Will the Amazon Kindle cost US$50?

[silvania]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Baen is sells ebooks with no DRM.


Stephen King's latest Blaze IS available as an ebook at Sony Connect and other ebook online shops.

1) Baen is not a major publisher.

2) You took my quote out of context, I was answering a question about what would happen without DRM. Stephen King's Blaze is only distributed using DRM.

[silvania]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

So if you CHOOSE to create your own eBookstore, those are costs you have CHOSEN to incur and are not a reason to overprice your eBooks.

You lost me with this argument. If you don't "create" your own ebook store, and you want to sell ebooks, then you have to pay someone else to run the ebookstore for you. They will charge you not only their own overhead costs, but also will want to make a profit, so that will increase, not decrease, your overhead of running a store.

Regarding DRM, I want to re-iterate that I 100% agree with you that DRM is holding back the entire ebook market. It adds major costs (drm fees, support costs), is not consumer friendly, etc. I've been arguing with publishers about it for longer than I care to recall. They won't budge, because their attorneys will not let them budge. They are afraid of lawsuits from authors and share holders if major piracy did occur.

Without DRM ebooks could be moderately less expensive than print books. But not 1/4 of the price as you say. You're way off with that. Even if expense ratios allowed that, the publishers wouldn't price them that way because they would be afraid of cannabalizing print book sales.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by silvania

1) Baen is not a major publisher.

2) You took my quote out of context, I was answering a question about what would happen without DRM. Stephen King's Blaze is only distributed using DRM.

Baen may not be a top publisher, but they know how to run a successful business that people who know find very nice. The fact that their ebooks have no DRM is a big step forward.

yeah, I did take the Stephen King reference out of context. Sorry.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by silvania

You lost me with this argument. If you don't "create" your own ebook store, and you want to sell ebooks, then you have to pay someone else to run the ebookstore for you. They will charge you not only their own overhead costs, but also will want to make a profit, so that will increase, not decrease, your overhead of running a store.

But now those costs are spread out over many authors, costing a single author much less than if he set up his own site.

Originally Posted by silvania

Without DRM ebooks could be moderately less expensive than print books. But not 1/4 of the price as you say. You're way off with that. Even if expense ratios allowed that, the publishers wouldn't price them that way because they would be afraid of cannabalizing print book sales.

Well, eBooks are coming whether they want them or not. So publishers need to evolve or, like all good dinosaurs, they will become extinct.

People are not going to pay hardcover prices for an eBook. Period.
People aren't even going to pay mass market paperback price for an eBook. We know that the costs simply aren't there to justify the price.

[guguy]

People are not going to pay hardcover prices for an eBook. Period.
People aren't even going to pay mass market paperback price for an eBook. We know that the costs simply aren't there to justify the price.

You have to understand there are many people here who bought hundreds
ebooks and just don't wan't to admit they paid twice or more the price
they really cost. Look, they are even able to say printing a pbook costs
0.5$...

[Ravenflight]

I remember a time when many of these same arguments were used to justify why the music industry couldn't survive if music was sold digitally by song. That the only way to sell music over the Internet was by album or rental. There was also a widely held opinion that the music industry was a bunch of thieving lowlifes- reinforced by news reports of record labels refusing to pay their artists, colluding to fix cd prices, and the RIAA suing children for piracy. And how can you feel bad about stealing from a thief? And yet many people still want to compensate an artist for their work. I think this is why itunes is so successful.

It would be a mistake for the publishing industry to follow the same path as the music industry- It is fairly well known that most authors only receive about 10% per volume sold. Are we then to conclude that for, say, a 20.00 hardcover that the publisher and the retailer deserve to mark the book up 1000% over what they paid the author of the book? That a publishers contribution is worth 10 times what the writers contribution is worth? Even when there's no printing, shipping, warehousing, and destroying unsold copies involved? If the major publishers issue a statement that they give three times the royalties ( or 30-40% of the sale price) for ebooks, then I will happily pay the same price for an ebook as a print book. Otherwise my opinion of the matter will be that they are price gouging cretins who are cheating their authors and the public.

