Ebooks and Hardcovers

[jimnduncan]

Today Hachette Books and Simon&Schuster annonced that they would be delaying release of ebooks on a number of their hardcovers by four months. This will undoubtedly annoy the vast number of folks who read ebooks and are getting used to the notion of downloading new releases on release day. In the article, it was stated that this is being done to

Comments

[anicalewis]

An interesting point I've read about the pricing of e-books is that, as of now, e-book publishers lose money on new titles priced at $9.99 because they pay the publishers as much for the titles as anyone else. E-books are loss-leaders for e-book readers, which is where the companies make their money.

If too many people switch to e-books, though - especially once a critical mass of them has already purchased e-readers - this won't be a sustainable system. Either e-book sellers will have to jack up their prices, or publishers will have to provide e-book sellers with their titles cheaper.

We'll see. The future is a land of mystery . . .