They should just let the publishers decide what they want to charge, let the free market decide what e books should go for, enough with the price fixing already!
Ummm...publishers and retailers negotiating on price *is* "letting the free market decide." If not the publisher or the retailer, who should be deciding what price to charge?
Shame on Amazon. While I don't necessarily agree with the pricing of eBooks, just because there is a dispute on what a publisher wants for a book, it is not right of Amazon to deny their customers the right to get a Macm book from Amazon or Kindle. The market will bear what price people are willing to pay to get an eBook or hard copy. If publishers want more for new books and if they pass this on to the authors, then it is only right that a new book should get a higher price. If you go to a bookstore, you would pay more for a just released novel. You as a consumer can decide to wait until the price comes down and buy the book three or four months later. Suppose that Borders or any other retailer decides not to carry ANY books of a publisher because of a pricing issue on a new book--almost borders on censorship. It would have been more reasonable if Amazon told Macm we won't increase the price so you have the option of not listing any new books with us or you can allow us to list them at our agreed to price; but to remove all Macm books that is just plain shameful.
If your running a business and your supplier just raised their prices 133%, you surely can deny carrying their products if it doesn't bother making your business worthwhile.
You see, Amazon is selling Kindles, in order to justify buying a expensive device the customer has to realize a benefit over traditional books which look a heck of a lot nicer on a shelf and can be resold.
If the e-content prices are too high, adoption is going to be quite low and not many Kindles will be sold and the whole concept of e-books will just die off.
Publishers have a interest in e-books because it cuts their costs in half over traditional books, the lower they set their prices, the more volume they will have and possibly more total revenue.
Right now the publishers feel that they can set their prices higher and if they realize lost total revenue, they then can place certain books "on sale" to generate higher volume.
However the e-book thing is rather a instant thing, people buy a device because they want what they want right now, instead of the traditional browsing in the bookstore.
I think it would be a good thing for the publishers to study the concept of renting their e-books, this would appeal to a very very large audience and possible make more in total revenue than buying.
With a device like a Kindle or a iPad, the content can be snatched off the device after a certain time period, unlike a traditional book.
Apple should have defended the consumer here and insisted on the lower pricing that amazon.com charges. It costs next to NOTHING to distribute an eBook... $9.99 is MORE THAN ENOUGH to charge for an eBook. It's a real shame that Apple didn't go to bat for consumers this time around, while amazon.com did.
Just days earlier, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had a conversation with Journal tech reporter Walt Mossberg in which he said that iPad book prices would be "the same" as the cost of e-book content for Amazon's Kindle. Currently, Kindle bestsellers go for $9.99, but a previous report said Apple wanted to offer bestsellers for between $12.99 and $14.99.
The apparent troubles between Macmillan and Amazon suggests that Jobs' comments to Mossberg were meant to imply that Amazon book prices would eventually increase to match higher costs on the iPad.
Corporations are greedy. They all want to make money. Jobs is not looking out for book readers. He is looking out for Apple.
Competition is the only thing that drives down prices in a capitalist economy. Amazon may have some terms that benefit itself and happen to benefit the consumer, but Apple is going to change that.
I don't read many books, but I think the iPad is more than people think it is. I await it...
Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.
We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.
Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!
Thank you for being a customer.
I guess the price just went up. Expect the other publishers to follow.
Note: I have no affiliation with Amazon, Apple, Macmillan, or the author.
I don't think enough people are reading articles like this. We already know that Amazon takes a large cut when selling ebooks, and we know that they claimed to change this to fit Apple's supposed offer. But think about it this way (we'll round some of the numbers to make it easy):
If a book costs $10, and Amazon takes 70%, the publisher and author get $3. If Apple takes 30%, the publisher/author gets $7. If they now go to Amazon and ask for the same cut, but Amazon refuses, then to get $7 at only 30% forces them to price the book at $23. That's a huge increase. But Amazon won't allow it anyway.
Now Amazon is offering 70% to the publisher, but with very specific terms, one of which is that the book can't be more than $10 and they can't sell the book for any less anywhere - be it ebook or physical. If a new printing was a paperback at only $7.99, they would lose money online, too.
