Book prices, Ebook prices - Value

[MrBlueSky]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Finally, take into consideration other forms of entertainment that are vastly more transient and still cost nearly as much money as a book. For example, a movie ticket, depending on where you live, will cost $10. That's one viewing, in a large room full of loud smelly rude people, and you might not even like the movie.

1. Chose your movie more carefully.

2. Don't bring your relatives with you.

[drplokta]

Originally Posted by Iqy

I self published a couple of years ago in paperback and sold nearly 3,000 copies. I'd never do it again, so I spent a long time checking out ebook publishing sites but couldn't make much sense of them, they were either too complicated, too greedy, or just too messy for simple me. Then along came epub, and thankfully I stumbled across zuluexpress.

'Ondabeach' seems to have it wrapped up at ze, thats why I went with him. DRM free, so important and so obvious to everyone except the greedy old fashioned publishers, generous royalties which I hear he is even thinking of improving, and he recommends a price of around $2.95 to say $5.95 per ebook for new writers. Sounds low to writers but when you get more from that than JKR gets from Bloomsbury, it is perfect. Once more writers discover what ze offers I reckon it could outgrow even Amazon, simply because its generous for everyone, and there are no greedy lazy middlemen to feed, the writer gets the lions share! Thats the secret.

Even at $5.95 and with no overheads, you'll have to sell a few million copies to get as much as JKR gets from Bloomsbury. The amount you make per unit is irrelevant; only the total amount matters. Would you rather sell 100 copies at $6 each and make $600 or 1000 copies at $1 each and make $1000?

[R J Askew]

Hmm, I am a novice at all this but even I can sense instinctively that $15 or $20 is an absurdly large price. Most people online seem to expect to pay nothing or a tiny amount. The music business showed how people behave. The same applies to books. If an ebook is seen to be too expensive won't people just not bother with it or strive to steal it for nothing? Perhaps someone will find a way to acquire the $20 item and sell on for 99cents. So doesn't it make sense to pitch at a price that people might realistically pay? I may be totally off beam, I admit.

[Hellmark]

A bit of thread necro here, but I'll throw in my thoughts too.

eBooks aren't worth as much to me, because they do not have resale, DRM restricts on what machines, and how many you can read something (like ADE links the account to the machines, not the ebook. I have my laptop, my ebook reader, a tablet, my desktop, and a few other machines. I have to pick which machines I want to be able to access OR BUY ebooks on. It becomes a pain when you retire your computers, like many of us have, because your old one is still registered. Should you say, have a house fire, you're really screwed).

Also, I am a linux user, so there are no apps for dealing with DRM natively. My only option is to go out and buy another OS, if I have to natively deal with DRM.

Plus, I never really bought hard covers, due to price, so having to pay as much (or sometimes more) than the paper book, when it has all the aforementioned issues isn't much sense. Not to mention, most people buy ebooks for their ease, where as that is the entire point behind paper backs.