Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

That’s why I haven’t bought Can’t Stand the Heat, by Louisa Edwards, yet.  When I read about it on True Romance, I wanted it then and there—only to find out that the ebook price is $12.60 at Sony or $12.56 at Books on Board.  The paper version is $6.99.  I’m sorry, but that’s effed up.  I’ve been looking for it locally and, if I find it, I’ll pick it up then.

Sherrilyn Kenyon’s new book Born of Night is a mass market paperback listed at $7.99.  Amazon Kindle is the ONLY eBook version and is listed at $9.99.  Why???!!!  This is ridiculous. 

I received my “announcement” newsletter from St. Martins and replied to it with my confusion on the pricing.  I received an automated message. 

Linda Howard’s new hardback release was 16.95 the first week of release and is now $9.99.

And hence the major reason I refuse to go digital. 

Digital books cost the publisher, um, nothing (Ok, not nothing, but damn close to nothing.) to produce yet they charge double (Double!) what they charge for mass paperbacks.  (Which can be traded, loaned, donated, etc. etc. etc.)  It’s so far beyond ridiculous, I can barely stand it. It’s one thing if a self pulbished author charges $12.99 for an e-book (After all, most of the money is going to the author and a paper copy would cost as much if not more, so I could almost swallow it.)  It’s quite another when, as Liz so eloquently put it, a publisher extends a finger.

Better fork over that Ivory.

Let me add my grrrness in as well.  Really p***ed off about ebooks in general.  Why are ebooks not released at the same time as the print form, classic example was Kresley Cole’s last book.  The ebook was released at least six weeks after the print version? You think it’d be pretty simple.  Another question, why when the print version has already been released in Australia do geographical restrictions prevent me from buying the book from Fictionwise when I can waltz straight over to booksonboard and buy the same book (albeit for a few dollars extra)? And why are some books not released as ebooks at all?

And this is why I refuse to buy anything from St. Martin’s/Macmillan directly.  Even though I love Lisa Kleypas, I refuse to even purchase the paperback new until her publisher stops this ridiculous price gouging of eBook readers.  Sure, I have to wait a little longer until I find her books at the UBS, but I’d rather wait than endorse what is clearly a money grab on the part of the publisher.

I am so in agreement with you ladies. It chaps my hide (my Texan roots) to pay $9.99 for a book at Kindle or anywhere else and then see the book elsewhere for $7.99 in paper. This isn’t counting the fact that the paper copy could be traded, loaned out, etc. ACK! I thought the idea of the ebooks was that they would be cheaper and easier and “greener.” Hello? Sometimes it seems that they, like a convenience store selling a gallon of milk for $7 that you could buy at the grocery for $3, charge a heck of a surcharge for convenience. Hello? I can go to a bookstore or Amazon (paper copy) and get it cheaper, faster, in paper. I don’t need to use my fabulous ereader. I love it, but I’m not stupid. It’s funny that Amazon is screwing themselves because what I won’t pay in Kindle I’ll buy from them in paper. Shhhhhh, don’t tell them, ‘cause then they’ll jack up the prices of the paper books. ACK! Heck, then I"ll just go to Target or WalMart.

I certainly exclaim a lot and use ACK and Hello…~sigh~ obviously, I’m very repetitive and exciteable, not a good combo

That’s total bullshit.

Another example: Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Born of Night came out yesterday and the e-book was $3 more than the Mass Market Paperback. I love my Kindle, but not enough to spend more money on the books.

If this keeps happening the digital content world is going to start failing miserably. The price breaks for my essentially RENTED books was the ONLY reason I went digital. No way will I spend more money for the “right” to read a book on a digital reader. Good job Sony, keep it up and you might drag your slice of the e-book world under just like you did the gaming industry.

Publishers are clearly doing their best to kill an up and coming technology; what I can’t decide is if it is intentional or if they are just that stupid.  Sometimes I think that they are stalling progress while they get themselves up to speed on the technology and possibly figure out how to take a greater advantage of the emerging market.

Sarah, is it possible to get someone from one of the publishers that are doing this to come and explain what rationale they use to justify this practice?  I would love to see that and maybe we could presuade them that their reasoning is severely flawed in the process.

ACK! Heck, then I"ll just go to Target or WalMart.

I just won’t buy the book. Period.

I “went digital” for fiction and I’m not going back. If it’s not in eForm, or if it’s priced higher in eForm than in paper (which is both outrageous and offensive), I simply won’t buy it.

And I don’t know what the fuck is up with Fictionwise, but I’ve nearly given up on them (and I adored them!!!). Their offerings are no longer even vaguely timely, and many books are simply missing altogether (book which I can find at the Sony Store, the Mobi Store and Books on Board).

