You don't matter - and you never did

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by tompe

They are a-typical as has been explained in other threads. What works for them will not automatically work for other kind of entities.

Maybe, but the fact that Baen is "a-typical" does not matter (tm) to me as an end-user. In my eyes, Baen has successfully raised the bar for the competition, and set my expectations. It is up to the competition to figure out how Baen does it and chose to follow their example. Or not.

I find a visit to Baen Webscriptions page very informative when it comes to what can be done with ebooks, and at what price.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Ankh

Maybe, but the fact that Baen is "a-typical" does not matter (tm) to me as an end-user. In my eyes, Baen has successfully raised the bar for the competition, and set my expectations. It is up to the competition to figure out how Baen does it and chose to follow their example. Or not.

I find a visit to Baen Webscriptions page very informative when it comes to what can be done with ebooks, and at what price.

Well, they really do not find new extremely good books so of course that will lead to less cost since they do not search for new authors in that way. I would be very unhappy if new very good authors did not appear just because everybody did things like Baen.

Also, personally I think most of their books are fun to read but they are not intelligent mind-expandingly good science fiction.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by tompe

Also, personally I think most of their books are fun to read but they are not intelligent mind-expandingly good science fiction.

Don't get me wrong, when I said that Baen has set my expectations I meant that Baen's prices have introduced a basic measure of the value. As you pointed out, "a fun-to-read book" costs $6, 5 to 6 for $15 when bundled.

When I look at the price of ebook offered by any retail channel, I can not help myself compare the price to that basic value. Is this worth 2, 3, 4 or 5 times more than Baen's ebook?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by leebase

But, by all means, meander over to any of the incessant "ebooks cost too much" threads and spit some more against the wind.

eBooks cost too much, so I solve that problem by downloading free ones. DRM??? what's that? LOL

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Ankh

When I look at the price of ebook offered by any retail channel, I can not help myself compare the price to that basic value. Is this worth 2, 3, 4 or 5 times more than Baen's ebook?

Yes, it is worth a lot of more if it is much better (for example 10 times better or one of the best book you will read that year).

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Ankh

Maybe, but the fact that Baen is "a-typical" does not matter (tm) to me as an end-user. In my eyes, Baen has successfully raised the bar for the competition

I love Baen as well. But the only competition I'm aware of for Baen is Tor. Sci Fi is not all that big of a genre these days.

Now if Bean were selling romance novels, or had the likes of Patterson or Dan Brown -- THEN it's business practices might be giving other folks something to think about.

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

What is your problem with the used after market?

No problem at all. I'm one of the folks who don't matter. Or certainly was for most of my reading career. Is it REALLY so hard to understand that there IS a market for books over $20? That millions of such books are sold? That the publishers make MOST of their money from THOSE customers? That folks who are NEVER going to pay those prices do not dictate the price of new release books?

I mean, really. Just look at those who jumped on the professional photography example. There truly are a lot of people who think that professional photography isn't worth much more than the cost of ink and paper. Such people do not matter to a professional photographer. He doesn't cater to them. They are not his market. Their opinions on his prices are never going to change his prices.

All this talk about the cost of ebooks -- really is about people who never valued BOOKS at the "first run hard back book" price. Yeah, yeah, there are exceptions. But they are exceptions.

All I'm suggesting is folks just realize that they have NEVER (or rarely) been participants in the new book market. Their expectations about what a book should cost are out of line with the market.

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Angst

The individual consumer is fighting back. Amazon reviews for books where the ebook price is higher than the pbook price are being inundated with one star reviews.

All that will do is devalue Amazon's reviews as a place people look to. It won't hurt sales. It just reduces the utility that previously had been quite useful.

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I have no love for the publishing industry... and I don't like to see ebooks priced higher than pbacks either, but the one-star review campaign pisses me off to no end.

+1

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by tompe

Deteriorated? It got better. It makes a point that a lot of people here at MR needs to understand so we can get rid of all the threads complaining in an uninformed way about the price.

+1

Lee

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by leebase

But the only competition I'm aware of for Baen is Tor. Sci Fi is not all that big of a genre these days.

You can chose to look at it that way, but I am of opinion that you are running a risk of narrow vision.

In reality, and in my particular case, Baen, Tor, Penguin, Guy Gavriel Kay and and late Stieg Larsson are competing for the time in front of my mark one eyeballs and mark two reading glasses. And for my money, of course.

