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iPad Helping Book Publishers Gain More Control Over eBook Pricing
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There are trade-offs with digital content and we'll see how it goes. I'm not sure how DRM will play into this so it's hard to wade into those waters. True, you can't get rid of an eBook the way you could a physical book, but ask yourself WHY you want to get rid of your books. Is it for the $1.50 you get at the used bookstore or is it because you simply don't have room for all of them? I say it's the latter. Your book will be on the iPad(s) you own, on your computer and online at Apple. Most likely, you'll be able to re-download the book if you had to (a fire burns your computer and ipad up) so your protected.
As for me, I know a year or so down the line, I'm going to buy iPad 2.0 too. This will free up iPad 1.0 as my loaner. You can delete music and photos you don't want your friends/family to have to wade through, but they can enjoy your ALL your digital media, including any eBook they're wanting to sample. Probably make a convert to the iPad cause this way too.
Really, now with a digital book shelf, why would you want to get rid of a great book?
They'll never do that again. Bad mistake and it won't be repeated. Apple is a little smarter than that. They read "1984", I think, and know the lines that can and can't be crossed.
I say NO. Why? You can't CLONE a physical book -- well you could Xerox one, but no one does this. However, they have to keep the prices a bit higher than YOU would expect to offset those that know how to pirate the digital file and share it all over the place. The same reason Photoshop is still $699 on the store shelf.
$1-2? Confused. Where do you rent your movies? Even on iTunes, they're $2.99 and $3.99 for HD. You're not being realistic. $4 --> HD content for 24 hours. You watch it once, maybe twice if it's really good and then POOF. Gone.
I think a book is a lot more important than that. Some books I have read over and over, again, every few years. Many I don't... why? Because they're in the attic in a box because I don't have room for them.
Good thing about books on the iBookstore is that they will go down. I recently priced Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series books and on the Kindle, they're all around $6.50 -- These were all BESTSELLERS in their day for $30 a pop in a store. I can't wait to finally wade into the digital book world on a terrific price with such a great series that I've always wanted to read. Ultimately, if you don't want to pay $13-15 for a BESTSELLER, just wait... in 6 months, they'll be the $9.99 that most are wanting now. Unlike music, which will stay at $9.99 as an album for the unforseeable future, books are variable and will see deeper discounts. Somethings we might have to wait for, but in the meantime, there's a book you didn't get to read 3 years ago that you will now at a great price.
Patience, people, patience.
If you've bothered to read some of the other sources available on the the thread you know.
Let me be very snotty here. Threads like these show most MacRumors forums readers to be absymally ignorant of business. They have no idea what kind of margins businesses run on, whether it's manufacturing or publishing.
You have to pay editors. You have to pay copyeditors (and, no, they're not the same; one is for creative structure, one is for continuity, punctuation and typos). You have to pay for marketing. You have to pay for acquisition and author development.
Publishing is labor intensive; the economic structure of the business reflects that.
I believe someone posted a link to Nathan Bransford's post on what an ebook should cost:
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/02/what-should-e-book-cost.html
He estimates that printing + the other items you mention come to about $4.
Paying the author, marketing and publicity, editorial, sales, production, overhead, accounting, book design + 30% to the retailer (under the new ebook agreement w/ Amazon/Apple. A typical hardcover is 50% to the retailer) make up the rest.
With a $14.99 ebook version of the $25 hardcover, you're getting a 40% reduction off of the hardcover price. At $12.99 it's a 48% discount. That'd more than make up for the printing, shipping, stock, inventory, etc. You get less in hand, of course, but gain some in convenience.
I guess it depends what kind of reading you do. For new bestselling books, $15 will be more expensive that Amazon's current $10, although even the new price is cheaper than the physical version. But older books should be cheaper on average. Plus, don't forget that Amazon was subsidizing the $10 price so they could sell more of their Kindle version. That's probably a bad thing in the long run for the whole industry.
$5 - $15 a book seems reasonable to me, however I would like to see them all adopt a common format wihout DRM, that you could move among devices, like happened in the music industry.
I think a lot of people forget that the retailer takes a chunk out of that price, and they're not figuring that into the calculation.
Well look how giving away the content for free is doing for the news industry. No one wants to pay for news paper and no one wants to pay for web content so what happens is no one pays for good investigative reporting etc..
Looks like they are taking a more long term view instead of a short term view when it comes to its investors.
Looks like they are taking a more long term view instead of a short term view when it comes to its investors.
Amazon's model: $9.99. The publishers model: a range of prices. Yet the publishers claim that makes the pricing more consistent?
Amazon's model: $9.99. The publishers model: a range of prices. Yet the publishers claim that makes the pricing more consistent?
Yes... more consistent with the physical world. You know, the world where more desirable objects sell for higher prices and less desirable for lower?
I think they are just creating a big new piracy niche: books/magazine.
While people are giving up more and more physical papers to read the same content, live and for free on internet, if the costs increase it will just make the conversion of books and magazine from paper to web harder and non-effective.
In fact, it maybe like music vinyls: more and more people are getting more and more sharp, educated and involved in terms of music and quality/feel of sound, so while we're all accustomed to mp3s already, more and more people starts to know how ****** the majors music is (at least outside uk/us) and how sound quality/feel is important.
In these times of accelerating culture, crisis and globalisation, there's also the need to collect and to retie with our own culture and passion.
I see the same phenomenon for books. A big upcoming trend is the collection of nice books and magasine, and once agains it's about the quality and feel of the object.
This ebooks fiasco, while there are still no fully optimised eReader out there (no color on Kindle, no eInk on iPad) just showed a step further into this trend.