[guguy]

I wonder about something : can an author who is already published (pbooks)
sell ebooks directly via a website ?

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by guguy

I wonder about something : can an author who is already published (pbooks)
sell ebooks directly via a website ?

It depends entirely on whether they own the electronic publishing rights to their own work, which would have been part of the original contract. Electronic rights (and other rights) can also revert to the author over time. If a publisher still holds the electronic rights, the author is not entitled to directly sell ebooks-- they have presumably been paid for those rights.

Regarding the cost of publishing, while I wish authors could get a larger slice of the pie, I think there really are a lot of costs we're not taking into account. Right at the top is the retail markup, typically at 40%. In a bricks-and-mortar shop, that markup goes to pay staff, rent, lights, insurance, etc. In an ebook shop, some staff, rent, and lights are still necessary, though not as much as in a pbook shop, probably, but there are server costs. It's less expensive to handle digital goods, but still not free. Try telling Amazon (or Mobipocket) they aren't entitled to a 40% markup, though.

Then there's the distributor. Retail stores usually don't buy directly from the publisher. They buy from a distributor, which is also getting a markup. On physical goods, the distributors I sell my card game to get a 60% discount off the final retail price. This seems to me to be the most likely place to cut costs (besides shipping), because it involves physical inventories and the printing of catalogs.

Then there's the work the publisher does. You can't just write off the effort of editing, proofing, typesetting, marketing (to the extent the publisher actually does any) etc. and say that those costs are associated with p-books. If ebooks are going to drive p-books out of business, those costs will need to be picked up regardless of format.

Really, the only surplus I'm seeing is physical printing, distribution (maybe) and shipping/returns. I'm guessing that's good for at most 20%, even if the printing savings don't get eaten up by DRM.

To cross-check this estimate, take a look at Baen pricing. Mass-market paperbacks in the US are generally US$7.99 these days. Baen is charging about US$5, and can leave out the distributor markup (and maybe part of the retail markup) since as the publisher they're selling direct to consumers. I don't think there's a lot of fat in the Baen model, and they don't have DRM costs, so I'm skeptical that we'll ever see commercially edited/published ebooks at much more of a discount than Baen is able to offer.

[astra]

Originally Posted by silvania

Without DRM ebooks could be moderately less expensive than print books. But not 1/4 of the price as you say. You're way off with that.

Hardback editions or paperback editions? (the difference is huge)

[astra]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Plus remember that unless you spend at least $25 at Amazon, you pay SHIPPING at about $3.50 for ground.
Plus you have to wait for Amazon to send it to you whereas the ebook you can download right away and start reading when you want.

I see your points.
Although they might be important for someone else, it is not an issue for me. I yet have to find myself in a situation when I want to read a book so desperately, that I cannot wait 2-3 days for a free delivery from amazon. It never happened to me so far. Also, I always plan ahead what I would like to purchase and put it on my wish list and I always order 2 hardback books at the same time to make it for a free delivery.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by nekokami

It depends entirely on whether they own the electronic publishing rights to their own work, which would have been part of the original contract. Electronic rights (and other rights) can also revert to the author over time. If a publisher still holds the electronic rights, the author is not entitled to directly sell ebooks-- they have presumably been paid for those rights.

Generally true. Note that some publishers use a different scheme, however. Baen buys non-exclusive electronic rights along with their paper-book contract. On the other hand, I don't think that those non-exclusive rights ever revert to the author -- I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong on this.

The idea behind non-exclusive electronic rights is this: On the one hand, Baen is confident that their low-price, no-DRM approach is the winning sales strategy. On the other hand, some of their authors don't agree. So... to keep everyone happy, they put their money where their mouth is and purchase non-exclusive rights. Baen's authors can (and do!) arrange to sell their books through Fictionwise or whomever. The word so far is that the royalties via Baen outweigh they sum of the other guys by quite a bit.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by silvania

1) Baen is not a major publisher.

Well... sort-of yes and sort-of no. Baen is an independent business, and as such they aren't 'major.' On the other hand, in practice Baen is the SF/Fantasy line for Simon&Schuster. In that context, they are the 2nd largest player in the SF/Fantasy market (after Tor). Other publishers certainly notice their success in the eBook world. Especially since Baen is the ONLY fiction publisher with a substantial fraction of their sales coming from eBooks. (Caveat: I'm not familiar with recent results from the Romance novel market. This may have changed...)

