(Untitled)

[barbarienne]

Over in her blog, aeriedraconia asked why ebooks aren't any cheaper than paper books. And I explained:

Because the only difference in cost for an ebook is the PPB, also known as "paper, print, and bind," and the cost of freight. However, the publisher has the additional costs of prepping their files for a bazillion ebook formats, and having someone check those

Comments

[kouaidou]

Eh? Really? Amazon touts their Kindle books as being $2-10 off of standard list price and I find it holds up. Though I guess they could be lying about standard list price. Is this just exclusive to Amazon, and other ebooks do it differently?

(While I'm asking about this, how is it determined what gets e-book'd and what doesn't? Is it basically the publisher's call, the author's call, or do they listen to fan demand at all?)

[barbarienne]

The discount Amazon gives is the same discount they give on print books. A print paperback with a cover price of $7.99 might sell for $6 at Amazon or B&N. They can do that because they only pay $4 for it.

I don't know for certain what sort of split publishers and booksellers have on ebooks, but I bet it's comparable. An ebook works out better for the bookseller--they don't have to stock or warehouse it, or inventory it (gee, do we need to order more copies?). Amazon doesn't have to worry about the files being formatted correctly; that's the publisher's problem.

All Amazon has to do is track what ebooks they have available, and how many times each is downloaded. Given their massive database infrastructure, it's probably dead simple to do that. They don't incur a lot of overhead.

[barbarienne]

Oh, and to answer the second question: all the major publishers make "ebook rights" a standard, non-negotiable part of the contract these days. One may dicker over the exact terms for those rights, but unless you are John Grisham, Nora Roberts, or another author with those sales figures, you WILL sell ebook rights to your print publisher, one way or another.

[ObDisc: smaller publishers may do things differently, but it would be very, very, very, very unusual.]

And the practical result of that is: the publisher decides what goes to ebook. I expect as the market for ebooks grows (and it is definitely growing), more of each publisher's list will be avail thus.

I also expect some day the big publishers will put out ebook-originals, instead of just doing an ebook edition of something they are doing in print.

[julesjones]

Can I link to this the next time someone tells me that my small press ebooks are a rip-off because they're the same price as mass market paperbacks? I'm getting very tired of explaining that there are other costs involved besides manufacture and shipping of the physical book...

[barbarienne]

Of course. You can always link to things I've posted unlocked.

[mnfaure]

Thanks for this. I've often wondered about it without actually giving it much thought.