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/lit/ - Literature

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2873076 No.2873076 [Reply] [Original]

Why are some ebooks priced the same or very simliar to hard copies?

>> No.2873089

They're still trying to make money off the books, but they're doing it in a really bad way.

E-books should derive more money from the number of readers, rather than the price-per-book. The number of people who can download a book are limitless, so they need to focus on having more buyers rather than more money per buyer.

They haven't yet discovered this.

>> No.2873095

do people really buy ebooks? I thought the whole point of the kindle was so that you could pirate books

>> No.2873100

>>2873089
so, lower the price of ebooks so that people feel more inclined to purchase them thus totaling in more sales?

>> No.2873105

>>2873095
That's the only reason I use one.

>> No.2873120

Gotta factor in that these prices are high because there is still a somewhat large corporate bureaucracy in publishing. They need their cut too.

>> No.2873122

>>2873100
Exactly.

When a book is published (book form) there is a limited amount of goods to sell--however many books are printed. This is not the case with an e-book, which can be downloaded an infinite number of times.

The focus needs to move away from "how much can I sell this book for?" to "how many people would buy a file of this book if it was only 5 dollars?"

One person buying a paper book for 25 dollars is trumped by 6 people seeing an e-book and saying "what the hell, it's only 5 bucks."

It is a new and different market, and a lot of marketers don't properly know how to exploit it.

>> No.2873138

How many people actually read for enjoyment; only one of my friends does and three coworkers that I know of do

>> No.2873152

>>2873138
Holy crap you know a lot of people that read for enjoyment.

>> No.2873157

>>2873095
Of course, but if you didn't have a kindle, you'd just go and buy classics second-hand. The publishing companies wouldn't earn anything there either. When it comes to newer or more obscure works, they often ARE available as an ebook at amazon, and it's worth a price to be able to get them in an instant.

>>2873089
>>2873100
I think they're still searching for the sweet spot in prices (and paying methods - like micropayments). They can, however, ask whatever they want for the copies as long as people buy them.

>>2873122
You're talking scarcity and demand, but it's not as clear-cut here. Cultural products have a different dynamic.

>>2873138
It's all about the type of enjoyment: books are often associated with intellectual stimulation. Yet some people just want to masturbate to twilight. These are different target audiences, yet both would call their reading practice in their free time 'enjoyment'.

>> No.2873175

>>2873157
Your post would be true if there wasn't rampant pirating of everything. "New books" are pirated quite heavily, simply because they're in high demand for lower prices.

For example, check out the Amazon pages of "Inherent Vice" or "The Marriage Plot". In both instances, the E-book is as expensive as or even more expensive than the actual paper book.

Why is this? There is no reason for it. The overhead of printing and distributing the book is entirely gone. People simply don't want to pay 16 dollars for an e-book if the paper book is the same price or even less. Instead, they'll wait for a free copy of it on-line.

This is similar to what happened in the music industry, where they finally just started selling songs for 99 cents. People would rather download an album than pay 12 dollars for it, but they don't mind paying a dollar per song.

>> No.2873207

>>2873157
Wanking to Twilight is perfectly fine but the only times a lot of people read are because of menus, instructions or reading to their kids