Pricing sucks!

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by leebase

A new book you expect to sell tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions.

Backlist books where you might sell a few tens of books? There's just no money in selling so few books to make it worth the effort if you can't sell them for a good deal more than the used paper back book bin.




Right. A nickel an ebook is something buyers are VERY willing to pay....just not so many producers willing to work for that amount of pay.

But WAIT....the OP said he was willing to pay a whopping $3.98!

Exactly. Just buy that paper back from the bin you saw it in.

Lee

You've managed to insert an impressive number of strawman arguments into a small section of text; bravo!

No one is saying that publishers must put out ebook versions of niche books. However, with new books, there's no reason for a publisher not to create an ebook version as a normal part of its business; it would be stupid for them not to. And I would expect the price of the new ebooks to reflect the restrictions placed on them and the costs to the publisher. I can't think of any reason that a new ebook should ever cost more than its new pbook equivalent.

No one is saying people should only pay a nickel. This isn't the case of people wanting a free lunch, it about consumers having a legitimate disagreement with publishers about the value of ebooks. There are numerous examples of new and fairly new books on Amazon where the ebook is more than the pbook; how can this be justified? If a publisher can make money at a certain price on a pbook, then it stands to reason that they could make money at the same price (or less) on an ebook as the ebook has no: (i) printing costs; (ii) marginal costs of effectively nil; (iii) no costs associated with warehousing, etc.

Here's what happening in the industry: ebooks are relatively new and publishers want as much money as they can get so they keep pushing up the price of ebooks. Publishers haven't yet realized that they could probably make more by offering more and reach a bigger audience if they used a little more creativity in pricing schemes other than just saying a book is a book is a book.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

No one is saying that publishers must put out ebook versions of niche books. However, with new books, there's no reason for a publisher not to create an ebook version as a normal part of its business; it would be stupid for them not to. And I would expect the price of the new ebooks to reflect the restrictions placed on them and the costs to the publisher. I can't think of any reason that a new ebook should ever cost more than its new pbook equivalent.

I'm not aware of any case where it does, in terms of the recommended retail price. The only situations in which it costs more to the consumer are those in which the seller has discounted the price of the pbook, but not the ebook.

[treadlightly]

For those who do agree that pricing does indeed suck, what are we doing about it? We've debated the one-star rating campaign at Amazon. I can obstain from buying ebooks from the big-5. I can recommend reasonably priced books from other publishers. I can use the library. Is any of this effective in the long run?

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

You've managed to insert an impressive number of strawman arguments into a small section of text; bravo!

Nah...just used a bit of humor to responod to the 500 millionth "I want things cheap" rant.

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

No one is saying that publishers must put out ebook versions of niche books.

Watership down is an OLD book. So old there selling the paperback for $3.98. You know they didn't START the paperbook at that price....or maybe they did. Maybe those copies have been sitting around unsold since the 1970's when you could buy a new paperback for $3.98

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

However, with new books, there's no reason for a publisher not to create an ebook version as a normal part of its business; it would be stupid for them not to.

This was a rant about an OLD book. Thus the extraordinary cheap paperback book price.

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

No one is saying people should only pay a nickel. This isn't the case of people wanting a free lunch, it about consumers having a legitimate disagreement with publishers about the value of ebooks.

Right. The value of an OLD book, dearly loved from childhood. Why won't the publisher expend new resources to bring out old books. For sure I'd pay "a nickel". Nickel -- the lowest price that a used book can be found. As if "I can get a paper book for xyz price, why is the ebook more".

The answer is -- new work isn't going to be extended to put out a product to compete with the lowest possible price point of old books....bargain bins, garage sales, etc.

These books have already had their run. Their volumes are going to be quite low...even if it's a very very long tail. Why spend time and money producing for the long tail when there's money to be made selling NEW books.

Lee

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

For those who do agree that pricing does indeed suck, what are we doing about it? We've debated the one-star rating campaign at Amazon. I can obstain from buying ebooks from the big-5. I can recommend reasonably priced books from other publishers. I can use the library. Is any of this effective in the long run?

Here is something that would have effect -- convince one publisher to aggressively bundle some of their backlist novels. If just one major publisher were to do this, and if they were successful, the rest would quickly follow suit.

For example, imagine you went to buy Sue Grafton's latest X is for Ex-Con novel (at $13.99), and you seen that you can buy all of the other 20 books in the series for $60 total (maybe you'd have to pay full price for the last 3 books in the series). I think a lot of the millions of new eReader owners would jump at buying all the old books. Doing something like this with paper based books probably isn't feasible (bookstores don't don't want to stock and display all these old books), but it is begging to be done with ebooks. If people could buy all of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct, or Christie's Miss Marple, or Piers Anthony's Xanth series, or <pick your favorite series> they would do so. The publishers wouldn't have to limit it to just series either. They could bundle all of Steinbeck's books for one low price. For that matter they could bundle a whole host of copyrighted Modern Classics, Science Fiction Classics, and Mystery Classics from various authors and sell them as bundles.

Unfortunately, instead of trying to take advantage of this kind of selling opportunity, the publishers seem to just see ebooks as some kind of threat.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Daithi

For example, imagine you went to buy Sue Grafton's latest X is for Ex-Con novel (at $13.99), and you seen that you can buy all of the other 20 books in the series for $60 total (maybe you'd have to pay full price for the last 3 books in the series).

