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Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

seattlemysteryblog.typepad.com

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Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#61

Post by kasey_junk »

pritambaral wrote: post #55
bamboozled wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways." Not really, the issue is that with digital, there are different formats and readers, some just suck and others are better. You can't just put all e-books under one umbrella because the experience varies greatly. For example, I've totally boycotted Kindle format and devices, it's horrible for so many reasons, if I want an eBook, it's now PDF or nothing. Kindle for me was always…

Don't all of those apply to poorly published hardcopy prints too? If publishers put out official-grade softcopy EPUBs — like O'Reilly used to do until recently — they'd be just as good as the same publisher's hardcopy prints. Side note: I really hate that I can't buy any EPUBs of O'Reilly's titles. I don't want a non-portable, non-saveable, online-only subscription; and their supported method of getting non-subscript…

I think O'Reilly is fairly interesting because they were about the best case for non-DRM standards based ebooks. Their content was very time limited in value, customers were savvy, shouldn't be too price sensitive, and were 'saying' they wanted the unencumbered ebooks.

But the market didn't actually behave that way. They had trouble selling ebooks and piracy was a huge issue.

The next one to watch will be Tor. If they back off of their DRM free stance we'll know that its basically an untenable model.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#62

Post by brianwawok »

egypturnash wrote: post #39
lighthazard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the major benefit an expert to give you recommendations? How is this different from any online medium like Reddit or Facebook where an expert can do the same thing, without a local constraint?

Let’s say I want to read some new fantasy. I go to /r/fantasy and ask for recommendations. I will probably get someone recommending goddamn Malazan* no matter how applicable it is to what I asked for. I will also get a lot of recs that are just a title, maybe a title and an author, with no further info. Some authors who hang out there will pimp their own books. Maybe someone recommends Name Of The Wind and a mini-fla…

Not your goal but I just added Malazan to my wish list :)

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#63

Post by davis »

bamboozled wrote: post #53
davis wrote: post #30

> When movies on cassette became practical, think of what it would have done to the Hollywood model if movies could be rented at the same time they hit theaters allowing people to see a movie for far cheaper than going to a theater? > That’s what publishers did. They allowed a far less expensive version of their books to be available right away, undercutting the sale of hardcovers with the cheaper e-version This is a…

"ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways." Not really, the issue is that with digital, there are different formats and readers, some just suck and others are better. You can't just put all e-books under one umbrella because the experience varies greatly. For example, I've totally boycotted Kindle format and devices, it's horrible for so many reasons, if I want an eBook, it's now PDF or nothing. Kindle for me was always…

*Most users. If you are caring about format and worrying about reading your books on Linux, you aren't a typical user.

I disagree with a lot of your Kindle paragraph. It isn't nearly as bad as you portray.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#64

Post by tptacek »

secabeen wrote: post #44
davis wrote: post #30

> When movies on cassette became practical, think of what it would have done to the Hollywood model if movies could be rented at the same time they hit theaters allowing people to see a movie for far cheaper than going to a theater? > That’s what publishers did. They allowed a far less expensive version of their books to be available right away, undercutting the sale of hardcovers with the cheaper e-version This is a…

>The problem is that from a customer perspective, an ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways. It has the same story, it is written by the same author, you can read it at home or on the bus. There's no difference. In fact, some might argue ebook > hardcover since it takes up no space and you can use a Kindle and all the features it has. The problem is that despite that being so, ebooks also have zero incremental costs.…

How does one start to address this mentality?

* The fixed costs of publishing a book dwarf the marginal price of each printed book. Those fixed costs are dominated by the salaries (or 1099s) of human experts.

* Like most products, books aren't priced from their (minimal!) marginal cost basis. They're priced based on utility and market substitutes.

* If ebooks were priced "too high", nobody would buy them. But in fact, so many people buy ebooks that they're putting bookstores out of business.

The "resentment" you're referring to is I think maybe mostly a creature of message boards.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#65

Post by zzalpha »

kasey_junk wrote: post #60
secabeen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that from a customer perspective, an ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways. It has the same story, it is written by the same author, you can read it at home or on the bus. There's no difference. In fact, some might argue ebook > hardcover since it takes up no space and you can use a Kindle and all the features it has. The problem is that despite that being so, ebooks also have zero incremental costs.…

> The problem is that despite that being so, ebooks also have zero incremental costs. People recognize that, and so they resent eBooks costing as much as hardbacks. Thats more of a perception problem than an actual fact. It turns out that hosting/supporting ebooks does have incremental costs and people dramatically over estimate how much the price of a hardback is the physical copy. If they just priced the difference…

Thats more of a perception problem than an actual fact. It turns out that hosting/supporting ebooks does have incremental costs and people dramatically over estimate how much the price of a hardback is the physical copy.

