be moral and ethical.

I suppose I am just one of the deluded many who thinks everyone, including companies and governments, should play fair. To us, that makes for a better world.

They can make us downtrodden, but they cannot shut us up .... but they will try.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

@Hitch: Hi, could you elaborate on real world print costs for publishers in small, medium, large runs?

I can try, but I don't do a ton of work for trade pubs, and of course--as you've noticed--they're close-mouthed about their business models, as much as they are able. If you're doing a print run of 10K, (which would be typical for a midlister), the typical print production cost for MM paperbacks or trade runs ~$2.00. A larger run will reduce those costs a bit, so the Sandfords of the world are probably costing $1-$1.50 for those grocery-stand paperbacks.

For an offset press, if memory serves, 125 pages is a skosh under a dollar. Assuming 3 times the length for Dan Brown, Sandford, etc., assume twice-ish the price. Again, it's the setup costs that push the price up more than the number of signatures needed to make the book (pages grouped in 8s or 16s). That same 125-page POD book runs around $7, again, if memory serves. (Just throwing that in for whatever purposes of comparison.)

The only reliable data that I can find is pricing for POD which is about $4-$6 for normalish paperbacks. That is also the surcharge many Indies charge for print books when they offer both ebook and pbook. Naturally I would not expect them to do otherwise as they are just passing on the cost to the (few?) that really really want a pbook. Only thing I remember is that big run of offset mass market paperback is around $1, and hardcover around $4. Is that still accurate today?

I'm not sure that the Indies are charging surcharges, really; most of our clients are charging just enough to pay for the book using expanded distribution.

Highly interesting what you said about the children's books. Coincidentally I recently bought a really nice one from Goodwill for 50 cents. It looked pretty much brand new. But I wouldn't have paid list price for it, or even what Amazon wants for it (link). To be fair, two of our grandkids really enjoyed the book and read it multiple times by themselves already (a Kindergartner and a Firstgrader). For how long it entertains the value is not there in my mind at new prices.

And that's part of it, isn't it, with kids' books? Like clothes, they'll be great today and forgotten or grown out of, tomorrow. If you have your own herd, fine, you can get more use out of it, but like many other things, larger passels of kids are yesterday's news. It's harder to make a $30 book "go around" than it used to be. :-)

Someone else commented that of course, publishers don't choose to publish books that they know will be total losers, and that's true. But they do, absolutely, knowingly publish books that they don't believe will earn much beyond earn-out. All publishers do that. They always have, and always will. It's a standard discussion with new kids, to publishing, which, like all kids carrying on about "fairness," feel that the attention and resources that the Browns and Sandfords get isn't "fair" to new authors and all that. The lecture always is, without them, those new authors would never get the chance to be trade-pubbed. Even when rag publishers were cranking out (literally!) their own magazines and circulars, etc. they were always publishing their less-popular offerings because the more-popular subsidized them. It has ever been so, and I don't foresee it becoming otherwise.

If it does, as I said, you'll have Darwinian Publishing--a publishing entity that scours Amazon, et al, like a Great White Shark, seeking books that are already selling, authors that already have followings, and signing those people, based not upon the quality of their writing but the volume of their readership. I've already seen it happen, with a young man that writes a very, very popular "series" of books that he publishes like a serial novel. His entries and books are quite short, 20-30K each; he publishes them quickly. They're quite popular amongst his following, and he makes a very good living doing it. They're pretty awful. They're unedited, the dialogue is rough, and all that, but bygod, they make money. He was offered a publishing contact with a name publisher. Was it for his sterling prose? His novel concepts, wonderful character, etc.? Hell no. It was money, pure and simple.

That's the world we'd be doomed to, if publishing pricing has to be "fair" as discussed in this thread. I want to be able to look for new writers, new authors, via trade publishers, because I know that they've done some of the culling for me. Like many of you, I'm bloody busy. I work a 60+ hour week, and I don't have the time to Diogenes my way through LITBs at Amazon, seeking that one good author.

But, everybody has their own perspective, of course. I would urge you to think about the business model of publishers, though and realize it's not all about a single book, or that single book's pricing. It's about their entire organization, and all those books that didn't earn out, that didn't hit it big, that are consigned to the Island of Misfit Books. You may well have loved some of those--I know that I certainly have some hardly-heard-ofs on my shelves, that are much-loved to me. Sure, it's possible that today, tehy'd have self-pubbed, and maybe I'd have found them, but...I can't know that for sure. None of us can.

Hitch

[Timboli]

@DuckieTrigger - Like several here have done, you spoke to me like I am an idiot. So blame yourself for the tone of my reply, and my 'inexact' words to your intelligence. I never specifically said what your intelligence was, just put it into question ... called having a robust conversation.

Some are not outright rude, but talk to me like I was born yesterday ... despite all the logical evidence to the contrary. Despite how you or some others may view them, I have offered deep and thoughtful replies and arguments, and like any sensible person never expect to win anyone over. I care more about making people think, and no-one has to agree with me, and all are entitled to their view.

