Nonsensical things about the current ebook market (part of 1 of ongoing series)

[faintdreams]

[crossposted to my own journal ]

I want to buy an ebook, epub version of Dune by Frank Herbert.

It has to be DRM free because I will probably need to view it across various different mobile devices.

All of the Dune sequels are available as epubs (or pdfs or mobi or any other dazzling array of ebook formats), at either equal too or less than the price of a real life paper version of the same title.

So why is it that the Dune ebook seems to only be available at twice the price of printed editions from the same stores !

THERE IS NO SANE COMMERCIAL reason that the ebook version (regardless of format) of Dune should be TWICE the price of the paper version.

None.
Nope.
None.

Even more so when the filetype is DRM'd up the butt, restricting usage of the file once I've bought it.

It almost makes me want to scream with frustration

I'd appreciate your htoughts on this because charging MORE for an ebook of a title which is already out in real world print is so infuriating me me I loose focus. Its almost like the publishing industry is trying to kill ebooks as a market all together. Which makes NO SENSE because they are already invested in the infrastructure

Comments

[elf]

But if ebooks cost the same or less as paperbacks, people might buy them instead of the new hardcover releases!

The only explanation I can come up with for the state of the current ebook market is that the Big 6 publishers are trying to *kill* it. Slowly, because they recognize there's public demand, but they want to let people know that ebooks aren't real books, and want them to remain difficult to use and expensive to acquire so they'll stay a fringe hobby.

The claimed reason for more expensive ebooks from the backlist is that they had to be produced from scratch. The logic of this claim falls apart under scrutiny, especially considering how little proofreading goes into a lot of backlist ebooks. ("Tha Hobbit." Twitch.)

Why DRM Doesn't Work.

It's possible a different publisher owns the rights to Dune. Or that its release as an ebook was negotiated differently from the sequels. Or some other, irrelevant-to-readers point that publishers use to justify price differences.

The publishing industry wants (1) to maintain their stranglehold on reading materials--want to decide what's popular and how available those books are, and (2) to set prices of books according to how much profit they want, not how much the public is willing to pay.

They're under the impression this has always worked. When they consider book prices, they are oblivious to the used book market (other than occasionally grumbling about it), and to gift & loaned books. They absolutely ignore how the ebook market, especially for backlist titles, is a lot more similar to the used book market than the new one--a lot of people are looking to buy a book they've already read, may already have in multiple formats, and just want one more for casual reading.

Publishers have enough troubles trying to understand that people are comparing ebooks to paperbacks and insisting on lower prices; they're *really* baffled at the people who're comparing them to garage-sale purchases. (Because, really. If I can buy the book for $1.50 at a yard sale--or, worst case, $4.50 used from Amazon with shipping--I'm willing to chop the border & scan it myself. And plenty of people are willing to say, "well, can't do that, but what's the harm of downloading it from MegaUpload instead? Just like a yard sale book, the publisher & author get no royalties.")

hmmm. Food for thought.

[faintdreams]

I get that the publishing industry ignores second hand re-sales, because a) it's virtually impossible to track the sales and b) they receive 0 revenue so why would they want to track stats anyway?

But ebooks could easily generate stats heaven, and from the little I've read, are cheaper to negotiate international rights for.

Thanks for the Brads link, I've seen it before, but love the way it uses humour to reinforce how consumers ACTUALLY use a product instead of how producers THINK consumers are using the product.

This spoof of a anti-piracy ad also hits home with me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg [embedding is dissalowed]

Whenever I see an anti-piracy add now I say 'you wouldn't steal a policemans hat..'

Re: hmmm. Food for thought.

[elf]

For all that many publishers own international rights to ebooks, they don't make them available; customers & authors have bemoaned the geographic restrictions in a lot of ebookstores. (Apparently, publishers are looking for foreign markets to sell those ebooks, and don't want them available in the meantime because that would spoil their ability to *pitch* the books to those markets. Gah.)

Australia's take on the restrictions is that they're irrelevant to consumers; feel free to bypass them if you can. (And that makes sense. The laws on sales restrictions are for resellers, not individual purchasers. If you can buy a physical book from Amazon.com & have it shipped to the Netherlands, there's no reason you can't buy a Kindlebook and download it to the Netherlands. The idea that ebook sales happen in a different location from physical sales is just... whacked.)

The idea that people will pay $14 for a *40-year-old-book* that's available for $8 for the paperback new... and $.01 + shipping for it used... shows how oblivious they are to the actual market. Yes, some people will buy it. Some will download it from various less-than-legit sources. And more will just ignore it, tag it as "meh, I don't need that as an ebook; I can always re-read the paper version."

Which, of course, allows publishers to insist that ebooks are a niche market and most people don't want them. Put the damn thing out at $5, non-DRM'd, like Baen does, and watch the sales *skyrocket* every time the SciFi channel re-shows the movie or the miniseries. (Of course, not gonna do that.)

Re: hmmm. Food for thought.

[jecook]

THIS.

I love Baen's business model as it relates to ebooks.