Getting Gouged By E-Books?

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I've never understood why an electronic book is the same price as a real one that has to be printed and shipped to stores. Does anyone else know why this is?

"The price of some books is ridiculous. $14.99 for a download when the same book, hardcover, is available from Book of the Month Club for $9.95. I stopped buying hardcover because I have no space to store books. The rip-off by publishers is sickening. I personally feel that no e-book should be more than $10. I am pleased that Amazon is challenging the price gougers."
 
Why are digital games more than retail ones even though you can unlock them on steam? Go check amazon! You get more for you money (physical disk, manual, box, extra crap and steam download as opposed to just a steam download) but it costs less.

The answer is probably that digital copies usually only have a few sources. This means competition is pretty crap, or price is directly controlled by the companies producing it. Whereas the retail copies price is controlled by the retailers, who price things competitively with other retailers, lowering prices.
 
Its not gouging, but the prices are outrageous. You dont like it? Dont buy them.
 
The cost of infrastructure to put the system in, is in the cost of the digital book.

I know that's not really a good excuse, but that's the best I can think of.
 
The cost of infrastructure to put the system in, is in the cost of the digital book.

I know that's not really a good excuse, but that's the best I can think of.

As opposed to the infrastructure required to print, bind, ship and shelve a physical book.
 
As opposed to the infrastructure required to print, bind, ship and shelve a physical book.

I know. Just stating what their justification is probably.

Just like ticketmaster and other ticket retailers. They charge all these fees because of their new system they put in. Hell they even charge you to print your own tickets, yet to get them mailed to you is free.

No logic there.
 
Another benefit:

Your digital copy of a software will never get lost and you can download it wherever you are on earth.
 
To us, it makes sense that e-books should cost less since it eliminates the material cost.

To them, it makes sense to charge more since many are willing to pay more for the convenience factor (or at least keep the price the same). They don't want to lower prices and risk devaluing what they sell.

Personally, I'll stick with the dead tree edition. That way the publisher has no way of taking it away from me or controlling the content of it in any way after I buy it.
 
Another benefit:

Your digital copy of a software will never get lost and you can download it wherever you are on earth.

Depends on the retailer. Some software vendors only allow a month or three "download window" then it's gone. Unless you pay extra for an extended download.

Also lots of physical retail software then unlocks on a digital platform, or the key can be kept in an email account and a new ISO/install downloaded.
 
I've never understood why an electronic book is the same price as a real one that has to be printed and shipped to stores. Does anyone else know why this is?
Economics 101. Contrary to popular belief, a price is set not by the cost to produce a good. A company does not just take any product and add an x% mark-up to it.

Rather, they set the price according to what the consumer is willing/able to pay.

The cost to produce something has little to do with its price except as a means of determining if manufacturing and selling a product will actually be worthwhile.

The value of an item in an open market is entirely dependent upon the consumer. If a consumer is willing to pay a certain amount, then an item assumes that value. And, in the aggregate, this tends to work out rather well where allocation of resources is concerned. ;)
 
The price is what has kept me from getting into ebooks. Getting a reader or other device to read them plus paying more for each book just doesn't work for me.

On the other hand I have noticed some books lately that have been selling for 99 cents and have good reviews. If I get a tablet for work I would start buying ebooks but I don't think I'd buy anything just to read an ebook right now.
 
if they made them cheaper then the real things, then the retailers would revolt and stop selling them. so the prices are comparable because they dont want to alienate a prime source of revenue, the retailer.

there are probably also certain incensing agreements that might even prevent them from selling lower, IE a prime wholesale distributor might be locking in the publisher to an agreed upon retail price to ensure profit.
 
I always thought it was because of agreements with your brick and mortar distribution channels. If you undercut them by offering a cheap download option through e-tailers they would pull your product off the shelf.