For the inevitable iTunes argument - as the link above points out, it's a different story. Firstly, the music industry is working with much larger volumes. Apple could have shown them that pricing at $0.99 made sense because we're talking about millions of songs sold. Books, however, will sell thousands to hundreds of thousands. That's a huge difference. And Apple has "smartened up" and allowed higher pricing, with the agreement that some songs be cheaper as well. Macmillan is actually *asking* for this - let us price higher initially and we promise we'll bring down prices over time. That's already been proven to work in the physical world, so it makes sense as a model. So while Apple did initially control prices on songs, it's not quite the same, especially since they never gouged artists by insisting on a huge cut, and didn't tell them they weren't allowed to sell songs other places.
Even if books do start to cost more, this leads us to a few conclusions:
1) The raised cost will likely not be all that high, since we can see by the math that just the change in model between Apple and Amazon gives publishers a big advantage.
2) Prices will come down over time. Maybe not as a whole, but each individual book will become cheaper after a few months. And eventually, they might not even start as high when publishers discover the best dynamic pricing models.
3) The lower prices are not about Amazon protecting consumers or else they wouldn't have to force the "you can't sell elsewhere" clause, and they wouldn't have pulled Macmillan's books entirely. It's about control and insisting on selling for less to the consumer, while taking more for themselves.
And a corollary that's more hope than conclusion: If the publisher and author get more and become more satisfied with the system, they may offer more - remember, the iPad can do to books what it promises for magazines, with interactive content. While that obviously won't work for all books, most of which are meant to just be read, it may start to influence authors to try unique things.
Basically what I'm saying is, yes, it may cost a bit more, but it could end better for publishers and authors, which in the end could be better for us.
The average cost of a new hardcover is $26 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/we...ew/17rich.html). At least as applied to new books, assuming the price is, say, $15, that's more than 40% off. That $11 difference should more than handily cover savings from the ".....producing, storing, crating, distributing, shipping, uncrating, retailing, recrating, reshipping, and re-storing...." costs.
How do Kindle prices compare, in general, to paperback prices? In theory, Kindle should be cheaper than paperback which is cheaper than hardcover.
$20 maybe, not $12-$15. At least not in the Target's, Borders, and Barnes & Nobles in Orange County, California..
Maybe you're right about those places. I was going off memory from Costco and Amazon. Before I posted, I clicked around on a few bestsellers on Amazon and didn't see anything over $15. Because of this, you can see why they want to keep their eBook prices low. If you go to Amazon looking to buy the latest Dan Brown book and see that the hardcover is $12, you are not going to be too excited to buy a Kindle if the eBook price is $12-15.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John.B
Strawman.
Amazon hasn't done good work for consumers, Amazon is doing good work for Amazon.
If this is true (and I have no reason to believe it's not), then I think Amazon is about to get some of that down-home DOJ lovin'...
My understanding of this new pricing model is that it's an additional option for publishing to the Kindle, in addition to whatever the "traditional" model was. It's not ideal, and it's probably a bad deal for the big publishers (so they can stick with what they already agreed to), but if you're an independent author, it's probably much more appealing. Similar to Apple's App Store, you give up a lot of control in exchange for a generous share of the money. In both cases, the traditional publisher is being replaced, and in both cases, the little guy gets a better deal than with the traditional publisher.
Sure, Amazon is there to make money, just like any other business, but their interests seem to align with the consumers' interests.
I don't understand what Apple's interests are with the iBook Store. The consumer definitely loses. Apple loses, because people will be less inclined to buy books from them. And in the long run, the publishers lose too, because their obsolescence will be expedited.
Apple should have defended the consumer here and insisted on the lower pricing that amazon.com charges. It costs next to NOTHING to distribute an eBook... $9.99 is MORE THAN ENOUGH to charge for an eBook. It's a real shame that Apple didn't go to bat for consumers this time around, while amazon.com did.
That's a bit of an exaggeration.
Firstly, "distribution" is only one part of the publishing cycle?that, and printing, are obviously a lot cheaper with e(i)Books. Writing, editing, graphics, promotion, etc are all just as expensive.
Secondary, Amazon insisted on cheaper prices, but then insisted (up until the week before the iPad was announced) that they get to keep about two-thirds of the revenue. The publisher and the author got to split the remaining one third of the revenue. So Amazon sold cheaper eBooks and the publisher and author lost money.
I'd like lower prices, but the whole thing has to be a viable business?and with Amazon's original pricing model, only Amazon made any money.
All you people on here ranking on Amazon now yet defending Apple always year after year for fixing pricing on iTunes and TV shows. A year ago you all jumped all over NBC for puling the iTunes content. No wonder people hate Apple and their fanboyz.
