Some thoughts on e-book pricing at the Sony Connect store

[Mitchll]

Sony is clearly trying to build a monopoly on the reader ebooks ala apple and itunes.

[NatCh]

Or they may be avoiding adding the cost of licenses for other reading apps.

If they really wanted a monopoly, I can't help thinking they wouldn't have allowed RTF, TXT, etc.

[Mitchll]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Or they may be avoiding adding the cost of licenses for other reading apps.

If they really wanted a monopoly, I can't help thinking they wouldn't have allowed RTF, TXT, etc.

I thought about that, but without some ability to use other formats, the reader would be unsellable. The pricing is just close enough that for $2 I would rather have the formatting done by Sony than play with the clit and bookdesigner combination. So they pick up the extra $ and control the system.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Or they may be avoiding adding the cost of licenses for other reading apps.

If they really wanted a monopoly, I can't help thinking they wouldn't have allowed RTF, TXT, etc.

Librie, gemstar and the rest showed the futility of allowing only proprietary content on your device. On my Ebk1150 I do not have one encrypted book bought from them (It's not even registered with them though I bought it directly) only converted books and some fictionwise multiformat.

If I will buy a Sony (right now it does not fit my needs, but once I see one who knows maybe I will be blown out by it - I said the same about Nokia 770, and when I saw it I wanted it and it's been my main e-reader now for almost a year), outside of any possible promotion (like the current 50$ coupon), I have no intention of buying one encrypted book from them either.

Liviu

[melchioe]

I'm being very careful about the titles I buy in the Sony Connect Ebooks store. Consider the following William Lashner titles, all available at both ereader.com (Palm ereader format) and at Sony's Connect store. The date in parentheses is the paperback publication date - hardcover is generally about a year earlier for his stuff.

Fatal Flaw (3/2004; $6.75(Palm); $15.96(Sony)
Past due (4/2005); $7.19(Palm); $15.96(Sony)
Falls the Shadow (4/2006); $7.19(Palm); $15.96(Sony)

Big price differential, don't you think? I purchased the palm ebooks quite a while ago, and would like to have them in Sony Reader, but I'm not willing to duplicate them at twice the original price....

-e-

[Bob Russell]

Whenever the prices don't line up like that (especially if there is a paperback version released), it seems that it's simply a mistake. I'm pretty sure they are working on getting that fixed, so the publishers properly handle the paperback status when pricing the books (or handle whatever role the store system might play in this).

But I consider that part of the startup aches and pains. I try to keep an eye out also by checking other stores prices before I buy. We've had some luck by posting the discrepencies in the "Help us find out of whack pricing" thread, but even then when a price gets fixed, sometimes it magically goes back up later, so buy quickly when the price is right! Might work, might not.

[wgrimm]

A number of years ago, Gemstar thought that they would create the "itunes" of the ebook world. Their readers (one being an updated Rocketbook) were very good, and so was the software. The Gemstar store was better when it opened than the Connect store was when it opened.

Gemstar failed miserably in its attempt, for a number of reasons. First, many buyers wanted to put their OWN content on the device (from Gutenberg, web pages, etc.) Second, the Gemstar store was overpriced. I don't care what anyone says- an e-book should be priced at half of what you can obtain the physical book for at Borders, or even lower. The reason- if Borders can make a profit on their price, a seller should be able to make a profit selling the e-version at half that price, because they don't have to pay printing and shipping costs.

Sony doesn't understand the reading habits of most people who buy readers. Avid readers can't afford to go out and buy the latest hardcovers all the time, even if they make a good income and have a big house to store the books. Sony should realize this, and start offering older, out of print books at vastly reduced prices online. Ereader.com has done similar. And open up their format, or truly make standard pdf's readable on their device.

IMHO Sony will fail with this reader unless they start offering a much wider selection of books at much reduced prices, open up the ebook to developers, and provide software that makes standard pdf's readable (simply because pdf has become a standard), and includes a facility for importing html.

Oh yeah, my other gripe is that Sony is ignoring callers/e-mailers with complaints about the shoddy pdf support.....

[yvanleterrible]

When Adobe Digital Editions gets properly ported to the various reader languages out there, Pdf will be a serious format. And when color eink comes out...

[SoCal Bob]

Originally Posted by melchioe

I'm being very careful about the titles I buy in the Sony Connect Ebooks store. ...

Fatal Flaw (3/2004; $6.75(Palm); $15.96(Sony)
Past due (4/2005); $7.19(Palm); $15.96(Sony)
Falls the Shadow (4/2006); $7.19(Palm); $15.96(Sony)

Big price differential, don't you think? I purchased the palm ebooks quite a while ago, and would like to have them in Sony Reader, but I'm not willing to duplicate them at twice the original price....

-e-

Some of the Sony Connect books are better than most:
Lisey's Story
Stephen King
Sony Connect $13.59
eReader $15.29
Amazon $16.80

I agree with your second comment as I have many PDB DRM encrypted books that I would like to move over to the Sony Reader, without buying them again. I have a PDB converter (ABC Amber Palm Converter), but its useless on the encrypted files. I wonder if anyone knows how to open them...

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

The reason- if Borders can make a profit on their price, a seller should be able to make a profit selling the e-version at half that price, because they don't have to pay printing and shipping costs.

Just an FYI, printing and shipping costs for a pbook typically cost less than $1 for paperback and $2 for hardcover. By that logic, ebooks should be $1-2 cheaper than pbooks - and guess what? - most are.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by SoCal Bob

Some of the Sony Connect books are better than most:
Lisey's Story
Stephen King
Sony Connect $13.59
eReader $15.29
Amazon $16.80

I find that on current hardcover release, Sony does provide a nice discount. My biggest pricing complaint is when a book is available in softcover and the ebook is STILL hardcover priced. Usually, this is a problem with the publisher (i.e. if the hardcover price also applies at eReader, Fictionwise, etc in other formats it's because the publisher has yet to discount it) but sometimes it's a Sony issue (when it's cheaper in other formats, but Sony is still full priced), usually becuase they are still selling an older release.

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Just an FYI, printing and shipping costs for a pbook typically cost less than $1 for paperback and $2 for hardcover. By that logic, ebooks should be $1-2 cheaper than pbooks - and guess what? - most are.

I read a very good article on how much it costs to print a book.

http://www.sfwa.org/bulletin/article...it-motive.html

[NatCh]

Nice find, Lucien21!

[Jack B Nimble]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

I read a very good article on how much it costs to print a book.

http://www.sfwa.org/bulletin/article...it-motive.html

Not to castigate this specific information, as the number seem pretty reasonable and I don't really know enough to judge them anyway, but whenever I see information like this, it makes me think back to the reports we used to see out of Hollywood, where the studios would be bragging about huge profits when talking to the trade press or potential investors, but had much more dismal numbers when talking to producers, actors, or others with stakes in the profits.

As I said, I do not know enough to know if the numbers used in the article are reflective of reality, but I find a basic skepticism rarely steers me wrong.

As always, caveat lector.

Jack

[da_jane]

I think what that number misses is promotional costs, distributions costs, warehousing costs. My understanding is that publishers make money on only a few books. Most books have print runs of 50% greater than their expected sell through in order to get the expected sell through. I suspect some of the pricing is made to absorb the loss of the returns and the non sold books.

(These numbers are for romance books which have much higher sell through numbers)
I.e., a print run for Julia Quinn's last romance book was purportedly 800,000. Her sell through numbers (or books actually sold) was approximately half that. Why the difference? Because in order to reach the 50% sell through, there has to be enough stock sent around the country. So print books (v digital books) have a much lower margins.