The publishing industry can blame themselves for that.

Back before ebooks, a typical paperback would run between 8-12 dollars whereas a hardcover would easily be 20 dollars or more.

This gave the perception that printing and binding is a significant portion of book price.

Of course, we all know that's crap. In practice, they were simply charging a premium markup for a product that was perceived as being superior.

But now who can blame the consumer for having the same basic expectation, but in the opposite direction, when ebooks are considered?

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#66

Post by tptacek »

zzalpha wrote: post #65
kasey_junk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that despite that being so, ebooks also have zero incremental costs. People recognize that, and so they resent eBooks costing as much as hardbacks. Thats more of a perception problem than an actual fact. It turns out that hosting/supporting ebooks does have incremental costs and people dramatically over estimate how much the price of a hardback is the physical copy. If they just priced the difference…

Thats more of a perception problem than an actual fact. It turns out that hosting/supporting ebooks does have incremental costs and people dramatically over estimate how much the price of a hardback is the physical copy. The publishing industry can blame themselves for that. Back before ebooks, a typical paperback would run between 8-12 dollars whereas a hardcover would easily be 20 dollars or more. This gave the per…

I think most adults understood that what you were paying for in a hardcover new edition was early access.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#67

Post by Eric_WVGG »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #34
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #19

While I find this article sad, it's ultimately inevitable as far as I see it. I read a lot, and I enjoy collecting books, but I ceased buying physical books a long time ago. I've started backfilling my ebook collection based on my old physical collections. At some point, I will be able to find digital replacements for 99% of my physical book collections and I will eventually find a decent way to digitize the rest. Ul…

I keenly pirate ebooks because I travel a great deal and I find a Kindle a handy, lightweight way to carry a large collection with me. However, I am still keenly buying paper books, too: eventually I will get tired of moving around so much, and it will be nice to have a home library to browse around in during my later years. Plus, there are certain genres like poetry that simply aren't enjoyable to read in ebook form…

Just out of curiosity, why don’t you keenly buy your ebooks?

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#68

Post by bamboozled »

pritambaral wrote: post #55
bamboozled wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways." Not really, the issue is that with digital, there are different formats and readers, some just suck and others are better. You can't just put all e-books under one umbrella because the experience varies greatly. For example, I've totally boycotted Kindle format and devices, it's horrible for so many reasons, if I want an eBook, it's now PDF or nothing. Kindle for me was always…

Don't all of those apply to poorly published hardcopy prints too? If publishers put out official-grade softcopy EPUBs — like O'Reilly used to do until recently — they'd be just as good as the same publisher's hardcopy prints. Side note: I really hate that I can't buy any EPUBs of O'Reilly's titles. I don't want a non-portable, non-saveable, online-only subscription; and their supported method of getting non-subscript…

If publishers put out official-grade softcopy EPUBs — like O'Reilly used to do until recently — they'd be just as good as the same publisher's hardcopy prints.

Pragmatic programmers do this and it's an absolute joy to use their digital books, you can have ePub, Mobi or PDF format. The quality of their eBooks over that available from Amazon is much higher.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#69

Post by bamboozled »

davis wrote: post #63
bamboozled wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways." Not really, the issue is that with digital, there are different formats and readers, some just suck and others are better. You can't just put all e-books under one umbrella because the experience varies greatly. For example, I've totally boycotted Kindle format and devices, it's horrible for so many reasons, if I want an eBook, it's now PDF or nothing. Kindle for me was always…

*Most users. If you are caring about format and worrying about reading your books on Linux, you aren't a typical user. I disagree with a lot of your Kindle paragraph. It isn't nearly as bad as you portray.

It's a terrible format, I'm not sure if you've tried any alternatives but I really don't understand how people think it's worth paying for.

I mean, you're paying money for something you never actual own, what's that?

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#70

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

na85 wrote: post #21
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #19

While I find this article sad, it's ultimately inevitable as far as I see it. I read a lot, and I enjoy collecting books, but I ceased buying physical books a long time ago. I've started backfilling my ebook collection based on my old physical collections. At some point, I will be able to find digital replacements for 99% of my physical book collections and I will eventually find a decent way to digitize the rest. Ul…

Contrarily, I buy physical books and have stopped using my kindle entirely. I prefer to own the book, and not merely a license to use a DRM'ed instance of it.

I agree with your sentiment and therefore I use Calibre and strip the DRM.
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