Cost of eBooks vs dead-tree books

[binaryhermit]

it's actually the publishers who insisted,

EDIT: Obligatory poor-quality Good(sic)EReader hot take

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I subscribe to the theory that DRM (and really, the whole licensing model) is defective by design. I'll buy them, but I value them less than formats not encumbered by DRM (e.g. If a game is available on both GOG and Steam, I'll get the GOG version).

No problem in the world with you (or anyone) valuing ebooks less than other other formats. My problem is with you (and others) believing your POV is a universally held norm.

My question to you is why you don't just spend your money on the formats you value more, rather than wishing the formats you value less would sell for a price you're willing to pay for them? You do realize that if you prefer ebooks over pbooks, that your preference translates directly to added value, right?

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

My question to you is why you don't just spend your money on the formats you value more, rather than wishing the formats you value less would sell for a price you're willing to pay for them?

Mostly because I ran out of room for them.

[binaryhermit]

And the agency model's good for Amazon, on, say, Ready Player Two they sell it for $14.99 because the publisher is trying to prop up dead tree book sales at the expense of ebooks, and pay the publisher approximately $4.50 whereas under wholesale they'd pay the publisher more like $14.50 (half the $28.99 list price) and sell it for whatever they wanted.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

IIRC Amazon made money on early Kindle HW and sold eBooks at a loss, now they're able to sell Kindle HW near cost and make a profit off the cut of the eBook price set by the manufacturer thanks to Apple's illegal collusion forcing agency on them)

They sold individual eBooks as loss-leaders, but did not make a loss on eBooks in general.

But as a general point, yes, as market leaders agency pricing probably benefits Amazon overall, as it means there is no reason for anyone to ever look anywhere else for a cheaper copy.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Mostly because I ran out of room for them.

Regardless of the reason: "I value them less, but want them more" does not really compute. You're just choosing to ignore some of the reasons you place a higher value on getting the ebooks (as opposed to pbooks) when considering what you think they're worth.

[binaryhermit]

I mean, my ballpark guess is that a copy of Ready Player Two nets Amazon at least $8 after paying the publisher, credit card fees, and bandwidth costs.

Whereas under the old wholesale model, they might legitimately lose money on that book after those costs.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Regardless of the reason: "I value them less, but want them more" does not really compute. You're just choosing to ignore all the reasons you place a higher value on getting the ebooks (as opposed to pbooks) when considering what you think they're worth.

It's not a binary choice between pbook and eBook. A consumer decides not to buy the eBook because of the cost doesn't mean they'll go on to buy the pbook.

If a consumer doesn't buy the book, the publisher doesn't make any money at all.

If the eBook cost is lowered to reflect with the lessened costs of production and the consumer buys it, they can get the same net earnings as with the pbook (or even a higher margin, as long as they're not being as greedy as they are right now).

[DiapDealer]

All possibly true. But not at all what we were previously discussing.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I can't figure why they are even allowed to insist Publishers set price. We want to sell to Google, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, Amazon etc at OUR price and let them charge what ever they like.

The current situation would be illegal in a bookshop in UK or Ireland. Why are Internet paper and ebook sellers allowed to enforce it?

As a publisher, we are forced by the online sellers to agree to what we regard as illegal and immoral T&C.

The Cost to Retail (normally) is a compromise between cost and what the market will bear and sales volume. Same applies to the retail price.

Only extremely competitive things of perceived equal quality from very many suppliers have a selling price directly related to production / marketing / storage / transport costs.

Agency pricing is not unique to the book industry and has been around for a long time. It's not illegal in the slightest. Digital music has been priced that way for years.

[barryem]

We live in a capitalist economy and that means that, at least in theory, sellers should be able to ask whatever they like for the products they sell. Of course it doesn't have to be related to cost.

However, buyers can refused to buy or go buy from someone who offers it for less. But wait! If the publisher sets the price nobody else can offer it for less. Well, it's mostly capitalism. Just not always.

When I was in college one of my jobs was managing a hardware store and we sold nearly everything at a 100% markup. If it cost us a dollar we sold it for two dollars. A few bulk items had a smaller markup but the vast majority was marked up 100%. Grocery stores, on the other hand, mark their groceries up 15%. Or maybe it was 5%. I never dealt with setting grocery prices so I'm just going by what I was told a long time ago. Grocery stores sell very high volume so they can afford to do that. Restaurants usually mark things up 300%. They have to deal with a lot of waste.

But here's the thing: none of these stores have any legal or moral obligation to mark things up the way they do. They do it because it works. It lets them make money and compete for our business.

I don't believe that's the publisher's motivation at all. Of course they want to make money but competing isn't really much of a factor in ebook prices, at least from what I've seen and read. If they apply a markup to ebooks, cost plus a percentage, ebooks will be cheaper and people will be more likely to buy ebooks and that'll become a bigger part of their business. And little by little they'll be selling a cheaper product and cheaper products mean less profit.

I think the reason for ebook prices is to discourage ebook sales. Do I know this? Not really. But it makes a lot of sense and I've read the same opinion a number of times from people who know more about it than I do and I think it's probably true.

Is that illegal? I doubt it. Is it immoral? I don't really know. They do have the right to charge whatever they want. At the same time they have a plan in place, if I'm right, that discourages progress. Or at least what I would consider progress.

Barry

[JSWolf]

Agency eBook pricing came about because of illegal collusion. So it should have been not allowed to continue.

[crossi]

Lots of books, possibly the majority, are the literary version of junk food.
Enjoyable but interchangeable. These books ARE fungible. Back when I was buying paper books about one in ten of the books I bought, at the most, turned out to be keepers even after reading reviews before buying. The rest were wasted money. You just had to buy them hoping to find the few worth keeping.
That being the case, except possibly with very favorite, dependable authors I just am not willing to spend over $5. Since I can binge on a book every other day easily I'm not willing to spend more for something I can't exchange for a better book. Used to carry piles to used book stores and carry away slightly smaller piles. Can't do that with ebooks. As for value, for all things you can compare with similar items and get some idea of whether the price is reasonable or not. Trying to sell a 20yr old harlequin novelette for the same price as a new release novel is not reasonable for an example. Some pricing for ebooks are just stupid. You look at the asking price and then you look at the Amazon sales ranking and no one is buying at that price.

[ownedbycats]

...The lack of resalability is another reason eBooks are less value than paper books.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

...The lack of resalability is another reason eBooks are less value than paper books.

Back when I was reading pBooks, I never sold them. But with eBooks I do "lend" some to family to read. I don't mind. I know they are not going to be putting them out there on the net.