Future Ebook Price Point

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Apart from the fact that you forgot the overhead (and that if the ebook is sold at an incredibly cheap price then very few pbooks will be sold and all overhead costs have to be paid for by ebooks), since when is there always a direct relationship between unit cost and selling price? They charge what they can get.

Not sure if your post was a reply to me or someone else but I'd hope I was clear in that I was talking about the per-copy cost. I wasn't trying to say that they should sell books for $0.00004. I'm only talking about the production and delivery cost -per-copy-.

Once you add in the cost of formatting, editing, licensing, advertising, et cetera you'd come up with so many per-title costs that would have to be spread across each copy that the cost for consumers would instantly rocket upwards. But the cost to create and deliver each copy of an ebook doesn't change.

The reason why I did my original post is that there seems to be some measure of confusion muddying the waters. Once everyone realizes the actual cost to replicate and deliver a digital product that part of the discussion should die out. What is left is the more interesting aspects, namely obsolete business models and massive overhead costs.

I know nobody is going to do so but if you go back a number of pages you'll find one of my posts questioning why publishers are so unwilling to slim down the bloat and embrace digital for what it truly is; a chance to operate at virtually nil expenses compared to physical products. These expenses exclude the cost of editing, covers, etc of course since those would be the same for both physical and digital products (felt obliged to add that last sentence or someone would jump on it for sure).

It really isn't so far a stretch, there's thriving examples of innovate business models based on this concept. Baen is a perfect example of an entity that has one foot in the old model and one in something entirely new. Most websites function this way, can you just imagine how much it'd cost to get a print press and all the other peripherals compared to starting a digital news outlet? It just seems that most publishers want to bend digital into fitting what they perceive as "the way it should be" instead of evolving along with the times.

i dont know where the myth that a large portion of indie stuff is crap comes from. i exclusively buy indie novels and have yet to buy one that i consider garbage. those sample chapters they give are pretty damn helpful.

I'd say a lot of it is perceived value. There's a reason why certain brands intentionally float their prices upwards. A $10 product must be better than a $1 product. It's something rooted in our sense of perception. But then again, there is crappy indie books just like there's crappy regularly published books so neither of us can prove the other party wrong. They say indie books are mostly crap because they've found crap when they looked, we say indie books are great because we've found gems.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by haodixilie

funny thread. I really enjoy it.

Yes, ebook pricing, future ebook pricing and people who know nothing guessing about stuff is always pretty funny.

[elcreative]

TFeldt, nice ideas, just as amusing as ever in the great ebook pricing discussions, guaranteed to continue into the next century and move to brain implant coding costs... just one snag at the moment, despite everybody's wonderful joy at ereaders and the amazing sales of ebooks, the whole thing is still only a fraction of pbook sales and not yet the primary way of selling books...

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by elcreative

TFeldt, nice ideas, just as amusing as ever in the great ebook pricing discussions, guaranteed to continue into the next century and move to brain implant coding costs... just one snag at the moment, despite everybody's wonderful joy at ereaders and the amazing sales of ebooks, the whole thing is still only a fraction of pbook sales and not yet the primary way of selling books...

Really?

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....581&highlight=

SEATTLE, May 19, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- (NASDAQ:AMZN)--Amazon began selling hardcover and paperback books in July 1995. Twelve years later in November 2007, Amazon introduced the revolutionary Kindle and began selling Kindle books. By July 2010, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Today, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books - hardcover and paperback - combined.

Amazon disagrees. So does B&N.

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by elcreative

TFeldt, nice ideas, just as amusing as ever in the great ebook pricing discussions, guaranteed to continue into the next century and move to brain implant coding costs... just one snag at the moment, despite everybody's wonderful joy at ereaders and the amazing sales of ebooks, the whole thing is still only a fraction of pbook sales and not yet the primary way of selling books...

Aye, sort of regret ever setting foot in this thread. It can only really lead to controversy and spite since none of us are clairvoyants. Not even interested in the price itself, just find the possibilities and opportunities ahead of the ebook field absolutely fascinating. It's extremely disheartening to see publishers fight it tooth and nail when they could embrace it and bring true innovation to a mostly stagnant industry. No matter, with that technical essay I think it's time to take my dramatic exit and find a less esoteric thread to rest my feathers in.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by TFeldt

And like I said, if I (a one man shop in sweden) can deliver a book for $0.00004

So you agree with me, then, that the cost is not, in fact, zero. That is the point you're arguing with, which you apparently agree with.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

Really?

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....581&highlight=


Amazon disagrees. So does B&N.

And Amazon and B&N are the only booksellers in the entire world...

[rogue_librarian]

Not exactly, but, yes, they are one of the biggest players in one of the biggest markets. If they sell fewer pbooks than ebooks the latter certainly has made the jump to mainstream.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

Really?

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....581&highlight=


Amazon disagrees. So does B&N.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by elcreative

And Amazon and B&N are the only booksellers in the entire world...

Pretty much. Or pretty much the only ones that matter.

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by taustin

So you agree with me, then, that the cost is not, in fact, zero. That is the point you're arguing with, which you apparently agree with.

I'm not arguing the point, I've never argued the point that it isn't free to deliver ebooks. The very first line in my original post was: "While it's true that ebooks aren't free (per copy) I'd just like to put it in perspective."

How anyone could derive that I'm trying to say that delivering ebooks is free from that statement is beyond me. I was trying to do only one thing and this is put it in perspective. In many threads on this forum, on blogs just about everywhere there seems to be misperception that delivering ebooks somehow compares to the cost of printing and delivering a physical book. That is what I was addressing.

EDIT: Let me just elaborate for one more paragraph. I didn't do this to prove anyone here wrong, I just wanted to get to what I found the most interesting discussion about the price point. Not the actual price but the business models that force the price to a certain point. It certainly isn't the cost per copy, it's the overhead.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by taustin

So you agree with me, then, that the cost is not, in fact, zero. That is the point you're arguing with, which you apparently agree with.

I believe that his point was that they are so low as to be effectively zero, especially in comparison to the fixed costs, and especially for a company like Amazon which dynamically reallocates its resources as needed. Less than one cent per book is less than the rounding on the taxes at traditional b&m booksellers.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by TFeldt

EDIT: Let me just elaborate for one more paragraph. I didn't do this to prove anyone here wrong, I just wanted to get to what I found the most interesting discussion about the price point. Not the actual price but the business models that force the price to a certain point. It certainly isn't the cost per copy, it's the overhead.

Yes, I think that this is the interesting discussion. Publishers are afraid of diluting the perceived value of their product.

This issue is similar to the discussion that I had during a tour of a small brewery recently when I asked if their recent foray into canning has had any noticeable impact on the perceived value of their product. Even though they argue that the canned product is superior for technical reasons [their claims: less light exposure, better seal, less air space], it doesn't matter if beer snobs will reject them as just another cheap canned beer.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by TFeldt

I'm not arguing the point, I've never argued the point that it isn't free to deliver ebooks.

Someone else did. I corrected them. You took issue with the correction, even though you apparently agree with me.

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by taustin

Someone else did. I corrected them. You took issue with the correction, even though you apparently agree with me.

You're really going there? Fine. I expanded upon your "correction" since I found it woefully vague and abstract. In so doing I showed that the actual per-copy cost is next to nil, something your correction did not do.

If you want to keep pushing then by all means do so, I'll push right back in the same spirit. This thread is already so far off-topic that I don't really care if you want to bring it down to discussing semantics or other irrelevancies.