Downloaded books cost how much?

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But is it that simple? Remember, the online ebook sellers have to pay for the machine their website is hosted on as well as the bandwidth used by the store. Then there is paying the employees as well. Not to mention that there are employees who have to get the ebook ready once it's gone through the editing and whatnot. The ebook has to be converted into about 5-7 different formats roughly. All that costs money too. Do you think once the book is in electronic form to go to pre-press, it doesn't have any more expenses associated with it?

And how do you explain how at least 3 sites offer eBooks for Free? (Gutenberg, Munseys, ManyBooks.)
And how do you explain low cost sites? (Like Fictionwise.)

Yes. It is that simple.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

And how do you explain how at least 3 sites offer eBooks for Free? (Gutenberg, Munseys, ManyBooks.)
And how do you explain low cost sites? (Like Fictionwise.)

Yes. It is that simple.

ebooks for free... Easy... those are out of copyright books.

You think Fictionwise is low cost? Fictionwise is about the same, give or take as some of the other ebook retailers.

[guguy]

View Post
But is it that simple? Remember, the online ebook sellers have to pay for the machine their website is hosted on as well as the bandwidth used by the store. Then there is paying the employees as well. Not to mention that there are employees who have to get the ebook ready once it's gone through the editing and whatnot. The ebook has to be converted into about 5-7 different formats roughly. All that costs money too. Do you think once the book is in electronic form to go to pre-press, it doesn't have any more expenses associated with it?

Online pBook stores such as amazon also have to pay for the website and the
employees!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by guguy

Online pBook stores such as amazon also have to pay for the website and the employees!

So do ebook stores as well.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

rlauzon is right in pointing out that there are differences in production expenses between print and e-books, and e-book production expenses are lower without a physical product. However, as long as the same house is producing the print books and the e-books, those print-related production expenses aren't going to come off the board, which means that the act of producing e-books will be an additional step for publishers, and incur more cost to them (mainly personnel activity involved in the conversion and maintenance of the websites).

Publishers make their big money on hardbacks. Then they print paperbacks to make additional money, and paperbacks, which cost less to print than hardbacks, don't cost the same as hardbacks. What paperbacks lack in cost, they make up for in volume, so they are still profitable for publishers.

E-books cost less to produce than paperbacks. However, publishers cannot yet depend on making money on the volume of e-books, so they cannot set their profit margins the way they set them on paperbacks... yet. But when enough people read e-books that publishers see measurable and dependable volume, e-books will be priced accordingly, somewhere below the cost of a paperback.

It could also come down to independents setting the market price first, forcing the big publishers to retool to match the price, or try to raise it again, and still make their profits.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

ebooks for free... Easy... those are out of copyright books.

You missed my point: these sites offer eBooks for free, running only on donations, yet their infrastructure stays up for. Therefore the costs of the servers, etc. is very minimal.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You think Fictionwise is low cost? Fictionwise is about the same, give or take as some of the other ebook retailers.

That's not what I've seen. Most eBook sellers charge greater than paper (usually hardcover) price for eBooks.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

...which means that the act of producing e-books will be an additional step for publishers, and incur more cost to them (mainly personnel activity involved in the conversion and maintenance of the websites).

<click><click><click> There, I just produced an eBook. No cost.

Upload to Fictionwise. Let them sell the eBook for me. Again, no cost.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

E-books cost less to produce than paperbacks. However, publishers cannot yet depend on making money on the volume of e-books, so they cannot set their profit margins the way they set them on paperbacks... yet.

I fail to see the logic. There is almost no cost to produce an eBook. Even if the sale of eBooks is 1/1000 of that of the paper book, it's almost all profit.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

<click><click><click> There, I just produced an eBook. No cost.

Upload to Fictionwise. Let them sell the eBook for me. Again, no cost.

I fail to see the logic. There is almost no cost to produce an eBook. Even if the sale of eBooks is 1/1000 of that of the paper book, it's almost all profit.

Have you ever even tried to make an ebook? I just looked up your posts as far back as February and couldn't find one. Please go do one, and see how long it takes.

Your claim that it takes no time at all to make an ebook is an insult to all the people here who have put countless hours into converting them.

[JSWolf]

It takes the same amount of time for the author to make an ebook as a papager book. Ok, granted you can have both formats from the same source, but that does not mean it takes no time to make the ebook. The ebook is the same as the paper book except for the final product. The only different is one is electronic and the other is paper.

Now, take away the paper book, let's get rid of it. Now if the book is only going to be electronic, the costs involved to make it to market are almost the same as it would have been had ot been paper only. You have the auther, the publishers, editors, proofreaders, etc.. the same as youi have for the paper edition. It's only when the book is said to be finished do things differ as now we need people to put it together in the various ebook formats and get it out to the ebook shops. Where like a book store in your are you have staff and other costs of running the shop.

