Irony: Ebook About Clueless Media Moguls Costs Many Times Brand New Hardcover Version
from the pricing dept
A little while ago, we pointed out that the ebook for the book Appetite for Self-Destruction -- all about the recording industry's clueless strategic moves -- was amusingly priced higher than the physical copies of the book. It seemed rather ironic that a book about how the recording industry couldn't deal with digital would show such clueless pricing. However, apparently this is not the only such case. Copycense, which pointed us to that pricing conundrum, has been highlighting a bunch of other ebooks that are more expensive than hardcopy books, and has found one that's perhaps even more ridiculous: a book about clueless media bosses. The book is actually called The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies, and as of this posting, the pricing certainly suggests what's wrong with the world's leading publishing companies.The Kindle ebook version is a whopping $18.99. Yet, if you actually want to kill some trees, the Hardcover is $10.51. The paperback is $11.56. And that's just if you order from Amazon directly. If you order from an Amazon partner, you can actually get the hardcover for $2.96 new or $2.49 used. And someone thinks it makes sense to price this book (of all books) at $18.99 as an ebook?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: business models, ebooks, pricing, publishing
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
remainder versus agency pricing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike is confused. Again.
Not only does Amazon still make a profit, but they also benefit from the sputtering rage generated by all of the ignorant masses who read Mike's article and think that the PUBLISHER'S are screwing them, all because Amazon's artificially lowered discount price is below that of the publisher's discount ebook price.
This benefits Amazon, as they in turn can use the turmoil generated in further price negotiations with the publisher. Get the prices down, and Amazon will sell a lot more Kindle ebook readers, AND sell a lot more books through the Kindle platform.
In fact, this is happening so often that I tend to suspect that Amazon's pricing strategy is deliberate. They're willing to take a hit on a few books now, just so they can dominate the ebook market later.
Finally, the comparison to used prices is just stupid. Follow that logic, and apparently we're supposed to discount the price of every digital purchase to a buck, just because some scratched used physical CD or DVD is available for $2 at Half.com.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike is confused. Again.
Unlike Amazon which has to sell at a loss, the publisher does not. Instead of setting competitive prices, though (even $5-$7), they choose to mark E-Book prices up exorbitantly and effectively kill off interest in their own product.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike is confused. Again.
At the end of the day the digital copy is pricier than the deadtree one.
By the way the kindle is dead, long live the iPad and the other iPadishy ones that are coming out on the Android platform.
I'm waiting for the day I can glue e-paper on my wall so I can put a big screen reader on the ceiling and read till I go to sleep or keep watching my wall LoL
Who wants a kindle?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Mike is confused. Again.
"...AND sell a lot more books through the Kindle platform."
That is, for the Kindle apps on the iPhone, iPad, Android, and so on. As to who wants one... it appears as if a lot of people do. They're selling 'em like hotcakes at $139, and blew through a thousand or so used ones at $89 in just a few SECONDS.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike is confused. Again.
If you were selling CDs, and the only place you were able to sell them was right next to a bin of used copies of the exact same CD priced at $2, would you set your price at nearly ten times that?
If so, good luck with running a business.
(and no you can't just throw 'scratched' in there - amazon doesn't sell unreadable books, so don't compare them to unlistenable CDs)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike is confused. Again.
It's a typo. It was supposed to say $2.96 new or $2.49 used. So the comparison's not really to used prices.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Ebook Market Is A Fad
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Ebook Market Is A Fad
I'm definitely thinking you've got it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Ebook Market Is A Fad
Oh, but wait, they've loaded it down with pointless DRM so the only way to really do that is to get a non-DRM'd copy, that's a shame isn't it?
I think you'll find that once the 3rd-gen reader-type screens start creeping into tablets etc the format's going to become a lot more popular and mainstream. At that point if the publishing industry hasn't caught up there's likely to be a resounding "What? I have to buy the book AGAIN??? Well f**k you, I'll just download a copy from one of the 3000 bit torrent sites carrying it.", from all the Kindle owners who actually payed for DRM'd books the first time round.
Since the modifier was dangling though the sentence still works - I'm assuming you meant the Kindle owners, but it's more likely to be the publishers that end up with the large extinct lizard motif IMO.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I want it NOW!
?????????
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In this case I think its protect protect protect!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hegel was right
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
kindle version gone
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: kindle version gone
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Oh, and I'll send you a couple of reads by this awesome dude named Timothy Geigner, the next big thing in fiction ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Now that I'm done with the latest WoT book, I'm in the market for something to read.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Could you send it in the glovebox of a 2011 BMW M3 sedan with manual transmission in Interlagos Blue Metallic?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
ps: I luv you DH, this is not in anyway a bad thing.
By the way $124.000 dollars to make a short of one of Gaiman's short stories and $440.000 dollars to make a wrist watch out of an iPod?
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/11/29/kickstarter.gaiman.biggest/index.html?hpt=Sbin
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Holy God ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Here's a little guide to help all you laypeople to understand why ebooks are more expensive than the tree-killing alternative:
**Step-by-step Ebook production guide, version 0.3**
Step 1: Monkey, uh, I mean, author delivers final version of book.