I haven’t heard a consistent response from anyone at St. Martin’s or Macmillan, though I did ask a few St. Martin’s folks at Louisa Edwards’ book party last week. Their response was variations of “We hear you and it’s being discussed” but not much more than that. I hope they’re hearing this discussion loud and clear because so long as the price for ebooks seems so fluid, inconsistent and at times insulting, as Kalen said, people just won’t buy the book at all.

But this has been going on for quite a while, and every time it comes up, they claim they’re “discussing” it.  But they’re never doing anything about it.

Macmillan’s been doing the same thing with some Tor books.  They set a list price for the print edition at $7.99 and a list price for the ebook edition at $14.00

Looking at this article
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/98269-publishers-completely-divided-over-e-book-pricing.html

In a survey of publishers about 4% think ebooks should cost more than print books.  Bet most of them work for Macmillan ;)

~B

Amazon Kindle Store allows you to request a refund within 7 days of purchase.

The big publishers can learn something from the indie authors at Kindle Store, who are leading the way on pricing. Their rankings show that people want and respond to good value prices on digital downloads. My value-priced books on Kindle are selling well.

I’m convinced there is a generational aspect to this as well and “old school” publishers better get a grip on it.  The generation of young college kids and teenagers today grew up immersed in technology.  New tech, or versions of it, have come out consistently all their lives.  They are comfortable with it and savvy about it.  While the generation above them is generally “OK” with technology it is still seen in a “Oh Wow look what that can do!” sort of way where these younger people just go “Uh huh.  Well it *better* do that or I won’t bother with it.”  If they feel the technology isn’t living up to it’s potential or is taking advantage of them (i.e. price gouging) they will reject it or figure out a way to make it better and compete against you!  (Case study: the music industry) 
As my kid would say, “Epic Fail!”

Kelley Armstrong’s just released Frostbitten hardcover is $15.21 at Amazon, and the Kindle (DRM infested rental)  ebook is $14.30.  I’ll wait and get it from the library, thank you.

Hmmm….word is pay89.  I don’t think so.

I usually auto-buy Kleypas, but I recently switched to ebooks. I wasn’t paying $14.99 for an ebook version of a $7.99 MMP, so I waited.

In the meantime, people who bought the MMP reviewed it, and said it wasn’t so great. As a result, I’m either going to skip it, or buy it used.

St. Martin’s shot themselves, and Ms. Kleypas, in the foot there. Making me wait only made me rethink my purchase.

Had a very similar experience with YA Intertwined. What’s up with that? The charge for getting it instantly? I don’t think readers are going to fall for that. I did not. And since I am on a one-year experiment of buying only ebooks, I have not yet been able to read that book. Sale lost.

From what I understand of the current contracts offered by the big print publishers, they are paying lower e-royalty rates to their authors than I get from my e-pub. Yet those same print publishers are jacking up the prices on the e-books. What’s wrong with this picture?  ~Shaking head~

Writers - KNOW your e-royalty rates and how they compare industry wide so you can make sure you’re getting a fair shake. EVERY author out there today is e-published whether we’re pubbed by St. Martins or Ellora’s Cave.

Lisa Kleypas is an autobuy author for me, hence, I went for it and spent the extra $$ on the e-version.  However, this was the last time I am going to do so.  My budget nowadays is extremely tight and I can’t afford it. 

It seems to me that there is a misperception that ebooks are for the “privileged” and since we are “privileged” we can pay extra for ecopies of books.

Well… they can shove it ...

This is why I only buy my e-books from EC, Samhain, LI, LSB, and others.  The files are DRM free and for the most part much less expensive than the paper version of the same book.

Francesca, thank you for the thoughts on e-royalties….it seems that the publishers are trying to have it both ways…price gouging readers and short-changing authors. Not nice…which is why they may eventually lose marketshare to indie or self-publishers….

Every time I’m tempted to throw down the cash for an e-reader the subject of ebook pricing comes up and I put it off until publishers pull heads from sphincters.  Maybe sometime next Autumn I’ll finally own a reader.

simple68—it should be simple to have standardized pricing

So St. Martins does this often, eh? I saw the ebook price, choked on my coffee, and found the paperback at 25% off at Fred Meyer (west coast chain). I can’t think of a single justification for the higher ebook price other than greed. Does Lisa Kleypas realize that her publisher is antagonizing many of her readers?

Folks with Kindle’s can now get this book for $7.99 (was $9.99).  It still has a list price of $14, but Amazon has discounted it to get the price to equate with the MMPB

Stories like this are one of the reasons I won’t buy an e-Reader.  Money’s already tight, and I found out I’m getting furloughed for 6-10 days next semester.  There is no way in heck I"ll pay extra for digital copy of a book, even if I got a free e-Reader for Christmas. 

