Comment buried. Show
1. panjandrum

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Dec 2004

   +15
   04/05, 09:45am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Book pricing

   Most people realize that, with no shipping or printing costs the publishers should have a considerable savings to pass on to the consumer. Instead they have priced their books above the cost of a paper-back. I bought the one book I could find on iBooks which cost less than the paperback edition, and even that one was still overpriced ($5.99). Note to publishers: Your primary client base is well-educated, and we have a good idea when we are being ripped-off. Charge a reasonable amount for your eBooks, keeping in mind that you don't have to print or ship it, and that I can't resell it, give it away, or donate it, and I might switch ALL my book-buying to eBooks. But trying to charge me $10 a pop? That's insulting. Same goes for newspaper and magazine subscriptions. I want to do that, I'll jump on it, but only if my subscription costs significantly less than a printed copy, which you have to print and deliver.

Comment buried. Show
1. rtamesis

   Dedicated MacNNer

   Joined: Jan 2000

   +1
   04/05, 10:12am | report spam | close reply

   Uh oh

   Only 300,000 iPads sold instead of 600,000 to 700,000? Apple is doomed!

Comment buried. Show
1. Raman

   Mac Elite

   Joined: Mar 2001

   +11
   04/05, 10:12am | report spam | close reply

   Affects Kindle, too.

   Kindle books prices have shot up as well. On the Kindle, we looked at books we purchased on the Kindle and books we were going to purchase from the Kindle bookstore. Some Kindle books went up $2. Some more than $5. Often these were books that cost less than $10 each - resulting in 25-100% increase in price!
   
   Might have to dump the Kindle and go to the used book store or borrow books from friends like we used to.

Comment buried. Show
1. climacs

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Sep 2001

   +5
   04/05, 10:27am | report spam | close reply

   convenience

   you're paying for the convenience I guess, as well as geek cred.
   
   this is one true lesson of life; charge what the market will bear.
   
   heard an interview on NPR's Fresh Air last week, about film industry economics. Seems that in the old days (last century), film studios charged $1000 per film print - what you see in the theater.
   
   Now that more and more theaters are using digital projection, guess what the studios charge a film production for the digital print? $1000. For a digital file that costs them $50 to create.
   
   (the rationale is that the $950 surplus goes to help theaters convert to digital projection - which is quite expensive - and that over time, as all theaters are converted to digital projection, this will help the 'print' price come down. I'll believe that when I see it.)

Comment buried. Show
1. testudo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   04/05, 10:27am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Re: Book pricing

   Most people realize that, with no shipping or printing costs the publishers should have a considerable savings to pass on to the consumer.
   
   I always love the well-educated and thought out concepts of "Well, it is electronic, so it should cost soooooo much less!".
   
   Do you seriously think that most of the price of a book is for printing, shipping, and storage? That's ridiculous. That makes up a tiny fraction of the cost of a book. You seem to think that with some of the arts (music, books, etc) that they are magically created with little cost or effort, and that most of the price is just for profit and outright greed.
   
   Truth is, just like it takes a ton of production work in studio and editing time (including personnel) to make a record, it takes a ton of personnel time to find, edit, review, vet, etc, books. For non-fiction works, there's then the fact checking and other details that need to go in there. Writers just don't sit at a keyboard, spit out a book in 6 months, ship it to the publisher who then just turns around and prints it. And even if they did, does not the author deserve due income for that 6 months worth of effort?
   
   Apparently not. It's electronic, so it should be really cheap. And anything else is just greed on the parts of whoever's trying to sell a product.
   
   

Comment buried. Show
1. testudo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   04/05, 10:32am | report spam | close reply

   Re: Book pricing

   Instead they have priced their books above the cost of a paper-back. I bought the one book I could find on iBooks which cost less than the paperback edition, and even that one was still overpriced ($5.99). Note to publishers: Your primary client base is well-educated, and we have a good idea when we are being ripped-off.
   
   By the way, being well-educated, shouldn't you realize the advantages that an ebook have, from the environmental impact of no shipping/wood pulping to the fact you don't have to lug around an actual book, but can carry 100 without adding an extra ounce to your bag), and realize that an ebook is worth as much as the 'physical' version? Are those advantages not worth any extra money?
   
   People talk about, say, the MacBook Air being worth it's priced, even though it is underpowered for the cost, and very limited in expansion and such, because of how light and compact it is. And yet you're whining that an eBook is not worth the price, even with the same benefits?
   