All you people on here ranking on Amazon now yet defending Apple always year after year for fixing pricing on iTunes and TV shows. A year ago you all jumped all over NBC for puling the iTunes content. No wonder people hate Apple and their fanboyz.
Why do you hang out - no, that should be, insist on hanging out since you begged to be back here on AI after being banned, thrown out, etc - with a bunch of folks that 'people' (perhaps you too, by implication), 'hate?'
Why do you hang out - no, that should be, insist on hanging out since you begged to be back here on AI after being banned, thrown out, etc - with a bunch of folks that 'people' (perhaps you too, by implication), 'hate?'
I don't "hang out", i actually multi-task and do other things while this website is up on my computer. While multi-tasking may seem strange to you and many others on here now because you will always cede to whatever Apple dictates what you should and shouldn't like.
As for me . I enjoy reading many of the threads here, many are informative and some entertaining. And believe it or not I corresponded with many fellow posters on here that share many of my views and I theirs and are open to discus many topics without bias.
And since when was hypocrisy ever a good thing? Why do you defend that concept?
we will forget it because after 1oo,ooo books sell these cost are 4 cts a book
this is a large scam
everyone involves should be ashamed at this high price gouging
we have to pay for all those book advances and parties at the RITZ with real steak dinners and scotch that is older than my shoes
well i guess that charles shultz is dead now
and charlie brown never got to kick that football
damn lucy always pulled it back
these book guys keep on calling me charlie
100,000 books? Not for a normal or average run. I listen to a podcast hosted by a professional writer talking about writing and publishing. In there he talks about 3,000 books being a good run for the average or new author. These large 100,000 runs are very few and are a very, very small sample of the books out there.
JasonQC,
I saw your responses and I frankly dismiss your reference to COSTCO. COSTCO is not a bookstore. Not even close. Their selection, while appropriate for a warehouse store, is nonexistent and I have yet to buy anything there because I have yet to see anything there worth buying. Your reference to Amazon is much better and while I have bought books from Amazon I prefer the physical bookstore. The reason is that I can look through the book and sample it to see if it interests me or answers the questions I'm asking. I can't do that online. I have been disappointed in some of my Amazon purchases to find out that either I do not like the writing style or that the book is answering my questions at the wrong level. I can avoid that somewhat by actually, physically looking at the book.
Well, lets pretend for a moment that the selling price is tied more closely to the cost of producing, storing, crating, distributing, shipping, uncrating, retailing, recrating, reshipping, and re-storing a book, rather than, or perhaps in addition to, any calculation of how much people like, enjoy, or agree with what is in it. The point is that without all those costs associated with non-virtual content, profits on ebooks figure to be far higher at the same price-point. Assuming that all the people in either pipeline are more interested in those profits than in the warm fuzzy glow of everyone's appreciation (shocking), eBooks _should_ sell for less than paper books.
Its incorrect though. That's not the greatest expense. Amazon is also making certain that authors and publishers are getting less for their part of this.It's always more complex than it looks at first.
Here's the point of view of two writers who are not major best seller producers. In other words, they are part of the 99.99% of all other writers.
Maybe reading this will give you a better idea of how it looks from their side.
Apple should have defended the consumer here and insisted on the lower pricing that amazon.com charges. It costs next to NOTHING to distribute an eBook... $9.99 is MORE THAN ENOUGH to charge for an eBook. It's a real shame that Apple didn't go to bat for consumers this time around, while amazon.com did.
I don't know where you get your books, but I usually see new hardcovers for $12-15. Nobody ever seems to sell them for MSRP.
I can't believe that people are defending Apple for undoing all the good work Amazon has done for consumers. I like Apple and I love my Macs, iPods, and iPhone, but because of this and other anti-consumer issues, I wish the iPad didn't exist.
Where, other than Costco, where they sell cheaper versions of hardcovers (book club editions) as loss leaders? New hardcovers usually go for $17, or a bit higher.
You also know that right now, Amazon is losing several dollars on every "hardcover" they sell.
Comments
They should just let the publishers decide what they want to charge, let the free market decide what e books should go for, enough with the price fixing already!
Ummm...publishers and retailers negotiating on price *is* "letting the free market decide." If not the publisher or the retailer, who should be deciding what price to charge?
