Are ebooks too expensive?

Vince W

Vince W

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I've had a Kindle Paperwhite for about a year now and I do love it. After an initial spending spree on a number of books my rate of new purchases has dropped to about nil.

The reason for this is the price of many of the books I take a fancy to are too expensive for an electronic format. At least I think they're too expensive. Especially as I seem to be drawn to classic books that I've not read. If I hunt around ebay, abebooks, or local second hand bookshops I can often find paper books for much less.

What are your feelings on this? Is Amazon out of touch with reality or am I just too mean?
 
First of all don't forget when you buy a second hand book you are only giving money to a previous owner; the author has already received their cut when the book was first purchased. When you buy a new ebook you are giving the author their cut, so that is a part of what you are paying.

Secondly with published (as opposed to self-published books) it is currently frequently the publisher not the vendor that sets the price and they are trying to protect the price of their pbook editions. This of course is what the current argument is between Amazon and publishers where Amazon are demanding they should be able to set the price. This is a very complex argument which has been discussed elsewhere on the Chrons. But in short remember that when Amazon cuts the price of books it is often the author not Amazon that loses out.

All that said I do think ebooks are still overpriced compared to their paper editions. One important aspect of this is that I cannot sell my ebooks second hand; it is illegal. Neither can I even pass them on to my descendants. Did you know that the same applies to any digital media? You can only inherit or sell second hand hard products such as books, CDs, DVDs etc. You cannot inherit any purely electronic digital products your parents or any other ancestors may have bought.
 
Vertigo said:
Neither can I even pass them on to my descendants. Did you know that the same applies to any digital media? You can only inherit or sell second hand hard products such as books, CDs, DVDs etc. You cannot inherit any purely electronic digital products your parents or any other ancestors may have bought.
Click to expand...

I did not know that.
 
I believe 'they' are looking into this situation and trying to come up with a better solution for it in the future. The current situation on it is not very satisfactory and, I think, predates the purchasing of things like ebooks, mp3 files etc.

I take your point Springs but I just still find, for me, that the benefits of ebooks outweigh the benefits of paper books.
 
I think ebooks from large publishers are often over-priced. I can why see publishers do this ... as Vertigo says, they are protecting their sales of paper books, but that's not much consolation. But this is the only tangible way to support authors you like so that they keep writing the kind of books you like, publishers keep publishers, and bookstores keep stocking them. We vote with our dollars, and if we don't buy books new then it is no use complaining that there aren't enough good books being published. (And writers tend to get a larger percentage as royalties on ebooks. So if you buy an ebook at about the same price as the new paper book, then you are doing even more to help your favorite writers.) But books that are out of print in paper can be surprisingly affordable (this will not apply to classics that tend to stay in print or are reprinted often) -- much the same price as used books and the author still gets royalties.

Some popular writers are skipping the traditional publishing route and publishing their books themselves (they already have a following eager for each book as it comes out, so that's why it works for them) and these are sometimes more reasonably priced that books by the big publishing houses, or they are publishing their backlists which are also reasonably priced. But it depends on the genre. I believe this is much more common in romance than in SFF.

Then, of course, there are self-published books by new authors who only publish electronic books, many of which are very low-priced indeed, although the quality of these books is so uneven, you need to be careful. Fortunately, you can usually read a sample of these books before you buy.
 
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It's funny, since I have been into ebooks and have thought much more about this issue than before, I almost feel guilty about buying second hand books as I am not giving the author anything for my pleasure, which somehow seems wrong! That's not to say I have stopped buying second hand books, but....

As Teresa mentions the whole dynamic tends to change when it is a book that is out of print, and there are quite a few of those that have been republished as ebooks (very cheaply I might add; they typically have no cover illustration at all). These are, again as Teresa says, typically cheaper than pbooks and you are still contributing to the author, so generally better for them than you buying the book second hand in paper (assuming they are still alive to benefit!).
 
The price of ebooks is a large part of why almost all of my books are purchased secondhand (besides the fact that I do simply like the feel of holding a book or the fact that I do not own a Kindle). That is not to say that I have a strong opinion about whether the pricing is correct/justified, just that it is too high for me.
 
Ebooks are quite cheap, I think, unless you are talking about new releases--in which case they are comparable to hardbound not paperback books (and still a whole lot cheaper). Remember that new releases are premium priced in large part so that publishers can recoup costs incurred during the production phase (which includes editing, copyediting, marketing, publicity, typesetting and such, as well as physical production).

Frankly I'd rather major publishers upped the royalty rates than discounted books. Authors aren't compensated well enough as it is, though in fact it's the publishers that are taking the financial risk (and losing money as often as they profit).
 
