Kindle bait and switch (What? Book for $14.99!)

[Implicit]

@Lynn_Bodoni

I am particularly skeptical about the notion that producing another ecopy costs as much as printing another edition of a paper book, unless there’s some sort of limit on how many copies of ebooks can be sold in the original contract between publisher and writer. But really, how does selling another copy of an ebook increase the publisher’s fixed costs? That is, once the software’s in place, how much more does it cost to transfer a digital copy from the publisher or distributor to the reader?

It costs nothing, which is why the digital model is such a threat to publishers and why they want to control and fix the pricing. Something has to give, just like it did with music, since it is trivial to copy digital media.

[Clark_K]

This doesn’t directly relate to pricing, but I’d be interested if publishers offered e-books with hardbacks. There are some books that I’d like to have in my library permanently, so I want the printed version, but I also enjoy the ease of reading on my Nook, so I’d like an e-book.

I almost never buy hardbacks when they first come out, but I would be more inclined to do so if my purchase got me the printed version and access to an electronic version. It seems like that could be a useful incentive for publishers to offer without increasing their costs significantly.

[digs]

@Chefguy

Yeah, but I’m disgruntled. Perhaps when I’m more gruntled, or have a better avenue of redress, I’ll change.

Get gruntled, man. It’s a blast.

On topic:

Has anyone figured out the costs of Kindle books vs Dead Tree versions factoring in the cost of the Kindle?

That’s how I look at things. I almost bought a high-end grill, but realized that I’d be eating $17 burgers. Got a cheaper grill, and I’m enjoying my “Royale with Cheese” just as much for about $3.

[sinjin]

@digs

Get gruntled, man. It’s a blast.

On topic:

Has anyone figured out the costs of Kindle books vs Dead Tree versions factoring in the cost of the Kindle?

That’s how I look at things. I almost bought a high-end grill, but realized that I’d be eating $17 burgers. Got a cheaper grill, and I’m enjoying my “Royale with Cheese” just as much for about $3.

There are advantages of the Kindle besides the price vs DT books*. I travel a lot in places without bookstores, so Kindle is good. I also read a lot of books, so the weight savings is good. If you only read a couple of books a year a Kindle/Nook is probably not for you.

One other reason I like the Kindle is that I can change the font as the day goes on, old eyes. And a surprising thing happened in the sin family. Mrsin, who never read books for fun, bought me a Kindle 2 and took my Kindle 1 as a lark. I knew he had a visual problem since he was a child but I didn’t realize how bad it was until he took over the Kindle 1. Suddenly he was reading every day. I looked over his shoulder the other day and was astounded by how big he made the font. He never read before because it was uncomfortable! Yeah e-books.

*not withstanding my complaints on some e-book prices.

[digs]

I have bad eyes, I don’t like the weight of carrying around multiple hardcovers… but…

I LOVE the look of real books, the feel, the fonts, the papercuts, the almost-black on off-white aesthetic, and the smell.

One of my students said “Y’know why I’ll never read a book on a Kindle?” And he picked up an old paperback and took a deep whiff of the center of it.

And that’s a nineteen-year-old iPad-weilding Facebook-on-iPhone tech-head.

[Thudlow_Boink]

In the earlier days of the Kindle, when Amazon was pricing so many e-books at $9.99, one of the major selling points that they used to advertise the Kindle was that you could save money on books by buying one. That’s the “bait and switch” the OP was complaining about, and I think it’s behind some of the resentment over high e-book prices.

If anyone’s contemplating buying a Kindle (or other e-reader) as a way of saving money on books—well, in certain circumstances that might still work, like if there are a lot of older, public domain books you want to read/own. But it’s far from a sure thing. But, as noted, e-books have other advantages besides price.

[sinjin]

@digs

I have bad eyes, I don’t like the weight of carrying around multiple hardcovers… but…

I LOVE the look of real books, the feel, the fonts, the papercuts, the almost-black on off-white aesthetic, and the smell.

One of my students said “Y’know why I’ll never read a book on a Kindle?” And he picked up an old paperback and took a deep whiff of the center of it.

And that’s a nineteen-year-old iPad-weilding Facebook-on-iPhone tech-head.

Yeah, I worried about that too. I love books! I thought I would be turned off by the Kindle, and fully expected to send it back in the return period. But you know what? I discovered it was the words that I loved, not the paper, not the smell, not the feel, it was the words. YMMV.