Now take that same book, and make both a papaer and electronic editions and you have even more cost involved as you have to pay the employees to make the electronic versions.

I agree that electronic books need to be priced lower enough from the paper editions that it makes it a good deal to the general public. So they say hey, this mony I'm spending on my reader is going to be recuperated by the lower costs of the electronic books vs. the paper books. That's wonderful. But if they see the cost of the electronic book too close to the cost of the paper book, they may say, why bother? There isn't really enough of a cost savings.

This all has to do with how the public perceives the pricing structure. I for one will not purchase ebooks priced close to that of a hardcover. I think that's out and out silly.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I agree that electronic books need to be priced lower enough from the paper editions that it makes it a good deal to the general public. So they say hey, this mony I'm spending on my reader is going to be recuperated by the lower costs of the electronic books vs. the paper books. That's wonderful. But if they see the cost of the electronic book too close to the cost of the paper book, they may say, why bother? There isn't really enough of a cost savings.

If a paper book and an eBook were the same price, I would personally buy the eBook, because I find it a lot more convenient - it doesn't take any space to store. I certainly don't perceive an eBook as having less value than a paper book.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

<click><click><click> There, I just produced an eBook. No cost.

I fail to see the logic. There is almost no cost to produce an eBook. Even if the sale of eBooks is 1/1000 of that of the paper book, it's almost all profit.

There's no cost to clicking a keyboard. However, there is a cost to paying someone a full day's wage to click that keyboard. How much is your time worth? Your profit has to cover costs of employees' salaries, office space, etc... if you're a publishing house, profits are to cover the house.

Publishers figure everything against whether they will stay in business. They sell so many hardbacks at such a cost, to make Profit A. They sell paperbacks at such a cost to make Profit B. Profit A plus Profit B have to cover the costs of doing business.

If you add even one job for the express purpose of creating the e-books and maintaining the web site, your profits have to cover thet job... either Profit A, Profit B, or the profits from e-books, Profit C. If Profit C does not cover it, everyone else in the house loses profit... and decides not to spend money on something that will not profit them.

This means publishers will have to make adjustments to the way they do business, in order to add e-books to their catalogs and still make the same or better profit. When they have that figured out, e-books will start to proliferate.

Because e-books are considered low-cost to consumers, I expect publishers to start cooking up Value-Added ideas to add to their e-books, or their services, to make them more attractive to consumers, even at higher prices. Their alternative is to further subsidize e-books with included ads for other products (the same way a DVD has ads for products and other movies added to it).

If not, they'll only see less profit, and have to deal with the realities of the changing market.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Have you ever even tried to make an ebook? I just looked up your posts as far back as February and couldn't find one. Please go do one, and see how long it takes.

Your claim that it takes no time at all to make an ebook is an insult to all the people here who have put countless hours into converting them.

Yes, I have a large number of them sitting on my hard drive, ready to be read. So I do know how long it takes and it takes about 3 clicks of the mouse.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Yes, I have a large number of them sitting on my hard drive, ready to be read. So I do know how long it takes and it takes about 3 clicks of the mouse.

How long did it take to get those ebooks in the format ready for you to read? MORE THEN THREE CLICKS! If I start with an RTF file and use Book Designer to create an LRF, it takes more then THREE CLICKS to do so. Trust me when I say YOU ARE WAY OFF BASE HERE!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Speaking for myself, when I convert a book of mine into an e-book format, I have to:

1. Alter the text file with appropriate headers, chapters, etc for the format;
2. Possibly doublespace the paragraphs, or substitute paragraph tabs with an extra hard space;
3. Input text into e-book creation software;
4. Input cover (a whole 'nother ball game);
5. Format the e-book meta-files with title, subject, author, copyright data, etc;
6. Create e-book;
7. Go back and proof the file, to make sure everything came out properly, and looks right. If something is wrong, I may have to go back to the original text file and start over;
8. Repeat for the other 5 formats I save each book in.

You couldn't even macro that into just 3 clicks. And every serious publisher is going to have to go through at least all of those steps on each book they format. It may not be a time-consuming process (other than writing and proofing time), but it is step-intensive.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

How long did it take to get those ebooks in the format ready for you to read? MORE THEN THREE CLICKS! If I start with an RTF file and use Book Designer to create an LRF, it takes more then THREE CLICKS to do so.

Then you are using a poor tool.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Trust me when I say YOU ARE WAY OFF BASE HERE!

You have yet to explain how I am way off base.

I assume that all books are submitted to the publishers in electronic form. To do so otherwise makes little sense in this day and age. Once it's in that form, it's simply a matter of saving the file into a standard format (once we have a standard eBook format).

OK. I give in. So it's not 3 clicks. It's 6 clicks. Twice the work that I thought.