   

Comment buried. Show
1. testudo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   -5
   04/05, 10:34am | report spam | close reply

   Oh

   And, remember, you have Apple to thank for all these book prices. They're the ones who offered up the publishers these 'great' deals on book pricing. Everyone here seemed to think it was great at the time.....

Comment buried. Show
1. panjandrum

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Dec 2004

   +6
   04/05, 10:54am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Book costs

   For those who want a clearer picture of where the publishers should be saving money they could pass on to consumers:
   
   http://oreilly.com/oreilly/author/ch03sb.html
   
   http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_do_the_costs_of_publishing_a_book_break_down.html
   
   Testudo: I see the points you are trying to make. Had you made those points in a polite conversational tone, instead of an insulting and antagonistic one, then maybe we could have opened an intelligent dialogue regarding the pros and cons of eBooks and whether they are worth an extra cost. Here is a good rule: if you wouldn't speak that way to a person's face, then don't speak that way on the internet. I expect (well, I hope,) that were you and I discussing this issue face to face you wouldn't have the same attitude.

Comment buried. Show
1. trenchcoat77

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2003

   +5
   04/05, 11:24am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   NYT article on costs

   The New York Times did a nice breakdown of the costs involved in print versus electronic books: http://snipr.com/v9vty

Comment buried. Show
1. tsmelker

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Feb 2006

   +1
   04/05, 11:26am | report spam | close reply

   PJ, ignore the trolls...

   like testudo- he's probably a Micro$oft employee paid to spread his fanboy blather to a disinterested market. Either that, or he's a 40-something geek living in his mother's basement and perpetually unemployed. Either way, his viewpoint is insignificant.

Comment buried. Show
1. testudo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   -4
   04/05, 01:38pm | report spam | close reply

   And PJ

   You should ignore trolls like tsmelker, who's obviously an Apple employee paid to spread the Apple-word. Or just a fanboy who can't imagine that anything said about Apple that isn't 100% positive can be an objective thought.

Comment buried. Show
1. burger

   Forum Regular

   Joined: Sep 2000

   -1
   04/05, 02:40pm | report spam | close reply

   Cost for convenience?

   The investment in the purchase of the iPad is where buyers pay the cost of convenience, not in the price of the book. eBooks should cost less since it costs the publisher less to distribute.
   
   Now if the publisher wants to pay for the internet access or the iPad of the end user to receive the book we might be able to compare apples to apples. Sure, digital distribution does has some associated costs, but anyone who says it rivals the hard copy distribution is full of it.

Comment buried. Show
1. tsmelker

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Feb 2006

   +3
   04/05, 06:53pm | report spam | close reply

   Actually, testudo, I am neither-

   but I AM a former PC user who got tired of the c*** that Micro$oft turned out, and switched to a computer that is more often than not trouble-free (and easier to fix myself when I do have the occasional problem), what just happens to be more aesthetically pleasing and better designed than just about any computer out there. Oh, and also happens to be made by a more successful and robust company than any PC manufacturer.
   
   Apple makes products just 'cause they want to- they have huge reserves of cash on hand, and they're not bothered by anything the industry does or fails to do.
   
   And by the way, testicludo- my comment must have hit a little too close to home to cause you to be more venomous than usual, hmmm?

Comment buried. Show
1. chirpy22

   Junior Member

   Joined: Jan 2006

   +1
   04/06, 12:01am | report spam | close reply

   pricing

   I think what some of you need to consider is that books are written by people and require a huge amount of work to write them, organize them, edit them, design and layout and in some cases illustration. The prices that they are offering them for are still decent. Not to mention now you've got an interactive version to deal with, conversion for PDF, bookmark setup, etc.
   Someone has to get paid to create these things, not just the publishing company.
   
   It's a lot more work than writing one song.

Comment buried. Show
1. Norrin Radd

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Nov 2006

   +1
   04/06, 04:34pm | report spam | close reply

   Who really knows......

   I read the NYT article, and, very uncharacteristically, I actually agreed with the assessment of Anne Rice on 2 things:
   
   1. No one (outside the inner offices of publishers) really knows what the breakdown of costs is.
   
   2. Publishers are deluding themselves if they think they can maintain the old business model by keeping ebook prices artificially high. How did that work for the music industry? Yeah - rampant piracy. Now that the eReader is going to be in many more hands, people will find "alternative" means to acquiring them if they are not easily affordable.
   
   Besides, many of those costs for initially publishing an ebook DO NOT CONTINUE TO EXIST after a certain number are sold. How many times do you really have to convert the file into an eReader format? Right. Once.