While people are giving up more and more physical papers to read the same content, live and for free on internet, if the costs increase it will just make the conversion of books and magazine from paper to web harder and non-effective.
In fact, it maybe like music vinyls: more and more people are getting more and more sharp, educated and involved in terms of music and quality/feel of sound, so while we're all accustomed to mp3s already, more and more people starts to know how ****** the majors music is (at least outside uk/us) and how sound quality/feel is important.
In these times of accelerating culture, crisis and globalisation, there's also the need to collect and to retie with our own culture and passion.
I see the same phenomenon for books. A big upcoming trend is the collection of nice books and magasine, and once agains it's about the quality and feel of the object.
This ebooks fiasco, while there are still no fully optimised eReader out there (no color on Kindle, no eInk on iPad) just showed a step further into this trend.
Not sure where you're getting your numbers from. You do have a point that physical books require printing, materials and distribution, but for you to say the cost of an ebook is essentially zero is nonsense. Are you forgetting that it requires a server to distribute the digital downloads, plus you need to pay people to maintain a server as well as paying people to maintain the content library, plus advertising costs and R&D? There's more to it then you think.
I completely agree. It's rather ridiculous and stupid that people on here are complaining about a few dollars more for an e-book after paying several hundred dollars for a Kindle or other e-reader. If this is such a big problem for you, there are much cheaper options for you. Forget the e-reader, peruse your local used bookstores for reading material or your local libraries, plenty to be had for free to a few dollars if you don't have to have it the moment it's released.
and in 10 years time, with flexible higher pricing for new releases, it gives publishes flexibility for older e-books that you may want to be available for half-price or less type of model just like in the current paper market.
It isn't as simple as low flat rate only model being always better.
"While Amazon at the time claimed that it felt that other publishers would not follow in Macmillan's footsteps, other book publishers do in fact appear to be falling into line."
because, of course, amazon is the stupidest idiot in the world.
"they have the opportunity to charge more... but they PROBABLY won't. because that's USUALLY how stuff like this works."
because, of course, amazon is the stupidest idiot in the world.
"they have the opportunity to charge more... but they PROBABLY won't. because that's USUALLY how stuff like this works."
Very interesting post, thanks.
So perhaps the primary cost of books are indeed non-recurring items such as editing, advertising, etc, versus marginal costs.
Regardless, I think publishers should be allowed to charge whatever they want. See Scalzi's blog entry linked to above.
My issue is their blatant mischaracterization of an eBook "sale" when in fact it is a rental with indeterminate period and terms. Such issues will be decided by the market at large, and I woe the day when the only books I can buy are eBooks with draconian DRM.
By the way, I spend an enormous amount of money on books.
The momentum for this kind of change was there already, Apple just provided some leverage. In the long run, the benefits to consumers are:
- larger, more diverse market place (more books to read, more devices to read them on)
- more competition between online bookstores (competition almost always lowers prices in the long haul for consumers)
- a challenge to Amazon's potential ebook monopoly, ensuring that the market and not a single retailer will continue to price books. Amazon was selling ebooks AT A LOSS. Once they wrapped up the market, I highly doubt they would continue selling them at a loss
- possibly a net positive for brick and mortar stores, considering that Amazon won't be undercutting their prices as much on hardcovers. But likely this is another blow to B&M stores. (a positive for brick and mortar stores is a positive for communities who are employed by them)
(disclosure: I'm a novelist)
Libraries?! What Libraries?!
People don't seem to realize that DRM will be the death of libraries. Right now, libraries are mostly about free internet access than books...
People don't seem to realize that DRM will be the death of libraries. Right now, libraries are mostly about free internet access than books...
Straw man argument. This has absolutely nothing to do with bittorent or piracy. The big issue is not whether you are justified to steal something because it's too expensive*. From my point of view, I have to wonder if it is justified to pay a higher price for a digital version of a book, when the costs to duplicate and distribute it are virtually null.
That being said, I don't consider $14 to be particularly expensive for a book. But you live in lala land if you actually think higher prices on ebooks are going to make a huge difference for authors.
*piracy is not stealing, but that's irrelevant.
Marginal cost to the publisher is zero. Apple pays for distribution out of their 30%.
Based on my post above, it seems that even marginal costs of a hardcover is small (roughly $5) too, and that most costs are upfront costs including editing, ads, etc.
This is about pricing flexibility. Period. Businesses should be able to charge a fair price for what they produce. If they are consistantly over charging for inferior content, the market will adjust as people either wont buy their product or others will come in and charge less. People compain but there are plenty of books that "real readers" would be happy to pay $14.99 for. It will all be fine.
Businesses that price things below cost are ultimately bound to either suck or fail. Amazon's model was only for their own personal gain. It was to attract Kindle buyers. It just so happen that it also helped the customers. Playstation is the same way, subsidize the hardware and make money on the software. It is not a sustainable business model.
Businesses that price things below cost are ultimately bound to either suck or fail. Amazon's model was only for their own personal gain. It was to attract Kindle buyers. It just so happen that it also helped the customers. Playstation is the same way, subsidize the hardware and make money on the software. It is not a sustainable business model.
I agree totally. Paying the same price for digital media as a physical product is just asinine. It is however a great tool for independent artists (musicians, writers, filmmakers, software & game engineers etc.) to make a living. Maybe ten to fifteen years ago it was a completely different scenario. There were few directions you could go if you wanted to sell anything you crafted. We're almost to a point where we just don't need publishing houses, music labels, and film studios. Sure, they'll always be there. But in the next ten to fifteen I think in a much smaller role.