Like many others, I’m using the library and UBS for some of my reading, and simply doing without in other cases.  (With the exception of Anne Gracie books.  Hers I will buy from B&N.)  Unless publishers get their act together, this won’t change any time soon.

I won’t cut off my nose to spite my face (thanks for that mental image, Mom) which is why I go with the distributor who has the book, at the best price, for the authors I want to read.

Whether it’s ebook or paper matters not a whit to me so if it matters to those people selling ebook readers then they best put themselves in a position to find out WTF is going on with the price gouging

I agree about pricing but…
I don’t want to screw up someone’s sales. The actual author needs that purchase (times all the pissed off people) or their next book is less likely to be published. The publisher won’t realize that it is their own fault.

There are so many authors that I liked but couldn’t afford to buy who are now not writing. There are so many authors that I don’t like selling on and on. My dollar can only say so much, I want it to say “keep this author under contract” before it says “revamp your ebook sales policy”.

Why not start a protest?  If the ebook price is out of line, and you choose to buy the book used instead, mail the publisher a letter telling them why you chose not to buy the ebook and the receipt from the UBS.  Maybe if they receive enough concrete evidence that they’re losing money because of their outrageous pricing they’ll stop “discussing” and actually do something about it.

Yep - this is the part of the ebook thing that kills the concept for me.  Yes, it’s more convenient (potentially), and I loved carrying around a library in my purse on the test-drive.  But for me to plunk down a few hundred dollars for the reader, and THEN be charged higher prices for the books (when paper is a perfectly workable alternative)... NO F*ING WAY.  Guess I need the soap too (my teacher used to use Cashmere Bouquet because it had the nastiest taste… and yes she taste tested soap).

These publishers should be Harvard Business School case studies in how to cut your own throat in a declining business, and retard the growth of a future revenue stream all at the same time.  Epic fail indeed.

I get so frustrated by posts like this, and pricing structure horrors stories like this and like the one surrounding When Alex Was Bad, which was the same fucked up deal - $15 for the ebook and $9 for the paperback—don’t blink, you read that right.

I’ve spent 10 years as an epublished author, sitting in the vanguard of the epublishing industry and trying to be a recruiter, educator and promotor and this sort of shit makes my heart sink…it sets back the industry in the eyes of readers and the public by about two years at least.  Readers who get burned aren’t ever going to come back unless they have no other choice.

You’d think that professionals earning more money than me would be smarter.  Apparently not.

I spend upwards of $4,000 each year on books - of which maybe $100 is on ebooks purchased from MyBookStoreandMore.  I have a palm that I use to read my ebooks (bought it 5 years ago to read stories from Elloras Cave) and have no plans to buy either a Kindle or Sony Reader.

The main reason I won’t be buying a reader—the pricing of ebooks.  I’m sorry, but it is fricking ridiculous to charge the same or more for an ebook as a printed book.  No justification at all for the pricing, since (HELLO!!) it definitely costs more to have a physical copy of the book than download a file.  Also, the mere fact that you can’t trade it or know that you actually own the ebook - the first time that Amazon yanked books out of people’s Kindle that they had paid for should have sounded the death knoll of the Kindle in my opinion - is a definite huge negative.

Now if publishers were smart, they’d be selling all ebooks for $4 and trying to win back the loyalty and enthusiasm of their readers. 

At this point, I’m planning on revamping my budget for books for 2010 since so many of my once favorite authors (Howard, Leigh, Coulter, Moning, to name a few) have been demoted from my auto-buy list due to poor writing and even worse editing.  I used to be the reader that publishers dream about—racing to buy new books on their street date (and usually checking on Friday to see if the books got put out early) and spending more than $400 each month.  In 2010, except for books by JD Robb and Maya Banks, I’ll probably wait for the books to be available at my local library—- which means I’ll easily add about $3,800 back to my budget for other things.

I recently found the ebook version of a $25 hardback, new release, for $6.  It even had cover art (score!). I couldn’t get it in dead tree form from Borders until Oct. 14, but could get the ebook instantly.  And I did, even though I have to read it on my laptop.  It seems to me that’s how it should be—digital version is cheaper and available at the same time or earlier.

I’m wondering why, if the e-books are essentially rented anyway, why there isn’t a “rental” option.  I would not mind paying 99¢ or $1.99 to have access to an e-book for a week. If I like it, perhaps the rental fee could apply to the purchase price. 

They rent DVDs. Why not books?

Like NetFlix for books… put in a wish list and they just send them to me when I return the previous ones. Wouldn’t that be cool?

