Let me start by stating that I write this as a book consumer stating my opinion and what view I have on the whole e-book pricing affair.
I love to read books since I was a kid and I could read. As a kid I depended on the library and books I got from school. First I read in Dutch and when I learned English I started reading paperback, I will never forget the first paperback I read, “The Client” by John Grisham. I read everything history, fiction, non-fiction, etc.
When I came to the Netherlands to study where bookstores are everywhere in contrast to Aruba which seriously lacks a decent bookstore till today, I started buying books. Not much as I was a student and money for non-study books was low. But as the years passed I started buying more and more till the point now that my bookcase is full and books are starting to gather on the floor.
I rarely, almost never buy hardcover, the only books I bought hardcover where Harry Potter on their release date. Because I love those books and they are classics which will be read for years. The other book I bought hardcover was “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown, just because I wanted to read it right away because I loved “The Da Vinci Code”.
When Amazon released the international Kindle I knew I wanted one. I already saw myself buying double the amount of books I buy now. The price for e-books at 9.99 dollars is appealing and the fact that I can buy a book anytime of the day. I was more skeptic though on the price of the Kindle a device for reading e-books only, nothing more, doesn’t even have a touch screen.
Then the Apple tablet rumor got stronger and I decided to wait to see what it would be. Low and behold you can read e-books with the iPad and do a whole lot more just for 10 dollars more then the Kindle.
With the announcement also of their own e-book store, iBooks, the book publishers woke up.
E-books where already getting popular thanks to the Kindle and more because of the 9.99 dollar maximum price per e-book. Now publishers aren’t stupid they know a lot of people will buy an iPad so more potential buyers for e-books. Steve Jobs expects iBooks to be as successful as the iTunes store and the App store. So the big publishing houses feel confident they can raise e-book prices to almost match hardcopy prices. According to them it’s not greediness just adjusting to a new publishing system and new overhead costs.
I might be naif here and sure I know nothing about costs for publishing a book. But you cannot tell me that a digital book has as much overhead cost as a hardcopy book that needs to go to the printer, where ink, paper, machine and manpower is necessary to print millions of copies. And then the books still needs to be shipped around the world for sale.
The removing of the printing process already warrants lower prices for e-books then for hardcopy. But what I see in modern economy is that people want to make a lot of profit, not just make profit no they want to get rich, they want to get rich fast they want to keep the same level of profit no matter the economic situation.
A hypothetical example: Book publisher “A” contracts a promising writer, they give him/her a contract where is stated that he/she gets x% amount of the the sale which is around 30% give or take and royalties. The rest goes to the publisher to pay their employees(who all make a regular salary) and fill pockets of the CEOs. Now the publisher has a lot of contracted writers so they make a whole lot of profit.
Then comes the economy crisis, inflation, etc, etc. While most consumers see a setback in their income publishers want to maintain the exact amount of profit they make or even increase it. We live in a economical world where only consumers must adjust to less income while all companies want to maintain their big bucks. Employees get fired, their product prices are raised, not because otherwise they go bankrupt, no because otherwise the CEO’s and shareholders make less profit. This isn’t so with all companies but it happens a lot.
Look at the music and movie business, if I want to go to the movies I have to pay 9 euros to see a movie. Because heaven forbid the A-list star gets paid 10 millions instead of 20 millions for filming the movie. And then they cry that piracy is reducing their profit. Single mothers in the US are being sued millions because their kids downloaded 3 songs illegally. If that isn’t greediness then I don’t know anymore.
But with e-books the publishers and Steve Jobs who is said to be the culprit of higher prices forget one thing. An age old point: most people don’t like reading. They don’t even read instructions let alone a 500 pages book.
Music? Yes everyone listens to music, I haven’t ever ever met someone who said they don’t like music. The only people who don’t listen to music are deaf people.( no offense here, I’m a deaf person myself) But I do know way more people who don’t read or maybe read a book once in a while. And the mainstreaming of e-readers is not going to drastically change that.
Second, in this age everyone is busy, that’s the only thing you hear day in day out. People feel a ashamed if they are not busy so they make sure they are always busy doing something, working, going out. “Did you read such and such book?” “No I’m busy with work-kids, etc, I don’t have time to read”.
So that’s already a huge percentage of people who won’t be buying a 15 dollar e-book. Then you have the readers who will just wait till the prices drop. And the ones who will turn to pirated e-books. The music and movie business is a good example of what happens if products are overpriced and there is no reason the same won’t happen with e-books.
And yes they are overpriced if movie stars and artist make more money then they can spend in three lifetimes.
Seven years ago I was on Aruba when “The Da Vinci Code” came out. As I mentioned before there isn’t a decent bookstore there like in bigger countries. So I had no way of buying the book. Well even 7 years ago it was easy to get an illegal e-book copy which I then read from the computer monitor from start to finish. Today with e-readers it would be more easier to just get an e-book illegal instead of paying too much for a legal one. With hardcopy you can at least resell the book after you finished it but what can you do with an e-book? You can’t even put in your bookcase so people can see you read it.
iPad will support the open format ePub, I hope smaller publishing houses and indie writers will make good use of this. If people can become famous via youTube there is no reason the same can’t happen for writers. And to the readers I say not only big publishing houses have good writers, take J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter books, she was rejected by twelve publishing houses before Bloomsburry Publishing gave here a contract. Those publishing houses must still be kicking themselves for such mistake. Same publishing houses who now want higher prices for e-books, I’m just saying.
