Apple Reportedly Looking to Offer More Flexible iBookstore Pricing Than Previously Thought

[Wolfpup]

Ignoring that Amazon isn't actually selling ebooks at all, they're not 'selling' stuff at a loss.

 

[dontmatter]

If selling bestsellers as ebooks for $9.99 is selling "at a loss", then it seems obvious that the publishers are simply greedy and taking too big of a cut themselves (yeah, and the sky is still blue - I get it).

Anyone know what the per-unit printing and binding costs of a moderately successful book are?

The cost isn't in book printing and binding, and it hasn't been there for a long time. The cost is in finding good manuscripts (and in the process having skilled people read all the crap to find that it isn't good), editing, and promotion. The last one is huge, even if we never see TV ads for books. Because in fact, we do; they're just done as interviews on the daily show, Oprah's book club, etc. They are the fact that the NYtimes decided to review a particular book, that amazon or Barnes and Noble placed a given book in a prominent spot.

 

[dave1812dave]

IIRC they also doubled the bit rate. Seems fair to me.

what is the highest bit rate available through itunes? I never buy from them. I have bought a couple of songs from amazon, but prefer my 320 rips from CD's. AFAIK, originally, itunes songs were a meager 128.

 

[cmaier]

what is the highest bit rate available through itunes? I never buy from them. I have bought a couple of songs from amazon, but prefer my 320 rips from CD's. AFAIK, originally, itunes songs were a meager 128.

Everything is 256 AAC, I believe. Having played around with bit rates, to me 256 AAC is about as good as 320 MP3.

 

[pubwvj]

Good News

This is good.
Now we need a used book market.