[surrounded_by_literalists]

Right now, e-books are my only real option; or a lobotomy. I live in a punitively small town with a sad, moldly, little library (bless its heart). Most of the books are from the 1960’s and 1970’s. We do have one bookstore that deals in new and used books, but I can’t seem to bring myself to pay 80% of the new price for a used book.

I have downloaded the Kindle and Nook apps onto my laptop, and I also avoid any books more expensive than $8.00. I figure I shouldn’t have to pay for the materials, marketing, and shipping if I am downloading from the internet.

Not that I want to break any library laws or anything, but can anybody tell me how I can get a library card at some of the larger libraries that have e-books if I’m not a resident?

At the very least, the e-book cost should be no higher than the paperback cost, not as high as the hardcover cost.

[Strassia]

First, as someone who has been consuming ebooks for over ten years now I highly recommend both Project Gutenberg and WebScription Ebooks. Gutenberg is free, of course.

WebScription was set up by Baen books but has added other publishers as well. You can read them on most ereaders or your computer (I have used a Palm device since 01). Their model seems very reasonable to me. It may not be practical for all publishers, but it “feels” right. Also, since this was started as an experiment, the author who first pushed for this (Eric Flint) put out a bunch of essays on how it was going and what they saw doing this. They ran from 2000-2002 and offer insight into how ebooks worked in the early days.

Here is the model they use: first they have a free library that will have one or two books by different authors or the first in a series. They also have sample chapters on all the books so you can read a little before buying. Originally, all books were priced at $4, then they went up to $5, and are now at $6 after 10 years. The $4 dollar books are still $4 dollars. Additionally, you can buy bundles. Every month a new bundle comes out. Originally they were 4 books for $4, but the price and the number of books has gone up over time to 7-8 books for $18 dollars. Each bundle is split three ways, brand new books, older books just released as ebooks, and ebooks that have been out for a while. They have added some all of series or author type bundles over time, as well as new publishers.

The only time the price on a book changes is if you want to buy “Advanced Reader Copies”, basically pre-publication copies that they release a few months before the book comes out. You pay $15 dollars for that and you can only buy them until the regular version is released. I have bought a few when I just couldn’t wait, but the besides paying more there is sometimes a difference in quality (one novel had half the book in a single chapter for some reason).

Baen and the other publishers are genre (SF and Fantasy), although they do have a few non-fiction titles as well. They also don’t use any DRM and try and support as many formats as possible (if all else fails you can get them in .rtf). I don’t know the bottom line for this venture but it seems to be working well for them.

@RealityChuck

But Exapno – who has years of experience in publishing (do you?) – is correct. Or, rather, it might increase sales a bit, will decrease the amount of money paid for the book. No matter how much you lower costs, you still have to make a profit.

Here’s where you go wrong. The production cost of a paper book is only a small portion of the cost. According to O’Reilly (whose books are more expensive than many to produce), 17% of the cost of a book is the cost to print it. If the hardcover sells for $25, then the book could come down to $20.75. If it sells for $15 in a trade paperback, then the cost would be $12.75. Any reduction greater than 17% starts cutting into other expenses.

Will a 17% cut gain 17% in sales? There’s no evidence it will. And the cuts being advocated are usually far greater than 17%.

And many of the expenses on that chart can’t be cut. If it costs you $10 to publish the book and you sell it for $8, all the sales in the world won’t make a profit for you.

Obviously, the numbers prove the first statement wrong. And there’s no way to be sure if the cut in price will increase sales enough to offset the loss of revenue per book.

LOL! From years of experience, plus a knowledge of how the things work in the real world, the author’s royalty is first thing the publisher will cut. Ultimately, the author will make far less money.

True, until the publishers go out of business and he has to deal with nothing but vanity press and self-published books.

Ultimately, everyone.

So you want the publishers to cut their own throats to sell things at a major loss? What good does that do to the reader?

A couple of points about this: Even if you assume O’Reilly is average (and you acknowledge they are not), besides lowering the printing costs, ebooks also lower the fulfillment costs. In the ebook world fulfillment consists of uploading files to Amazon’s server and tracking sales numbers. I would suspect that “plant costs” would also go down somewhat, but have no way to categorize that.
I also don’t understand what the publishers hope to gain by preventing sellers from discounting. Don’t the publishers get paid the same either way? Doesn’t the seller discount come from the seller’s share? If the publisher needs to make $6 per book to clear the desired profit, why can’t they charge Amazon $6 dollars and let Amazon worry about what price the need to charge?