Exactly. I jumped at getting (nearly) all of Agatha Christies mystery novels, because a great deal at Fictionwise meant I could buy them for about $1 each. I would never have bought them all at $5 each, and I probably wouldn't have bought any of them.

[MrReset]

For me the pricing is some sort of customer-fraud. I want to buy The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (german).
The cheapest paper book: 34,95 Euro
The ePub book: 37,99 Euro
Of course the ePub has DRM!
Sorry publisher, so i don't buy the ePub or the p-book!

[Angst]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

For those who do agree that pricing does indeed suck, what are we doing about it? We've debated the one-star rating campaign at Amazon. I can obstain from buying ebooks from the big-5. I can recommend reasonably priced books from other publishers. I can use the library. Is any of this effective in the long run?

I've actually gone back to buying pbooks when the price is lower than the ebook. When you are finished with the pbook, make sure to donate, lend or re-sell the pbook so it further impacts the publisher's sales.

I've also taken to buying used books at amazon. I just bought three used hardcover books from amazon for 2.99-3.99 each instead of paying 7.99-11.99 for the ebooks. When I'm done reading them, I will pass them on to someone else.

[Namekuseijin]

You want to really cry? Then beware that a typical comics book in XComix format today costs about $1,99. Guess how much costs some classic like Fantastic Four 1 from the sixties or Action Comics 1 featuring Superman from the thirties?

yep, $1,99 dollars as well.

There's really no surprise here. Thieves are as much thieves today as they were in the middle ages. This is why they love digital tech so much. Consumers don't have to keep their own copies, they should just stream content from your server; consumers shouldn't be allowed to buy cheaper used copies, just download a locked-down shiny new copy for the same price as that of a modern comic, even though the original creators are long dead or the artwork and story is far too simplistic for modern standards...

While there are suckers for it, they'll keep sucking.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

You want to really cry? Then beware that a typical comics book in XComix format today costs about $1,99. Guess how much costs some classic like Fantastic Four 1 from the sixties or Action Comics 1 featuring Superman from the thirties?

yep, $1,99 dollars as well.

According to this article, Superman comics from the 1930s can sell for rather more than $1.99. They can sell for $2,160,000 in fact. Given that, $1.99 seems like quite a bargain.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

According to this article, Superman comics from the 1930s can sell for rather more than $1.99. They can sell for $2,160,000 in fact. Given that, $1.99 seems like quite a bargain.

haha, people love to sell the original, rare and decrepit paper copy for millions. It's still just a copy, not the real deal as put forth by the pen of the artist. It still doesn't make it right for a publisher to ask the same price for a classic as one from today. Do they even make any income?

I've read of people doing it for videogame cartridges for the original Nintendo. Paying vast amounts for a piece of chip for a copy of some game that was just obscure and lame and that is the very same copy which you can obtain in any illegal site out there.

Well, ever since rich people went nuts and began to promote trash in place of real art I'm not surprised by such obssessive dumb behavior. Rich people can put their money on fire and the next day it is replaced by new money.

[CyGuy]

I still think the answer is to purchase the least expensive paper version you can find, then simply download the "darknet" version of the ebook. This way you have paid the author but you can read the book how you choose to read it. Some will say this is "illegal" but it is not wrong or immoral in my opinion. If they would stop with the ridiculous prices for ebooks this would not be an issue.

[dhume01]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why? eBooks are more valuable than pbooks. They never deteriorate, no matter how often you read them, and they occupy no physical storage space.

Given your explanation, I think the point that you're referring to there is that ebooks have more utility than a paperback book.

[Lazybones]

We're still in the mode where the publishing industry is fighting the changes brought by e-books, but I remain hopeful that the long tail will eventually catch on. There's just too many economic incentives.

I often use the example of video games. Valve's Steam service was the first to really open up the model of the hugely discounted backlist, but other sites now like Good Old Games have picked it up as well. Steam has shown statistically that you can make good money on older products where demand is normally miniscule. For example, you might have a game that's 5-10 years old that is getting hardly any sales, but you offer it for sale for $2-5, and suddenly it becomes an impulse buy. People who bought it new on a CD (or 3.5" disks, for the really old stuff) are going to buy it again just for the convenience value of having it on the service, able to download it to any computer that has the Steam client installed. I have bought dozens of games that I never would have bought if they hadn't shown up at a sale marked down 75%-90% from their original price. Valve has published sales figures that show that some of these games have had their sales figures increase by several thousand percent during these sales.

I bet that if Amazon could open up a cloud-based service where you could add older classic titles to your virtual bookshelf for a buck or less, they would make a mint. Heck, I'd probably re-buy my entire library of old sci-fi and fantasy books from the 80s and 90s if I could get each one for a buck or two. The publishers are standing in the way, for now.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

You want to really cry? Then beware that a typical comics book in XComix format today costs about $1,99. Guess how much costs some classic like Fantastic Four 1 from the sixties or Action Comics 1 featuring Superman from the thirties?

yep, $1,99 dollars as well.

$2 for a digital version of a comic? Good deal given that new paper versions cost anywhere from $2.99 to $4.99 and maybe higher.