Something I'm Confused about with Ebooks

[Hearly]

Ok, so my wife decides to buy me a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, instead of the 27in monitor (2560x1440) I wanted..

So I decided to give the Kindle/Nook, etc a shot, first thing I go look at is some older Clive Cussler (Dirk Pitt) books, all of them are 9.99 each some of them over 10 years old are still that price, so I go look at some older Star Wars books I loved (Heir to the Empire, etc.) find the Heir to the empire for 7.99 so decide to buy it even though it's 20 years old and I have the Paperback on the Shelf.

Now, I'm not promoting Theft/Pirating etc, but why the heck would I pay 10 bucks for an Ebook that is 10+ years old and I saw the paperback at Walmart on the same day for $5.97.

I thought the whole point of the Ebooks, were it was cheaper for the publishers to put them out that way instead of "printing" them and killing all those trees.

I went and checked prices on Google Play, Nook and Kindle and all of them seemed this high.. outside of Greed, why are they so high compared to the paperbacks, I would assume it's cheaper to do an Ebook vs a Paperback because of not having to print anything

[samuelmichaels]

Ok, so my wife decides to buy me a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, instead of the 27in monitor (2560x1440) I wanted..

So I decided to give the Kindle/Nook, etc a shot, first thing I go look at is some older Clive Cussler (Dirk Pitt) books, all of them are 9.99 each some of them over 10 years old are still that price, so I go look at some older Star Wars books I loved (Heir to the Empire, etc.) find the Heir to the empire for 7.99 so decide to buy it even though it's 20 years old and I have the Paperback on the Shelf.

Now, I'm not promoting Theft/Pirating etc, but why the heck would I pay 10 bucks for an Ebook that is 10+ years old and I saw the paperback at Walmart on the same day for $5.97.

I thought the whole point of the Ebooks, were it was cheaper for the publishers to put them out that way instead of "printing" them and killing all those trees.

I went and checked prices on Google Play, Nook and Kindle and all of them seemed this high.. outside of Greed, why are they so high compared to the paperbacks, I would assume it's cheaper to do an Ebook vs a Paperback because of not having to print anything

I am not sure, but I propose two factors:
1) Supply and demand: in some (many?) cases nowadays, there are actually more people interested in electronic version for their tablet/reader than in a paper book that will take up space, gather dust, won't be with you on the airplane or on the long train ride, be hard to search, etc. Note that there are still different prices for hardcover, paperback, and occasional special-edition-leather-cover-etc. versions of the same text.
2) Cost of storage: once a book was printed, keeping it around just costs money (warehouse space, tracking costs). Selling it at a discount may well be more economical for a merchant than keeping it hoping to sell at full price. Cost of carrying an electronic book is minute: once it's in the catalogue/disk farm, you can keep it "on the shelf" pretty much for free.

[boballab]

Ok, so my wife decides to buy me a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, instead of the 27in monitor (2560x1440) I wanted..

So I decided to give the Kindle/Nook, etc a shot, first thing I go look at is some older Clive Cussler (Dirk Pitt) books, all of them are 9.99 each some of them over 10 years old are still that price, so I go look at some older Star Wars books I loved (Heir to the Empire, etc.) find the Heir to the empire for 7.99 so decide to buy it even though it's 20 years old and I have the Paperback on the Shelf.

Now, I'm not promoting Theft/Pirating etc, but why the heck would I pay 10 bucks for an Ebook that is 10+ years old and I saw the paperback at Walmart on the same day for $5.97.

I thought the whole point of the Ebooks, were it was cheaper for the publishers to put them out that way instead of "printing" them and killing all those trees.

I went and checked prices on Google Play, Nook and Kindle and all of them seemed this high.. outside of Greed, why are they so high compared to the paperbacks, I would assume it's cheaper to do an Ebook vs a Paperback because of not having to print anything

Ebook pricing is still evolving but is moving towards the same system that the old Hardcover/Mass Market PaperBack (MMPB) of a price differential has. Just a couple years ago most ebooks were priced much higher than $9.99 and when Amazon made that big push to get them to that price point it was hailed as a victory for low cost etc, etc. Now some publishers (Baen is the newest with their deal with Amazon) will charge one price when a book is only out in hardcover and later on reduce it when the MMPB comes out. Another point is that new MMPB's cost almost as much as that ebook, an example of this is the MMPB of Monster Hunter International I bought 2 years ago and it was $7.99. I have also seen some MMPB's that are priced at $8.99.

