Amazon says 'will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms'

[Deneb]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I agree with almost everything here, except possibly your math.

I think the appropriate price for an ebook is the cost of the currently available paper edition minus the costs the ebook does not incur that the paper version does and plus the costs the ebook does incur that the paper book does not.

I doubt very much that any of us know exactly what these costs are, but I am sure they are not zero. Nor are they likely to be identical for all books

Of course, I don't contest your math, if there is real cost in the making of an ebook it has to be counted in the price, whatever, it's logical.

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Part of the problem too, is that ebook sales are currently very low. This means that even though the overall costs for creating an ebook may be lower than for the paper edition, they take a much bigger chunk of a smaller projected sales volume so they may drive the cost up that way.
Lower total costs over a smaller sales volume may equal greater unit costs.

So, we're back in the "hidden cost etc." that's a explanation for a physical product, not a digital one...

Ok, let's get crasy. I believe they send a pdf to the printer, (pdf was probably created for that), there is no extra cost whatsoever there. Make them sell 3 products: paperbooks as it is now, a pdf version at the exact cost of the book minus all the cost for making a paperbook (fist HC than PB), an epub version at the price of the pdf plus the so huge cost of making an epub...
They don't loose a cent whatever the version chosen by the end reader.
Why not? because they might end up having to explain the prices of the paperbooks?

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Another factor is that while publishers do pay for printing costs, they don't usually pay shipping costs, so why should they lower their prices to pass along someone else's savings to the end user? Shouldn't the person who benefits from the savings be the one to pass them along?

If it's the publishers who decide of the final price they take all the costs into account or they let the intermediates have a say in the price. I don't have to pay for a service that isn't here. Period.

[DawnFalcon]

It it's "fairplay", then it'll be as related to the old music DRM as AZW encryption is to K4PC AWZ encryption. There's no way it'll be a new (for eBooks), pre-broken system.

And I can only go by the evidence, which is that Apple are firmly pro-lockin. The publishers wouldn't of demanded a propriatory DRM, just *a* DRM.

[docjim]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I just checked Amazon and while the first isn't in the Kindle store at the moment, the next three are all there and all priced at $7.99 for the Kindle edition. This is despite the ridiculous $15.00 list price that has been put on those books.

I still hold that we should wait until Macmillan's agency pricing comes into effect before complaining about prices resulting from it.

Interesting - they were all at $9.99 as of this morning. OK - I guess I spoke too soon. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Amazon and know what's really going on with their listings...

[rwizard]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

It it's "fairplay", then it'll be as related to the old music DRM as AZW encryption is to K4PC AWZ encryption. There's no way it'll be a new (for eBooks), pre-broken system.

And I can only go by the evidence, which is that Apple are firmly pro-lockin. The publishers wouldn't of demanded a propriatory DRM, just *a* DRM.

We only know they are not using Adobe/B&N DRM. We do not know that they are using DRM (The Adobe blog only realy indicates that they are not using Adobe DRM). That being said, it would not suprise me if they are using proprietary DRM; however, with the rumors flying around that the Macmillan is trying to get Amazon to not use DRM on their ebooks, I was mearly speculating that it is possible that Apple will not be using DRM if those rumors are true.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Deneb

So, we're back in the "hidden cost etc." that's a explanation for a physical product, not a digital one...

Ok, let's get crasy. I believe they send a pdf to the printer, (pdf was probably created for that), there is no extra cost whatsoever there. Make them sell 3 products: paperbooks as it is now, a pdf version at the exact cost of the book minus all the cost for making a paperbook (fist HC than PB), an epub version at the price of the pdf plus the so huge cost of making an epub...
They don't loose a cent whatever the version chosen by the end reader.
Why not? because they might end up having to explain the prices of the paperbooks?

As far as I know, most books are sent to the printer through InDesign, not PDF, so we can probably skip PDF entirely and go straight for ePub.

However, there is a cost to go to ePub because they have to pay someone to do the conversion and then go through the file. I know most companies have a lousy track record on editing, but a lot of the ePubs I've seen have been pretty good. I also know from Tor.com that there was a person going through the ePubs they did for Wheel of Time.

They then have a cost involved with marketing these books to the ebook retailers. All these deals have to be made by someone and they need to be paid while doing it.

This is where the numbers break down. While I don't think these amounts are very large, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something, we really don't have the hard numbers. What we do know is that ebook sales are generally less than 5% of print sales, so the numbers we're working with are not very large. Many paperbacks sell no more than 15,000 copies according to Eric Flint, and a midlist hardcover would likely sell no more than 5,000. If we figure average price on those books at $8 for paperback and $24 per hardcover we end up with $240,000 gross revenue of which the publisher sees approximately $120,000 before taxes. Figuring 5% of those numbers, we see about $12,000 in gross revenue and $6,000 to the publisher from ebook sales. If print costs are no more than 10% of cover then publishers have at most $1200 to pay for all ebook related costs.

That's not a lot of money.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

As far as I know, most books are sent to the printer through InDesign, not PDF, so we can probably skip PDF entirely and go straight for ePub.

Every book we typeset for publishers is sent to the printer as a PDF, not in the InDesign files. Perhaps it depends on the publisher's preference.