Shame on Amazon. While I don't necessarily agree with the pricing of eBooks, just because there is a dispute on what a publisher wants for a book, it is not right of Amazon to deny their customers the right to get a Macm book from Amazon or Kindle. The market will bear what price people are willing to pay to get an eBook or hard copy. If publishers want more for new books and if they pass this on to the authors, then it is only right that a new book should get a higher price. If you go to a bookstore, you would pay more for a just released novel. You as a consumer can decide to wait until the price comes down and buy the book three or four months later. Suppose that Borders or any other retailer decides not to carry ANY books of a publisher because of a pricing issue on a new book--almost borders on censorship. It would have been more reasonable if Amazon told Macm we won't increase the price so you have the option of not listing any new books with us or you can allow us to list them at our agreed to price; but to remove all Macm books that is just plain shameful.
If your running a business and your supplier just raised their prices 133%, you surely can deny carrying their products if it doesn't bother making your business worthwhile.
You see, Amazon is selling Kindles, in order to justify buying a expensive device the customer has to realize a benefit over traditional books which look a heck of a lot nicer on a shelf and can be resold.
If the e-content prices are too high, adoption is going to be quite low and not many Kindles will be sold and the whole concept of e-books will just die off.
Publishers have a interest in e-books because it cuts their costs in half over traditional books, the lower they set their prices, the more volume they will have and possibly more total revenue.
Right now the publishers feel that they can set their prices higher and if they realize lost total revenue, they then can place certain books "on sale" to generate higher volume.
However the e-book thing is rather a instant thing, people buy a device because they want what they want right now, instead of the traditional browsing in the bookstore.
I think it would be a good thing for the publishers to study the concept of renting their e-books, this would appeal to a very very large audience and possible make more in total revenue than buying.
With a device like a Kindle or a iPad, the content can be snatched off the device after a certain time period, unlike a traditional book.
And don't forget that cost of producing eBooks (writing, editing and page layouts) is the same.
we will forget it because after 1oo,ooo books sell these cost are 4 cts a book
this is a large scam
everyone involves should be ashamed at this high price gouging
we have to pay for all those book advances and parties at the RITZ with real steak dinners and scotch that is older than my shoes
well i guess that charles shultz is dead now
and charlie brown never got to kick that football
damn lucy always pulled it back
these book guys keep on calling me charlie
Apple should have defended the consumer here and insisted on the lower pricing that amazon.com charges. It costs next to NOTHING to distribute an eBook... $9.99 is MORE THAN ENOUGH to charge for an eBook. It's a real shame that Apple didn't go to bat for consumers this time around, while amazon.com did.
yes
apple was tricked into doing this bad thing
bad people
Just days earlier, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had a conversation with Journal tech reporter Walt Mossberg in which he said that iPad book prices would be "the same" as the cost of e-book content for Amazon's Kindle. Currently, Kindle bestsellers go for $9.99, but a previous report said Apple wanted to offer bestsellers for between $12.99 and $14.99.
The apparent troubles between Macmillan and Amazon suggests that Jobs' comments to Mossberg were meant to imply that Amazon book prices would eventually increase to match higher costs on the iPad.
Um, did Jobs just screw the consumer?
"In a fight over the price of electronic books, Amazon.com has blinked."
Next, they fix the cable.
Competition is the only thing that drives down prices in a capitalist economy. Amazon may have some terms that benefit itself and happen to benefit the consumer, but Apple is going to change that.
I don't read many books, but I think the iPad is more than people think it is. I await it...
Update:
Amazon Gives In, Will Sell eBooks On Macmillan's Terms
Dear Customers:
Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.
We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.
Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!
Thank you for being a customer.
I guess the price just went up. Expect the other publishers to follow.
I thought this article from an author (published by one of Macmillan's many imprints) was insightful.
Amazon, Macmillan: an outsider's guide to the fight
Note: I have no affiliation with Amazon, Apple, Macmillan, or the author.
I don't think enough people are reading articles like this. We already know that Amazon takes a large cut when selling ebooks, and we know that they claimed to change this to fit Apple's supposed offer. But think about it this way (we'll round some of the numbers to make it easy):
If a book costs $10, and Amazon takes 70%, the publisher and author get $3. If Apple takes 30%, the publisher/author gets $7. If they now go to Amazon and ask for the same cut, but Amazon refuses, then to get $7 at only 30% forces them to price the book at $23. That's a huge increase. But Amazon won't allow it anyway.
Now Amazon is offering 70% to the publisher, but with very specific terms, one of which is that the book can't be more than $10 and they can't sell the book for any less anywhere - be it ebook or physical. If a new printing was a paperback at only $7.99, they would lose money online, too.