Most of the games I buy are digital. I hope more of the money goes to developers instead of the publishers.
 
to me, a book that would be JUST a paperback -ie author would not get a hardcover book, the max should be 6 dollars.

the max that a book should cost that is a hard cover release, the max should be....6 dollars.

for those of you that like science fiction, check out baen.com's ebook store. all individual books at 6 dollars- or free, be it a hard cover release or a paper back release. they do charge 15 dollars for an ARC release but you are paying for the ability to read the book 3-6 MONTHS prior to it being on a book store's shelf.

baen also sells e-book bundles every month they take their new releases- hardcover and paperback, combine them into 1 bundle and sell it for 18 dollars, usually that is 2-4 new releases and 3-5 re-releases of olderbooks(or a book that is transitioning from hardcover to paperback)

18 dollars for 2-4 hardcovers and ~4 paperbacks of quality sci-fi...worth it to me. i have WELL over 300 e-books just from baen -i have read authors i NEVER would have read before from getting the first book in a series- the honor harrington series for instance- for FREE, liking that, then the 2nd book.,..WAS FREE,,and i was hooked. John Ringo books, i NEVER would have read, but there he was co-authoring with david weber, read it liked it, now i have almost all of HIS books (even the military porn-paladin of shadows- books) travis taylor, the liaden books, etc i got ALL of them because of baen.com and their -GOOD- ebook site.

baenebooks.com imo is the model the other publishing houses should use.

oh those hard cover ebooks for 6 dollars you CANNOT buy anywhere BUT baen until the paperback comes out...
 
Is it just me or does an ebook burning just not have the same image of a traditional hard-cover book? ;)

I think some of the price hike is related to this method of distribution is *kinda* new and they are still paying for the system. Physical books, en mass, have been around for a long time and the distribution channels have been established, paid for and optimized... I dunno. I'm trying to rationalize it but I really can't. It shouldn't be more expensive.
 
The reason the prices are high is because all of the big publishing agencies (the Agency 6 as they are typically referred to) have engaged themselves in a price fixing scheme with the ebook retailers.

By treating the etailer as an "agent" and setting a selling price for them, the etailer has no choice in setting prices.

It's basically legalized pricefixing since they all do it. It started with Apple last year, you can thank them for it.

Add on the DRM and I buy hardcover books instead.
 
The do it because Apple wanted it that way and made it possible.


This is exactly correct, and I wish more people understood that. Apple, in their desire to compete with Amazon gave the publishers a foot in the door with an agency model agreement. Since Apple jumped in to bed with the publishers and gave them the power to set the price, we've had horrible e-book pricing. Before that happened, e-book prices were about what you would expect, always a bit cheaper than the physical counterpart.
 
The cost of infrastructure to put the system in, is in the cost of the digital book.

I know that's not really a good excuse, but that's the best I can think of.

I wouldn't say that it's not a good excuse. Presses and such have already more than likely, as they've been used for decades, paid for themselves many times over by now while digital is still fairly new. I'm sure they had to invest in new technology, infrustructure, policies and equipment over traditional printing.

With that said, it's still dumb to charge more for a digital copy than a physical copy. The convience is nice and everything, but many people prefer physical media over e-books not to mention, most people/customers perceive digital media as a 'good enough' replacement to physical media, not superior.

This reminds me of the same thing the music and movie industry is going through... they're going about transitioning into the digital age the wrong way. They should be encouraging digital sales with deeper discounts in an effort to drop their physical media distribution all together (IMO of course)
 
Just like ticketmaster and other ticket retailers. They charge all these fees because of their new system they put in. Hell they even charge you to print your own tickets, yet to get them mailed to you is free.

No logic there.


Just like the IRS wants everyone to file electronicly, as it saves them money.
Yet it cost me a lot more to file electronicly (printing out a few sheets of paper and putting a couple stamps on the envelope is a lot cheaper)
 
The cost of infrastructure to put the system in, is in the cost of the digital book.

I know that's not really a good excuse, but that's the best I can think of.

That is actually a 'cost' that Amazon put in, not the 'publishers'.
Its a matter of time before Amazon is a huge publisher anyway.
 
I've added up the normal price and overhead...
Amazingly enough the prices are about in ling with physical media...
Please feel free to use wikipedia and other resources to look up how much the physical media cost then factor in the overhead of advertisement, author share and book seller share and you'll find that it's actually pretty close. Should cost about $1 or $1 less overall.

Just do the research into the costs first then post.

(Yes I think older books should be MUCH cheeper, but thats just me.)
 
I wouldn't say that it's not a good excuse. Presses and such have already more than likely, as they've been used for decades, paid for themselves many times over by now while digital is still fairly new. I'm sure they had to invest in new technology, infrustructure, policies and equipment over traditional printing.

Infrastructure is a poor excuse. Many authors have stated how ridiculously easy it is to make an e-book and many of them offer free samples in e-book form before the book is even finished. Authors write the books in digital format. The publishers already have those books in digital format. They already had the infrastructure before e-books come around. If anything it makes it easier on the publishers. But the problem is, they are still producing physical copies.

