Does this make sense?
No matter how much I try to make sense of all of the issues that the existence of e-books pose, I keep coming back to rising consumer prices. Which may be completely wrong, either because no one actually knows or I am actually just really, really bad at extrapolating anything out of this stuff. Or I'm just a bad guesser.
Anyway, publishers want to charge more for e-books. You would think that since there are no printing costs, shipping costs, distrubutors' cuts, more shipping costs, returns, etc., that e-books could actually retail for less than the cost of a printed book. But now, especially with the agency model coming into vogue, most major publishers will charge a minimum of $12.99 per book.
Okay, so what effect will this have on trade paperbacks that go for, say eleven or twelve bucks from an online retailer?
You see where I'm going with this. This would be absurd. But since we already know what they want to charge for e-books, than all they can do is to raise the cost of the print book to equal or exceed the e-book. This would seem to get to a higher margin and lower cost situation but at no benefit to the consumer/reader.
You'll have rising prices for a diminished product (I think most people would agree that the very nature of a physical book vs. an electronic file denotes a more substantial product; this can be argued, I suppose, but either you value a book or you don't, the actual words aside). In other words, the existence of e-books can be used in an attempt to either push people toward electronic products or simply to accept a higher cost. It's that higher price that has a greater chance of affecting demand moreso than the premise that available hi-tech gadgets will always supplant anything older than your first dog.
Again, as an endless repeat, I think what ought to happen is that a niche for e-books be created and allowed to grow to whatever size of the market would like to see. But when a small number of entities control the majority of a market, an oligopoly as it were, they can dictate more than respond to the market. I've already been driven to second hand books to a degree I absolutely rejected not so many years ago. But a used book vs. new book isn't much of a contest. Fortunately, despite the fact that I own two e-book readers (and other than experimenting haven't spent a dollar on new e-books), if you price me out of the market now I can make do with a) the books I already own, b) the library, and c) public domain e-books.
Bring back real mass market paperbacks. Hell, bring back pulp magazines. How cool would that be? I have no idea what The Shadow's been up to since the war in Europe ended.
Anyway, publishers want to charge more for e-books. You would think that since there are no printing costs, shipping costs, distrubutors' cuts, more shipping costs, returns, etc., that e-books could actually retail for less than the cost of a printed book. But now, especially with the agency model coming into vogue, most major publishers will charge a minimum of $12.99 per book.
Okay, so what effect will this have on trade paperbacks that go for, say eleven or twelve bucks from an online retailer?
You see where I'm going with this. This would be absurd. But since we already know what they want to charge for e-books, than all they can do is to raise the cost of the print book to equal or exceed the e-book. This would seem to get to a higher margin and lower cost situation but at no benefit to the consumer/reader.
You'll have rising prices for a diminished product (I think most people would agree that the very nature of a physical book vs. an electronic file denotes a more substantial product; this can be argued, I suppose, but either you value a book or you don't, the actual words aside). In other words, the existence of e-books can be used in an attempt to either push people toward electronic products or simply to accept a higher cost. It's that higher price that has a greater chance of affecting demand moreso than the premise that available hi-tech gadgets will always supplant anything older than your first dog.
Again, as an endless repeat, I think what ought to happen is that a niche for e-books be created and allowed to grow to whatever size of the market would like to see. But when a small number of entities control the majority of a market, an oligopoly as it were, they can dictate more than respond to the market. I've already been driven to second hand books to a degree I absolutely rejected not so many years ago. But a used book vs. new book isn't much of a contest. Fortunately, despite the fact that I own two e-book readers (and other than experimenting haven't spent a dollar on new e-books), if you price me out of the market now I can make do with a) the books I already own, b) the library, and c) public domain e-books.
Bring back real mass market paperbacks. Hell, bring back pulp magazines. How cool would that be? I have no idea what The Shadow's been up to since the war in Europe ended.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 9:56 PM
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