6 ms·

Save 50% on All O'Reilly Ebooks and Videos

50 points by espeed 13y ago

jacobbudin 13y ago
O'Reilly uses a department store pricing structure. There's almost always a sale, and for eBooks, the sale price is usually not much cheaper than Amazon.com's (or other sellers) "everyday" price. Only suckers pay full-price for their eBooks.
haraball 13y ago
O'Reilly is having sale and discounts so often that I avoid buying books at the full price while waiting for a coupon. This often ends with me forgetting about the book and not buying it at all.
- kops 13y ago
  Same here. But on rare occasions when I do avail the buy-one-get-one-free offer, the second book invariably goes unread. Also does anyone know why these 50% discount offers are limited to ebooks only?
  - cmaggard 13y ago
    Because the margin is obviously higher on ebooks than print books. I imagine that more profit is made on an ebook sale at 50% off than a print book at full price.
    - kops 13y ago
      Thanks, that seems to be the only reasonable explanation. Comparing the prices of a book on oreilly[1] and bookdepository.co.uk[2] seems to suggest a print book has about 50%(just a guess) margin while the ebooks sells for almost 100% margin once it is produced. So knocking the prices of ebook down to 50% to drive sales would make sense. Thanks again, [1]http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596529321.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596529321.do [2]http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Programming-Collective-Intelligence-Toby-Segaran/9780596529321 http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Programming-Collective-Intel... I assumed that these guys buy the book for 20 dollars and sell for 20 euros and make 25-30% profit. Great site btw with free worldwide shipping although delivery takes anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks.
    - pydanny 13y ago
      As soon as you involve Amazon, that's surprisingly not true. Really. O'Reilly makes more on e-book sales directly through their on-line store then they do on print. However, every e-book they sell via Amazon, their margins are very, very different. Here's a rough guide for a $40 book: * O'Reilly E-Book Online Store: Approx 99% margin or $39.60 * O'Reilly Store selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): 95% margin or $38.00 * Amazon selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): Approx 90% margin or $36.00 * Amazon selling kindle e-book: 35% margin or $14.00 (minus the Amazon processing fee so it's actually worse) Odds are the bulk of O'Reilly e-book sales are probably done on Amazon, where the margin is AWFUL. The constant huge sales by O'Reilly are a way to recoup the painful margins insisted upon by Amazon. Yeah, Amazon makes boatloads off of kindle book sales.
      - kops 13y ago
        <quote> * O'Reilly Store selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): 95% margin or $38.00 </quote> Is that really the kind of margins they operate at or is that a typo?
        thefrostytruth 13y ago
        No. Those numbers above are ill-informed. But yes, the average print costs for a single-color book per unit are in the 2-4 dollar range (that is, manufacturing alone, no design, marketing, editing). And how would it be possible for Amazon to "keep their lights on" selling physical books at 40% off list price, if they pay O'Reilly $36 for a $40 book? Amazon buys from O'Reilly and most other pubs at 60% off, non-returnable. So the math for the publishers' take from Amazon on physical books looks like this: [list price] * [.4] - [print costs / overhead] - [author royalty]
        kops 13y ago
        Thanks. I was mixing up margin with pre-tax profit.
ghc 13y ago
It's silly to keep posting every O'Reilly eBook sale to HN. This is basically just free advertising for them. The 50% discount is nothing special: If you sign up for a membership you get a permanent buy-one-get-one-free discount that O'Reilly interprets as a 50% discount on each book. So just sign up for a membership, wait until you have two books you want to buy, and get a 50% discount without having to wait for a sale.
- diab0lic 13y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, and I may well be, you can actually use that code on a single book and it'll work just fine as a 50% off as well. So basically you can get 50% off at any given time, the sales are completely a marketing technique.
prawks 13y ago
I wish they'd have some sales on physical books. Maybe it's just my traditional thinking, but I have a hard time paying $20+ for a pdf. I understand the publisher needs money, the author has to eat, and the printing costs aren't really a whole ton that you can reduce the price with, but it still just doesn't sit right with me. I feel like and old curmudgeon. Side edit: In what kind of strange world does the 2nd edition of an eBook still fetch $32 while the 3rd edition is $36? http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780735618794.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780735618794.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145385512.do?code=B2S3 http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145385512.do?code=B2S3
- ehamberg 13y ago
  Just for the record: You don't just get a PDF. You get a real e-book too.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    WHatever. you are missing the point. Copying ebooks cost no money at all, there's no reason an ebook should cost that much in the first place. Dead Tree books were heavily dependent on material and inventory costs, ebooks do not suffer any of those yet they are still sold at similar pricing while they should be at least 90% cheaper, if you just kept the margin at the same level. It's pure profit for the publisher.
    - ryanhuff 13y ago
      So you think that things should be based on their input costs, rather than the value that they provide?
      - ekianjo 13y ago
        And why is that value on ebooks so much greater than on paper then ? Why would the author be paid 15$ on an ebook and only 1$ on paper for the same customer price ? Is the author creating more value on paper than on a digital format? Certainly not.
samuel 13y ago
BTW, Oreilly books can be bought on Google play(epub only) by less than 4 eur. Not the newest ones, though. https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=O%27Reilly+Media https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=O%27Reilly+M...
mjhoy 13y ago
I just picked up Understanding Computation and, having made it through the first two chapters at this point, heartily recommend it. If anyone wants to have a little reading group, I'd be interested. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025481.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025481.do
- tomstuart 13y ago
  Author here. Thanks for the recommendation! There’s already a reading group in London (http://lanyrd.com/series/compbookclub/ http://lanyrd.com/series/compbookclub/), but that may not be of any use to you. If anyone else is interested in the book, there's more information at http://computationbook.com/ http://computationbook.com/.
  - mjhoy 13y ago
    Absolutely. I'm glad you wrote it, seems like an unexpected way to approach the subject, and I can see where e.g. this comment[1] comes from. But I think it's quite valuable and inspires me (lacking any CS degree) to pursue further study. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1isawq/understanding_computation/cb7r54k http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1isawq/understa...
polynomial 13y ago
This is pretty unnecessary here.
benjamincburns 13y ago
I'd love to see them do a Steam-style sale where all eBooks are $0.99 for 24h (or something similar).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
film42 13y ago
Maybe this is bad to say, but whenever it comes to "me needing a book" the first thing I do is google "$BOOK_NAME pdf" and check it out. There is a catch though.. if I find the book a good asset, then I make sure to buy it, but otherwise it just doesn't make sense to gamble $20+ on a book that will be outdated in a year, unlike literature.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

