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Apple Offers Discounts on Hachette Pre-Orders Amid Publisher's Dispute With Amazon
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Printing books is cheap. It's dirt cheap. As is pressing CDs or DVDs.
And if I compare the cost of storing a book at my home with the cost of storing a book on a hard drive, eBooks are a lot cheaper.
It still costs money to digitize books. You have to buy the machines, the software and the people to do it. E-books also require separate ISBN numbers which there is a fee for registering. Then there is the extra bandwidth cost associated with storage and downloading of e-books (admittedly not that much). And finally, sometimes for older books separate electronic publishing rights need to be negotiated with the author.
Aren't the Apple books ePub format? If anyone locks you in it's Amazon and their Kindle format. ePub is a "standard".
The real problem with ebooks is DRM. The books have very little value because you never own them. You can't sell or even give away an eBook after you've read it.
Use the public library. My local library has most current ebooks in various format available for free. Actually the library uses an outside service that many libraries use. Your local library might use this same service. Check it out. "Free" needs to be in quotes because you paid for the library in advance, you may as well use it.
There's no fallacy. It's an easy question with two answers and you picked one.
You chose A
I think you might be getting Rubbermaid mixed up with someone else. Today, Rubbermaid is owned by the Newell Rubbermaid corporation. They were purchased in '99 for 6B. Their new parent renamed themselves to pay homage to the Rubbermaid brand, which overshadows their catalog. That's in spite of Newell making Sharpie, Goody, Calphalon and several other premium brands.
The books are in digital format BEFORE that are in printed format. Well at least this applies to new books. So they do not need to be "digitized". All publishers use computers and software to create their paper books.
ebooks have to be edited and a layout done, yes. But so do paper books. I agree that until you turn on the printing press the eBook and paper book have the same costs. But with ebooks you don't turn on the press or truck cases of printed books around.
So, As I wrote, they should cost NO MORE THAN paper back books.
There is also the question of value. With a real book I can re-sell it or give it away because of the "right of first sale". But eBooks are never sold, they are licensed so first sale does not apply.
Yes exactly book printing is cheap but electronic delivery is even cheaper. We can figure out the cost of each. Many (most?) public libraries out source the lending and electronic delivery of ebooks. They pay a fee that at least covers this cost and we can look up the fee. The company that provides the service does not intend to loose money in the deal and they certainly don't charge much per book. Bandwidth, computer servers, software and so on don't cost anything her even $10 per book delivery
amazon has a lot of catalog titles for paperback prices and a lot of books drop in price several times a year. the reason they cost more at release is to get the early adopter sales and then drop the price for a steady source of income
That depends on the quality and the quantity. A mass-market paperback novel might cost pennies per copy, but a high-quality book with color and a short run can easily cost $20 a copy to print.
When you submit an eBook to Apple to be included in their book store, you tick a checkbox "DRM" or "no DRM". Apple doesn't mind either way. (Slightly unfortunately, Apple doesn't have a checkbox for "watermark" and it seems that some publishers choose DRM because they can't have a watermark).
I don't agree with the notion that books with DRM have no value. They are like the wallpaper on the walls in my home: I can't sell it, or give it away. That doesn't mean it doesn't have value. Sure, less value, but not "no value".
The printed book + shipping costs sod all
The eBook on the other hand has probably been re-edited so that the pagination looks right on e-readers. + there is the server costs + networking + power etc etc etc
So they eBook probably has as many overheads as the printed page but for different reasons.
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ROTFLMAO, your "home computer" compared to a high up time, backed up server with commercial infrastructure etc etc iis like saying the car you drive is the same as a F1 Race car.
You missed out the costs of Servers, Raid Arrays, Back up systems, UPSs, Network switches, Cooling to keep the server room cool,Staff to run the servers/network etc.Then there is the accounting system for people to be able buy a book (user accounts) + Author/publisher accounts +IRS accounting on a per book basis (rather than 1 reseller buying in 200 copies in 1 order), and all of this being replicated in multiple sites nationally and internationally. Never mind the fact that millions of people browse the catalog and never buy anything, and they don't expect a 7-14 day delivery for an eBook, so everything must be online available 24/7.
So its quite possible that ebook cost just as much, if not more.
Nonsense. The authors get a flat percentage of what the publishers get, so both publishers and authors suffer. In fact, the whole publishing industry has worked pretty well up until now.
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Not really. Everything you mention for eBooks except storage is close to a fixed cost; and storage is much much much cheaper than a book's variable costs, which include paper and shipping.
