"eBook versions of owned paper books" Popular Front

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by macminer

....the argument that you can't claim your right to something non-standard (in this case a cheaper e-book because you own a pbook) reflects the egalitarian attitude......

For the record I(and as far as I can see everyone else on this "side") have never claimed you can't claim your right to something non-standard. We have questioned whether any such "right"(to a cheaper ebook) exists in the first place.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[macminer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you also think that the customer should be able to ask for a reduction in the price of a paperback book if they've previously bought the hardback?

Probably no, because these days before you even print a book, you actually have it in a digital format. The additional cost of exporting it into an ebook is only borne once (as opposed to the cost of printing every single copy of pbook). So producing an ebook doesn't mean a significantly bigger overhead for the publisher. With paperback you still have to bear the cost of paper, printing, stocking, shipping, which wasn't included in any way within the cost of the hardback.

On the other hand, I can imagine that if I go to the bookshop and buy two copies of the same book (eg. a paperback for myself and a hardback for a gift) I might try to ask the bookshop for some discount, but I'd consider that a favor, not my right.

I also think that VHS vs. DVD is not an ideal analogy of pbook vs. ebook. Most movies sold in the era of VHS didn't start as digital, so if someone releases a DVD, they have to convert the original source to digital, then have to produce a DVD, ship it, stock it etc. A better analogy would be a DVD vs. a downloadable mpeg (but still not ideal, as the cost of digital video storage and bandwidth is significantly higher than with ebooks).

[ahi]

Originally Posted by macminer

Probably no, because these days before you even print a book, you actually have it in a digital format. The additional cost of exporting it into an ebook is only borne once (as opposed to the cost of printing every single copy of pbook).

The cost of printing an average size hardcover is probably about or under $1.

- Ahi

[edembowski]

Originally Posted by braver

The naysayers here remind me of the Soviet "kolkhozniki" -- the rather backward peasants collectivized by Stalin in the 1930s. They hated the middle-class "kulaks" more than anybody else, and their most desired state was complete sameness. Anybody "better off" was suspicious. All those nonsensical references to "so if I owned a VHS should I also get a Blu-ray" deserve the same response: back to the kolkhoz, comrade!

I think it very strange to be classified as a "backward peasant", when I've tried to be very clear about why I think Amazon would never do what your asking. I've also seen no response suggesting why I may be wrong. Again, to be clear, here is why I don't think you'll ever see it:

1. Amazon is not the publisher of the books. They cannot give them away, and are bound by their agreements with each publisher.

2. They have no financial incentive to do so.

Of course, being a poor "kulak", what do I know? I guess that I'm just too backward and afraid of change. Really, I don't see how I can leave my house for all the suspicion I have for everyone else. After all, Amazon is a good communist company. We should all see our book upgrades any day now.

- Ed

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you also think that the customer should be able to ask for a reduction in the price of a paperback book if they've previously bought the hardback?

If they've bought the hardback they can make their own paperback.

Wouldn't it be nice if the retailer offered to sell them one at a reduced price instead? The customer would basically be paying for the convenience of not having to convert the format themselves.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

As I say, Kenny, it's not that the law has changed more often in the US than elsewhere, it's the fact that, up until 1964 (I think that's the right date) the US had a system of copyright registration and renewals, which (AFAIK) other countries did not.

Sounds about right. If I recall correctly, that was when the US became a signatory to the Berne convention.

And to make life more fun, the same story might be covered or not covered under different copyrights, like a variety of SF whose magazine serialization is now in the public domain because the rights were never renewed, but the novel version is not because it was...
______
Dennis

[macminer]

Originally Posted by ahi

The cost of printing an average size hardcover is probably about or under $1.

- Ahi

Maybe in your country this is true, although it seems to contradict the numbers I know from my experience. And are you sure the cost of paper, transport to the warehouse, package and shipment to the customer/retailer is included in that?

All the publishers I've worked with in my country claim that about half the cost of the book is paper, printing, shipment, storage (ie. physical costs). The other half includes marketing costs, royalties, publisher's, middle-man's and retailer's profit. I have experience working with about 50 of them so I don't think they all are lying to me. So if the average book in Poland costs $12, about $6 is the cost of the physical aspect of the paper book. As for the ebooks it is still difficult to estimate the cost, because ebook market is tiny. Obviously, if a publisher makes an ebook that is going to be bought only by a handful of customers, they may not even recuperate the money they've put into maintaining a secure web server, buying software licenses etc.

