Aloha,
On 9/22/2011 2:41 AM, kaostar wrote:
[log in to unmask]"
type="cite">i've recently reviewed two fabulous academic books on
esoteric subjects for scholarly journals, and while i was largely
laudatory, my critique of both revolved around *price* (50-80 UK
for a 200 page hardback, with no company info to be had on when-if
a cheaper paperback will ever emerge, and the ebook version is the
same price, which is nuts) and *size* - often academic works are
not made to include extra appendices with useful stuff, but edited
down to fit a commerical or practical printing remit, not a
subject scope remit;
A few thoughts and such about book pricing and production
and selling:
Here in the U.S. (as best as I understand the complicated
circumstances) e-text pricing has adopted what is called
"the agency model." The agency model establishes a
single uniform price for an e-book across all retailers and
re-sellers. This price is determined by the publisher or
author's agent.
(Rights of reproduction across then, now, and future media
and technologies looks to be an active area of intellectual
property law these days.)
This agency model is quite different from the wholesale/retail
model that covers the pricing of printed books and magazines.
That model leaves the selling price to be determined by the
retailer. That model enabled the sometimes deep discounting
that printed book buyers have come to expect.
These two pricing models are more or less incommensurable.
Right now, e-book prices are firm and fixed, printed book
prices are variable according to sales records and marketing
intentions. A book retailer may offer 40-50% off price for a
printed book, but is obliged to sell the e-text of the same
book at the set agency model price.
Prices for printed book versions can differ from prices for the
e-book versions. Sometimes, they do, other times, they don't.
Here in the U.S., getting to agency model e-book pricing involved
some considerable legal maneuvers, and possibly a court case or
two.
Alongside that, an influential bloc of bestselling authors made
it clear that they would not accept notably diminished royalties
from
the sale of e-books--which would have been the outcome of e-book
pricing using the wholesale/retail model.
Interestingly, the materials and manufacturing costs of a printed
book
are not all that large a part of all that contributes to a printed
book's retail price. So the expectation that lots of readers had
about
dropping those manufacturing costs leading to much cheaper
e-books don't pan out.
In fact, it looks to me like this chunk of costs have just shifted
from paper and presses to designers and formatters and such.
E-books use several formats, some of them proprietary to a certain
book reader/retailer. To bring a e-book to market, the e-text
usually
has to be offered in several formats. Keeps somebody busy.
What publishers, booksellers, and authors aim to garner from e-book
sales appear to be what sets e-book prices--as adopting the agency
model demonstrates.
(Now I am assuming that academic publishers are signing on to
agency model pricing.)
Musing Just Because A File (E-Book) Is Intangible Does Not Mean
That We Don't Want To Make A Living Making & Selling It! Rose,
Pitch
Faery led around the book world for most of his life...