[Daithi]

I have a friend of mine that owns a digital printing company (some books but lots of other things too) and she prefers PDF but will take other files.

[rmm200]

PDF is the best thing to send to a printer - that is what it is for - but what a terrible thing to archive...

Save your source files people!

Robert

[dharh]

What I find sad and disgusting is that often the ebook uses a different editing process (person, whatever) than the printed book.

Ebooks have been the most notorious for spelling, mangled text. Sometimes on the first bloody couple pages. I can tell all they did was use a spell checker, grammar checker, and boom less than a minute per book.

I can only hope this gets better, but in the mean time Ive got various copies of the _same_ book (hardback,paperback,mass production,ebook) and each have different errors. They need to get a process down where all proofing takes place on the source file and the exact same copy goes to all the different finalization processes.

Ebooks should be the easiest, least error prone, cheapest way to sell a book. I understand that there are costs associated with making a book before it gets to the physical form, and that these costs are the majority of the costs. However, an ebook should never be equal to its physical equivalent. 10-20% cheaper is not asking for too much.

When you buy a hardback book you are essentially an 'early' adopter. You are paying a premium for a longer lasting book, perhaps more esthetically pleasing to you, and you are getting it soon after release. At least one of those is the same when buying the ebook version during this time. So as an early buying you can expect to pay a high price for an ebook just released.

When you buy a paperback you are giving up these things to get the book cheaper. You've waited while others have already read it, its not going to last as long, though its not mass market paperback so it can still last several reads if you aren't a freak with your books, and for book lovers its most definitely less esthetically pleasing. If a paperback book can be sold for cheaper so can then the ebook. While the cost of making the paperback is definitely not zero, the ebook version is near enough. From the time between hardback version to paperback the ebook has not cost nearly as much per physical book sold.

When you buy a mass market paperback you have essentially waited several years before buying the book. These things can split in half _during_ the first read. If you aren't careful the pages can come out of the book. Often you can buy whole series, or several books in a series, in a bundle for less than one of these books used to cost as hardback. At this point whats really going on is either the book has not sold enough and thus they are trying to eke out as much as they can at the cheapest cost possible. Or the book has sold well and they are using economies of scale to eke out as much as they can as the cheapest cost possible. Ebooks are perfect at this point. Selling 1 million ebooks for $3.99 a pop will garner much more profit than selling a few hundred thousand mass paperback books for $6.99 a pop.

I have been hoping that i'd be able to stop having to buy paperbacks altogether, but if an ebook is going to cost me the same then i'm going to have to stick with what i've been doing. Physical books have the added bonus of having a second hand market, which can often lower the price of getting a book in half, whereas ebooks do not. This has to be accounted for in the ebook business otherwise is doomed to marginal sales.

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Actually, yes, I am sure that Adobe know what they're talking about when they say that Apple have not liscenced ADE.

I didn't say they had!
What I said was how do you know that the Apple DRM wont be as open or even MORE open than ADE?

Lets say the apple DRM allows authorisation of 10 devices from any manafacturer that signs up for free to get access to the software AND that it allows lending of books for up to 30 days.

We just don't know yet so saying it wont be compatible with other devices is silly.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I didn't say they had!
What I said was how do you know that the Apple DRM wont be as open or even MORE open than ADE?

Lets say the apple DRM allows authorisation of 10 devices from any manafacturer that signs up for free to get access to the software AND that it allows lending of books for up to 30 days.

We just don't know yet so saying it wont be compatible with other devices is silly.

You know you are dreaming, right?

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

You know you are dreaming, right?

I am simply pointing out that as none of us know what it will be that my guess is just as realistic a guess as those posting that it will be completely locked down.

My personal opinion is that I will be able to read an iBook eBook anywhere i have an iTunes authorised account.

for me that would be:

2x iPhone (me and wife)
1 x iPod touch (dad)
1 x Apple laptop
1 x Mac mini
1 x PC

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I am simply pointing out that as none of us know what it will be that my guess is just as realistic a guess as those posting that it will be completely locked down.

My personal opinion is that I will be able to read an iBook eBook anywhere i have an iTunes authorised account.

for me that would be:

2x iPhone (me and wife)
1 x iPod touch (dad)
1 x Apple laptop
1 x Mac mini
1 x PC

That you will be able to do! It sounded like you were talking about other readers -- which all others were referring to when mentioning ADE.

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

That you will be able to do! It sounded like you were talking about other readers -- which all others were referring to when mentioning ADE.

I was in the first part actually reffering to other readers when i was saying that it may work on other readers and that we just don't know.

People are presenting it as a fact that becausethey are NOT using ADE then it wont be able to open the Epub on other readers. that might not be the case we just don't know yet!

My personal opinion is then what I posted

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I didn't say they had!
What I said was how do you know that the Apple DRM wont be as open or even MORE open than ADE?

...

We just don't know yet so saying it wont be compatible with other devices is silly.

Again, are you claiming that Apple have reverse engineered ADE? Apple is absolute death on people reverse engineering anything they do, and unless they have their reader cannot be ADE-compatible, and hence won't read any ADE-encrypted ePub's.

Really quite simple ><

We do know, right now. This is not something we need to speculate on...