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And the costs of producing the text haven't changed - you still need to pay editors, proofreaders, technical editors and reviewers when necessary, people to rea

And the costs of producing the text haven't changed - you still need to pay editors, proofreaders, technical editors and reviewers when necessary, people to read the slush pile to decide what to commission next. That's all beside the point that utility determines price, not cost, although I'm not sure that's strictly true: I think that the perception of utility determines price. Because the perceived utility of an ebook is less for many people, party for practical reasons and partly because they perceive that the cost is less, they perceive that the price should be lower. It's a beguiling idea. Even realising that production costs for ebooks aren't any lower, I still baulk at ebook pricing.

tptacek 16y ago
Editors, proofreaders, and reviewers aren't really COGS, anyways, for the same reason that software development is accounted for in SG&A or R&D, and not "cost of sales": it's a sunk cost.
- semanticist 16y ago
  That's true, but in an all-ebook model you'd need to price your product to cover those costs too. My point was that those costs don't change, but they're frequently not considered when consumers are thinking about the 'cost' of what they're buying and the perceived cost impacts on people's perceived value for some items. Arguing that pricing your product based on its cost is mad doesn't really change that consumers feel that digital downloads should be priced less than physical media versions, even if the digital download has greater utility.
mentat 16y ago
There's a pretty interesting blog about eBooks and publishing and the link. This entry http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/09/acquisitions-editor.html http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/09/acquisitions-editor.ht... is a more humorous approach to the question of eBook costs.
- tptacek 16y ago
  This is a great critique of the publisher/author model, but it makes me sad that this writer also believes that his book price should have something to do with the cost of paper.

tptacek 16y ago

Editors, proofreaders, and reviewers aren't really COGS, anyways, for the same reason that software development is accounted for in SG&A or R&D, and not "cost of sales": it's a sunk cost.

semanticist 16y ago
That's true, but in an all-ebook model you'd need to price your product to cover those costs too. My point was that those costs don't change, but they're frequently not considered when consumers are thinking about the 'cost' of what they're buying and the perceived cost impacts on people's perceived value for some items. Arguing that pricing your product based on its cost is mad doesn't really change that consumers feel that digital downloads should be priced less than physical media versions, even if the digital download has greater utility.

mentat 16y ago

There's a pretty interesting blog about eBooks and publishing and the link. This entry http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/09/acquisitions-editor.html http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/09/acquisitions-editor.ht... is a more humorous approach to the question of eBook costs.

tptacek 16y ago
This is a great critique of the publisher/author model, but it makes me sad that this writer also believes that his book price should have something to do with the cost of paper.