Their competition is "The Economist", web and TV edition of BBC World Service, Stargate Universe, the content offered on The Net in general (Mobile Read forum, as well), my computers, playstation, audio equipment... I love Sci Fi in addition to a number of other things, and my need for a book from that genre does not fall into the "absolute need" category, the one that must be satisfied, here and now.

The competition is stiff. And diverse.

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by tompe

Deteriorated? It got better. It makes a point that a lot of people here at MR needs to understand so we can get rid of all the threads complaining in an uninformed way about the price.

Agreed. There are so many valid reasons to complain about the Agency price-fixing that it physically hurts me (I bleed inside) when people choose the wrong reasons to complain.

For instance (and the following directed at OP now) -

Originally Posted by leebase

How did this "business as usual" become "the publishers are waging war on us"? Amazon. Amazon decided to buy market dominance by subsidizing the price of new release popular books. Now the paperback crowd (folks like me) could live the good life of a new release book buyer on a paper back budget. Happiness all around.

Well, happiness except for the publishers who were witnessing the value of their business being undermined. (emph. mine) So they stood up and STOPPED Amazon and put the "new release price" back into place -- a place that was lower than hard backs but higher than paper backs.

Oh the travesty! Oh the wailing! The publishers are doing us WRONG! We DEMAND our paper back price for new release books!

No one is telling publishers to keep the price low. They should (and always have) charge whatever price they want to the retailer (Amazon) or at their own ebookstore (if they have one). After that, get the fark out of the way. So, OP appears to be misinformed about who is complaining to whom about what. As I said before, we're merely hoping that the publishing industry wakes up one day and behaves like a capitalist industry - not OPEC. The only reason their business is being undermined is because Amazon finally demonstrated how arbitrary the HC prices (and more so the ebook prices) really are. There's nothing wrong with that of course, books are in general a luxury item. Just don't start whining when someone else undercuts you and makes a killing. Also, the market will react in predictable ways to attempts to re-inflate prices artificially - the publishing industry was royally screwed the moment Amazon decided to lower prices. When new price points are established for new release ebooks, even die-hard hardcover buyers will start petering off (now that even exclusivity is denied them).

At this point, a publisher trying to sell a new release at upwards of $25 succeeds only because of the Pabst blue ribbon effect, so I'm kinda glad I'm in the "doesn't matter category".

This is not a fair fight - no Queensberry rules . Price-fixing is fighting dirty - so yes, consumers respond in kind with boycotts and negative reviews (not so misguided when I thought about it some more - makes influential authors lean on the publishers when they see ratings drop) and Amazon responds by stating facts ("this price was set by the publisher" and leaving the negative reviews in place).

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by leebase

All that will do is devalue Amazon's reviews as a place people look to. It won't hurt sales. It just reduces the utility that previously had been quite useful.

Lee

Not at all. Only a very tiny fraction of one-star reviews are useful in my experience. The campaign hurts the authors, but Amazon is so far ahead of other sources as a one-stop-shop (this is important) for reviews of pretty much everything (from books to whatever) that it will take a lot more than this to reduce its utility. Plus, user ratings of reviews are still largely uncorrupted so it is laughably easy for me to filter out the price-angst ones. Just sort by most helpful (that's the default anyway) and you can still look at the useful negative reviews.

Besides, you miss the biggest point here. It's not about hurting sales (directly). It just has a lot of nuisance value when it comes to the eventual consequences. When big-name authors get a whiff of the publisher's ... stuff ... sticking to their shoes, I'd expect them to complain ... loudly. The authors know that public outrage is a fickle beast - it is very easy and in fact more common (as this campaign has demonstrated) for the beast to charge at the most visible target rather than the most culpable .

The combines rating of a product mostly hurts the reputation of the author - as you said: it doesn't even hurt sales.

I am by no means endorsing this tactic, but as a tactic, it is far from misguided on the part of both the militant reviewers and Amazon. Amazon has brilliantly set itself up as the hero in the piece while (passively) encouraging customers to use the publishers as their punching bag. Of course, if I were Amazon, my long-term strategy would be to establish a lower price point and eventually use that fact as leverage to get the publishers to lower their wholesale rates (hardcover) further.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by leebase

I love Baen as well. But the only competition I'm aware of for Baen is Tor. Sci Fi is not all that big of a genre these days.

