Comments on: Yep, e-book-shoppers favor bargain-priced books—and new Kindle stats show it

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:00:28 +0000

Why is Mike B surprised by that price? I’ve been screaming for weeks about sham prices on the Kindle store. Just go there and sort Price: High to Low.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?rs=154606011&page=1&rh=n%3A154606011&sort=-price

By: Mike B

Mike B — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:25:55 +0000

Part of my indignation is that my PhD supervisor just wrote a book. He received a lump sum advance. He adhered to a template and produced a “print ready” document including all the figures. The latter was forwarded to the publisher who reviewed and commented. He corrected and returned the document. All done electronically. Literally within about two months the book was in print. I saw the final draft and the book and I didn’t see a difference. So what was the publisher’s cost aside from the advance and the cost of a few days editor’s time? Once there was type-setting and figure production not to mention distribution. What the heck does it cost to pump out an e-book? And frankly what if say Matlab paid to have their logo inserted in the margin of every other page? The revenue on that would probably have the publisher in the black before the book even sold a single copy. And that’s all I have to say about that

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:17:31 +0000

Hey, Mike, it would be interesting to see what the bottom lines are for the publisher and writer are in the case of the $149 book. eBooks.com isn’t the outfit responsible for the high prices. Meanwhile, like you, I’m cheering for reasonably priced books that don’t gouge consumers but at the same time can keep good publishers and writers sustainable. See my just-made post, E-book prices: Real life vs. publishers’ wishes. As the Amazon pricing patterns show, people aren’t exactly eating up $149 Kindle e-books (they presumably don’t even exist), but, yes, maybe e-books will take off with the $5-$10 titles they are choosing. Meanwhile eBooks.com, having chosen not to compete on price in many and perhaps most cases, is at least competing in service and shopping experience via the capabilities of eb20 and so on. Happy holidays! - David

P.S. Surprise of surprise, I couldn’t find the algorithm book in the Kindle store.

By: Mike B

Mike B — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:54:20 +0000

I visited the ebooks.com site pursuant to an earlier mention in the blog yesterday. Here’s why ebooks will never take off:

Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms
By: Ribeiro, B. (ed.); Albrecht, R.F. (ed.); Dobnikar, A. (ed.); Pearson, D.W. (ed.)
Published by: Springer

Price: $149.00

That much and the privilege of DRM? You’ve got to be kidding! I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think ebooks are far cheaper for a publisher so why not pass that on to consumers? Knee-jerk reaction … greed. Fine. I’ll find a scanned copy for my ebook collection.

By: BooksForABuck

BooksForABuck — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:01:02 +0000

Agree that the Kindle would need to be revamped for European cellular standards which, I had guessed, would be the major technical problem (problems with varying electrical standards have certainly been dealt with enough that they shouldn’t be a surprise). It’s interesting to note that the eBookWise is also not available in Europe. I’m not sure if Sony has released there. Considering the value of the Euro, and that Europeans are more mass-transit friendly than Americans, I think this may be a problem.

One other issue–not copyright exactly but perhaps what you had in mind–publishers purchase limited rights. Many publishers purchase North American rights. So there’d need to be some mechanism to differentiate a British Kindle from a US Kindle from a German Kindle. Again not impossible, but a hassle. From the start, I’ve purchased worldwide rights (could be a problem when the Mars colony opens) because it’s extremely difficult to limit eBooks geographically.

Comes down to using old rules for new technology.

Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com

By: Dan Jackson

Dan Jackson — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:03:12 +0000

Territorially related copyright agreements are surely a factor here

Not just copyright agreements, but mobile carrier agreements as well… for the Kindle to be launched in Europe, Amazon would have to change its wireless access method from EVDO to something that Europe actually has, and also make individual agreements with each nation’s carriers (similar to what has happened with Apple and the iPhone).