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From: J.J. O'Shea on 4 Jan 2010 15:00
On Mon, 4 Jan 2010 14:37:26 -0500, Steve Firth wrote
(in article <1jbt7lg.5qkdwl1ezrz2zN%%steve%@malloc.co.uk>):

> 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.

Baen Books has had this attitude for years. And, as a direct result of their
making _all_ their stuff available _from their website_ in various DRM-free
formats, some of it for _free_, I've bought a _lot_ of their books, often
after reading the free HTML version, 'cause, frankly, I want a paper book.
<http://www.webscription.net/>, <http://www.baen.com/library/>.

Some of their hardback books ship with CDs containing various ebooks, and
those CDs are also available online for free.
<http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/>

but then Jim Baen, unlike many publishers, actually had sense.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

From: Martin S Taylor on 4 Jan 2010 15:14
Jochem Huhmann wrote
> 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.

I have, and I do. I enjoy them so much that I flicked through some 'paid'
books, which is what prompted this post.

>> 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.

Er, no... I assume you were joking?

MST

From: Jochem Huhmann on 4 Jan 2010 15:21
Martin S Taylor <mst(a)hRyEpMnOoVtEiTsHm.cIo.uSk> writes:

>> Well, low demand and limitless supply leads to high prices... No, I
>> don't know what's going on, really.
>
> Er, no... I assume you were joking?

You're assuming not totally incorrect here.


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: J. J. Lodder on 4 Jan 2010 15:33
J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to(a)but.see.sig> wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Jan 2010 11:52:58 -0500, Howard wrote
> (in article <1jbt04q.bbazqcry8iccN%Howard.not(a)home.com>):
>
> > Martin S Taylor <mst(a)hRyEpMnOoVtEiTsHm.cIo.uSk> wrote:
> >
> >> 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).
> >>
> >> 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?
> >>
> >> Martin S Taylor
> >
> > Welcome to the MADNESS of ebooks that they don't talk about in the
> > media.
> >
> > I was about to invest in a Kindle or similar until at the last moment I
> > started to look at book prices. They are CRAZY.
> > Most of the time they cost as much as a real book and often MORE. The
> > publishing industry is trying to screw as much out of customers before
> > they wake up and smell the odour.
> >
> > I decided to use my iPhone and acquire ebooks 'elsewhere'...
> >
> >
> > H
>
> alt.binaries.ebooks. alt.binaries.e-books. etc.

And a.b.e-book.flood, .fantasy,
and .technical for the non-fiction stuff.
There is far too much there.

> Set up a filter to remove the
> .LIT and .PDB and .IMP stuff, most of it won't work on a Mac.

..lit is a legacy format from yet another M$ attempt
to corner a market by creatng a closed file format.
Not even M$ supports it anymore.
There is almost no original material in .lit,
most of it is converted from some other format.

..pdb is almost always readable on the Mac.

..imp is no good for anyhing.

And why bother with closed formats?
You can find almost everything that exists in closed formats
also in open formats, .pdf, .txt, .rtf, .html, etc.,
as someone will have taken the trouble to convert it.

Jan


From: Chris Ridd on 4 Jan 2010 15:36
On 2010-01-04 19:53:27 +0000, Jochem Huhmann said:

> 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.

One of my favourite authors has started producing and selling ebook
versions of her books - it's been interesting watching the processes
and discussions surrounding this, publishers appear to be a combination
of incompetent (unable to grok the market) and illegal (not permitted
by contract to sell ebook editions). Astounding.

<http://www.closed-circle.net/WhereItsAt/?page_id=11>
--
Chris

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