Stephen Covey ditches Simon & Schuster, gives exclusive rights to Amazon

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Not all Kindle users accept "vendor lock-in".

Many have the brains and desire to break out of the box.

The convenience factor is huge......but not everything.

True. I bought my Kindle2 primarily to have access to Amazon's pricing and selection of ebooks but I certainly don't like the proprietary practices they use.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Many have the brains and desire to break out of the box.

And quite a few live in countries where touching the box in the wrong place, let alone breaking it, is illegal.

[markbot]

When ebook devices from Amazon and Sony hit the $99 mark, the hardcover book market will be dead since you can make back the cost of the device within a few months through cheaper ebook versions. Can't wait!

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

H'm, I didn't think that "Balkanization" suggested a neat and well-defined situation, maybe I have the wrong metaphor.

I went over to Wikipedia to see what it had to say about Balkanization, & it seems to me that the core concept is the division of entities into smaller entities. In a sense, increasingly well-defined. In fact, one might say it's a leap from definition to a kind of hyperdefinition. Borders, no pun intended or even existing, seem to be of the essence.

But the interesting thing was a animated gif showing the changes in the Balkan empires/nations from 1796 to 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ba..._1800-2006.gif

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by markbot

When ebook devices from Amazon and Sony hit the $99 mark, the hardcover book market will be dead since you can make back the cost of the device within a few months through cheaper ebook versions. Can't wait!

You're assuming high initial cost is what is blocking ereaders, and that once costs come down, eveyone will shift to ebooks and harcovers will go away.

Frankly, I doubt it. I don't see dedicated readers reaching the $99 price point (at least, not with decent sized eInk displays) any time soon, if ever. And I don't see hardcovers going away. Too many things published n hardcover are not good fits for ebooks, like art books or atlases. And many people (myself included), happen to like the experience of reading as paper book. I have some books where I have both the hardcover and an ebook version.
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Dennis

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

You're assuming high initial cost is what is blocking ereaders, and that once costs come down, eveyone will shift to ebooks and harcovers will go away.

Frankly, I doubt it. I don't see dedicated readers reaching the $99 price point (at least, not with decent sized eInk displays) any time soon, if ever. And I don't see hardcovers going away. Too many things published n hardcover are not good fits for ebooks, like art books or atlases. And many people (myself included), happen to like the experience of reading as paper book. I have some books where I have both the hardcover and an ebook version.
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Dennis

Agreed. That will bring move people to ebooks, but it certainly won't be ubiquitous at that price point, nor do I ever expect pbooks to go away.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Agreed. That will bring move people to ebooks, but it certainly won't be ubiquitous at that price point, nor do I ever expect pbooks to go away.

I think we are seeing increasing interest in ebooks, and awareness in the industry. I just got email the other day from HarperCollins with a pointer to a survey about my buying and reading habits, and my usage of and desire for ebooks. Of particular interest were questions about various feathers they could add to ebooks that would make me pay a higher price. Given discussions elsewhere on MR where I've talked about ePub being a container that can hold other things besides the ebook text, and suggestion of "Directors Cut?" editions with extra features like an audio book copy, video interview with the author, etc., it was nice to see a major publisher thinking along those lines. Wonder if someone there has been reading MR?

If anything, I expect to see ebooks cannibalize mass market paperback sales. But I don't expect to see those go away, either. Too many people like pbooks. I know a chap on the West Coast making a very good living producing POD versions of public domain stuff from Project Gutenberg and selling the paper versions on line. Why not just get the electronic version? Because lots of folks still like paper books. The folks who buy his texts might like to read them on a dedicated reader, but readers are and will be a niche market. Not everyone is interested in getting Yet Another Electronic Device that might get lost/broken.
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Dennis

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I don't see dedicated readers reaching the $99 price point (at least, not with decent sized eInk displays) any time soon, if ever.

640k RAM.

And I don't see hardcovers going away. Too many things published n hardcover are not good fits for ebooks

No, that just means they're suited to tablets, not ereaders per-se. People will have a tablet and an ereader, to replace hardbacks and paperbacks. Well before you'd expect it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

640k RAM.

Look up a teardown of an extant eInk based reader, and the estimated component costs. Then tell me when you think a $99 price point for an eInk reader might be reached, and what sort of margin it might have if it was.

Is a $99 price point possible? Maybe. Will it happen any time soon? I very much doubt it. Even if it's possible, why would a vendor do it? You use pricing like that to gain market share, betting on economies of scale and volume to make up what you lose on margin. That assumes you'll have volume. That strategy makes sense for something like an MP3 player, because almost everyone listens to music. Readers are still a niche market that doesn't have the required volume, and I don't think a $99 price point will create it. Everyone listens to music. Everyone doesn't necessarily read. There are all to many folks out there for whom reading is a chore to be done because they have to, and not a source of pleasure. What incentive do they have to buy a reader?

I wouldn't at all mind being wrong in my beliefs, but I don't think I am.

No, that just means they're suited to tablets, not ereaders per-se. People will have a tablet and an ereader, to replace hardbacks and paperbacks. Well before you'd expect it.