Look at the price of Elizabeth Moon's newest Paksenarrion series of books on B&N, the newest one "Echoes of Betrayal" is only available in either Hardcover or ebook and the prices are $17.50 for the Hardcover and $13.99 for the ebook. Then look at the next newest "kings of the North" which is now out in MMPB as well as ebook and both of them are at $7.99. When the paperback version of "Echoes" comes out the ebook price will drop from $13.99 to $7.99
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Elizabe ... abeth+Moon

Also keep in mind that there is a cost involved in making ebooks for multiple formats that is tied to them that is separate from making a Hardcover/MMPB. You just don't take the scanned in copy and sell it as an ebook they actually have to pay someone to fix the formatting for Epub and then redo it for Kindle and the redo it for Stanza and etc. Also the cost of the actual "printing" of dead tree books is actually one of the smallest parts of making a book. Editing, Cover art and other parts is where the majority of the price comes from.

So that old paperback you seen at Walmart (which had been sitting in a warehouse for awhile, it is not a new printing) has already had its cost worked in and for a book that is 10+ years old they actually have to convert files (if it was stored electronically, not all are) to HTML, then have someone fix the formatting for a Kindle version, then another for Epub and every other version it will be sold in. Alot of times at that point it is the author that has now gotten the rights back and has to hire an outside contractor such as found here:
http://www.pagesbyjoy.com/

alot of this territory was covered over in Baen's Bar when Toni Wiesskopf , the publisher, and a couple of the authors discussed where the actual costs are.

[fortress]

The biggest reason for high prices is greed by the publishers and them not liking the ebooks / Amazon's old price points. Google "agency pricing" that the publishers / Apple forced on Amazon and other e-tailers a couple years ago. Overnight books like Dune went from being $6.99 to being

Kindle Price: $14.99 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
Sold by: Penguin Publishing
This price was set by the publisher

with Amazon being unable to offer the book for a cheaper price.

Luckily due to the DOJ filing an antitrust suit against the publishers some have settled and been forced to renegotiate contracts. So now instead of having to pay $20+ for Lord of the Rings trilogy you can get it for $9.

If you want a ton of free sci-fi / fantasy books from Baen go visit http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ I'd recommend downloading all of the CDs while they are still available. Baen might soon be pulling the discs due to new contracts signed to publish on Amazon.

[Hearly]

I already pulled the CD for Mission of Honor and dumped it on my tablet, just using Firefox to open it like on my PC.

[probe]

Amazon... thats the reason Baen rised the prices?
...damn...
Baen had reasonable prices before..I bought Monster Hunter International as monthly packet for 18$ with four new books so it come as low as 4.5$ for that book
all single books were 6$ and they even had discounts for older books (like 5$ or even 4$ or bundles with 10 books for 30$)
and this month I see prices for single books 6.99...7.99 ...even 9.99
ah, well... I will stil buy monthly packets...cheaper that way

[boballab]

Amazon... thats the reason Baen rised the prices?
...damn...
Baen had reasonable prices before..I bought Monster Hunter International as monthly packet for 18$ with four new books so it come as low as 4.5$ for that book
all single books were 6$ and they even had discounts for older books (like 5$ or even 4$ or bundles with 10 books for 30$)
and this month I see prices for single books 6.99...7.99 ...even 9.99
ah, well... I will stil buy monthly packets...cheaper that way

Yep it is the deal with Amazon that caused the price change. A couple of points that people overlook when looking at this deal.

1. Until now Baen hasn't raised their ebook prices for a decade. That means as inflation has gone up the money Baen and the authors had been making on ebooks has been going down.

2. These negotiations have been going on from what I understand since 2005 and you can bet it wasn't that long just over price point. From the changes seen in the Free Library, the BaenCD's and the Monthly bundles it looks like Amazon wanted them gone. Since they are all still there is only slightly modified forms I say that Baen did a good job negotiating.

