What content do you enjoy?

[dhbailey]

Originally Posted by benn600

I'm interested in:

1. Answer the poll.
2. For those who mainly get free content, what are your favorite sources?
3. How many hours per week do you read?
4. Do you enjoy audiobooks while reading?
5. Did you get the $150 bonus on Sony Connect? Do you spend other money on Sony Connect? How much money per month? How satisfied are you?
6. Generally, do you read mostly free and/or public domain works or do you prefer paid content?
7. Are you likely to buy new releases which are priced way out of sight--$12-$25?

1. already done
2. Project Gutenberg, silkpagoda.com
3. 30-40 hours/week
4. not at all -- why would I want to hear somebody else reading the words aloud as I read them, forcing their interpretation upon my mind. I don't like audio books at all, even when I'm not reading.
5. No, I bought too early for that -- I got the $50 at the connect store. I am spending between $0 and $20 per month, same as I always have done for paper books. I'm very satisfied so far although I wish more of my favorite authors were represented at connect.com. But that's not entirely Sony's fault -- some authors don't want e-books, some publishers are dragging their feet.
6. Generally I'm enjoying reading the long-out-of-print books which Project Gutenberg has made available once again. There was some terrific stuff written 100 years ago! But I also enjoy reading my favorite current authors as well.
7. If you want accurate responses to a poll, you should NOT follow the poor model set by political pollsters and add judgemental language to your question. Who's to say that $12-$25 prices are "way out of sight?" When computer books cost $40 to $100 in paper while fiction books of the same size run $20-$40, calling $12-$25 prices for e-books "way out of sight" is just silly!
Authors get between 10% and 20% of the retail price. They do not get a fixed amount, such as $1.25, for each book. So when the prices are higher, authors get more money. When the price drops to paperback level, the authors get less money per book, although they get the same percentage. Of course, that drop in per-book-amount is hopefully more than offset by the increase in numbers of books sold. In a fair and free market, you don't have to pay any price you don't like. There are other authors, other publishers, you can buy instead. Or you can read PG free books if you don't want to pay the prices the publishers ask. But copyright gives monopoly protection, which means that publishers can set whatever amount they wish. So when a book comes out in e-book format at hardback prices, the author makes the same money per sale as for a paper book. The publisher and the bookseller make larger profits, however, due to the huge reduction in printing, shipping and storage and display costs. The only way it will be fair to authors and to readers is when the publication contract gives a fixed amount per sale to the author, and then the publishers and retailers can lower what they take in, to offset the vastly lower distribution costs for e-books. But as long as authors get a percentage, wanting lower prices is asking them to take a cut in pay.

[slayda]

There is a lot of content that is neither free or Connect store. Your poll is incomplete & will have skewed results. I get most of my content from Baen.

[Mr. Goodbar]

I personally go through different genre's at times. Right now I'm into history, but I also usually read multiple books at the same time. As for where I get them I do use lot's of free public domain content, but I purchase all my new books from fictionwise in the secure lit format. I then use BD with some tweaking to convert that to lrf for the reader. All of my copyrighted content is purchased, but converted to the reader format. I never post or share copyrighted material.

[UncleDuke]

enough of what i love is posted here

[JSWolf]

As of now, I am reading The sixth Harry Potter Book. I do own the hardcover. The First Spencer novel, and The first (I think) Dragonlance book s well as a couple of Star Trek books. All on the reader.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Speaking for a moment as an author who has had quite extensive dealings with publishers, do bear in mind that the price the publisher sets for the book is not particularly related to the cost of printing it. Most of the price for the initial run - whether it be on paper or electronic - is there to recoup all the money the publisher has spent in advance of publication and (hopefully) give both them and the author a reasonable profit.

People who've never had dealings with publishers perhaps don't realise just how much work is involved in publishing a book, and the cost of all that work does have to be recouped, whether the book is published on paper or electronically.

This part of HarryT's post is spot on target. Printing costs are NOT the majority of the publisher's cost for a book. Over at Baen's Bar various authors have shared with us sales and royalty numbers for some of their work. Jim Baen occasionally wrote on the subject as well. Here're a few tidbits.

• The single biggest bite out of the cover price (from a publisher's point of view) is the mark-up for the retailer and distributer. This can run upwards of 50% of cover price (sometimes well upwards).
  
• Production costs include editing, proof-reading, overhead (e.g. running the office, etc.), development of new authors (that is: mining the slush-pile, guiding the newby's who get bought, guiding the wanna-be's who almost made it, etc.), typesetting, and lots more. None of this goes away for a digital edition.
  
• Printing and warehousing do cost money. Significant money. So do inventory taxes. Books that didn't sell out completely typically go out of print when these costs threaten to outweigh ongoing sales.