[guguy]

Look at this e-store : www.eons.fr

It's in french but just check the price they ask for their pbooks and ebooks,
they sell both and their ebooks (with DRM) are about 1/3 the price of pbooks.
So most of their ebooks are only 2-4€ (with a few exceptions).

The truth is that currently publishers don't believe in ebooks and don't care
asking such a crazy price. Servers are NOT expensive, including DRM is
not so expensive and creating an ebook is not difficult since the publisher
already has an electronic version of every books.

[brecklundin]

I read the whole thread and learned a bunch about players & content so THANKS. I also have found the debate over the DRM and costs of printing the pbooks is interesting.

From my reading it seems that the digital era pretty much renders the current publisher business models obsolete. Their current business models also inhibit or outright destroy the very market that should have existed almost since day one of the internet business. Recording industry is the same deal. Neither industry is going to back off and reduce their profits (read growth) for any quarter. That is something which is wrong with the idea of corporations vs. privately held companies. But that is a whole other topic.

Something I see missing from the arguments on both sides is the issue of used book sales. I cannot remember the last time I bought a new pback. I see no reason to spend 2x-5x more for a pback when in in a few weeks or a month I can find the same book for 1/2 the price. On sale or at a thrift thrift store is even a bigger savings.

When done with these books I sell them back to the used book store who then sells them over and over as others repeat the same cycle. So while the original publisher gets a huge profit on each book sold under the 1st sale doctrine, they get zilch outta my pocket...ever.

If ebooks are priced between say $4.00 - $5.00US each I will pretty much be willing to spend the extra $1-$2 for them over the used editions I currently buy. This will create an entire new profit center that publishers and retailers have no income from currently. And if my circle of friends is representative then I know there are LOTS of folks like myself that would be happy to switch to ebooks on a decent reader. Thus creating an entire new revenue stream where NOTHING existed before. This should easily offset any debate over production costs affecting the price of ebooks enough to require an increase in price not a reduction. If they were not selling to me before then the extra 50+ books I, and others like me, buy every year creates MORE INCOME they never had a shot at before.

I would consider a reader with a monthly fee for a specified period only if it supported pretty much any format around. I am sure this analogy has been made but my Audible sub is about $23/mo with two books. We got a free iPod 1gb player for a one year pay up front deal. But the player can play other formats too. I would never consider paying anything for a player that was in any fashion proprietary.

DRM is a fact of life and is what it is...don't like it if they do not allow portability of my content to other devices I register with the content provider. To me the biggest problem with DRM is that it ultimately costs the consumer MORE in an effort to subsidise an outdated and faulty business model used by the publishing industry. It is a model the industry has had almost 2 DECADES to change. The only change they came up with was to pass their own problems on to the consumer. So now we are forced to pay an "ineptness" fee to enjoy our entertainment.

Baen "get's it" none of the big publishers do because they are all publicly traded corporations who worship at the alter of the "quarterly report". And this is where our own "free market" system bytes us in the rear. I can live with a buck-a-book for the DRM tax (and it is a tax), but am not willing to pay more for the privilege of buying online over the cost of of a pbook. It is that simple to me. An industry's internal issues matter not to me...the power of the free market is that I can continue to buy used and not support the industry in any fashion. So, until the industry fixes itself I doubt I will be willing to spend my few pennies with them.

For those reasons I am following this idea of a reader from Amazon with great interest. But ultimately price is the whole thing. A $500 reader and they can forget it, a free-$150 priced reader and we can look closer.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by brecklundin

If ebooks are priced between say $4.00 - $5.00US each I will pretty much be willing to spend the extra $1-$2 for them over the used editions I currently buy. This will create an entire new profit center that publishers and retailers have no income from currently. And if my circle of friends is representative then I know there are LOTS of folks like myself that would be happy to switch to ebooks on a decent reader.

Take a look at Fictionwise - they have lots of books in that price range.