50 points by espeed 13y ago

O'Reilly uses a department store pricing structure. There's almost always a sale, and for eBooks, the sale price is usually not much cheaper than Amazon.com's (or other sellers) "everyday" price. Only suckers pay full-price for their eBooks.

haraball 13y ago

O'Reilly is having sale and discounts so often that I avoid buying books at the full price while waiting for a coupon. This often ends with me forgetting about the book and not buying it at all.

kops 13y ago
Same here. But on rare occasions when I do avail the buy-one-get-one-free offer, the second book invariably goes unread. Also does anyone know why these 50% discount offers are limited to ebooks only?
- cmaggard 13y ago
  Because the margin is obviously higher on ebooks than print books. I imagine that more profit is made on an ebook sale at 50% off than a print book at full price.
  - kops 13y ago
    Thanks, that seems to be the only reasonable explanation. Comparing the prices of a book on oreilly[1] and bookdepository.co.uk[2] seems to suggest a print book has about 50%(just a guess) margin while the ebooks sells for almost 100% margin once it is produced. So knocking the prices of ebook down to 50% to drive sales would make sense. Thanks again, [1]http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596529321.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596529321.do [2]http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Programming-Collective-Intelligence-Toby-Segaran/9780596529321 http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Programming-Collective-Intel... I assumed that these guys buy the book for 20 dollars and sell for 20 euros and make 25-30% profit. Great site btw with free worldwide shipping although delivery takes anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks.
  - pydanny 13y ago
    As soon as you involve Amazon, that's surprisingly not true. Really. O'Reilly makes more on e-book sales directly through their on-line store then they do on print. However, every e-book they sell via Amazon, their margins are very, very different. Here's a rough guide for a $40 book: * O'Reilly E-Book Online Store: Approx 99% margin or $39.60 * O'Reilly Store selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): 95% margin or $38.00 * Amazon selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): Approx 90% margin or $36.00 * Amazon selling kindle e-book: 35% margin or $14.00 (minus the Amazon processing fee so it's actually worse) Odds are the bulk of O'Reilly e-book sales are probably done on Amazon, where the margin is AWFUL. The constant huge sales by O'Reilly are a way to recoup the painful margins insisted upon by Amazon. Yeah, Amazon makes boatloads off of kindle book sales.
    - kops 13y ago
      <quote> * O'Reilly Store selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): 95% margin or $38.00 </quote> Is that really the kind of margins they operate at or is that a typo?
      - thefrostytruth 13y ago
        No. Those numbers above are ill-informed. But yes, the average print costs for a single-color book per unit are in the 2-4 dollar range (that is, manufacturing alone, no design, marketing, editing). And how would it be possible for Amazon to "keep their lights on" selling physical books at 40% off list price, if they pay O'Reilly $36 for a $40 book? Amazon buys from O'Reilly and most other pubs at 60% off, non-returnable. So the math for the publishers' take from Amazon on physical books looks like this: [list price] * [.4] - [print costs / overhead] - [author royalty]
        kops 13y ago
        Thanks. I was mixing up margin with pre-tax profit.

