E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead • Hacker News Board

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#11

Post by PLenz » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:22 PM UTC

To me, this is the best news I've heard all day.

See, used books made me - my local library as a kid was heavy on Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, and decades-old travel guides, not so much on other subjects. I very distinctly remember wanting to find Catch-22 and not only was it not available from my local, it wasn't available at any library in the county.

But used book stores didn't have that problem. I found my copy of Catch-22 in the back of a Goodwill store. Tolkien came out of a Salvation Army. Scores more came from library sales and yard sales, each a quarter or a dollar at a time.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#12

Post by akgoel » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

jstx wrote: post #2

Is this surprising when you are charged similarly for print and digital copies despite the production costs being nowhere near the same? Ebooks were supposed to be the cost effective, cut out the middlemen, pay the author directly format. What wasn't accounted for was that the book indexers have no incentive to pass on their savings to the consumer. edit: Let's not forget the artificial restrictions imposed by DRM, e…

Well, it's not surprising, but I'm not sure I agree with they psychology that ebooks should be cheaper. Pricing for books is not just a markup over marginal cost. I have this discussion every day in our office - our price is not based on our cost, our price is based on what our customer is willing to pay.

If the price of ebooks has gone up, the publishers are trying to find a balance of maximizing revenues and profit across the every distribution channel, while also taking into account any lost sales due to piracy.

Why should publishers give up rents to readers just because costs have gone down?

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#13

Post by ghaff » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:24 PM UTC

jstx wrote: post #2

Is this surprising when you are charged similarly for print and digital copies despite the production costs being nowhere near the same? Ebooks were supposed to be the cost effective, cut out the middlemen, pay the author directly format. What wasn't accounted for was that the book indexers have no incentive to pass on their savings to the consumer. edit: Let's not forget the artificial restrictions imposed by DRM, e…

The production costs are probably not as different as you think. The variable cost of a hardcover book is in the neighborhood of a few dollars though the exact figure depends on the size of the print run and some of the costs are buried in the cut a distributor usually takes. (As a benchmark, an author-ordered PoD copy of my ~250 page trade paperback from Createspace costs $3.75 before shipping.)

So e-books should be cheaper than physical books, all other things being equal, but the cost difference isn't as much as many assume.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#14

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

jstx wrote: post #2

Is this surprising when you are charged similarly for print and digital copies despite the production costs being nowhere near the same? Ebooks were supposed to be the cost effective, cut out the middlemen, pay the author directly format. What wasn't accounted for was that the book indexers have no incentive to pass on their savings to the consumer. edit: Let's not forget the artificial restrictions imposed by DRM, e…

[deleted]

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#15

Post by TheGRS » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:26 PM UTC

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option).

But the price of new ebooks turns me off for sure, I wouldn't buy a new novel for $20+, in ebook, hardcover, paperback or ever really. $10 is the sweet spot for novels and I think Amazon was driving that well for awhile. I'll stick to older novels that are Let me also state that paper really does have its merits, at least for now until some smart tablet engineers can solve some problems with the format. I love a comic book as paperback, but that is because I don't think tablets or even color e-ink has quite gotten there yet. I also think technical reference books (like programming guides) are best served in paper. Again, I don't think its easy to flip through pages on a tablet or kindle, but maybe that will be solved some day too.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#16

Post by TheGRS » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:27 PM UTC

PLenz wrote: post #11

To me, this is the best news I've heard all day. See, used books made me - my local library as a kid was heavy on Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, and decades-old travel guides, not so much on other subjects. I very distinctly remember wanting to find Catch-22 and not only was it not available from my local, it wasn't available at any library in the county. But used book stores didn't have that problem. I found my copy of…

Much of these books you can borrow for free on your kindle from a library though.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#17

Post by hullo » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:27 PM UTC

helipad wrote: post #4

I've been really disappointed with the pricing of eBooks. A new book is available for pre-order, and here is the Amazon pricing: Kindle – $26.35 Hardcover – $19.23 Audible – $27.61 Audio CD – $30.00 All logic suggests the electronic version should be cheaper. Prices like this will likely drive me, and others, to piracy. Yes, the value of the book is what I am willing to pay for it, but I feel insulted by the pricing…

Logic actually suggests that publishers will optimize prices to benefit themselves - that they are still in business & increasingly profitable many years after their imminent demise was announced seems to suggest that they are not making a total mess of it.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#18

Post by phinneas » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:30 PM UTC

helipad wrote: post #4

I've been really disappointed with the pricing of eBooks. A new book is available for pre-order, and here is the Amazon pricing: Kindle – $26.35 Hardcover – $19.23 Audible – $27.61 Audio CD – $30.00 All logic suggests the electronic version should be cheaper. Prices like this will likely drive me, and others, to piracy. Yes, the value of the book is what I am willing to pay for it, but I feel insulted by the pricing…

When I can find recent books at thrift store prices, I'll be ready to convert.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#19

Post by jonknee » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

xlm1717 wrote: post #10

jonknee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Amazon knew what they were doing when they were selling ebooks for cheaper. The publishers come in with agency pricing and boom, sales plummet.

This is what is really frustrating about the article. It spends the entire first half boosting print books like there is something magical about them that prevents them from being disrupted like movies and TV were. >E-books’ declining popularity may signal that publishing, while not immune to technological upheaval, will weather the tidal wave of digital technology better than other forms of media, like music and tel…

Not surprising that print journalists in the publishing hub of the US are rooting for print.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#20

Post by saturdaysaint » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

helipad wrote: post #4

I've been really disappointed with the pricing of eBooks. A new book is available for pre-order, and here is the Amazon pricing: Kindle – $26.35 Hardcover – $19.23 Audible – $27.61 Audio CD – $30.00 All logic suggests the electronic version should be cheaper. Prices like this will likely drive me, and others, to piracy. Yes, the value of the book is what I am willing to pay for it, but I feel insulted by the pricing…

Well, with an Audible subscription, that book is 1 credit, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10.

Speaking of which, I'm disappointed that audiobooks weren't broken out in the story - anecdotally, I know more people that listen to Audible/audiobooks regularly than use a Kindle (somewhat naturally, since most people carry a phone everywhere). So I sort of question the implication that people are returning to paper when a rising category has been excluded.