Didn't Sony say they were releasing $9.99 books?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Many of those extra expenses are only spent once, and are rather low, so the entire expense gets spread out over the sale of every book. Some of those expenses are something the retailer have to worry about (the servers, and such), or would be needed anyway because of other uses.

yea, and when eBooks are a significant portion of the publishers sales this may be true, but right now they look like a distraction and removes sales of regular books. I don't buy the "well they must already have computers so everything is free mentality" by the way.

[Hellmark]

How many are really putting any significant amount into publishing of ebooks? I'd wager that it is largely a negligible amount, or at least enough to where the profit margins on ebooks have long since paid for those, and can be considered no longer amortized.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

You're most likely right. The publishing industry and the music label industry are very similar in the way they operate and the way they act.

More similar in their scruples than in their relevance.

- Ahi

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Many of those extra expenses are only spent once, and are rather low, so the entire expense gets spread out over the sale of every book....

The paper and shipping costs for books are allegedly around 12%.

A popular book will actually have at least two rounds of major expenses -- one for the hardcover, one for the paperback. Most of the sales are also happening around the time that the big expenses are incurred. I.e. a book in the back catalog doesn't incur big expenses but isn't a big seller either.

Meanwhile, the publisher has to recoup the initial costs and has ongoing issues to attend to (e.g. managing production and distribution, watching for copyright violations etc). From what I understand, most books don't break even.

There are also new expenses for publishers and retailers with ebooks, including conversion, bandwidth and data hosting costs.

And don't forget that list price on a hardcover is around $26. If an ebook sale cannibalizes a hardcover sale, it is currently unclear if that extra revenue is lost. Maybe the buyer will spend it on another book - but not necessarily by the publisher of that hardcover - or on something else altogether (e.g. DVD's, video games etc).

Some expenses go away when you shift to ebooks, but not as much as most people assume.