3. As to the prices of the books the ones that are at $9.99 are for books that are only out now in hardcover, the ones that are $7.99 have a Trade paperback edition and the ones at $6.99 are for ones that have a Mass Market Paperback edition. So anyone you see at $9.99 now will drop in price, usually to $6.99, within a year.

4. Then there is this basic fact: Kindles have the largest slice of the ereader market that in turn means, just like with computers and Windows, you can count on the laziness of the consumer when it comes to find ebooks for those kindles. The vast majority of those people do not know that they can get ebooks anywhere else but from Amazon and they don't care even when told. You see it is to much effort for them to sideload a kindle format ebook they could have bought in the past from Baen for $6. Nope it HAS to be from Amazon no matter what. Think I'm kidding, I'm not. This comes from the comments on the David Weber page on Amazon:

Initial post: Jul 14, 2010 6:25:10 AM PDT
R. Scott Hollomon says:
I quit buying physical books about a year ago. Just don't want them they take up space. I like having books I am currently reading with me all the time on my iPhone. The only place to get the Honor books (but not all of them) is eReader.com.

Weber, I'll pay nearly the same for a digital book as a physical book. Get your publisher off its kiester and get the latest Honor books out on kindle or eReader.

As some here as yourself know in 2010 Baen had been selling ebooks in format for the kindle for years, almost a decade actually. So some kind soul points this out:

In reply to an earlier post on Jul 14, 2010 10:07:58 AM PDT
Last edited by the author on Jul 14, 2010 10:12:14 AM PDT
Peter C. says:
Digital copies of all the Honorverse and many other Weber books are available in multiple formats at Baen Books, otherwise known as webscriptions.net. (Don't know if Amazon will post this or the URL, but it's a good site.)

Now you would think the people that come later would read that and go aha and race there. Well a few did but you keep seeing others complaining about no Kindle edition and more replies about going to Baen. Finally one person asks how you get the file into the Kindle and one of the posters copied the steps needed from Webscriptions. This is the reply that post got:

Posted on Apr 16, 2012 8:49:40 AM PDT
Jonathan Viehe says:
Well this illustrates the point. We shouldnt have to jump through hoops to read a book in 2012. Kindle is the most popular ereader, amazon is the most popular bookseller. Its in the authors best interest to serve his customers here. Ill just continue not reading some books until I can push one click and start reading.

People even pointed out earlier that for Honorverse books you can pretty much get the whole series free:

In reply to an earlier post on Mar 29, 2011 1:58:21 PM PDT
Last edited by the author on Mar 29, 2011 1:59:46 PM PDT
Jonathan Todd says:
or http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ where you can get no-cost copies of every Honorverse title up to Mission of Honor. this site has ISO images of the CD's mentioned in a previous post in easily brows-able format

Now to show the intelligence of the guy that refused to get free books because he couldn't one click them here is his post after the deal mentioned above:

Posted on Dec 19, 2012 9:18:27 AM PST
Jonathan Viehe says:
See, my boycott won them over. They realized that distriubuting their product in as many locations as possible is best.

Now just think of how many millions more just like him are out there....
Now you see why Baen inked the deal that they did, they have a bunch of people that think that paying $6.99 for a book that they could of had years ago for free is great and they will one click many more times in the future.

For the whole thread here is the link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/forum/cd/discu ... WWW63GQCU7

[GBLW]

Yep, some people are just plain DUMB (as well as stubborn as a jack ass)!

By the way, Happy New Year all.

kp

[hermit-bob]

Seriously? People didn't know that Baen has had multiple format free download books for years? Hell, I started reading from the free library as soon as I found out about it...which would have been right after I read my first Weber book Crown of Slaves...that was 2005 I think. From my College Library. Just after I started reading Fel's stories. Needed something to do between updates.
I have been telling people for years about Baen and the Free Library. I was a little disappointed when the selection changed, but it didn't change that much, and it was supposed to add and remove books to change up what was available anyway. I was unaware that Amazon didn't carry Baen books, never looked to Amazon for my Baen fix, always went straight to Baen. Hell, I own HH from On Basilisk Station to At All Costs because I read them from the CD!

I have been advocating for years that the human gene pool has become corrupt and should be reviewed by a random assortment of other beings, the prevalence of stupidity and willful ignorance only proves my point.

Now, where did I put that reset button for the galaxy....