Why is it okay for Jobs, but not for Bezos?

[guyanonymous]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I'm sorry I don't get the joke and why everyone is chuckling at me, could you explain.?

Not chuckling at all, in my case. I understand your rational and reasoning. You were very clear. Everyone just places different um...importance on different "features" or "loss of features". For you the added value of certain factors outweighs the reduced value of other factors, whereas for others the opposite is true. And every combination in between.

I think many disagree about the price-point. But hopefully respectfully!

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I'm sorry I don't get the joke and why everyone is chuckling at me, could you explain.?

I'm not chuckling. It's a personal choice, and yours is perfectly valid; for others, $15 isn't a good value proposition for most ebooks (with their advantages and disadvantages taken into account).

I spent much more than $10 per ebook back in the days when I was reading from Peanut Press on my Palm, and would likely still pay that for selected books (so long as I can strip the DRM).

I just think that it should be up to Amazon (or any other retailer) as to whether they want to charge lower prices for their ebooks, not a dictate from the publishers.

[dkb]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Again, while I am not asserting a specific amount, I think it's pretty clear that if you already have a Kindle, and you have a choice between a hardcover at $15.95 + $5.95 S&H, or the ebook instantly delivered for $9.99, you're almost certainly going to pick up the ebook.

Absolutely, but the question is: now that I have my Kindle, will I buy the hardcover if it's not available for my reader? The answer is no, I won't. I will choose something else to read at my price point in an ebook.

The other question is: would I have bought it when I was buying print books? The answer was usually no. If I didn't want to wait for the paperback, I would buy it used, or buy it greatly discounted somewhere.

Previously I bought at the local B & N. I decided what to buy based on browsing, concentrating on the just released paperbacks. Now I buy mostly from Amazon. Since I also have the B & N app, I bought a book from them when they were offering a lower price than Amazon. I didn't like being tied to just my iPod. So this whole ebook thing as far as my business goes, was a definite loss for B & N and a gain for Amazon--it doesn't have to be a loss for Macmillan or any other publisher with their policies.

As someone else has said, the genie is out of the bottle. I buy a lot of books and if Macmillan or any publisher wants any of my money, it will sell me ebooks in my price range. If Macmillan doesn't want to meet my requirements for ebooks, I'm sure there are other publishers who will. If I'm wrong, there are plenty of good if not current books at Gutenburg.

If the worst happens and I have no recourse except to buy paperbacks, I will buy used or get them from the library.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by dkb

Absolutely, but the question is: now that I have my Kindle, will I buy the hardcover if it's not available for my reader? The answer is no, I won't. I will choose something else to read at my price point in an ebook.

The other question is: would I have bought it when I was buying print books? The answer was usually no. If I didn't want to wait for the paperback, I would buy it used, or buy it greatly discounted somewhere.

Same here. The only hardcovers I ever purchased in the past decade or so have been professional/technical books or graphics-rich "coffee table" types of things. I spend a lot of money on ebooks, none of which is revenue that the publishers would have received otherwise -- my shelves have been full for years, and my eyesight ain't what it used to be.

When I was buying fiction in "real book" form, it was almost always paperbacks, mainly used.

But I'm only a single data point, of course.

[fugazied]

Why is it ok for Jobs and not Bezos?

Well correct me if I am wrong, but I think publishers get a large cut of the profits through itunes - isn't it the payment model Macmillan just forced Amazon into?

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by kilron

the truth is we don't know exactly how its going to shake out

Of course we do. We've seen the exact same scenario happen for music and games, repeatedly. How many times do you need to see the head bang on the wall to realise that it might just be painful?

[kilron]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Of course we do. We've seen the exact same scenario happen for music and games, repeatedly. How many times do you need to see the head bang on the wall to realise that it might just be painful?

no we don't know how its going to shake out and to say that you do is simply naivete. the exact same thing has NOT happened in music and games repeatedly. how exactly are you coming up with such a conclusion? the markets are more different than they are alike so drawing direct conclusions is just silly at this early stage.

[Blue Tyson]

So what if Amazon puts some Macmillan dead tree back - and raises the price on all of them by 50%?

Wonder what that would do - or raising the price of paper books the same amount the ebook is raised over a limit.

[mcl]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

So what if Amazon puts some Macmillan dead tree back - and raises the price on all of them by 50%?

Wonder what that would do - or raising the price of paper books the same amount the ebook is raised over a limit.

I hope Amazon puts it all back, and sells all of the Macmillan titles for $75 each. And once the agency model starts up, I hope they tack on a $75 "shipping and handling" charge.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

One of Amazon's biggest selling points for the kindle was best sellers at $9.99

So basically the whole attraction of ebooks for you was cheap stuff?

There's no wonder that publishers are wary of the ebook market when there are people who see them simply as a way to get cheap books. It's quite sickening to see the number of people willing to spend $300 on a shiny toy but will carp at the idea of paying a fair price for books.

Since price seems to matter so much to you, here's a thought - sell your Kindle and buy paperbacks instead.

[mcl]

Originally Posted by charleski

So basically the whole attraction of ebooks for you was cheap stuff?

There's no wonder that publishers are wary of the ebook market when there are people who see them simply as a way to get cheap books. It's quite sickening to see the number of people willing to spend $300 on a shiny toy but will carp at the idea of paying a fair price for books.

Since price seems to matter so much to you, here's a thought - sell your Kindle and buy paperbacks instead.

Hey, one of the main selling points of the Kindle for me was the $9.99 price.

Amazon seemed to rather think so, too, since it was one of the major, major features they pushed in advertising the Kindle.



maybe we should go back to buying paperbacks. Second-hand paperbacks, for which the publisher and author never see a penny.

[tompe]

The hardback sales that are important is for the bestseller. And I have noticed that people that buy a lot of books usually do not buy the hardback version even for best sellers (if they buy them at all). So the sample here is not representative for how cheap ebooks affects the best sellers hardback sale.

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by charleski

So basically the whole attraction of ebooks for you was cheap stuff?

There's no wonder that publishers are wary of the ebook market when there are people who see them simply as a way to get cheap books. It's quite sickening to see the number of people willing to spend $300 on a shiny toy but will carp at the idea of paying a fair price for books.

Since price seems to matter so much to you, here's a thought - sell your Kindle and buy paperbacks instead.

The main attraction of ebooks for me was free stuff. You welcome.

Who decides fair btw? I decide fair is 1960 price of .33c per small novel. I still have a lot of those paperbacks from Ballantine picked up from second hand.
And for those who don't understand why some people chuckle at you if you buy $30 ebooks, well there was a story in Endgadget about $3 million dollar iphone. I chuckled.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by charleski

So basically the whole attraction of ebooks for you was cheap stuff?

There's no wonder that publishers are wary of the ebook market when there are people who see them simply as a way to get cheap books. It's quite sickening to see the number of people willing to spend $300 on a shiny toy but will carp at the idea of paying a fair price for books.

Since price seems to matter so much to you, here's a thought - sell your Kindle and buy paperbacks instead.

Define "cheap" and define "fair." You obviously have your own strong opinions on this, but please try not to be "sickened" by those who disagree.

[smerrall]

Originally Posted by charleski

It's quite sickening to see the number of people willing to spend $300 on a shiny toy but will carp at the idea of paying a fair price for books.

The way I see it is that eReader owners have accepted $300 of printing and distribution costs upon themselves up front. It is not unreasonable to feel they should be able to buy an eBook that is, perhaps, $1 cheaper to produce for less than the pBook and recoup that cost over the course of 300-400 book purchases.