Just to re-iterate what others have said above me; books are excellent value for money, if you take into account the cost per hour of entertainment. I find a £7.99 book can keep me occupied for up to two weeks, whereas a £15.00 Blu Ray is good for 2 hours or less.
Are books too expensive?
- Thread starter Fried Egg
- Start date
biodroid
A.D.D.
Ellis you are correct at that I feel. What's irritating me in South Africa is that we have local online shops that sell ebooks at the same price as a tangible book. That is not right I feel as there is no paper used etc, so the costs should be less. Not that I read ebooks but it doesn't make sense.
Without print overruns, storage costs, returns, transport and wholesale/retail middlemen the E-books should be less than a quarter of the price of the paperback, even without Paper/printing charges. Preparation should be minimal, as all books are now 'typeset' in computer format. I'm assuming here that the author and agent get the same amount of money (not the same percentage) as they do now.
Instead, they cost as much as hard covers; largely because the publishers (with one or two exceptions) are paranoid about copying. They are convinced that anyone who downloads one of their titles is only waiting for the line to cool down before copying it and E-mailing it to his friends all over the planet. They know that their over elaborate anti-copy systems (which prevent you from making a copy of the file should the reader, or your hard disc, crash) and even take it on themselves to repossess contents they feel are dodgy. They see the example of the music business, which failed to move into the future, and attempt to prevent the future happening at all.
I haven't yet found an E-book reader that satisfies me, and might well be unable to pay for one when I do, but most of the major distribution networks are trying to make it as discouraging as possible, because they're scared.
When I find a paperback book I think one of my friends will like, I lend it to him. E-book publishers are doing all they can to render this impossible, as 'lend' means 'copy', and that's piracy. So the 'word of mouth' advertising is lost, as is the 'browse through a book shop', necessitating direct advertising via websites or personalised E-mails (I get lots). But is this expensive enough to explain away a fraction of the extra they are charging?
The potential for a new, glittering industry with print to order machines that automatically credit the author's account when a book is made, standardised burn once PROM chips, no book ever going out of print or being overstocked somewhere and sold out a few kilometres away is there, and it terrifies them, because it's as easy for the independents to take advantage of as the traditional big distributors.
So they sign exclusive contracts and charge excessive prices and hope, ostrich-like, for stasis.
Instead, they cost as much as hard covers; largely because the publishers (with one or two exceptions) are paranoid about copying. They are convinced that anyone who downloads one of their titles is only waiting for the line to cool down before copying it and E-mailing it to his friends all over the planet. They know that their over elaborate anti-copy systems (which prevent you from making a copy of the file should the reader, or your hard disc, crash) and even take it on themselves to repossess contents they feel are dodgy. They see the example of the music business, which failed to move into the future, and attempt to prevent the future happening at all.
I haven't yet found an E-book reader that satisfies me, and might well be unable to pay for one when I do, but most of the major distribution networks are trying to make it as discouraging as possible, because they're scared.
When I find a paperback book I think one of my friends will like, I lend it to him. E-book publishers are doing all they can to render this impossible, as 'lend' means 'copy', and that's piracy. So the 'word of mouth' advertising is lost, as is the 'browse through a book shop', necessitating direct advertising via websites or personalised E-mails (I get lots). But is this expensive enough to explain away a fraction of the extra they are charging?
The potential for a new, glittering industry with print to order machines that automatically credit the author's account when a book is made, standardised burn once PROM chips, no book ever going out of print or being overstocked somewhere and sold out a few kilometres away is there, and it terrifies them, because it's as easy for the independents to take advantage of as the traditional big distributors.
So they sign exclusive contracts and charge excessive prices and hope, ostrich-like, for stasis.
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