Would you pay more for ebook than paperback?

[Dragoro]

Depends on the book and the difference. If its like a buck or so and its a book I want to read, and not just something i found exploring titles, then yeah. If its from an author I dont know, and just something I might like to read, then no. But then I wouldn't get the book at all, I do nothing but ebooks anymore, been that way since I got my first kindle 2 at its release.

[jarrahloh]

Yes.
And have done.

I think it's ridiculous pricing, but I truly prefer it on my reader.
I can get a paperback online for a few dollars, but sometimes the ebook is over $10.

A friend at work often says to me (ebook hater! ) You could probably get the print copy for that!
For me, now, that is like buying the vinyl instead of the MP3.
Yeah, sure, you get more in your hand to hold. But I'm not that shallow I don't NEED to to own things and hold things anymore. I want usability.
Minimalism is the way to go.
The ebook version is superior, so yes, I will pay more if I have to. :P

[DrNefario]

I do think there was an implicit promise that the ereader would pay for itself in savings, at the time I bought mine. Maybe that's no longer true now they are more established, and people are aware of their other advantages.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by djstormer

spindlegirl, do you realize that un-drming an ebook is a very simple process using freely available, widely used, and perfectly safe software? Once the drm-free version is backed up on your PC, it's completely yours.

I do know this, but that is not the point. Nor is it the seller's point. The objective of the seller is everything. The fact that I have to use third party software to "fix" something (which, even though it is 'freely available' the how to cannot be discussed here) I bought, regardless of how easy it is, just makes me very uncomfortable. It is all in the principle of the thing.

I'll happily slurp up all the kindle freebies that get posted here. But I refuse to *pay* for something that I have to "fix".

Most of my e-book money goes into DRM-Free models (Baen, Discover a New Love, and the like) because I like to monetarily reward those who sell books to ME, not my gizmo.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I do think there was an implicit promise that the ereader would pay for itself in savings, at the time I bought mine. Maybe that's no longer true now they are more established, and people are aware of their other advantages.

I do not believe that has been the case except maybe that you saved money if you read free stuff and free stuff is much easier to read on a reader than on a computer.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Quite a few ePub books use drop caps, embedded fonts, etc.

You're right, Harry, they do. Still, I think most ePubs are still laid out to a lowest common denominator (read: the capabilities of MOBI6/AZW ;-)).

In that regard, Amazon's move to KF8 is good thing too: it might push publishers to a higher layout standard across the board, especially with the dual-format files to ease the transition.

But whether they will do so? I'm not all that optimistic...

[DiapDealer]

Oops. Wrong thread.

[NickyWithNook]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I do think there was an implicit promise that the ereader would pay for itself in savings, at the time I bought mine. Maybe that's no longer true now they are more established, and people are aware of their other advantages.

When e-readers were new, I remember reading that ebooks would be less expensive and the savings would pay for the e-reader, though I'm not sure whether it was ebook sellers saying it or articles about ebooks that claimed it. Maybe people writing articles made assumptions about how much ebooks would cost.

[spindlegirl]

Well for me, the e-reader paid for itself with just all the gutenberg downloads. I am one of the people who actually likes a lot of the books I have from PG/MR and all the public domain sites. I was actually buying the physical versions before e-books came around.

I suppose it depends on a person's preferences, but if the expensive and hot bestsellers were on my MUST list, I'd probably not have bothered with an e-reader.

Nobody specifically seemed to say, "oh it pays for itself", but it seems to have always been the experience that when you pay a premium for the startup costs of a fancy gizmo, eventually the reason you bought it in the first place comes to fruition. Things like bread mixing machines, stereos, CD players, etc etc, you pay the premium for a reason, to balance the cost in other ways.

The fact that I rarely buy physical books does not mean comparing the cost for me, is meaningless. They are essentially supposed to be the same thing, same story etc... so yes, I compare apples to apples. If my goal is to read the book, then I'll check it out at the library in *whatever* format it is in, rather than pay $14 for it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I do think there was an implicit promise that the ereader would pay for itself in savings, at the time I bought mine. Maybe that's no longer true now they are more established, and people are aware of their other advantages.

To be honest ... I still think that's entirely true. There are just too many ways for ereader owners to get free (legal) content that isn't available (or would be "effort prohibitive") to those who only buy physical books. And while it certainly may take longer (now) for someone who only reads from the Best Seller lists to recoup the cost of their device, I still think the ever-lowering ereader entry-price-points—combined with promotional ebook sales (even if you have to rely on the publisher running the promotion)—still makes it quite possible for the ereader to "pay for itself" over a reasonable amount of time. It's just not going to happen with zero effort by the owner.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

To be honest ... I still think that's entirely true. There are just too many ways for ereader owners to get free (legal) content that isn't available (or would be "effort prohibitive") to those who only buy physical books.

That is 1000% true.
Print only buyers are missing out on the whole indie revolution and (at best) getting the short-end of the stick on ebook-first projects. To saynothing of missing out on ebook-only efforts.
We need to go no further than this example (out of many):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012...olly-crabapple
The other area print-only buyers miss out is the resurrected backlists coming to ebook only.
As time goes on the print fetishists will be under increasing pressure to move on to digital out of sheer economic necessity.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Apache

Easy answer, NO.
Apache

[guma]

Originally Posted by tompe

Really? How come then the the layout for paper books are OK but I have still not seen an ebook with good typography?

... not because it would be overly difficult to adjust a text for ebook reading. I would assume the reason is that some (most?) publishers obviously don't care much about ebook quality and are not willing to invest even the little effort it would take to make their products somewhat presentable.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by guma

... not because it would be overly difficult to adjust a text for ebook reading. I would assume the reason is that some (most?) publishers obviously don't care much about ebook quality and are not willing to invest even the little effort it would take to make their products somewhat presentable.

To some extent the fault lies with the ebook reading software. None of it seems to make much of an effort to do really good typography in terms of line and page layout, or even in terms of ligatures.

Current ePubs and even Mobipocket ebooks could look a lot better than they do at the moment.

[carld]

Not normally. If there's no paperback available for a new hardback release, and the ebook is priced at least a few dollars less than the hardback then I might buy a book from a favorite author, maybe.

I think the Dresden Files are the only books I've done that for.