And the whole world will abandon paper books, and shift to dedicated readers and tablets?

You might. But it's a capital mistake to assume you are representative, and the rest of that market will do what you do. The rest of the market probably won't follow you.

For that matter, I won't. I have some paper volumes in my collection that would require a tablet with a display size equivalent to my 19" monitor on my desktop, running in at least 1600x1200 resolution. I don't see anyone making a tablet like that.
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Dennis

[DawnFalcon]

It's a mistake to count on the same e-paper technologies be the only ones available as well. And you used the word "ever" - I'm just looking two decades ahead, at most. Readers, especially touchscreen readers, are useful for a whole host of things beside traditional reading as well.

And... you're making that mistake yourself - people read more than ever, but not necessarily novels. A tablet for the web is going to be a major, if not the major, platform. Also...sure, there are a few things which won't translate well, but future releases in that sort of unwieldy format? Well, they're few and far between already.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I don't see dedicated readers reaching the $99 price point (at least, not with decent sized eInk displays) any time soon, if ever.

Then ebook readers would be the first consumer electronics technology to ever NOT plummet in price (or rise in features) over time. It would be redundant to list various tech products that cost 1/10th or 1/1000th or 1/1000th of what they cost when the technology was just emerging, so I'll just generalize and say-- everything. The time will come (and within 5 to 10 years) when not only will you get ebook readers with eInk style or better displays for not only $99 but for $49, and you'll find clearances of low-end, primitive older models (but still better than the mainstream models of today) for ten or twenty bucks as the geeks.com "1daydeal."

Last week I bought a few MP3 players for ten bucks each on sale. They had a mere 2 GB of flash memory, though. Which doesn't compare to the 32 megabytes of memory I had on my first $150 MP3 player, or course:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300

The ebook readers we are using today are the same ones people will be pointing at and laughing about 10 years from now.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

It's a mistake to count on the same e-paper technologies be the only ones available as well. And you used the word "ever" - I'm just looking two decades ahead, at most. Readers, especially touchscreen readers, are useful for a whole host of things beside traditional reading as well.

Agreed, but we still disagree on the price point such devices might achieve.

I'm looking forward to newer display technologies. One show stopper for me in getting a reader is that eInk does not currently support color, and color is a requirement for my uses. (I've seen some items on prototype eInk displays using 12 bit color. I was not impressed.)

I expect interesting things to be out in the next few years, but I don't expect to see them all that cheap.

And... you're making that mistake yourself - people read more than ever, but not necessarily novels. A tablet for the web is going to be a major, if not the major, platform. Also...sure, there are a few things which won't translate well, but future releases in that sort of unwieldy format? Well, they're few and far between already.

I repeat what I said, and I was not thinking of just novels. While it's all reading, I put reading books, fiction or non-fiction, in a different category from browsing the web.

A tablet as an expansion of current netbook devices is something I can see being a major success. But that's a general purpose device, not a dedicated reader. (And that's another show stopper for me in getting a reader: I need a device that does more than display books.)

The initial question was whether a dedicated reader at a $99 price point would be compelling enough to make ereaders mainstream and make hardcover books go away. I don't see either happening near term. (And I'm certainly not going to get two reader devices, one to replace PBs and the other to replace HCs. I'll get one portable multipurpose device that will display ebooks among other functions, and pass on a dedicated reader entirely.)
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Last week I bought a few MP3 players for ten bucks each on sale. They had a mere 2 GB of flash memory, though. Which doesn't compare to the 32 megabytes of memory I had on my first $150 MP3 player, or course:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300

The ebook readers we are using today are the same ones people will be pointing at and laughing about 10 years from now.

I'd like you to be right, but I'm not enthusiastic.

MP3 players got that cheap because of volume. It's pure semi-conductor electronics. The more you make, the cheaper you can price them. Almost everyone listens to music, so the market for MP3 players is in the hundreds of millions.

How big is the total market for dedicated ebook readers? I don't know, but while I'd like it to be "hundreds of millions", I'd be startled at "tens of millions". The volume just isn't there now to support the sort of price points we're talking about. I hope it develops, but am not holding my breath.
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Dennis

[kennyc]

To the $99 price point, look at mobile phones. When a retailer like Amazon or B&N or Sony combine the ebook reader with a subscription service, the price for the ebook reader might easily drop that low.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kennyc

To the $99 price point, look at mobile phones. When a retailer like Amazon or B&N or Sony combine the ebook reader with a subscription service, the price for the ebook reader might easily drop that low.

Mobile phones are that cheap because of telco subsidies to lock users into contracts. Just about everybody has a cell phone now and needs a contract. Prices for an unlocked phone not tethered to a specific provider by a multi-year contract are rather higher than the normal prices you see quoted.

What sort of subscription plan might B&N/Amazon/Sony offer, and would the revenues cover the needed subsidies?

I think the basic question is "Is the market big enough to make something like this feasible?" At the moment, I don't think it is. It may be down the road, but I'm not really optimistic. Mind you, I'd be happy to be wrong in my pessimism.
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Dennis