That's not how pricing works. The price is set according to what people are willing to pay. If the product is a commodity, then people can buy the same thing from different providers, and the price will be competitive and tied heavily to costs. If there's no competition, the price is set based on value; what the product is worth to them. In that case the price has nothing to do with costs, as long as the value is well above production costs. Maybe you think all books are essentially the same and purchase based solely on price, but most book consumers don't think books are commodities.
There's your first day of Microeconomics 101. No charge.
It wasn't clear whether you were referring to new books or older/recent books, which comprise the vast majority of existing books. The vast majority of existing books were set up and designed for print production. This requires a different layout than for ePub for example, especially if there are graphics involved. It also requires different distribution infrastructure, which no publisher had been set up for until the last few years. You'll find that nearly all existing Kindle, Apple or even Google books other than the very most recent direct releases, have either been scanned (i.e. digitized) from existing print copies or reformatted into ePub files. This costs money.
Yes this is true for only the most recent releases (the past few years), not for 99% of all existing books.
You never wrote they should cost NO MORE, you wrote they should sell for LESS.
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You mean distributors like Amazon are offering only one e-book title? I thought they had millions?
It takes seconds to convert from kindle format with calibre, I hardly call that forced.
Amazon is not evil
Many people may be looking at amazon as being evil here but its not. Amazon is selling the books at cheaper price ... its not the issue if publisher is getting there correct percentage or not. Publishers are getting the percentage amount they need. But since amazon saves a lot in distribution and marketing prices and sells in bulk, it renders the traditional brick and mortar shops useless which cannot compete with such low prices as Amazon. This inturn leads to less mobility of books in the traditional market. But in anhy case it is still better for the larger mass, that is the consumers. We get cheaper books.
This also means that in case of e-books a publisher is nothing but a middleman, and with Amazons's Print on Demand technology even for printed books a publisher is not a publisher anymore. The publishers are realising this now and fear that due to loss of there traditional market they will be obsolete. Eventually Amazon may become the biggest publisher because they have all the infrastructure needed to do that. This is inevitable Hachette or not.
Many people may be looking at amazon as being evil here but its not. Amazon is selling the books at cheaper price ... its not the issue if publisher is getting there correct percentage or not. Publishers are getting the percentage amount they need. But since amazon saves a lot in distribution and marketing prices and sells in bulk, it renders the traditional brick and mortar shops useless which cannot compete with such low prices as Amazon. This inturn leads to less mobility of books in the traditional market. But in anhy case it is still better for the larger mass, that is the consumers. We get cheaper books.
This also means that in case of e-books a publisher is nothing but a middleman, and with Amazons's Print on Demand technology even for printed books a publisher is not a publisher anymore. The publishers are realising this now and fear that due to loss of there traditional market they will be obsolete. Eventually Amazon may become the biggest publisher because they have all the infrastructure needed to do that. This is inevitable Hachette or not.
One server ?
Don't you mean multiple servers locally and in different regions and countries ?
Then the servers used to host user accounts
Then the servers used to host publisher accounts
Then the servers used to host indexes, reviews, etc etc
Then the servers used to host the accounting for various taxes
These servers then need RAID arrays, + backup + DNS/DHCP/etc services
Then there is the networking equipment
Floor space, so we will either need to pay rent + local land taxes, building maintenance etc etc etc.
Cooling, this could well be in the Megawatts
Power (for the servers, networking equip, cooling, office space)
There are the staff to pay wages to (programmers, sys admins, marketing, contract negotiators, lawyers, management, etc etc) hell there are probably people to just swap out failing HDs
Internet bandwidth to buy + alternate routing + service to help the DDOS attacks + security auditing against hackers/malware + people publishing fake reviews etc etc
Profits to make
The there is replications of services to keep everything up 24/7
So yeah, suddenly there is a LOT of costs, even for an ebook that sells only a few copies a month but has the same access as a best seller (though the best seller may be on 100+ servers vs 1)
Lets see. I can have my content on 5 computers, unlimited Apple Devices, and if I someone steals all my devices I can re-download as many times as I need to. I can also pickup where I left off without having to remember to bring the book. Plus I have the convenience on not having to drive to the library to read it or book store to buy it. That's $2 in saving in gas alone these days.
I actually have books I've bought that I turned around and bought the ibooks version for the convenience. I suddenly had an abundance of free time and thought about the a book but was trapped away from home. Quick download and problem solved. The publisher may not have the cost of the printing but promotion, advances, editors, design, typesetting, photography etc... does not go away. You also potentially lose sales because of people sharing copies. My ex wife and I had similar taste in purchases so we shared an iTunes account. Once I authorized her devices we never bought two of anything again.
Not necessarily. You neglect a LOT of the costs of a book that apply whether it's paper or e-books.