Penguin CEO: E-book is the answer to my prayers

[HarryT]

Then you're probably paying roughly the same in real terms, but are you really paying that much?

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Precisely - that's why I said "in real terms". If a CD costs $15 now, and was also $15 20 years ago, it actually now costs about a third of what it did 20 years ago in terms of your "buying power".

That may be true to a large extent - inflation computations are trickier than simple money to money because many things, including houses, cars.. improve dramatically over time - but it's beside the point. The price of music fell through the floor recently as did the price of news, of encyclopedias and lots of other stuff.

The music industry is starting to recognize it and adapt rather than fight a losing battle - one that brings then hate from tons of people who otherwise would be big the perfect customers.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

While this doesn't mark the first time that we've caught wind of Penguin's recent efforts in e-books, it certainly is balm for my battered soul to hear the CEO speak out so positively about them:



Alas, he doesn't agree with my personal feeling that e-books should sell at a considerable discount to p-books. Oh well.

Check out the Houston Chronicle for the full interview with Penguin Group's CEO David Shanks.

Related: Penguin USA to release back-list titles as e-books, Penguin to publish new titles simultaneously as e-books

Huh .... read the article, and here's where I have a problem with his idea about paying a premium for convenience. When my Kindle finally gets here tomorrow, I will have paid (with add in cards and such) a little over $400 in premium for my convenience. And, that's before I pay for any books.

So, this bozo expects me to pay him an additional couple of bucks for every book I might buy from him because having an ebook is convenient?? I think I'll pass on Penguin books unless there is no other option.

[zelda_pinwheel]

that seems to be a pretty common sentiment around here. might i suggest you actually drop them a brief email letting them know how you feel, in hopes that if enough of us do so, they will eventually be forced to listen ? (and also to forestall any claims that "no-one is interested in ebooks, look how few we sell compared to paper") a few of us have done so already, see this thread.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Except ebook sales numbers are growing by leaps & bounds. If they're happy with the rate of growth what's to make them want to re-evaluate current pricing structures?

And besides, how can they be stuck with high inventory on an eBook?

Dale

[Taylor514ce]

One of my messages to Sony re: their prices vs. Amazon's, referred to Amazon's "volume discounts". I wrote back asking how volume applied to e-books. I received, from a different technician, this interesting answer:

Thank you for contacting The eBook Store from Sony!

A better way to put it would be to think of the number of books in terms of the number of licenses sold for each title. I myself don't know whether we buy x amount of licenses and hope to sell them all, or whether we simply pay a share to the publishers for each license we sell (more likely).

I would expect that Amazon has a bit more leverage when it comes to purchasing the digital editions since they are also moving so many hardcopies of titles, and have for years.

We certainly take your input very seriously, and I have sent your concerns to the proper channels.

If the information I have provided does not completely answer your question, please update this incident so I may be of further assistance to you.