MSE News: Amazon urges drop in ebook prices

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Some books that can be read on gadgets such as Amazon's Kindle or Apple's iPad cost more than hard copies ..."

Read the full story:
Amazon urges drop in ebook prices

Arg

I'd be wary of ebooks considering things like this can happen with them. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/18/amazon_removes_1984_from_kindle/

shjo558

I thought Amazon ebooks attracted 15% Luxembourg VAT?

redpola

"This would include costs for encoding, formatting, rights management, software management and secure archiving."

This comment comes right out of the beginner's manual of disingenuous !!!!!!!!. Saying something technical-sounding that doesn't mean much to normal people is straight out of the dark ages. We're too savvy to fall for it now though. We know that with the exception of the VAT issue, an ebook with no physical product is MUCH cheaper to produce.

More lies and spin from the lazy publishers who are desperately trying to justify their existence.

One wonders why they don't simply put the argument to bed by providing full transparency on the costs they suffer and the service the provide. Then there would be no argument. The reason they don't is because they want to rip off their customers.

KimYeovil

redpola wrote: »

This comment comes right out of the beginner's manual of disingenuous !!!!!!!!. Saying something technical-sounding that doesn't mean much to normal people is straight out of the dark ages. We're too savvy to fall for it now though. We know that with the exception of the VAT issue, an ebook with no physical product is MUCH cheaper to produce.

More lies and spin from the lazy publishers who are desperately trying to justify their existence.

More lies and spin from greedy freetards (and patronising and insulting - I can't see anything technical sounding in the quote). The cost of the physical product is a trivially small component of the costs and the value of the property.

FloFlo

I would welcome a drop in ebook prices for my kindle, I do manage to convert some from a couple of online elibraries but mainly the free books and cheap books on Amazon are either old or rubbish.

FloFlo

Arg wrote: »

I'd be wary of ebooks considering things like this can happen with them. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/18/amazon_removes_1984_from_kindle/

There was a mistake made with rights so they removed the books and refunded people. Hardly a reason not to use ebooks.:rotfl:

Ken68

I'm holding back buying a Kindle until I know if it is compatible with the upcoming (presumably free) library service e books.

redpola

KimYeovil wrote: »

More lies and spin from greedy freetards (and patronising and insulting - I can't see anything technical sounding in the quote). The cost of the physical product is a trivially small component of the costs and the value of the property.

What a childish response. Greedy freetard? I take offence at that. I pay reasonably for the value I receive. I do not expect anything that affords me value for nothing, and frequently overpay for intellectual properties which have a higher perceived value to me than the face value. Is this approach that of a freetard?

Perhaps you could back your scathing rebuke of my stance up with actual examples of costings, or are you too busy being abusive to provide hard evidence supporting your claims?

Feel free to start your end of this discussion with how an eBook can ever cost more than a paper book (excluding the VAT difference). Include figures so we can make up our own minds.

I've raised this subject many times and not one person has ever provided the transparent analysis that would convince me that a cartel is not in operation. I would welcome good hard details, even if it proves me wrong. So far nobody has provided these data. Why is that?

My guess (and it's just a guess) is that the publishers know their number is up and that they can no longer rip off their authors and their customers. My guess is that instead of adapting their business models the way some more agile intermediaries have in the recording industry, they will continue to attempt to plunder their exising properties until they simply cannot sustain it any longer.

When "they" say the recording industry is in ruins, "they" are the record companies who can no longer rule the roost and rip off their artists because their artists are going direct to their own customers. Take note, book publishing industry. Take note.

Neil.

jamesd

KimYeovil wrote: »

More lies and spin from greedy freetards (and patronising and insulting - I can't see anything technical sounding in the quote). The cost of the physical product is a trivially small component of the costs and the value of the property.

There are certain problems with your view, in part that some of us have experience of web-scale operations and know the costs involved, so aren't likely to be befuddled by fancy technical terms like "encoding, formatting, rights management, software management and secure archiving". For anyone technically challenged, here's what they mean:

encoding: putting into the proprietary file format used by different readers as parrt of their attempt to lock in their customers or help publishers to do the same.

formatting: layout and some issues related to file formats.

rights management: how to make self-destructing electronic books that you'll have to buy many times on different platforms over the years, from publishers who haven't noticed that you can make a lot of money while giving things away or by charging prices that are sufficiently low that it doesn't hurt or require a second thought to pay them.

software management: businesses need software. That costs money whatever the delivery format is.

secure archiving: for the books you have to keep the master copy somewhere, just as you have to keep physical books somewhere. For rights management it's a problem that could go away but while it's there, the publisher that loses track of who bought the work may have a serious public relations problem, as well as some difficulty prosecuting for infringment if you can't prove that the person you're taking legal action against doesn't own the work.

Even with costs, just how do you suppose that an electronic book can have higher unavoidable distribution costs than a physical one? I can ship a file around the world very inexpensively, and have done in bulk at rates in the gigabit per second level and higher. Hundreds of servers, or thousands, and the people to run them cost money. The rest is more overhead, marketing and the original costs of acquiring and preparing the work, not something unique to the electronic form.

Offer me a book for 10p and there's a much higher chance that I'd experiment by buying it than at £10. Which one produces the most revenue is an interesting question that hasn't yet been well explored in the market.

At the moment, though, I'm doing just what I did with DVDs. I've never purchased a DVD book or film with copy protection. I don't intend to ever do so, either. So try selling me something I want to buy if you'd like to make money from me. And kindly refrain from suggesting that I go around to the local book or video store and steal the works I'm unwilling to buy. TV and libraries exist, to the extent that I care about which particular material I buy or not.

Bonia77

I don't get the 'cost of publishing' ebook idea....

There are authors out there (check Amazon forum) that publish their own books. If it was that expensive they would not do it!