4 ms·

You shouldn't be making your decision on how much money they are saving, but on how much value you are getting.

by mtoledo 17y ago

anigbrowl 17y ago
Oh yes you should. They (publishers) set the price of things, so if they're not having to pay for any of the things that they always said makes printing books so expensive, then it's reasonable to ask where the money is going. 'Formatting for e-book'? don't make me laugh, that's trivial in the case of something like a novel which is just a long stream of text with occasional chapter headers. The fact is that publisher want to obscure what a small proportion of the cover price usually goes to the author, because with the advent of E-Books it's a valid question whether authors need publishers the way way they used to any more. Edit: this isn't the whole story of course - naturally, a book does have value to the reader (though it's not always obvious until after you've read it!). Also, having been screwed by a publisher in the past I'm a little cynical about the breed :)
- moe 17y ago
  I agree with your point that the money belongs to the authors, not to a middleman. You have to take into account however that production/handling costs don't play a role in ebook pricing. Publishers make ebooks expensive for a single reason: to slow ebook adoption as much as they can. They have long realized that once the cat is out the bag their business model inevitably ends (cf. the music industry). And since they can't do anything to prevent it, they at least do their best to slow it...
Confusion 17y ago
Of course; I mixed two arguments and a bit of annoyance :) The arguments are: 1) How much value I am getting depends on how much money I am saving (given equal price, I prefer a real book) 2) They could easily make E-books cheaper and still make money. Somehow I doubt they have hit the sweet spot currently: it's new and they can make money of of it. And I'm annoyed at the fact that I would really like a good E-book reader, but it's just not worth it yet.

You shouldn't be making your decision on how much money they are saving, but on how much value you are getting.

by mtoledo 17y ago

You shouldn't be making your decision on how much money they are saving, but on how much value you are getting.

Oh yes you should. They (publishers) set the price of things, so if they're not having to pay for any of the things that they always said makes printing books so expensive, then it's reasonable to ask where the money is going. 'Formatting for e-book'? don't make me laugh, that's trivial in the case of something like a novel which is just a long stream of text with occasional chapter headers. The fact is that publisher want to obscure what a small proportion of the cover price usually goes to the author, because with the advent of E-Books it's a valid question whether authors need publishers the way way they used to any more. Edit: this isn't the whole story of course - naturally, a book does have value to the reader (though it's not always obvious until after you've read it!). Also, having been screwed by a publisher in the past I'm a little cynical about the breed :)

moe 17y ago
I agree with your point that the money belongs to the authors, not to a middleman. You have to take into account however that production/handling costs don't play a role in ebook pricing. Publishers make ebooks expensive for a single reason: to slow ebook adoption as much as they can. They have long realized that once the cat is out the bag their business model inevitably ends (cf. the music industry). And since they can't do anything to prevent it, they at least do their best to slow it...

Confusion 17y ago

Of course; I mixed two arguments and a bit of annoyance :) The arguments are: 1) How much value I am getting depends on how much money I am saving (given equal price, I prefer a real book) 2) They could easily make E-books cheaper and still make money. Somehow I doubt they have hit the sweet spot currently: it's new and they can make money of of it. And I'm annoyed at the fact that I would really like a good E-book reader, but it's just not worth it yet.