Anyone with half a brain, can clearly see that I have thought long and hard about things.

There are many who think as I do, but most have more sense than to speak up, for they view it pointless. However, my agenda is different and I believe in planting seeds for long term.

And honestly, like most people everywhere, even book readers are often poor at reading properly. Most people skim read, if they even do that. A form of laziness really, and ultimately disrespectful. That said, I quite realize this has become quite a long topic now, and hard and illogical to expect everyone to read everything.

I probably had more than my say, some time back, and are mostly repeating or saying things in a slightly different way now. But part of my nature is that I respond to those, who have taken the time to address me. Both a blessing and a curse I guess.

Respect is a two-way street.

[DuckieTigger]

@Timboli: Apology accepted. Even though you didn't specifically say so. For what it is worth, I did not skim read. I read everything until I posted my first post. I am still reading everything, but some posts before mine now sometimes have to wait until after I posted.

I am not the one that started it. You have yourself to blame. The only time I had the impression anyone was talking to you as if you are an idiot is after you been rude first.

Incase you skimmed over it, I will say it again: up until at least my first post the impression I had and have of this thread is not that of a pleasant conversation. Others feel the same, Harry even quite literally said so himself.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it's about your personal perception of what constitutes fairness, which may not tally with other people's.

It's not my personal perception, if I am not alone in it.
You can make fairness as complicated as you like, but I don't buy into the arguments given, and believe that at its root the fairness is quite simply based.

You're suggesting, if I understand you correctly, that it's "not fair" for a publisher to charge the same for an ebook and a DTP, because the ebook costs less to produce. The reality is that book prices are determined by what the market will bear, not (primarily) by overheads. A publisher has a right - indeed, a legal duty to their shareholders - to engage in legal commercial practices which maximise their profit.

If optimal profits result from charging £5 for an ebook, it would be foolish to sell it for £4. There will always be a correlation between price and sales, and publishers have decades - centuries, in some cases - of experience in determining what price point will maximise their income.

In other words, you are saying they will charge what they think they can get away with.

You are saying, that the profit they were getting before ebooks came along, was sufficient (must have been), but now they are taking advantage of ebooks to get more.

Just because they can get away with something in the market, does not make it fair, especially when the product is a monopoly really.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Why don't you then instead of complaining? Your solution to your problem is so obvious that nobody else dared mention it. Simply stop buying books altogether right now. Problem solved, no more worries about unfair book prices. Consider buying your next book after reading what you got.

So that was respectful was it?
Not talking to me like I am an idiot?

Clearly I am a fool to have never thought of all that. Such a simple solution.

[Timboli]

At the end of the day, I don't know any of you here from a bar of soap.
The majority of you could be publishers or have publisher ties.
Certainly at time it feels like I am being ganged up on, ridiculed and so forth.
I would have given up ages ago, but I am a stubborn cuss sometimes.
Such is life and I knew what I was in for before I started ... normally I talk myself out of bothering.
But hey, sometimes I get these urges to make a difference, make a fairer world etc.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Timboli

In other words, you are saying they will charge what they think they can get away with.

...

Just because they can get away with something in the market, does not make it fair, especially when the product is a monopoly really.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Commercial enterprises such as publishers do not exist to make the world a better place, but to generate profit for their shareholders. Fairness doesn't enter into it. They are bound by the law. That applies to any business, not just publishing.

Publishing is very far from being a monopoly. Anyone can do it.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I can try, but I don't do a ton of work for trade pubs, and of course--as you've noticed--they're close-mouthed about their business models, as much as they are able. If you're doing a print run of 10K, (which would be typical for a midlister), the typical print production cost for MM paperbacks or trade runs ~$2.00. A larger run will reduce those costs a bit, so the Sandfords of the world are probably costing $1-$1.50 for those grocery-stand paperbacks.

For an offset press, if memory serves, 125 pages is a skosh under a dollar. Assuming 3 times the length for Dan Brown, Sandford, etc., assume twice-ish the price. Again, it's the setup costs that push the price up more than the number of signatures needed to make the book (pages grouped in 8s or 16s). That same 125-page POD book runs around $7, again, if memory serves. (Just throwing that in for whatever purposes of comparison.)

Thank you again. Good information. The price difference between offset press and POD does show that you are likely to see "fair" pricing only from Indies that truly cannot afford to shell out the money for the setup of the much cheaper (excluding setup) offset press per book. Alas, print runs in multitudes of 10K units can only be done by the big boys.

I'm not sure that the Indies are charging surcharges, really; most of our clients are charging just enough to pay for the book using expanded distribution.

I meant surcharge compared to the same book as ebook. And they are possibly willing to accept smaller royalties on the pbooks so that total price does not go through the roof.

And that's part of it, isn't it, with kids' books? Like clothes, they'll be great today and forgotten or grown out of, tomorrow. If you have your own herd, fine, you can get more use out of it, but like many other things, larger passels of kids are yesterday's news. It's harder to make a $30 book "go around" than it used to be. :-)

Yes. Absolutely. A good thing there is second hand books to be found.