Step 2: Have your best and most skilled monk (yes, one of those 5th century, robed beardy ones) copy the original text (by hand...with ink and a feather!) into paper. This will be your "original". Oh right, don't forget to have him adorn the pages with cute drawings and make the first letter of every paragraph HUGE.
Step 3: Proof-read "original".
Step 4: Have your "lesser" monks (just as robed as the one form step 2, but not as beardy) make as many copies of the "original" as necessary to fill your orders.
Step 5: Proof-read every copy.
Step 6: Pass copy through a scanner and use OCR (optical character recognition) to extract the text into pdf format (you realize you don't need the pictures after all and those huge letters waste too much ink anyway).
Step 7: Proof-read the digital copies. In case they aren't "good", go back to step 3 (yes, the typo might be in the original, in which case, you have to restart form 2).
Step 8: Now you realize you need some pictures...just paste the original ones the mon...artist provided into the pdf.
Step 9: Convert to non-standard format, slap in some DRM and ship it to client. Ka-ching!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Barnes and Noble
NookBook: $18.99
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Also to Point Out:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Also to Point Out:
And I own a gen1 Kindle.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I bet they are thinking they are selling a "value" to consumers
As for the title of my post, I see no value to me (personally) for the eBooks especially after reading (here at TechDirt) about the ability to "lose" the books I would think I was buying with no recourse. And of course I can't collect them or resell them (as my wife wants me to do). For now, I'm just going to stick to the paperback ones.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Off topic, but
In addition to 'Show Insightful'/'Show Funny', could we get an option for 'Show Insightful Or Funny'? I had just voted interval's comment as both, and realized there was no way to display them at the same time. The comments already differentiated with the lightbulb/lol icon, so it's not like anyone will mistakenly confuse insight for humor or anything.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Want cheaper prices? Stop supporting piracy. Prices come down.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Yay!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ummmm.....NO!
Never mind - I'll feed the troll:
"The e-book copy costs more because they factor piracy into it."
Please provide a single independent source for the piracy figures being used to calculate the new price that hasn't already been debunked repeatedly. However, there have been studies that show people who "pirate" these goods are often the ones who will buy said goods at a later date even though that may not have been their initial intention. Factoring piracy on the actual numbers means the price should go down for these items that cost virtually nothing to reproduce electronically since each user can make copies onto their own hardware which doesn't cost the publisher a penny more if one copy is made or one billion copies are made.
"Material costs for printing a book are negligible."
You might want to talk to the logging companies and paper mills doing this work - it may come as a bit of a shock to those who feed their families in those industries.
"You don't pay for the paper and ink."
THIEF!!!
"You pay for the words on the page."
Let me guess, the same way musicians and studio artists are paid for music - pennies on the dollar but only when applicable once the collection societies and the talentless have been paid for being a gatekeeper?
"Want cheaper prices? Stop supporting piracy. Prices come down."
Actually Economics 101 will tell you to NOT buy the product, for when there is less demand, the price will come down.
History shows us how the big media companies handle reduced costs. Remember when cassettes were replaced by CDs and we were told music would become more affordable? That didn't happen, instead the gatekeepers actually raised the price of music albums. Did the artists get more money? No! But the gatekeepers did!
When the useless gatekeeper tries to separate the consuming masses from having their products at reasonable and realistic prices, the masses will find a way to take what they want and make damn sure the gatekeeper doesn't get paid.
Please find your bridge before sundown and stay there if you will!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You're saying reduced competition will result in lower prices? Why do you think ebooks work the exact opposite way of everything else in the world?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ivona is the one that sounds more human. I dare anybody notice the difference from a real voice, just go to their site and type on the sample window to hear it.
@DarkHelmet:
You should really try that one, it can make audio books of your work that you can show to others and create clips for videos that you can upload.
Personally I'm using Festival(the syntheziser a.k.a. TTS-Text To Speech) which is still robotic and difficult at times to understand but it is free.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If you got this far down the line to read this your very persistent.
Buy the 19 dollar ebook and it can be repossessed, and you can't give it away, or loan it.
This is truly the bargain of the 21st century.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
eBooks and what works for me
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I can't imagine this company wouldn't explode in size as their offerings widen beyond the current SciFi/Fantasy genre.
This sounds very much like what todays market is looking for in terms of flexibility and pricing structure.
Without having looked at the site it would seem seasonal sales of 4 or 5 titles for $20 or an occasional author signing 10/100 copies of the CD would keep sales flowing nicely moving during slow sales periods.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: eBooks and what works for me
On the post: Digitizing Your Own Books Becoming Popular In Japan
The publishers haven't figured this out yet?
Ron Rezendes (profile), Aug 25th, 2010 @ 9:41am
Every book should have a digital copy on the inside cover that allows the user to load it onto whatever device they wish!
This saves the buyer all of the scan time and is actually providing significantly more value because you have saved each reader this time. Judging by the survey - half of the readers have at least some serious interest in doing this anyway!
Digital copies are ridiculously cheap to make and should be a great marketing point!
I already know there are those of you who are just waiting to say "But everyone will make copies for free and the book won't sell as well!" I have three replies to that:
1. Prove it!
2. Quit thinking everyone's a thief - they aren't
3. If it were true, then they are already are doing it!
However, the idea here is to try give the customer what they want upfront (remember Business 101?) so they won't need to do this themselves AND the book actually sells thus providing income for the author and all the middlemen!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]