"Sci Fi" might not be. SF certainly is.

As for SF publishers, you're ignoring Ace, DAW, some random number of Harper imprints, Del Rey ... oh, why am I bothering. Your mind is made up, and you won't let anyone confuse you with facts.

Now if Bean were selling romance novels, or had the likes of Patterson or Dan Brown -- THEN it's business practices might be giving other folks something to think about.

Nearly all romance novels are released only as mass market paperbacks. By your own definition, those do not matter.

All I'm suggesting is folks just realize that they have NEVER (or rarely) been participants in the new book market. Their expectations about what a book should cost are out of line with the market.

With your definition of "the new book market" as "people who pay the publisher's list price for hardcover books" most people aren't. Fortunately for a lot of people (particularly those cashing royalty checks), other people consider anyone who buys a new book, any format, any price, not just those who buy HCs at full price, to be participants in the market in question. Otherwise, I'd really have to question what all those romance publishers are doing, and what those stores full of MM paperbacks are all about.

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.

Normally, the market sets the prices. In the case of the ebook cabal, what is described by the law as a combination in restraint of trade is setting those prices. That's taking the whole market part out of it: "If you want to buy the books we have a monopoly on, you have to buy them at our prices, because we won't let you buy them at any other prices, and we won't let retailers sell them to you at any price except the one we set." Those companies whose prices are controlled by the free market (sorry if that term scares you, but I'm a capitalist, and I'm rather fond of it) set their prices based on what brings in the most money. The cabal publishers don't have to, since they've formed a cartel, and they have astroturfers and shills to tell everyone they're right. The market is, not unnaturally, complaining.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by hpjrt

Am I willing to pay the same price for a newly released ebook as I might be for a hard cover? Absolutely not. With an ebook, there aren't the costs of producing a hard cover. There's no paper ... no binding costs ... no shipping and no storage costs. In fact, theoretically, once the manuscript is input [and preferably proofread] it's a simple matter of bouncing the input version into various formats ... and you have an ebook.

The costs of producing a hard cover, of shipping a hard cover and of warehousing a hard cover dictate, in part, the cost of that hard cover. Without those costs, the publisher could charge less for the ebook and still make the same margin of profit and pay the author the same royalty.

Your facts are correct but the problem is that they don't mean what you believe they should mean.

In the last week, I have bought two ebooks. I paid the same price as the discounted price for the newly released hardback. Neither of these books are what I would call "keepers." Two years ago, I would have bought them as hardbacks, passed them off to a couple of my sons, and the books would have wound up at the church book sale. Now, my sons have access to my Amazon account & download their own ebook copies. (Of course, the church is out a couple of bucks on the book sale.) From the buying & reading perspective, there's no difference between the ebook & pbook versions of these books.

I also bought a hardback of a book which I intend to keep after I have read it. It's not in ebook form right now - perhaps this book will be issued as an ebook at some later time. Makes no difference to me, I want the pbook qua pbook. (Well, I wouldn't mind having the ebook version, too, because it's easier to read books on an EBR, at least for me.)

These two kinds of buying behavior represent two different markets - disposable books and non-disposable books. Where the line is drawn for any individual reader is not important. Now, I know that some ebook readers keep all their ebooks. Just like some pbook readers keep all theirs. What's important is that ebooks are heavily represented on the disposable side - and so are most pbooks.

Even most hardbacks are ultimately disposable, just like ebooks and paperbacks. They just don't seem disposable because they are disposed of by putting them in bookshelves, where they stay until the owner moves or dies. And the price you pay for a disposable book is going to be the same in either form.

What this suggests to me is that the effect of the facts you lay out will be that publishers should eventually stop releasing pbooks which fall in the "disposable" category. That seems to be happening with CDs, for instance, which are analogous to pbooks. What might prevent that is the different flavors of proprietary EBRs, so that unlike with music, you can't "play" all ebooks on any EBR. This gives pbooks the advantage of being on a universal reading device - paper.

If it is true that most books - p or e - fall into the disposable category, then price parity is most economically advantageous strategy for publishers and sellers to market them. It gives all customers the same product for the same price, just on different delivery systems. It seems reasonable to suppose that this would result in the most profit. And it's profit that drives the system, not costs.