Now here is where this all starts to make more sense. The physical copies cost a lot more. As e-books become more popular the cost to produce the physical copy goes up and up. Instead of lowering prices for e-books and raising prices for physical copies, which we can probably all agree would cause an uproar from people who always buy physical copies..., they maintain even prices across both. This basically allows the e-book says to help subsidize the physical sales.

At some point people just are not going to buy enough physical copies for them to justify this system. At that time, you will start seeing publishers dip prices on their e-books to get a jump on the other publishers and prices will go down. But as long as people keep buying a large enough quantity of physical copies, the prices will remain fairly stagnant.
 
To chime in with the others, the reason ebooks are more expensive than traditional media (paperback, etc.) is the industry understands the sale of physical units versus digital downloads. The book publishing industry is no different in their mindset than the music and movie industries. The movie industry still focuses on the number of DVD/Bluray copies they sell and the music industry is still driven by CDs. We, those who embrace the digital age, don't understand the logic of the white haired idiots who make these decisions because we understand that the greater ability to profit in a digital arena versus the physical, on hand, brick and mortar approach. To us, buying a book of Amazon in a paper form versus electronic form is the same. To those running the media industries the death of paper, physical media is the death of their industry and relevance.

Phew! Ok enough of that... /rant
 
Infrastructure is a poor excuse. Many authors have stated how ridiculously easy it is to make an e-book and many of them offer free samples in e-book form before the book is even finished. Authors write the books in digital format. The publishers already have those books in digital format. They already had the infrastructure before e-books come around. If anything it makes it easier on the publishers. But the problem is, they are still producing physical copies.

Now here is where this all starts to make more sense. The physical copies cost a lot more. As e-books become more popular the cost to produce the physical copy goes up and up. Instead of lowering prices for e-books and raising prices for physical copies, which we can probably all agree would cause an uproar from people who always buy physical copies..., they maintain even prices across both. This basically allows the e-book says to help subsidize the physical sales.

At some point people just are not going to buy enough physical copies for them to justify this system. At that time, you will start seeing publishers dip prices on their e-books to get a jump on the other publishers and prices will go down. But as long as people keep buying a large enough quantity of physical copies, the prices will remain fairly stagnant.

so basically these digital copies just float around in the air until someone buys them and they magically appear on their eBook reader? I guess it doesn't cost Steve and Kyle anything for us to use their forum since we're typing directly into digital format.
 
At least with e-books you're essentially getting the same porduct as you would if you physically bought the book. Not the case with music unless they start offering lossless downloads. I am not paying $14.99 for a downloadable album encoded at 256 mp3 when I can pay the same or less for the cd. For $5.00 downoads- that is a different story.
 
with the internet there is no reason to have standard distributors. amazon should simply create a system for any author to publish e-books and set their own price.
 
Economics 101. Contrary to popular belief, a price is set not by the cost to produce a good. A company does not just take any product and add an x% mark-up to it.

Rather, they set the price according to what the consumer is willing/able to pay.

The cost to produce something has little to do with its price except as a means of determining if manufacturing and selling a product will actually be worthwhile.

The value of an item in an open market is entirely dependent upon the consumer. If a consumer is willing to pay a certain amount, then an item assumes that value. And, in the aggregate, this tends to work out rather well where allocation of resources is concerned. ;)

While this may be true, it doesn't take into account collusion on the part of the publishers. It's hard to prove, but I have to think something like this is going on. I hope the DOJ uncovers some scathing memo or email that will eventually lead to lower the price of ebooks. For the time being though, I just get my ebooks from the public library. True I don't own them, but it beats paying through the nose!
 
The A6 fixes the price then the distributors get their cut: Simple as that. I have bought numerous e-books from indie authors at bookstores who front for small and self publishers and they usually run $5 and under if that.
 
Economics 101. Contrary to popular belief, a price is set not by the cost to produce a good. A company does not just take any product and add an x% mark-up to it.

Rather, they set the price according to what the consumer is willing/able to pay.

The cost to produce something has little to do with its price except as a means of determining if manufacturing and selling a product will actually be worthwhile.

The value of an item in an open market is entirely dependent upon the consumer. If a consumer is willing to pay a certain amount, then an item assumes that value. And, in the aggregate, this tends to work out rather well where allocation of resources is concerned. ;)


^This guy nailed it. Hi5
 
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