Posted by
tigerbay
14 yrs ago
I have thought about Kindle, but the only two books I have really wanted recently, the ebook price is the same as the hardback version.
The paperbacks are about a third the price. Perhaps a similar rip off to the price of CDs used to be. Twice the price of an LP but a quarter of the production cost.
REally annoyed as there is not paper and no distribution network, or storage to pay for.
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Contrary to common belief, the printing and so forth are far from the majority of the cost. For your typical novel here's the breakdown from retail price
- Author gets 10-15%
- Distributor and Shop get 50% and normally have right of return for full refund within a few months
- Publisher gets the rest, thus 35-40%. From this, the publisher has to pay for printing, editing, marketing, cover design. And let's not forget PR copies and those returns if the book doesn't sell.
Printing is only a fraction of the total and so even removing it will not make a book that much cheaper.
As for distribution, certainly ebook distribution is cheaper than paper book distribution, but it is far from free. Servers don't run themselves and customer service doesn't work for nothing.
In the end of course, market forces rule. If it is Dan Brown or John Grisham, of course it can command a high price. On the other hand you can get tens of thousands of completely free books. If you only read the latest bestsellers, it is as expensive as hardback. But if you have a wider variety, including out of print and classics, the equation is much more in your favour.
You say you only wanted to read two books recently. If you only plan on reading a 2 books a year, a Kindle is probably not worth your while. I adore mine but I'm more of a book a week kind of person.
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The other problem with ebooks is that you don't own in many cases, you have right to hold it and read it, but you can't sell it to another person like you can with a physical book.
It is true that there are thousands of free books out there and you are not limited to carry in your ebook reader what ever the corner shop has. You can install journals, technical guides and literally have a whole library with you where ever you go.
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@axptguy
I hear what you say about costs, but I would still expect the ebook to come it at near the price of a paperback version, or a few pennies less. Not at a few pennies more than the hardback version.
I don't read a lot, but I do see books I want that I cannot get in China. HK has a wealth of really great bookstores and mega choice. Mainland has a dearth of English language books, and a lot of the translations are really poor.
The ability to find books and download is the attraction. As it is I have to buy on Amazon UK and wait for someone to bring them over, or pay high postage, as Amazon does not deliver to China. OK there is Amazon China, but it ain't good. And so for me it would be worth paying the extra, but the idea of everyone else paying the high prices does irk me.
I am used to having to pay a premium for everything in mainland China (except fake DVDs), and I am used to being ripped off occasionally, but...
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I agree that it could cost like the paperback, but it's about what the market can bear. Why sell at the price of a paperback when you can get the price of a hardback? It's not fair, it's the market.
BTW I completely disagree about HK have great bookstores. Probably compared to the Mainland but the bookstores here totally blow compared to the UK and especially the US. The selection is a disaster unless your taste is very mainstream. Back pre-Kindle, I ordered practically all my books from Bookdepository or Amazon.
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will bookdepository ship to PRC?
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PRC is not on the "delivery free of charge list", but you could try contacting them and asking if they ship there at all: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/help/topic/HelpId/15/Contact-us#helpContent
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This is food for thought. The guys from archive.org have started to archive real books...
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/06/20/0158255/The-End-of-Paper-Books
When all our knowledge is on digital format, if a massive solar flare fries all our computers, what happens to all our knowlege... For starters all commerce would stop.
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As far as I know, if there is a solar flare massive enough to do that kind of damage preserving ebooks will be the least of our problems.
Also, paper books are hardly invulnerable. ;)
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If by damage from solar flare you refer to something called Electro Magnetic Phenomena/Pulse (EMP), then it will only knock out electric equipment that is turned on at the time of the pulse. It is harmless to electronics that are not switched on. It would not wipe a hard disc copy or data stored on other media. I am not sure it would fry a hard disc that is in a machine that is switched on either, as the disc is not a circuit.
I am not saying it won't happen. But it is an interesting question.
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The vast majority of hard disks that have got anything valid stored on them, are powered on.
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