I would like to clarify that I do not have an opinion about where the price should be. I am not educated enough on the industry to even form an opinion about that. It is just that for me, with Amazon Prime I can have a used book shipped to me for three to five dollars with no shipping or handling. Nothing else beats that right now.
 
I feel that the price of ebooks is on a high side. Ebooks do not cost much to reproduce and therefore, the savings in cost to the publishers, should pass on to us, readers. Ebooks should be priced cheaper than paper books.

The high cost for ebooks led many to pirating ebooks, which would be a loss of sales for the publishers.
Ebooks should be priced aroun US$2.99 or below, not $14.99 or $9.99.
 
I agree with Brian. Price is all over the place. From cheap to same price as hardback. Here in Ireland there is VAT on magazines and eBooks but not on regular books. I think all of EU has eBook VAT. The VAT should be Zero on eBooks.
Having Educational VAT free and VAT on all other books is probably not workable.

For low volume and POD physical books, yes eBooks (forgetting Tax difference) should be cheaper. But for volume popular print runs, the printing & distribution cost isn't a major factor. Perhaps adds £1 to £2.
 
Whilst it's true ebooks don't cost much to produce ie send to the computer, the writer has spent the same time writing it as for the paper book, the editors have spent the same time, the cover has cost the same (maybe more with the need for thumbnails and what not to be considered.) these are still huge outlays and need to be offset against the cost of the book. I'm not sure it's actually fair to expect e-books to be much cheaper than the relevant paper book. (I'm referring to the trad model, not self-publishing where it's up to the author what they're happy to be paid.)
 
I think that the industry still has a lot of adjusting to do for the eBook world. In theory, eBooks should be cheaper than paper/hardbacks, because while the cost-of-production is actually not completely dissimilar (when you factor in the subsidised hardware and server/distribution costs), and obviously author/editor/illustrator/copy-editor/type-setting/publicity etc costs are the same, where there is a massive saving is in stock risk. When you buy a physical book, you're not only paying for that copy, but a share of all the copies that aren't sold (this is a huge simplification) and that are either pulped or remaindered.

A significant portion of the revenue from a book comes from the hard-cover/trade-paperback period, and it's understandable that publishers would want to protect it (though note that the publishers have only limited control over eBook pricing - this is the main part of what the Amazon/Hachette dispute is about). I suspect that what we'll see over the next decade is a decrease in the number of books that get published in hardback, an increase in the cost of paperbacks and a stabilisation of eBook prices (as opposed to a standardisation - different authors, in different markets, with books at different stages in their sales lifecycle will probably get different pricing).
 
Maybe the problem isn't the price of the ebooks, but the sheer volume of books available. This board contributes to this problem of volume since I see so many good recommendations I think I want to read them. I would soon be bankrupt if I bought all the books I want.
 
I am inclined to say they are too expensive. Not so much that I do not buy them but I think a bit overpriced. I hold the line at $9.99 and will not spend more than that.

I am even more bothered by the lack of innovation in e-books. Many of us read using an android tablet of one type or another with full color screens. Where are the interactive maps showing the progress of the epic journey in relation to how much of the book you have read? Where are the film clip inserts when the book is associated with a movie? Where are the pop up biographies on characters so you can remind yourself who someone is, especially when dealing with a cast of thousands? I would probably not be bothered by the price so much if I was getting something that enhanced the experience of reading the book.
 
Real eBook readers will probably never do colour at the low power consumption and can't do animation sensibly. But more than a clunky TOC is possible, even in existing reader format.
I don't think the current format can support progress on a Map (purely a format limitation), nor can any true eReader support video clips (Hardware limitation) but the rest can be done yesterday by publisher /Author by using either a custom dictionary or footnotes (the Kindle is based on mobi format which is basically simple HTML and all the CSS and Images in a single file. The only "state" is current location, TOC and footnotes are just HTML links) the reader viewer is a specialised web browser that can't do video, javascript or flash. The dedicated eReader hardware is so much better than OLED or LCD because it is mechanical balls for each dot, half black and White. So only changing the display uses power, it beats ANY other display tech except laser printed paper for actual reading, especially in sunlight.
So most of want you want can be done Timba, with no change to SW or HW.
Anyone that thinks the extra feature of colour, apps, video etc makes the Monochrome eReaders obsolete isn't a real reader and hasn't read a novel on real mechanical eReader. The Kindle app on a tablet, phone, iPad, laptop or a Kindle Fire is a poor substitute for actually reading on the eInk mechanical display Kindles.
 
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