I know someone on a school board that started off with an iPod Touch for just being a member. Then an iPad or some $500 notebook This year it is MacBook Airs. They were just as perplexed.
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iBooks Textbook Sales: Authors Set Pricing Up to $14.99, Apple Takes 30%, iBooks-Exclusive
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Cheaper iPads (and their replacements when they get mishandled) would be nice.
I fully expect books to be digital by the time my child is in high school. I also fully expect iPads (or iPad like devices) to be under a $100 dollars.
(he is 9 months old...)
I hear what you are saying. But I believe software publishers said the same thing a few years ago.
"We can't sell games (or other apps) for 99 cents, we won't make any money at it!" (Yes, I'm paraphrasing).
Imagine, once you've got your clients buying your books on an iPad, it's the only place they'll want to shop. It's the first place they'll look for new books. At first, you'll barely need to market, you'll be in the first few choices. No sales department, no misprints, no extra copies, no mailing out print copies (just codes).
And I think the music industry said it too: We can't sell individual songs for 99 cents, it'll NEVER work. And now (just about) everyone does it that way...
Gary
If Apple has exclusivity - it won't matter. Right now they will not allow authors to be on their platform AND sell on others. That does not look like you scenario where tablets become less than $100. Oh sure - there will be (and are) other tablets. But without the content - what difference will it make if you can't get the books on there you need. This is probably my biggest issue at this point.
This is a complicated issue that many are summarizing way too much. Some are directly talking about HS textbook publishers and others are talking about ma and pa do-it-yourself books. Totally different ball game.
Few points:
1) Many publishers are stipulated by state education guidelines as to what is or isn't included in their textbooks. Said another way, the publisher knows what they need to include or not include to get their book approved for NY state history classes. It remains unclear who these $14.99 and under textbooks would be marketed to. If they are indeed marketed to school districts, the book will very often need to meet some sort of state guideline, in terms of curriculum, but even this is hard to describe fully. This would negate this idea of publishers simply selling "chapters" instead of full books to meet the $14.99 price limit.
One example is a city has a Board of Education and a curriculum committee that is in charge of essentially making sure that their city complies with the myriad of state regulations. There would be guidelines in place that stipulate certain classes need to include X, Y, and Z to qualify as a class meeting certain state requirements. The textbooks for that class would then need to include X, Y, Z. It may be hard for some classes to just go in iBooks and randomly buy textbooks without making sure they meet certain stipulations and requirements.
In addition, certain material may be banned from public education classrooms and the publishers know this ahead of time so school districts very often need to approve textbooks (or literature books).
It's much more complicated than just thinking of publishers uploading random $14.99 books and teachers manually picking and choosing which ones they like.
For private education, most of this is irrelevant and that is why you see many private schools already using iPads across the board in all classes.
2) Many times the sheer size of education budgets are irrelevant in terms of a city's wealth. You need to look at the school budget in terms of per pupil spending and very often inner city schools may spend roughly the same amount per pupil than schools in the suburbs. The problem is what this money is used on. Of course, there are a lot of variables here, but its not correct to make some generalization that inner city schools have less money than other schools. There are many other factors such as state funding and grants.
Few points:
1) Many publishers are stipulated by state education guidelines as to what is or isn't included in their textbooks. Said another way, the publisher knows what they need to include or not include to get their book approved for NY state history classes. It remains unclear who these $14.99 and under textbooks would be marketed to. If they are indeed marketed to school districts, the book will very often need to meet some sort of state guideline, in terms of curriculum, but even this is hard to describe fully. This would negate this idea of publishers simply selling "chapters" instead of full books to meet the $14.99 price limit.
One example is a city has a Board of Education and a curriculum committee that is in charge of essentially making sure that their city complies with the myriad of state regulations. There would be guidelines in place that stipulate certain classes need to include X, Y, and Z to qualify as a class meeting certain state requirements. The textbooks for that class would then need to include X, Y, Z. It may be hard for some classes to just go in iBooks and randomly buy textbooks without making sure they meet certain stipulations and requirements.
In addition, certain material may be banned from public education classrooms and the publishers know this ahead of time so school districts very often need to approve textbooks (or literature books).
It's much more complicated than just thinking of publishers uploading random $14.99 books and teachers manually picking and choosing which ones they like.
For private education, most of this is irrelevant and that is why you see many private schools already using iPads across the board in all classes.
