4 ms·

The price spike on comics and graphic novels after the comiXology acquisition by Amazon is over 150%...

bentley 4y ago
They removed the DRM‐free download option too.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Maybe I'm thinking wrong but I expected digital editions of books to be like $3 or something since there are no printing/shipping costs of the equivalent printed book. In the old analog world, authors might expect 15% of gross sales. You figure the publisher needed the 85% to cover printing, shipping of the physical book. (Oh, and they should make a profit there too.) But if you no longer have to deal with pulp, I would naively expect an electronic book to sell for something like 30% of the cost of the physical book — splitting the sale between author and publisher. Presumably both parties still make a comparable profit. I know I've dropped advertising on the floor in the above discussion and perhaps that counts for a significant cost to the publisher. But at the same time, assuming DRM, a digital book sale should benefit the publisher/author as it is typically non-transferable (unlike the physical books that end up in Little Libraries or Goodwill). I might add that if eBooks dropped to $0.99 a book, I would be buying them faster than music tracks. Maybe Jobs got two things right. ;-)
- mmmlinux 4y ago
  Download video games have the same issue. same price as physical release, cant resell it, never goes on sale, still the same price it started at 4 years later when a physical copy is 50% discounted. Already have a physical copy? no you cant download it.
  - tintor 4y ago
    Physical copy degrades over time and can be destroyed or lost. Download can't.
    - mmmlinux 4y ago
      Downloads can cease to exist at a moments notice, with nothing you can do about it.
      - tintor 4y ago
        Right, and publishers can control that.
  - sk0g 4y ago
    Games have been AU$110 on release for current gen Xbox, while the in-store releases can be grabbed for $80-90 typically. Digital on-sale prices tends to track the physical normal/used prices too. Never going on sale might be more of a Nintendo thing though, which is even worse. On the other hand, their cartridges at least let you play the game in whatever form it shipped - usually.
- gamblor956 4y ago
  Most of the cost of a book is not the physical pulp or ink that went into making the book, it is in the editing, typesetting, and marketing that went into making the book ready for sale, so ebooks generally should not be much cheaper than physical books.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    Can you substantiate that?
    - bentley 4y ago
      Having read several self‐published Kindle Direct books that are incredibly deficient in the editing and typesetting departments (compared to earlier traditionally‐published works from the same authors), I find the fact rather obvious.
Tijdreiziger 4y ago
And the app apparently became worse. I wanted to buy some manga on comiXology, but when I downloaded the free trial chapter, it had a bunch of weird borders, which made it unenjoyable to read. According to the reviews, the previous version of the app was much better, but the current version is just a reskin of the Kindle app.

They removed the DRM‐free download option too.

Maybe I'm thinking wrong but I expected digital editions of books to be like $3 or something since there are no printing/shipping costs of the equivalent printed book. In the old analog world, authors might expect 15% of gross sales. You figure the publisher needed the 85% to cover printing, shipping of the physical book. (Oh, and they should make a profit there too.) But if you no longer have to deal with pulp, I would naively expect an electronic book to sell for something like 30% of the cost of the physical book — splitting the sale between author and publisher. Presumably both parties still make a comparable profit. I know I've dropped advertising on the floor in the above discussion and perhaps that counts for a significant cost to the publisher. But at the same time, assuming DRM, a digital book sale should benefit the publisher/author as it is typically non-transferable (unlike the physical books that end up in Little Libraries or Goodwill). I might add that if eBooks dropped to $0.99 a book, I would be buying them faster than music tracks. Maybe Jobs got two things right. ;-)

mmmlinux 4y ago
Download video games have the same issue. same price as physical release, cant resell it, never goes on sale, still the same price it started at 4 years later when a physical copy is 50% discounted. Already have a physical copy? no you cant download it.
- tintor 4y ago
  Physical copy degrades over time and can be destroyed or lost. Download can't.
  - mmmlinux 4y ago
    Downloads can cease to exist at a moments notice, with nothing you can do about it.
    - tintor 4y ago
      Right, and publishers can control that.
- sk0g 4y ago
  Games have been AU$110 on release for current gen Xbox, while the in-store releases can be grabbed for $80-90 typically. Digital on-sale prices tends to track the physical normal/used prices too. Never going on sale might be more of a Nintendo thing though, which is even worse. On the other hand, their cartridges at least let you play the game in whatever form it shipped - usually.
gamblor956 4y ago
Most of the cost of a book is not the physical pulp or ink that went into making the book, it is in the editing, typesetting, and marketing that went into making the book ready for sale, so ebooks generally should not be much cheaper than physical books.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Can you substantiate that?
  - bentley 4y ago
    Having read several self‐published Kindle Direct books that are incredibly deficient in the editing and typesetting departments (compared to earlier traditionally‐published works from the same authors), I find the fact rather obvious.

Tijdreiziger 4y ago

And the app apparently became worse. I wanted to buy some manga on comiXology, but when I downloaded the free trial chapter, it had a bunch of weird borders, which made it unenjoyable to read. According to the reviews, the previous version of the app was much better, but the current version is just a reskin of the Kindle app.