For the inevitable iTunes argument - as the link above points out, it's a different story. Firstly, the music industry is working with much larger volumes. Apple could have shown them that pricing at $0.99 made sense because we're talking about millions of songs sold. Books, however, will sell thousands to hundreds of thousands. That's a huge difference. And Apple has "smartened up" and allowed higher pricing, with the agreement that some songs be cheaper as well. Macmillan is actually *asking* for this - let us price higher initially and we promise we'll bring down prices over time. That's already been proven to work in the physical world, so it makes sense as a model. So while Apple did initially control prices on songs, it's not quite the same, especially since they never gouged artists by insisting on a huge cut, and didn't tell them they weren't allowed to sell songs other places.
Even if books do start to cost more, this leads us to a few conclusions:
1) The raised cost will likely not be all that high, since we can see by the math that just the change in model between Apple and Amazon gives publishers a big advantage.
2) Prices will come down over time. Maybe not as a whole, but each individual book will become cheaper after a few months. And eventually, they might not even start as high when publishers discover the best dynamic pricing models.
3) The lower prices are not about Amazon protecting consumers or else they wouldn't have to force the "you can't sell elsewhere" clause, and they wouldn't have pulled Macmillan's books entirely. It's about control and insisting on selling for less to the consumer, while taking more for themselves.
And a corollary that's more hope than conclusion: If the publisher and author get more and become more satisfied with the system, they may offer more - remember, the iPad can do to books what it promises for magazines, with interactive content. While that obviously won't work for all books, most of which are meant to just be read, it may start to influence authors to try unique things.
Basically what I'm saying is, yes, it may cost a bit more, but it could end better for publishers and authors, which in the end could be better for us.
The average cost of a new hardcover is $26 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/we...ew/17rich.html). At least as applied to new books, assuming the price is, say, $15, that's more than 40% off. That $11 difference should more than handily cover savings from the ".....producing, storing, crating, distributing, shipping, uncrating, retailing, recrating, reshipping, and re-storing...." costs.
How do Kindle prices compare, in general, to paperback prices? In theory, Kindle should be cheaper than paperback which is cheaper than hardcover.
$20 maybe, not $12-$15. At least not in the Target's, Borders, and Barnes & Nobles in Orange County, California..
Maybe you're right about those places. I was going off memory from Costco and Amazon. Before I posted, I clicked around on a few bestsellers on Amazon and didn't see anything over $15. Because of this, you can see why they want to keep their eBook prices low. If you go to Amazon looking to buy the latest Dan Brown book and see that the hardcover is $12, you are not going to be too excited to buy a Kindle if the eBook price is $12-15.
Strawman.
Amazon hasn't done good work for consumers, Amazon is doing good work for Amazon.
From the above linked blog post from an author (bold is mine, for emphasis):
If this is true (and I have no reason to believe it's not), then I think Amazon is about to get some of that down-home DOJ lovin'...
My understanding of this new pricing model is that it's an additional option for publishing to the Kindle, in addition to whatever the "traditional" model was. It's not ideal, and it's probably a bad deal for the big publishers (so they can stick with what they already agreed to), but if you're an independent author, it's probably much more appealing. Similar to Apple's App Store, you give up a lot of control in exchange for a generous share of the money. In both cases, the traditional publisher is being replaced, and in both cases, the little guy gets a better deal than with the traditional publisher.
Sure, Amazon is there to make money, just like any other business, but their interests seem to align with the consumers' interests.
I don't understand what Apple's interests are with the iBook Store. The consumer definitely loses. Apple loses, because people will be less inclined to buy books from them. And in the long run, the publishers lose too, because their obsolescence will be expedited.
Apple should have defended the consumer here and insisted on the lower pricing that amazon.com charges. It costs next to NOTHING to distribute an eBook... $9.99 is MORE THAN ENOUGH to charge for an eBook. It's a real shame that Apple didn't go to bat for consumers this time around, while amazon.com did.
That's a bit of an exaggeration.
Firstly, "distribution" is only one part of the publishing cycle?that, and printing, are obviously a lot cheaper with e(i)Books. Writing, editing, graphics, promotion, etc are all just as expensive.
Secondary, Amazon insisted on cheaper prices, but then insisted (up until the week before the iPad was announced) that they get to keep about two-thirds of the revenue. The publisher and the author got to split the remaining one third of the revenue. So Amazon sold cheaper eBooks and the publisher and author lost money.