ghc 13y ago

It's silly to keep posting every O'Reilly eBook sale to HN. This is basically just free advertising for them. The 50% discount is nothing special: If you sign up for a membership you get a permanent buy-one-get-one-free discount that O'Reilly interprets as a 50% discount on each book. So just sign up for a membership, wait until you have two books you want to buy, and get a 50% discount without having to wait for a sale.

diab0lic 13y ago
If I'm not mistaken, and I may well be, you can actually use that code on a single book and it'll work just fine as a 50% off as well. So basically you can get 50% off at any given time, the sales are completely a marketing technique.

prawks 13y ago

I wish they'd have some sales on physical books. Maybe it's just my traditional thinking, but I have a hard time paying $20+ for a pdf. I understand the publisher needs money, the author has to eat, and the printing costs aren't really a whole ton that you can reduce the price with, but it still just doesn't sit right with me. I feel like and old curmudgeon. Side edit: In what kind of strange world does the 2nd edition of an eBook still fetch $32 while the 3rd edition is $36? http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780735618794.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780735618794.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145385512.do?code=B2S3 http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145385512.do?code=B2S3

ehamberg 13y ago
Just for the record: You don't just get a PDF. You get a real e-book too.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  WHatever. you are missing the point. Copying ebooks cost no money at all, there's no reason an ebook should cost that much in the first place. Dead Tree books were heavily dependent on material and inventory costs, ebooks do not suffer any of those yet they are still sold at similar pricing while they should be at least 90% cheaper, if you just kept the margin at the same level. It's pure profit for the publisher.
  - ryanhuff 13y ago
    So you think that things should be based on their input costs, rather than the value that they provide?
    - ekianjo 13y ago
      And why is that value on ebooks so much greater than on paper then ? Why would the author be paid 15$ on an ebook and only 1$ on paper for the same customer price ? Is the author creating more value on paper than on a digital format? Certainly not.

samuel 13y ago

BTW, Oreilly books can be bought on Google play(epub only) by less than 4 eur. Not the newest ones, though. https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=O%27Reilly+Media https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=O%27Reilly+M...

mjhoy 13y ago

I just picked up Understanding Computation and, having made it through the first two chapters at this point, heartily recommend it. If anyone wants to have a little reading group, I'd be interested. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025481.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025481.do

tomstuart 13y ago
Author here. Thanks for the recommendation! There’s already a reading group in London (http://lanyrd.com/series/compbookclub/ http://lanyrd.com/series/compbookclub/), but that may not be of any use to you. If anyone else is interested in the book, there's more information at http://computationbook.com/ http://computationbook.com/.
- mjhoy 13y ago
  Absolutely. I'm glad you wrote it, seems like an unexpected way to approach the subject, and I can see where e.g. this comment[1] comes from. But I think it's quite valuable and inspires me (lacking any CS degree) to pursue further study. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1isawq/understanding_computation/cb7r54k http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1isawq/understa...

polynomial 13y ago

This is pretty unnecessary here.

benjamincburns 13y ago

I'd love to see them do a Steam-style sale where all eBooks are $0.99 for 24h (or something similar).

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

film42 13y ago

Maybe this is bad to say, but whenever it comes to "me needing a book" the first thing I do is google "$BOOK_NAME pdf" and check it out. There is a catch though.. if I find the book a good asset, then I make sure to buy it, but otherwise it just doesn't make sense to gamble $20+ on a book that will be outdated in a year, unlike literature.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]