Do some publishers have any idea?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Timboli

Prove me wrong ... if you want.

You know that guy that can play 8-10 games of chess with 8-10 different people simultaneously and win most (if not all of them)? You're not him.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by GlennD

For me, I'm willing to read either paper or e-copies. When an older book is available at a used book store for two bucks or less, I hope to find an ecopy for somewhere near that price. So age of the book is a factor for me, and size is also a factor. I have a hard time paying seven or eight bucks for a decades old book that's a couple hundred pages or less, when I can get a more recently published 800 page novel for the same price. Not that it is my right to get it cheaper, it's just a factor when I'm deciding what I'm willing to pay.

Been a few years since I last did the rounds of Second Hand or Antique Books stores ... Antiquarian anyone. And it doesn't look as though I ever will again ... but never say never.

Have you found that newer second hand books are harder to get these days, since mass take up of ebooks? One would imagine they would be, and becoming increasingly harder to get as the years roll by.

It seems to me, at least here, that the number of second hand book shops has diminished.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

You know that guy that can play 8-10 games of chess with 8-10 different people simultaneously and win most (if not all of them)? You're not him.

Damn! Are you sure?

I must be losing my edge. I blame the Indie ebook market ... it's devalued chess boards.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by maximus83

Sure, getting a good deal is nice. But if it took some work for somebody to ensure that all those complex character dialogues, notes, etc, are properly linked and laid out in the ebook version of Shakespeare, I'm delighted to get all that goodness and only have to pay them $20 for it. Versus $50 for a hardcover edition that I cannot search, cannot annotate, cannot easily copy/paste passages into other apps, etc.

Hey, if there is something special in an ebook above and beyond the paper variant, but all means pay more for it ... only fair.

But if it is just text versus text or has features that the huge majority would never use, then why shouldn't the ebook be cheaper? Very easy to do two versions in any case, and no reason whatever for the majority to subsidize the few.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Then I hope you buy all your electronics used. Because silicon valley executives make a heck of a lot more than book publishing execs. (Just as middling hardware engineers make a heck of a lot more than middling book authors.)

I cannot see how that is relevant at all.

And last I heard, they use slave labor ... so prices remain low. Thus fair to us, but not those slaves.

[Deskisamess]

Hey, if there is something special in an ebook above and beyond the paper variant, but all means pay more for it ... only fair.

Multiple people can read the book at the same time, adjustable fonts, adjustable line spacing and margins, instant delivery, mutiple books on one device, built in dictionary...

These are all benefits a print book doesn't have. I would imagine for most e-book users, at least a couple of those benefits are what prompted them to use e-books in the first place.

It's not subjective, those benefits are a fact, a tangible aspect of digital books.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by barryem

I agree that it makes sense for ebooks to cost less than print books but we live in a capitalist system and free enterprise works by letting sellers try to get the highest price they can and buyers try to get the lowest price. Hopefully things level out. It doesn't always work and sometimes when it does work sometimes it takes a while. It does work a lot of the time though and that's about the best we can hope for.

It is amazing (but not really) how many people still believe in the trickle down effect, which was disproved some 25 years ago and every day since.

Of course lots of things are done to pretend it is happening, to muddy the water.

Ebooks are still pretty new as mainstream and the publishers are resisting them with high prices. Their goal isn't so much as to make a lot on ebooks as to make us buy print books. Their problem is that if we all buy ebooks at lower prices they'll start making less money and nobody wants to make less money.

I don't follow that reasoning.
If a physical book costs $10 to make and provide, for example.
And an ebook costs $5.
And they both sell for $20.
Then they are making $5 more profit for the ebook.
If they sell the ebook for $15, then profit hasn't changed ... equal for all, still the status quo.

My hope is that this will level out in time as ebooks become more common.

Seems a vain hope right now. For any time soon anyway.

Thanks for the other interesting stuff you mentioned.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Multiple people can read the book at the same time

How? DRM prevents that.

adjustable fonts, adjustable line spacing and margins, instant delivery, mutiple books on one device, built in dictionary...

These are all benefits a print book doesn't have. I would imagine for most e-book users, at least a couple of those benefits are what prompted them to use e-books in the first place.

It's not subjective, those benefits are a fact, a tangible aspect of digital books.

How many actually use those things?
I click on an ebook and read it. In some instance I change the font size, but perhaps that is not my fault ... most are fine without doing that.

It's all very well to provide such features, but they are not a benefit if not used, and it is more to do with the device than ebook itself.

I think they should charge more for physical books, because one day our nanny robots will read to us, and won't that be a fabulous benefit.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Timboli

I cannot see how that makes any of it right and fair.

There are many greed based situations in this world, which is why the rich get richer and smaller in number and the poor poorer and greater in number.

