The e-book rip-off

I compared the cost of some e-books I might be interested in to the cost of the print book at Amazon.com (and remember that Amazon.com offers free shipping on orders of $25 or greater):

Title	Amazon.com print	Sony Connect e-book	eBooks.com e-book
The Kite Runner	$9.60	$11.20	$12.60
God Is Not Great	$14.99	$13.59	$8.99
The Reagan Diaries	$20.99	$22.36	$25.15
Outrage (by Dick Morris)	$16.17	$15.96	$19.95
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	$7.99	$7.19	$8.99

In some cases the e-book costs less, and in other cases, the e-book costs more.

It's pretty outrageous that the e-book sometimes cost more money considering the following:

(1) The e-book costs nothing to print.

(2) The e-book costs nothing to store.

(3) The e-book costs nothing to ship.

(4) The paper book can freely be given or lent to a friend, but the e-book is protected by DRM and can only be read on computers that you own (so unless you want to lend your friend your $300 Sony Reader and not be able to read any books yourself until your friend gives it back to you, your friend is out of luck).

(5) The paper book will be around forever, while the e-book will stop working when you no longer have any devices capable of displaying it. Given the short lifespan of electronic devices, that might only be a few months.

Considering the cost savings for the publisher and retailer, and the limited license given to the buyer (who is really just renting the e-book instead permanently owning a devisable copy as he would with a print book), e-books should cost no more than half the price of the paper book. The current pricing scheme seems like an unconscionable attempt to rip-off people who prefer reading electronic books over paper books.

Comments

[Robert Hume]

"Should" cost? If we believe in markets don't we believe that the owner can charge whatever he thinks will maximize his profit? A lower price may increase volume and hence total return, etc.

Same argument for the books applies to Windows XP, etc.

This is a question of copyright law. Maybe we should change copyright law.

[Half Sigma]

Under the current copyright law (which is a monopoly granted by government), copyright owners have the freedom to charge what they want.

And I, the consumer, have the right to complain about it! Negative publicity will shame Sony and the copyright owners into charging a fairer price.

Although what I would really like is for Congress to significantly reduce the time period for copyrights to allow for the citizens to better enjoy our nation's bounty of books.

[Spungen]

They've got a right to charge what they want, and I've got a right to pay what I want. And at that price, I'm not buying them, even though I really like the concept of e-books.

We have close to 1500 paper books in our house. At this rate, our kid will never get laid.

[Michael Blowhard]

IMHO, e-books are never going to work on a big scale. Pricing. formatting, devices ... Who needs it all? People have trying to put over ebooks for a decade now, and they've made zero impact.

But the key thing is this: why get hung up on the "book" thing? There's no real reason to. The key thing isn't the length, it's whether or not we're doing e-reading and e-writing. And the fact is we're already doing tons of e-reading and e-writing on the web.

Quick little publishing-history lesson: there is no special reason why books are the length they are. They're as long as they are because that's what the physical thing that is a book requires. E-reading and e-writing free us from that hangup, that a serious (or, what the hell, frivolous) piece of writing must be of book length. No no no no no no. The book-length this is simply an artifact of book-publishing technology, not of any intellectual or artistic need.

Open your eyes, world: we're already doing tons of e-reading and e-writing! Don't get hung up on ebooks!

[DML]

Question: What's the convenience of e-books worth to you?

For some people, carrying around multiple books on one electronic device is worth a lot. For you, not so much. I don't think I can classify this as a "ripp-off".

[Peter]

We have close to 1500 paper books in our house. At this rate, our kid will never get laid.

Now that's one connection I just don't see ...

Ordinary dead-tree books work much better for me because I do most of my reading on the train. Reading in this traditional format is much more convenient than reading an e-book off a computer. Besides, using a notebook computer on the train is almost as disgustingly SCA-ish as babbling about cartball.

[superdestroyer]

Maybe the people who are willing to read e-books are early adopters who are willing to pay a premium price in order to be an early adopters. Thus, digital book consumer are less price sensitive than analog book consumers.

One side benefit of having old fashioned books around is that if you are single like me and dating, just leave some intellectual/art/history/religion, etc... stuff lying on the coffee table in casual disarray for when females come over. Females will at least glance at the titles and often pick them up, thumb through them while you are making drinks, etc... it gives off an intellectual and scholarly vibe, you get the idea. I actually read that kind of stuff for enjoyment anyway, so why not have it work for me on a different level? And E-Books are too sterile for me. I'm a traditionalist and there is enough dumb shit electronic stuff around . That Peter guy is right, just another trendy toy for assholes to fiddle with(some hipster clown in the bar last night was using his cell phone to send text messages. Don't people go out to drink anymore?). I'll bet a round of beer that most of the E Books those guys read are about golf anyway.

[Spungen]

Now that's one connection I just don't see ...

SFG's brought it up a couple times. Don't know if it's based upon HS/GSS crunching or just common sense (books = geekiness).

I mean, picture what 1500 books looks like in a house. Takes up a lot of space.

I'm surprised HS doesn't already have a HGG. I'd think he'd have dogeared paperbacks from high school, plus an original signed copy, plus the later anthology version with the extra bit.

[Rob]

What's an HGG?

[Lester]

Remember the hype about the paperless office? People just like hard copy.

And thought its true the Net means many people actually read more now than ever before, I think reading habits have become worse.

[Brandon Berg]

I'm packing for a move. This has brought the advantages of electronic publishing into stark relief.