2) Many times the sheer size of education budgets are irrelevant in terms of a city's wealth. You need to look at the school budget in terms of per pupil spending and very often inner city schools may spend roughly the same amount per pupil than schools in the suburbs. The problem is what this money is used on. Of course, there are a lot of variables here, but its not correct to make some generalization that inner city schools have less money than other schools. There are many other factors such as state funding and grants.
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Agreed. The author of textbook (especially University textbooks) usually receives only a 5%-15% royalty. So when you buy a $120 university textbook written by a professor/researcher, they only get $10-$20. The reason why many text books are so expensive is because, unlike a NYTimes best sellers, it's low distribution. So the initial expense of layout, publishing, etc, is spread across fewer books.
Furthermore, the professor/researcher/author usually primarily concerned with recognition or credit for their work before profit. They want as big audience as they can get, not only money.
I don't know how $14.99 is going to make higher education books available on iPad. E.g. Cryptography and Network Security by William Stallings is usually sold for £30 ~ $45. $15 is just 1/3rd of that price. I don't see how publishers will do this.
There needs to be another cap say $50 for higher education books so that students don't miss out. I see how the focus is K12. But all this makes me just sad. :|
There needs to be another cap say $50 for higher education books so that students don't miss out. I see how the focus is K12. But all this makes me just sad. :|
why are they bleeding teachers?
Wouldn't it be book publishers who pay the 30%?
I say good for Apple. They continue to innovate and keep their shareholders happy.
Sure, it comes at a price, but if someone doesn't like it, don't use it imho
I look at someone like my brother whom I believe is brilliant in the kitchen. Maybe he'll now want to put some recipes into a book.
What I like about this endeavour is that now you don't have to go through all the middle men to get your creative ideas out there. Like iTunes, you don't have to go through a label. Sure, those labels and publishing companies employ people, but unfortunately, as a nature of what they are, they control what we read and hear. How many brilliant bands / artists / authors are out there, but never heard or not heard enough b/c they are 'squashed' - inadvertently or not?
Yes, publishers/labels ie. the middle men also promote material, but I think that whole ballgame has changed.
Now creative people have a path to get their material out there.
For that, I completely applaud Apple for taking charge and I don't begrudge them one single bit for making money from it. I'd rather pay someone 30% at the top end than take my chances that some publisher might like my stuff as they weed through thousands.
Cheers,
Keebler
I meant they may not have a bulletproof way of doing it.. Every once in a while we'd hear the App Store has some infringing apps being taken down, only after being available for purchase for some long period of time.
That said, we also haven't heard any App store controversies in a while. This might be an indicator that Apple has gotten much better at this policing stuff lately.
Either way, we will find out soon enough.
Umm the sales commission, distrubtion ect is chump change of that $200 cost. Most of the cost is from paying for the IP fees for the contents of the book and the editors. That is were a vast majority of the cost come from. Very little is from the the list you put on there.
why are they bleeding teachers?
Wouldn't it be book publishers who pay the 30%?
I say good for Apple. They continue to innovate and keep their shareholders happy.
Sure, it comes at a price, but if someone doesn't like it, don't use it imho
I look at someone like my brother whom I believe is brilliant in the kitchen. Maybe he'll now want to put some recipes into a book.
What I like about this endeavour is that now you don't have to go through all the middle men to get your creative ideas out there. Like iTunes, you don't have to go through a label. Sure, those labels and publishing companies employ people, but unfortunately, as a nature of what they are, they control what we read and hear. How many brilliant bands / artists / authors are out there, but never heard or not heard enough b/c they are 'squashed' - inadvertently or not?
Yes, publishers/labels ie. the middle men also promote material, but I think that whole ballgame has changed.
Now creative people have a path to get their material out there.
For that, I completely applaud Apple for taking charge and I don't begrudge them one single bit for making money from it. I'd rather pay someone 30% at the top end than take my chances that some publisher might like my stuff as they weed through thousands.
Cheers,
Keebler
Mixed blessing. On one hand - you can self publish and Apple will do all the transactions for you. On the flip side - you're LOCKED into Apple's ecosystem because if you use their software - you are not allowed to SELL your book anywhere else.
That's very different than being locked into a publisher. When a book is published - it can be sold everywhere. Amazon, Apple, Bookstores, coffeeshops, etc. With Apple's model - it's ONLY them.
How much does it usually cost publishers to physically put the books onto store shelves? I'm talking about operational costs such as price of paper, ink, storage facilities, shipping and handling, etc. Also, what happens if they printed 100 copies, but only sold 2?
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Relatively little.
The paper is cheap, the binding is cheap. Storage is cheap. ink is cheap. shipping is cheap.
