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E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

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Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#91

Post by greedo »

bregma wrote: post #39
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidentally, it costs between $2000 and $4000 to print and market a book. So, what, say $1 per book pays for that. The rest pays the author. But wait! Authors only get a buck or two royalty per book. So why do they cost so much? Use your imagination.

> it costs between $2000 and $4000 to print and market a book It costs between $2000 and $4000 to print a book. It costs about the same to warehouse and distribute a typical hardcover. It costs maybe $100,000 to market a book. Often much more. Printing, distribution, and royalties are a small part of costs in the publishing industry. Marketing and amortized overhead are a large part of the costs.

Most books, especially non-fiction have incredibly small marketing budgets. Often it's up to the author to self-promote the book.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#92

Post by ninth_ant »

Freak_NL wrote: post #24
tadzik_ wrote: post #8

> There’s a tension in e-book pricing generally between consumer expectations that a digital file will be less expensive than a physical copy and the reality that very little of the cost of making a book is tied up in the physical format There's more to this than the cost of making a book. As a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it keeps the value after I buy it. I can len…

People seem to instinctively feel that an e-book shouldn't cost as much as a real book. A paperback edition of a book often has multiple owners throughout its — sometimes considerable — lifespan. That's simply part of the deal, and it always has been. E-books lack the ability to share, sell, and pass it on. That's fine, but the market won't bear nearly the same price as a paper book that can do all those things. An e…

> An e-book should in all fairness cost perhaps a third or fourth of a paper book

The market is not about fairness. The prices are about what some segment of the market will pay.

> it is hard not to see that the market is simply not offering the best solution.

They are selling physical books for folks who want the traditional experience and the reuse benefits you describe, and Ebooks for folks who want the convenience of that experience. So they continue to cater to their paying customers.

It doesn’t seem reasonable to follow a race to the bottom with people who pirate ebooks. Some folks just do not pay for content.

One side effect of higher prices of the traditional publishers is that it opens a door to self published authors offering books in the lower price range you mention. These are often quite popular so obviously they are aware of the price point impact but for now are happy with capturing the premium market.

> Compare this with piracy in games, music, and video, which is comparatively rare

Can you cite figures for that? I would expect video and music and pc games to all have far higher rates of piracy.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#93

Post by fragmede »

ForHackernews wrote: post #79
someguydave wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is why you should get your e-books as drm-free local files

And store those files where? Do you own any working digital media from 1969? I know my carefully curated collection of 5.25" floppy discs are all corrupt and unreadable today.

This is entirely off-topic re: ebooks, but I, too, have lost data that I'll miss. All of my data on 3.25" drives is likely lost, not to mention most of them have been thrown away. I do oww a USB floppy disk drive that was a gift from a friend that visited Japan (it brings me joy). More shockingly to me is that some early USB drives I own have failed.

The collection my have been careful curated but it was improperly stored. The (onerous) way to "store" them, (in hindsight,) would be to copy each of them would have been to copy them all to 3.25" disk when those came out, then (briefly) to zip disks, then CD-R, DVD-R, Bluray-R, and then also included a drive to read them in this backup, once it became apparent that spinny plastic frisbees were no longer a popular data storage format. Or copied the data to archival LTO tape, going up in number as new standards came out.

Or instead of moving between archival format, the other options is to copy it to hard drive and keep moving to bigger and bigger drives, and have online copies and not offline.

If that all sounds too ridiculous and no sane individual would ever do that: you're right and we hang out on /r/DataHoarders.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#94

Post by falcolas »

davinic wrote: post #89
falcolas wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A real, thick book, with something like 200-400 sheets made up of magical e-ink so I can have a physical map of the book I am reading. The value provided by a physical map of a book is knowing how far along you are in the book, yet that's also available in a visual form in an ebook as well. You can even riffle through pages on most e-readers as well, seeing a preview of the page as you move quickly forward or backw…

I think this has something to do with how to brain stores memories, and that storage is highly entwined with a spatial location. Somehow being able to tie that memory to a location in space makes it more concrete for me. If I remember a fact from a book I can also usually remember the physical location of the fact inside the book. My point is that it's not a conscious process, so the book/map isn't replaced by a simp…

> being able to tie that memory to a location in space makes it more concrete for me

This sounds a lot like the old "visual/auditory/physical learning" phenomenon to me. Were it truly the case, the old O'Reilly books would be the best possible resources for programmers, and not StackOverflow, blogs, and online programming language documentation.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#95

Post by dreamcompiler »

tadzik_ wrote: post #8

> There’s a tension in e-book pricing generally between consumer expectations that a digital file will be less expensive than a physical copy and the reality that very little of the cost of making a book is tied up in the physical format There's more to this than the cost of making a book. As a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it keeps the value after I buy it. I can len…

The authors and publishers created this problem and the marketplace is pushing back. I was buying a lot of e-books when they were significantly cheaper than paper. Now that's no longer true and I've renewed my library card for the first time in 20 years. I already own too many paper books and I don't want any more. But I also refuse to pay as much for e-books as paper. Libraries to the rescue.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#96

Post by cr0sh »

I was just at my local library over the weekend, not having stepped inside one for a very long time. I was actually there to get my library card renewed, as I hadn't used it for so long it became out of date.

So, I'm browsing the stacks, and see a few books that look intriguing. But here's the thing: I don't have time to check them out and read them. There was a time I could and would do that, but age and responsibilities have cut that short.