Even so, some Polish publishers are still willing to offer their books in the ebook format (although mostly PDF with exotic DRM or non-DRM ones). Strange enough, they don't sell them through any major online bookshop, but off their own webpages. One example is here: http://ksiazki.wydawnictwowam.pl/?app=ebook
This is actually one of the publishers I cooperate with and I think I won't reveal any trade secrets when I say that this part of their business is only a small fraction of the pbook business, but still it is so cheap to maintain that it pays for itself.


For the record: I am not an author but I manage book promotion on the Internet. However, in the past I also translated several books, so I have experience of several aspects of the publishing process.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by macminer

Maybe in your country this is true, although it seems to contradict the numbers I know from my experience. And are you sure the cost of paper, transport to the warehouse, package and shipment to the customer/retailer is included in that?

All the publishers I've worked with in my country claim that about half the cost of the book is paper, printing, shipment, storage (ie. physical costs). The other half includes marketing costs, royalties, publisher's, middle-man's and retailer's profit. I have experience working with about 50 of them so I don't think they all are lying to me. So if the average book in Poland costs $12, about $6 is the cost of the physical aspect of the paper book. As for the ebooks it is still difficult to estimate the cost, because ebook market is tiny. Obviously, if a publisher makes an ebook that is going to be bought only by a handful of customers, they may not even recuperate the money they've put into maintaining a secure web server, buying software licenses etc.

Even so, some Polish publishers are still willing to offer their books in the ebook format (although mostly PDF with exotic DRM or non-DRM ones). Strange enough, they don't sell them through any major online bookshop, but off their own webpages. One example is here: http://ksiazki.wydawnictwowam.pl/?app=ebook
This is actually one of the publishers I cooperate with and I think I won't reveal any trade secrets when I say that this part of their business is only a small fraction of the pbook business, but still it is so cheap to maintain that it pays for itself.


For the record: I am not an author but I manage book promotion on the Internet. However, in the past I also translated several books, so I have experience of several aspects of the publishing process.

In my country the situation is probably the same as in yours. In North America though, because print runs are consistently (and sometimes vastly) higher than in European countries, the printing cost is really that low. But no, that does not necessarily include all of the additional costs you mentioned.

Either way though... hardcovers have every chance of being good earners for publishers in North America.

- Ahi

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ahi

In my country the situation is probably the same as in yours. In North America though, because print runs are consistently (and sometimes vastly) higher than in European countries, the printing cost is really that low. But no, that does not necessarily include all of the additional costs you mentioned.

Press runs in America may be high, but I suspect an incremental cost of $1 per for a hardcover printing is way too low. The hardcover binding alone will likely be more than that.

In printing, about half your cost is setup and make ready: creating the plates from which books are printed, mounting them on the press, and printing test sheets to calibrate ink coverage, registration and the like.

Once that's done, the incremental cost to print one more copy of a volume is low, but that's "low" relatively speaking, and how low it will be is affected by a number of factors.

Either way though... hardcovers have every chance of being good earners for publishers in North America.

They offer higher margins, assuming they sell at all. It's why Baen Books, for example, was happy to be able to transition to hardcover publisher from mass market paperback house. If they were still doing only MMPBs, they might not exist now.
______
Dennis

[braver]

Originally Posted by macminer

Probably no, because these days before you even print a book, you actually have it in a digital format. The additional cost of exporting it into an ebook is only borne once (as opposed to the cost of printing every single copy of pbook). So producing an ebook doesn't mean a significantly bigger overhead for the publisher. With paperback you still have to bear the cost of paper, printing, stocking, shipping, which wasn't included in any way within the cost of the hardback.

On the other hand, I can imagine that if I go to the bookshop and buy two copies of the same book (eg. a paperback for myself and a hardback for a gift) I might try to ask the bookshop for some discount, but I'd consider that a favor, not my right.

I also think that VHS vs. DVD is not an ideal analogy of pbook vs. ebook. Most movies sold in the era of VHS didn't start as digital, so if someone releases a DVD, they have to convert the original source to digital, then have to produce a DVD, ship it, stock it etc. A better analogy would be a DVD vs. a downloadable mpeg (but still not ideal, as the cost of digital video storage and bandwidth is significantly higher than with ebooks).

Absolutely correct. To keep pushing any material-material pseudo-analogy instead of material-digital one is to intentionally ignore and disrespect the topic at hand. I understand it can be done once or twice, but since it has been answered in this thread several times -- as inadmissible -- any repetition is no longer appropriate, for the original thread purposes. Start your own, comrades.

MacMiner, as a fellow ex-Eastern Blocker, understands what I'm alluding to very well. After perusing this forum, I've come to realize that the kolkhoz mentality here is very strong -- the kulak being Amazon, and the kindle-less unwashed masses, especially European ebook-peasantry, trying to make it disgorge its ill-gotten American capitalist gains. Never mind Amazon in fact invented and built the majority of the ideas and infrastructure which makes Kindle the king, and maintains it very well.