Remember almost all of that can be combined with multiple different books into single run and shipping that being a chemistry book and an English book. The only difference is what file is uploaded to the machines to tell it what to print. The real cost is in creating that file.
Here's the difference: If the books are DRM'd via the iTunes/iBooks store, students will not be reselling their $50 book (or signing it out of the library) while filling the needs of several students which results in the publisher only selling it once. Now the publisher will sell a copy for every copy needed, no manufacturing (no misprints or corrections) no distribution needed, Apple takes care of that for you. Plus, they can now claim more copies sold (since they are!).
But that's just my opinion, I still don't understand how textbooks didn't sell better on the Kindle (other than many did not reformat for the smaller size).
I taught college classes and students loved when I picked $25 books which were cheap already but when they could get it for their Kindle for $10, they loved it even more.
Gary
The exclusivity looks like it will become problematic sooner or later.
The price cap is not a big deal, and I don't understand all the screaming about how this will drive the publishers away. Didn't Apple already prove that they have the major publishers on board?
The price cap is not a big deal, and I don't understand all the screaming about how this will drive the publishers away. Didn't Apple already prove that they have the major publishers on board?
I wonder how long it takes for professors to publish their own books, and require students to buy their book. The price of 2 textbooks + an iPad is less than the cost of 2 textbooks, the student gets an iPad to keep, and the professor makes $20.
This is great for everyone except the textbook industry, and people who don't want an iPad.
This is great for everyone except the textbook industry, and people who don't want an iPad.
funny thing, Apple supports SOPA and PIPA and wants to do away with internet freedoms and herd ppl into using their service which in some cases are more expensive. Apple now "The MAN" and it wants to hold everyone down. As an writer this "apple exclusive" on books kinda bugs me. iPad is not an ebook platform when compared to Amazon's Kindle.
With a price cap of $14.99? I'm not even sure McGraw Hill will hit "paste" afterwards.
Riiiight.
Phazer
The license agreement for iTunes Author. It says:
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a Work), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.
Still better than some of college textbooks. Calculus: 6th edition - $179.99; Calculus: 7th edition - $199.99; Calculus: 8th edition - $219.99; etc.. all with virtually zero differences in content between editions.
I hate it when they do that. Move the problems around in the back forcing you to buy the latest edition.
Oh yeah :/ We all do. The publishers have been milking college students for decades. I am highly doubtful they will release anything more than "optional materials" for $14.99.
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This. In no way will publishers cut prices by, in some cases, hundreds of dollars. Instead they'll stick to their cash-cow model whereby they release high priced textbooks with new editions every year that prevent you from reselling it. I could have bought 2 iPads with the money I spent on textbooks last year; that are now useless because of new editions.
You're thinking about the old publishing model (which still works, of course). But these days POD ("Print On Demand") makes warehousing, inventory management, etc. irrelevant. Yes, somebody has to take care of shipping from (say) Lightning Source (a big POD operation) to Amazon's warehouse, or to Ingram (a major distributor), but that's a much easier task.
I'm involved in a small press that uses POD rather than the traditional model. The books appear on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Powells exactly as they would from a traditional publisher, and any bookstore that uses Ingram or other major distributor orders the book precisely as they would order any other book. The only difference is that it's going to take an extra day for Lightning Source to print and ship the book. We have no warehouse, no ordering or invoicing system, no inventory or inventory management, no up-front costs that amount to anything; the retailers pay Ingram or pay Lightning Source directly, Lighting Source does all the accounting, and remits payments to us directly.
The per-book cost is higher than a big traditional print run, but the overhead is dramatically lower.
This is a bit OT, I know. But people thinking about new publishing modes need to realize that the traditional mode is no longer the only one. Don't equate POD with self-publishing or vanity publishing. It only refers to the way the book is produced and enters the distribution stream.
To some extent they already had before the announcement.
NookStudy
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookstudy/index.asp
Although restricted to Mac and PC right now this could be expanded to tablets later. (dealing with smaller 7" screens is probably an issue that can be deferred to later ).
Amazon Kindle Format 8
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000729511
[ We'll see if Apple's tweaks to EPUB3 get similar reaction hat KF8 got.
http://thefutureofpublishing.com/2011/10/amazon-kf8-and-epub-3/ ]
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So... everyone complaining that publishers will never buy into this because the price is too low, or exclusivity problems, I have a question for you:
With the free Authoring that has a button and author can click to upload to the iBooks store, a "publisher" is needed.... why???
With the free Authoring that has a button and author can click to upload to the iBooks store, a "publisher" is needed.... why???