So - I do what any 21st century citizen with a smartphone does - I searched for them on Amazon. I ended up finding all of the titles on Amazon, but the kicker was that the physical copies of the book (even hardbound!) were cheaper - cheaper! - than the ebook (kindle) version.

So - I purchased them; they should arrive at my door in a couple of days. I'll get to read them at my leisure, I won't have to worry about overdue fines or anything like that, and best of all - I have physical copies.

Overdrive goes away? Well - I can still read my copies.

Publisher decides to revoke the ebook license? Well - I can still read my copies.

Long story short: Nothing beats having a unencumbered, non-licensed, non-encrypted copy of a piece of information (physical or otherwise). Without it, you are just borrowing it from someone, and they can take it back at will, and you are SOL.

I'm not sure what it's going to take for people - ordinary people - to understand this. Maybe the 50,000th time they have to repurchase the "White Album"?

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#97

Post by potta_coffee »

avar wrote: post #11
tadzik_ wrote: post #8

> There’s a tension in e-book pricing generally between consumer expectations that a digital file will be less expensive than a physical copy and the reality that very little of the cost of making a book is tied up in the physical format There's more to this than the cost of making a book. As a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it keeps the value after I buy it. I can len…

As a consumer, the digital e-book is inherently more valuable than a physical book. I often re-read or consult books (or chapters) I've read on a whim. If I had to e.g. take my library on vacations to do the same thing I can trivially do on a Kindle I'd need to travel with a minivan full of books. There's all sorts of other value, like search functions, not having to fill my house or storage box with books, and avoid…

You can say it's more valuable, but not to me. I get almost zero enjoyment from reading digitally. I don't know why but paper books feel better. I don't like the interface on my kindle for actually reading. As a device it's good but as a book, it just sucks. Also, I'm usually only reading one or two books at a time, so I don't need an entire library with me. I do use the kindle for technical books, because those are boring to ready anyway.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#98

Post by potta_coffee »

avar wrote: post #44
kelnage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But such a back and forth that could go on forever. Many e-books vendors frequently reduce their value by limiting access to a specific app/reader, or limit how useful the functionality you describe can be. For example, search is very much restricted within Kindle (e.g. I can't search for words across my entire library, I have to go into a specific book). And whilst it is true that some people are limited in how much…

I'm not claiming they're equal, I'm pointing out that the GP's "since I'm getting so much less, why should I pay the same price" point is subjective, and not a statement of fact. Sure, some people prefer hardcopies, good for them. But claiming that e-books being priced similarly is some market failure is taking it too far, for some of us it seems perfectly reasonable. If e-books were priced higher (even as much as 50…

It may be subjective but if a big enough market segment has the same subjective opinion, then it becomes "reality".

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#99

Post by cr0sh »

ForHackernews wrote: post #79
someguydave wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is why you should get your e-books as drm-free local files

And store those files where? Do you own any working digital media from 1969? I know my carefully curated collection of 5.25" floppy discs are all corrupt and unreadable today.

> Do you own any working digital media from 1969?

I don't know if they're from 1969 - but I do own a few punch cards...

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#100

Post by Freak_NL »

ninth_ant wrote: post #92
Freak_NL wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to instinctively feel that an e-book shouldn't cost as much as a real book. A paperback edition of a book often has multiple owners throughout its — sometimes considerable — lifespan. That's simply part of the deal, and it always has been. E-books lack the ability to share, sell, and pass it on. That's fine, but the market won't bear nearly the same price as a paper book that can do all those things. An e…

> An e-book should in all fairness cost perhaps a third or fourth of a paper book The market is not about fairness. The prices are about what some segment of the market will pay. > it is hard not to see that the market is simply not offering the best solution. They are selling physical books for folks who want the traditional experience and the reuse benefits you describe, and Ebooks for folks who want the convenienc…

> The market is not about fairness. The prices are about what some segment of the market will pay.

It's all about perceived fairness. If a price doesn't seem fair and alternatives exists (e.g., paper books, piracy), consumers look elsewhere.

> One side effect of higher prices of the traditional publishers is that it opens a door to self published authors offering books in the lower price range you mention.

The masses want the new John Grisham, Danielle Steel, or whatever is popular right now. The odd self-published author gaining a small audience does not offset this.

> […] but for now are happy with capturing the premium market. […] Can you cite figures for that? I would expect video and music and pc games to all have far higher rates of piracy.

The publishing industry is rather miffed at not getting as far with e-books as they thought they might get. I don't have exact figures (although they shouldn't be hard to find), but publishers and their representative bodies have been complaining about e-book piracy in the media a lot.

In 2014 Dutch research company GfK estimated that only 10% of e-books on e-readers was paid for legally:

https://www.ad.nl/economie/e-readers-staan-vol-met-illegale-...

An interesting related article from a Dutch newspaper from a month ago for who can read it:

https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/keurige-boekendieven...

Nobody bats an eyelash at loading hundreds of pirated epubs on grandpa's new e-reader, and book clubs happily share their digital copies in Facebook groups.

The situation may vary by country, but in the Netherlands the vast majority of people pay for cable television or streaming services like Netflix, buy CD's or tracks on ITunes or subscribe to Spotify, and game on consoles or use Steam. Piracy is marginal; except for e-books, where it is commonplace.

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