The negative response to a very clear and unambiguous idea, distorted by many a lying kolkhoznik here -- I never said "give," always mentioning discounts instead -- shows the traits of those typical kolkhozniks very clearly:

-- not owning a Kindle but loving to disparage it
-- demanding radical changes from Amazon, instead of building your own store, device, and negotiating your own rights
-- distorting material vs. digital arguments by irrelevant, misleading, and downright dishonest comparison to material vs. material upgrades
-- distorting the discount issue into freebie scarecrow
-- avoiding the key fact that Amazon, B&N and small web publishers for the first time in history do have the way to prove physical purchases, upgrade to ebooks, and do it in an economical way
-- not understanding how the actual digital upgrade provided by Amazon already works

Those kolkhozniks who keep repeating themselves while fitting the above description hardly can have much left to contribute, I'm afraid. On the other hand, it's good to see some reasonable folks showing up. Not all is lost in this kolkhoz of a forum.

Just as a matter of courtesy to fellow readers, I'd appreciate if those who don't know how the actual digital upgarde works right now do not bother to argue here.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by braver

Absolutely correct. To keep pushing any material-material pseudo-analogy instead of material-digital one is to intentionally ignore and disrespect the topic at hand. I understand it can be done once or twice, but since it has been answered in this thread several times -- as inadmissible -- any repetition is no longer appropriate, for the original thread purposes. Start your own, comrades.

MacMiner, as a fellow ex-Eastern Blocker, understands what I'm alluding to very well. After perusing this forum, I've come to realize that the kolkhoz mentality here is very strong -- the kulak being Amazon, and the kindle-less unwashed masses, especially European ebook-peasantry, trying to make it disgorge its ill-gotten American capitalist gains. Never mind Amazon in fact invented and built the majority of the ideas and infrastructure which makes Kindle the king, and maintains it very well.

The negative response to a very clear and unambiguous idea, distorted by many a lying kolkhoznik here -- I never said "give," always mentioning discounts instead -- shows the traits of those typical kolkhozniks very clearly:

-- not owning a Kindle but loving to disparage it
-- demanding radical changes from Amazon, instead of building your own store, device, and negotiating your own rights
-- distorting material vs. digital arguments by irrelevant, misleading, and downright dishonest comparison to material vs. material upgrades
-- distorting the discount issue into freebie scarecrow
-- avoiding the key fact that Amazon, B&N and small web publishers for the first time in history do have the way to prove physical purchases, upgrade to ebooks, and do it in an economical way
-- not understanding how the actual digital upgrade provided by Amazon already works

Those kolkhozniks who keep repeating themselves while fitting the above description hardly can have much left to contribute, I'm afraid. On the other hand, it's good to see some reasonable folks showing up. Not all is lost in this kolkhoz of a forum.

Just as a matter of courtesy to fellow readers, I'd appreciate if those who don't know how the actual digital upgarde works right now do not bother to argue here.

Trolls have nothing to contribute to this forum either.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[ahi]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Trolls have nothing to contribute to this forum either.

Cheers,
PKFFW

Then don't submit virtually content-free personal attack posts that ignore anything and everything that may have been constructive in what the other person wrote.

- Ahi

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by ahi

Then don't submit virtually content-free personal attack posts that ignore anything and everything that may have been constructive in what the other person wrote.

- Ahi

So why did you quote my post instead of braver's? You've described his post perfectly.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[braver]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

So why did you quote my post instead of braver's? You've described his post perfectly.

Cheers,
PKFFW

I've outlined the indefensible and repetitive claims made by trolls like you, dear PKFFW. I listed specific rebuttals and sine qua nons for informative discussion in light of everything which was argued in this thread; if you feel the failed prerequisites are addressed to you, then so be it. Using metaphors hardly equates with trolling -- at some point, obtuseness and groupthink of those who don't really read what they argue with must be crystallized as a clear image, for everybody to marvel at.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by braver

I've outlined the indefensible and repetitive claims made by trolls like you, dear PKFFW. I listed specific rebuttals and sine qua nons for informative discussion in light of everything which was argued in this thread; if you feel the failed prerequisites are addressed to you, then so be it. Using metaphors hardly equates with trolling -- at some point, obtuseness and groupthink of those who don't really read what they argue with must be crystallized as a clear image, for everybody to marvel at.

No, what you have done is dredge up a dying thread twice now in order to claim an analogy you personally do not like is "inadmissible" and to insult anyone who disagrees with you by calling them derogatory names.

I think that is a pretty clear demonstration of trollish behaviour.

Cheers,
PKFFW