I never said it was right. Just because someone posts facts does not mean they agree with them. But, right or wrong it is a fact of life. I don't see it changing any time soon. Or ever considering the human condition.
Apache

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by barryem

That's really just an illusion. In today's world if you buy an ebook you realistically own it even though you may not legally own it. When I get a book I make a backup and there's no way anyone could ever take it away from me.

Providing you are willing to break the law and some DRM doesn't come along that can't be broken.

Unless you can remove any DRM, those copies are useless in an ownership context.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by Apache

I never said it was right. Just because someone posts facts does not mean they agree with them. But, right or wrong it is a fact of life. I don't see it changing any time soon. Or ever considering the human condition.
Apache

Fair enough.
We can but continue to hope.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by barryem

I began buying paperback books in the mid 1950s and I just went to an inflation calculator to see how things have been going. In 1955 most new paperback books were 15 cents in Houston where I was living. Quite a few were a dime. A very thick book might have cost a quarter.

According to the inflation calculator 15 cents in 1955 would be $1.41 in today's money. However, paperbacks cost a lot more than that today.

So I think the bigger disparity is in the price of books in general. They've gotten way more expensive than inflation can account for. Compared to that the difference in ebooks and print books is small.

For sure, but the difference is not always small by comparison, and just so many other factors to do with quality etc that need to be looked at really.

But a good point never-the-less. Though it should have no bearing on the current situation as regards fairness between the two formats.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by Timboli

Been a few years since I last did the rounds of Second Hand or Antique Books stores ... Antiquarian anyone. And it doesn't look as though I ever will again ... but never say never.

Have you found that newer second hand books are harder to get these days, since mass take up of ebooks? One would imagine they would be, and becoming increasingly harder to get as the years roll by.

It seems to me, at least here, that the number of second hand book shops has diminished.

I live pretty close to Powell's bookstore, which is a mixed blessing. They're huge, and they've basically squashed all of the good used bookstores in the area. They're also big enough to be a tourist attraction in addition to being quite popular with the locals. The end result of that is that their inventory of popular genres (like science fiction) is pretty picked over. But you might just get lucky because there is so much turnover of the inventory. Powell's also has educated book buyers, so hard to find books are priced as such. You don't find out of print stuff from the 80s and 90s at half the cover price like you can at the local mom and pop used book store.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by darryl

We are rehashing this yet again. There is nothing new in this discussion, and people's views, including my own, have not changed.

Of course. Did you expect the protests to go away when the situation hasn't changed. Good however, to see you have responded anyway.

I'm going to address the original Question posed. The Big 5 not only have an idea, but they have a strategy. They certainly do have a clue. I don't like their strategy nor do I agree with it. I think at times they have behaved stupidly, getting involved in the ebook conspiracy perhaps the most conspicuous of them. After taking control of prices through agency, they did experience some problems, and still seem to be experimenting with prices. However, they have extensive backlists which they can now monetise thanks to ebooks and POD. It's taken a while, but they have made great progress in making these titles available again as ebooks. They do indeed seem to charge high prices on some backlist titles, but then they do seem to be experimenting with these prices. I haven't looked personally but I would not be surprised to see a repeat of their strategy with new releases, where a just re-published backlist book is priced high initially, with later reductions. It is fair to say that some Big 5 pricing is actually competing with Indie pricing, but not when a book is newly released or re-released. Competitive prices come after a time or during sales. Certainly Harry's example of Dick Francis books for about $US5 are competing directly with Indie titles, and there are many more.

It seems to me that for the Big 5 to compete fully with Indies they would have to price comparably without regard to print sales. A print book at $US13 or $US14 with the ebook version at $US5 is likely to lead to increased sales of ebooks and ereaders and increased use of reading applications on phones and tablets. This has the potential to emasculate or at least cause significant damage to their still very profitable print book business over which they exercise significant control. Yes, they are losing initial ebook sales, but may well be recouping many of them later when the ebook prices come down. Their real risk would seem to be rampant piracy whilst their prices remain high. However, whilst such piracy does occur, it seems that the vast majority of readers are prepared to wait, and their business model remains viable.

There are many factors that I won't discuss here, but I do believe that the print book business will decline over time, though it will remain significant for the foreseeable future and will likely never completely die. I once thought differently, but having looked more deeply at the whole picture, I think the Big 5 is taking a rational and practical, if somewhat cynical in some aspects, approach to its pricing. And a continually evolving one.

That's a lot to take in ... as bad perhaps, as one of my shorter long posts.

Thanks for your response ... some good meat in there, and more along the lines of what I was hoping to get with this topic ... aside from planting seeds of thought and focusing attention on a continuing bad situation.

Hopefully I will get some time tomorrow to dissect it properly.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by GlennD

....... Powell's also has educated book buyers, so hard to find books are priced as such. You don't find out of print stuff from the 80s and 90s at half the cover price like you can at the local mom and pop used book store.

Thanks for that.