I'd like lower prices, but the whole thing has to be a viable business?and with Amazon's original pricing model, only Amazon made any money.
All you people on here ranking on Amazon now yet defending Apple always year after year for fixing pricing on iTunes and TV shows. A year ago you all jumped all over NBC for puling the iTunes content. No wonder people hate Apple and their fanboyz.
Why do you hang out - no, that should be, insist on hanging out since you begged to be back here on AI after being banned, thrown out, etc - with a bunch of folks that 'people' (perhaps you too, by implication), 'hate?'
Why do you hang out - no, that should be, insist on hanging out since you begged to be back here on AI after being banned, thrown out, etc - with a bunch of folks that 'people' (perhaps you too, by implication), 'hate?'
I don't "hang out", i actually multi-task and do other things while this website is up on my computer. While multi-tasking may seem strange to you and many others on here now because you will always cede to whatever Apple dictates what you should and shouldn't like.
As for me . I enjoy reading many of the threads here, many are informative and some entertaining. And believe it or not I corresponded with many fellow posters on here that share many of my views and I theirs and are open to discus many topics without bias.
And since when was hypocrisy ever a good thing? Why do you defend that concept?
we will forget it because after 1oo,ooo books sell these cost are 4 cts a book
this is a large scam
everyone involves should be ashamed at this high price gouging
we have to pay for all those book advances and parties at the RITZ with real steak dinners and scotch that is older than my shoes
well i guess that charles shultz is dead now
and charlie brown never got to kick that football
damn lucy always pulled it back
these book guys keep on calling me charlie
100,000 books? Not for a normal or average run. I listen to a podcast hosted by a professional writer talking about writing and publishing. In there he talks about 3,000 books being a good run for the average or new author. These large 100,000 runs are very few and are a very, very small sample of the books out there.
JasonQC,
I saw your responses and I frankly dismiss your reference to COSTCO. COSTCO is not a bookstore. Not even close. Their selection, while appropriate for a warehouse store, is nonexistent and I have yet to buy anything there because I have yet to see anything there worth buying. Your reference to Amazon is much better and while I have bought books from Amazon I prefer the physical bookstore. The reason is that I can look through the book and sample it to see if it interests me or answers the questions I'm asking. I can't do that online. I have been disappointed in some of my Amazon purchases to find out that either I do not like the writing style or that the book is answering my questions at the wrong level. I can avoid that somewhat by actually, physically looking at the book.
Well, lets pretend for a moment that the selling price is tied more closely to the cost of producing, storing, crating, distributing, shipping, uncrating, retailing, recrating, reshipping, and re-storing a book, rather than, or perhaps in addition to, any calculation of how much people like, enjoy, or agree with what is in it. The point is that without all those costs associated with non-virtual content, profits on ebooks figure to be far higher at the same price-point. Assuming that all the people in either pipeline are more interested in those profits than in the warm fuzzy glow of everyone's appreciation (shocking), eBooks _should_ sell for less than paper books.
Its incorrect though. That's not the greatest expense. Amazon is also making certain that authors and publishers are getting less for their part of this.It's always more complex than it looks at first.
Here's the point of view of two writers who are not major best seller producers. In other words, they are part of the 99.99% of all other writers.
Maybe reading this will give you a better idea of how it looks from their side.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...outsiders.html
http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01...le-via-amazon/
Apple should have defended the consumer here and insisted on the lower pricing that amazon.com charges. It costs next to NOTHING to distribute an eBook... $9.99 is MORE THAN ENOUGH to charge for an eBook. It's a real shame that Apple didn't go to bat for consumers this time around, while amazon.com did.
You obviously know nothing about publication.
I thought this article from an author (published by one of Macmillan's many imprints) was insightful.
Amazon, Macmillan: an outsider's guide to the fight
Note: I have no affiliation with Amazon, Apple, Macmillan, or the author.
I didn't get to your post when I linked to it. I also linked to another one you should take a look at.
I don't know where you get your books, but I usually see new hardcovers for $12-15. Nobody ever seems to sell them for MSRP.
I can't believe that people are defending Apple for undoing all the good work Amazon has done for consumers. I like Apple and I love my Macs, iPods, and iPhone, but because of this and other anti-consumer issues, I wish the iPad didn't exist.
Where, other than Costco, where they sell cheaper versions of hardcovers (book club editions) as loss leaders? New hardcovers usually go for $17, or a bit higher.
You also know that right now, Amazon is losing several dollars on every "hardcover" they sell.