The other big advantage is that it's much easier to find stuff in an electronic book. A computer can scan a whole book for a keyword in the blink of an eye.

Given the chance, I'd have no regrets trade all my paper books for electronic versions and a good portable reader.

[David Alexander]

I mean, picture what 1500 books looks like in a house. Takes up a lot of space.

We had a much smaller number of books, possibly at most 100 books, some of which are hand me downs from my older brothers and cousins which date back to the 70s when we had moved. A small bit it was sadly thrown out in the rush (old French workbooks), but a good number of the children's books were given to my neice and nephew with the literature and engineering texts staying with us. We still managed to leave with at least four or five boxes of books that have taken up a small corner of the basement.

Remember the hype about the paperless office? People just like hard copy.

As a college student who periodically reads stuff for classes, I prefer when the professor gives out hard copies instead of directing us to PDF files. They're much easier to deal with in terms of reading which makes them more likely to be read. Short works are good for the internet, but long works are still the province of hard copy.

"A small bit it was sadly thrown out in the rush (old French workbooks)..."

You have got to shitting me. Sadly thrown out French workbooks?! You are twisted individual, DA! Who like grammer workbooks!? When I finished with mine in high school and college, I burned them and danced around the fire. Good riddance.

[Spungen]

What's an HGG?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, included on HS's wish list.

[David Alexander]

You have got to shitting me. Sadly thrown out French workbooks?! You are twisted individual, DA! Who like grammer workbooks!? When I finished with mine in high school and college, I burned them and danced around the fire. Good riddance.

I always thought that grammar was an important part of learning French or English or any language for that matter. The difficulty that most Americans have in learning foreign languages is that we have very little instruction of grammar in schools. I understand that reading comprehension and mathematical skills are important, but we need a stronger grammatical base in this country.

Anyways, I was actually sad at the loss of various souvenir workbooks from kindergarten and first grade, not completed French (in retrospect, Quebeçois) workbooks for two older cousins.

[Turambar]

I do agree that one of the principle advantages to the average reader would be a substantial price savings on a book you dont need to keep.

The fact that there is no cost savings, as HS points out, has inhibited the majority of possible sales. Especially since the consumer perceives that they are being "riped off" because of the low incremental COGS. We have to feel that we are getting some added advantages to defend the purchase to ourselves and friends. How many times have you heard people trying to rationalize the premium on hybrid cars based on gas prices.

I couldn't tell from Amazon if e-books are brought out by the same company that does the print book. If it is an independent company that just buys the electronic publishing rights that could explain why the price is "artificially" high.

One thing I dislike about ebooks: if there is only a hardback edition, and it retails for almost 25 bucks, that's how much the ebook will cost. There will be no "under $10" ebooks of said novel until that book goes paperback. Ripoff. There should be a set maximum price for ebooks and it shouldn't exceed $12.

[Anthony]

People who buy eBooks have already signalled that they are wealthier than average, by buying a device which can display an eBook. The publisher takes advantage of this knowledge to make a sale at a higher price. It's all price discrimination!

[Derrick Miller]

(1) The e-book costs nothing to print.

(2) The e-book costs nothing to store.

(3) The e-book costs nothing to ship.

This is one of my pet peeves. The e-book does *not* cost nothing to print/store/ship. Rather, it costs a miniscule amount compared to a regular book. That cost becomes very significant once one starts printing/storing/shipping thousands or millions of e-books.

The laws of economics still apply to digital downloads. It will always cost less to move 100G of data from one side of town to the other, than from one country to another.

That aside, I agree with the point of your post.

[Prest0]

E-books cost what they do because at least in some cases publishers are afraid of upsetting their print distribution chain by undercutting sales. Stores like B&N might be tempted to drop publishers like a hot potato if it saw them selling the same book in electronic format for less than p-book wholesale price.

[Reader]

Those people are not the future and their products are not the ebooks our grand children will use.
Go to and get an idea of the epublisher will look like and how ebooks will be sold

[gordon]

I see he didnt try Baen books. They publish non copy protected electronic versions of all their books, at somewhat less than the hardcopy price, (you pay US$15 for all 5 of the books they release in any particular month or US$5.00 per individual book) and you get them up to 3 weeks before the paper version is published. Even earlier in the case of E ARCs. My annual purchases of e books exceeded that of paper books six years ago. I love being able to carry a library of several hundred books in my pocket, loaded on a device that also serves as phone, email device, MP3 player, GPS navigator and more.

[WMD]

A few observations.

But still the price of the majority of Ebook publishers is idiotically high. I also suspect that a good percentage of the cost of ebooks is the costs of the DRM software. Although for older books there is probably a higher cost to the transition to a digital format than for more recent works.

I do note that Baen Books webscriptions (http://www.webscriptions.net) ebook service does not price ebooks as high as do other publishers selling their books for as little as $3 each if you buy one of their monthly 5 book webcriptions or $4-5 for individual ebooks. And no DRM idiocy.

I've been using a Palm Zire PDA as an ebook reader using either Mobipocket Reader or eReader as the reader apps. I do admit note that the screen size on the palm is a big drawback. But it has the advantage that I can stash it in a pocket.

WMD

[Rhio2k]

"People who buy eBooks have already signalled that they are wealthier than average, by buying a device which can display an eBook."

You can get a pc for less than 200 bucks. I am by no means wealthy. the ebooks I bought all are less than 10 bucks in price (Fictionwise.com). I just wanted something that lasted longer than paper.