e-books pricing
in [UK Mac]
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From: Jochem Huhmann on 4 Jan 2010 13:48 Martin S Taylor <mst(a)hRyEpMnOoVtEiTsHm.cIo.uSk> writes: > I'm about to go off skiing (whee!) and thought I'd download a few e-books > onto my iPhone, since I'm travelling light. (EasyJet now feel the need to > charge an extra £20 if I want to take any luggage with me). Get Stanza (free) and look through the free books from Feedbooks or Gutenberg. Alone the stuff by H.P. Lovecraft should be enough to see you through quite some boring moments. > I just flicked through a few thrillers, and find that at BooksOnBoard the > e-versions of new, popular, books (which I can only read myself) is anything > up to four times the price I can pay for a real book from Amazon (which I can > give to someone else when I've finished with it). What on earth is going on? Well, low demand and limitless supply leads to high prices... No, I don't know what's going on, really. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
From: Jochem Huhmann on 4 Jan 2010 14:13 J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to(a)but.see.sig> writes: > Stanza (and MacLit) will read some .LIT stuff, and I think there are apps > which will read some .PDB stuff, but so far as I know there aren't any Mac > apps which will read _all_ .LIT or .PDB stuff, and _any_ .IMP stuff. You could try calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/ -- doesn't do IMP either, though. It's really ugly (cross-platform), but is actively developed and seems to become the Firefox among the ebook-management apps. It's absolutely great at converting PDF files to EPUB and beats Stanza Desktop on all accounts. Really nice to have a library of books to access from within Stanza. Allows easy editing of metadata, too. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
From: Steve Firth on 4 Jan 2010 14:37 Martin S Taylor <mst(a)hRyEpMnOoVtEiTsHm.cIo.uSk> wrote: > I just flicked through a few thrillers, and find that at BooksOnBoard the > e-versions of new, popular, books (which I can only read myself) is anything > up to four times the price I can pay for a real book from Amazon (which I can > give to someone else when I've finished with it). What on earth is going on? The Publishers are idiots. This opinion was confirmed by listening to Radio 4 at the weekend with a program which had publishers and authors discussing ebooks. The main purpose seemed to be some mutual stroking by all concerned to convince themselves that ebooks were an irrelevance and that paper books will dominate the market forever. I suspect that charging silly high prices is part of that, as is the panic over DRM. I deal with an Italian author who publishes his books as plain PDF as well as paper. I asked him if he was bothered about DRM and he said no. After all, he said, if someone wanted to they would copy/scan his paper editions anyway and by making the books easily available and compatible with a number of ebook readers he actually sold more copies.
From: Jochem Huhmann on 4 Jan 2010 14:53 %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) writes: > This opinion was confirmed by listening to Radio 4 at the weekend with a > program which had publishers and authors discussing ebooks. The main > purpose seemed to be some mutual stroking by all concerned to convince > themselves that ebooks were an irrelevance and that paper books will > dominate the market forever. I suspect that charging silly high prices > is part of that, as is the panic over DRM. Publishers are extremely conservative. They see a market crumbling under their very fingers and have no idea how to act, because it's a totally different world out there. They will have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming. > I deal with an Italian author who publishes his books as plain PDF as > well as paper. I asked him if he was bothered about DRM and he said no. > After all, he said, if someone wanted to they would copy/scan his paper > editions anyway and by making the books easily available and compatible > with a number of ebook readers he actually sold more copies. He should publish his books via the appstore for the iPhone. Apple has no real e-book market (yet), but single apps delivering single books give a decent profit for the author. Publishers usually offer about 5% of what the reader pays for a book to the author. Apple offers 70%. If they keep this up for a real e-book store later on, publishers will look very sad indeed. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
From: David Kennedy on 4 Jan 2010 14:56 Steve Firth wrote: > Martin S Taylor<mst(a)hRyEpMnOoVtEiTsHm.cIo.uSk> wrote: > >> I just flicked through a few thrillers, and find that at BooksOnBoard the >> e-versions of new, popular, books (which I can only read myself) is anything >> up to four times the price I can pay for a real book from Amazon (which I can >> give to someone else when I've finished with it). What on earth is going on? > > The Publishers are idiots. > > This opinion was confirmed by listening to Radio 4 at the weekend with a > program which had publishers and authors discussing ebooks. The main > purpose seemed to be some mutual stroking by all concerned to convince > themselves that ebooks were an irrelevance and that paper books will > dominate the market forever. I suspect that charging silly high prices > is part of that, as is the panic over DRM. > > I deal with an Italian author who publishes his books as plain PDF as > well as paper. I asked him if he was bothered about DRM and he said no. > After all, he said, if someone wanted to they would copy/scan his paper > editions anyway and by making the books easily available and compatible > with a number of ebook readers he actually sold more copies. There are a few sensible people about. -- David Kennedy http://www.anindianinexile.com
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