Baen has clearly demonstrated that both the publisher and authors can make money -- good money -- on electronic sales. While pricing the books moderately below paperback, and way below hardcover. They charge $6.00 per book (single copy price), or $15 for a bundle of everything they published in a particular month (that they have electronic rights for).

So, when HarryT wrote...

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think it's unrealistic to expect the initial e-book release of a book to be significantly less than the price of the equivalent HB. A bit cheaper, yes, because there are savings on printing cost, but not dramatically.

...I have to disagree. A Baen author's royalty on an electronic sale is pretty good, even at their low prices. Royalty on a single-copy sale is about like the royalty on a trade paperback -- more than the mass market paperback royalty, but less than the hardcover royalty would have been. Likewise for the publisher's take. I should note that Baen's accounting for electronic sales charges a pro-rata portion of the fixed costs for a book to the electronic sale -- and eSales are still quite profitable. In fact, electronic sales are higher than all non-US sales (of dead-tree books) combined (including Canadian sales).

But... They've also found that many electronic sales are incremental sales that do not replace dead-tree sales. That is, not only is the sum of electronic and dead-tree sales a good bit higher than dead-tree sales alone were before Webscriptions, but electronic sales have also been a driver for increased dead-tree sales. This means that the author's royalties are up too -- both from eSales, and from increased dead-tree sales. What's not to like?

So, HarryT, we have an existance proof that it is extremely realistic to expect initial electronic sales to be substantially cheaper than the hardcover price. It's just that its mostly due to cutting out two levels of middle-men, not due to cutting out the printing costs.

Xenophon

[RWood]

Originally Posted by benn600

1. Answer the poll.
2. For those who mainly get free content, what are your favorite sources?
3. How many hours per week do you read?
4. Do you enjoy audiobooks while reading?
5. Did you get the $150 bonus on Sony Connect? Do you spend other money on Sony Connect? How much money per month? How satisfied are you?
6. Generally, do you read mostly free and/or public domain works or do you prefer paid content?
7. Are you likely to buy new releases which are priced way out of sight--$12-$25?

1. Done
2. MobileRead, Gutenberg, Baen
3. 30+ although work and family sometimes get in the way
4. Never
5. Nope. Ony $50. Less than $20 a month or about 1 book a month from there
6. Where ever my interests take me
7. Poor question formation. $12 to $25 is not "way out of sight" to some of us. Sure I can pick up a Steve Jordan for $5 or a Baen for $6 but a copy of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead by Crystal Zevon was a great deal at ~$15 for a just published book.

[Xenophon]

Oh yeah... there's a poll here.

I spent my original $50 at the Sony store. I haven't bought anything else from them. I can't. They don't support my computer and OS (Mac OS X).

Too bad for Sony! I spent about $400 on eBooks and eMagazines in the past year. None of it with Sony. Their store won't let me in the door -- it's like they don't want my business. I have easy access to a Windows box (that isn't work's) about twice a year when I visit my sister's family on vacation. I have no intention of purchasing a copy of Windows (even to run on an Intel Mac), so I really wind up feeling like Sony doesn't want my business.

Instead, I've done most of my eBook purchasing at Baen, with a little bit through Fictionwise. And a bunch of PG texts too, of course.

[JSWolf]

What you can do is purchase LIT format files, use CLIT 1.8 to strip the DRM, and then use Book Designer to load and format and voila. All nice and converted.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by RWood

17. Poor question formation. $12 to $25 is not "way out of sight" to some of us. Sure I can pick up a Steve Jordan for $5 or a Baen for $6 but a copy of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead by Crystal Zevon was a great deal at ~$15 for a just published book.

psst... Psst! My books are only $2.50 each (plus local sales tax if applicable), not counting the FREEbies!

[halljames]

1. Done
2. For free content, I mainly download book collections from torrent web sites (illegal I know, but )
3. betweem 10 - 15 hours, wish it could be more, but time does not allow
4. I can't get away with audiobooks.
5. I am in the UK and missed out on all of the free connect offers.
6. I read some free stuff, but mainly read comercial content that I have not paid for.
7. Absolutly not, I shall wait till someone cracks/hacks or scans them in

Do I sound dishonest, probably, I am a man on a tight budget and can't afford to buy books

However, Mr. Steve Jordon, I am probably going to consider buying your books, as at $2.50 a book, seems a bit of a bargain. So I am not all bad.

[junkml]

I'm with quite a few other posters. My wife and I used the $50 connect store credit, but after that we get our books from other sources, like BAEN.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by halljames

However, Mr. Steve Jordon, I am probably going to consider buying your books, as at $2.50 a book, seems a bit of a bargain. So I am not all bad.

10-Q!

[JSWolf]

What I plan on doing sometime in the near future is reading the two free books you have out and if I like them, I'll buy another.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

10-Q 10-Q!!!

(And maybe ?)