That I’d pay for!

You know - this really ridiculous pricing explains some of the e-piracy out there. People figure they’ll buy ONE copy (at higher than print price) then they’ll just share the book with friends. Then it turns viral and the book gets uploaded to some piracy site and suddenly neither the publishers nor the authors are making money.

Publishers aren’t just shooting themselves in the foot by ticking off their readership, they are fostering an environment which encourages theft. People think stealing a book is no big deal because, hey, the publishers ripped the reader off in the first place. This is just bad news all around.

@ Julie - In all fairness, hold the Sony ire. I thought it was them as well, but investigation showed it was certainly the publisher. Sony was actually pretty responsive to this and discussed it with me. But not refund responsive.

@ Gwynnyd - my brother’s library works like this, but the selection is a bit limited. I think as e-books gain in adoption, the selections will be more in line with what is in the libraries themselves. My library offers no e-books so I am seriously skewing his lending profile!

There are netflix like book rental sites (like bookswim.com), but I don’t know of any that do e-books.

The only way I can justify buying new books that I’m not planning on keeping forever is to sell them on half.com or ebay. Until buying an e-book is less than the amount I’m out doing that,  no digital for me.

I can’t stop myself from doing the math . . .

Assuming standard royalty rates of 8% for MM and 25% for eBook, if the MM was $7.99 the eBook would be $2.56 for the author to make the same amount of money. I know that this isn’t necessarily “the goal”, but it seems like a logical extrapolation to get a basic idea of what the “real” price of an eBook should be. No?

I mean, clearly the publisher should also factor in their profit margin and do the same math and then figure out what their pricing structure should be, but clearly the price shouldn’t be MORE than the printed book (which requires outlays for paper, printing, storage, transport, and returns that simply don’t apply to eBooks).

Alternatively, I’m happy to pay the same for “e” as for paper . . . and for the author to get more $.

I just have not seen the allure of the e-reader at all. I was all excited about them until I realized I couldn’t lend, give away, or sell the book. Adding the price of the reader itself, plus these ridiculous prices for a book that has to cost a tiny fraction of print editions, and I fail to see why anybody would bother.

I’m getting ready to go buy the newest Ilona Andrews, it came out yesterday. I will spend about $6 for it with my B&N frequent reader card. I will read it with enjoyment then take it down to FL so my sister can read it. She’ll be bringing books for me to read too. I’ll then decide to keep it, sell it, trade it, or donate it. After all, I paid for it, it’s MINE.

I just see e-readers as a very expensive rip off.

I had a very eye opening conversation with a HUGE NY times bestselling author at RWA National’s this year when I asked her why I couldn’t buy her new hardback on my Kindle until 6 weeks after it was released.  She told me that Walmart has a low price guarantee and that they would not stock her new release if she allowed a simultaneous e-book release because Amazon has vowed to sell all hardbacks at $9.99 for the first 5 years of Kindle to gain market share.  This left the author in a tough position.  Walmart makes up a huge amount of her business so she chose to delay release of the e-book so she could be in Walmart. 

As e-book sales increase, traditional book sales will decline, which means the cost to print, bind and ship a book will go up because publishers aren’t getting the large print run discount anymore.  Who absorbs that cost?  My bet is the author advance.  Less up front for the author, but maybe a bigger cut of the e-pub cover cost, however the author has no control over the screwed up e-book print price in many cases (see above comments) which just aggravates loyal readers who will no longer buy author’s books.  Its a very serious problem in New York and no one knows the right answer yet.  It’s a watch and wait situation. Big name authors have the most to lose so it will be interesting to see how they navigate this new landscape.

Kalen wrote:

Assuming standard royalty rates of 8% for MM and 25% for eBook, if the MM was $7.99 the eBook would be $2.56 for the author to make the same amount of money. I know that this isn’t necessarily “the goal”, but it seems like a logical extrapolation to get a basic idea of what the “real” price of an eBook should be. No?

Assuming standard royalty rates of 8% for MM and 15% (?) for hardcover, if the MM was 7.99, the hardcover would be $4.26 for the author to make the same amount of money….  No, maybe not ;-).

Another logical extrapolation would be what price the eBook would have to be for the publisher to make the same amount of money as they would on the MM (or the trade paperback, for publishers who don’t do MM editions).  Calculating that is a bit of a pain, though, given that right now the average NY publisher probably sells a lot more MMs than ebooks—do you make the ebook carry an equal share of the overhead/editing/design costs? a proportional share? forget the overhead costs and let the paper editions support it (which isn’t going to be a viable strategy when ebooks are 50% of sales rather than 5%)?

I’m refusing to buy this book in either format until the publisher drops the price. I know it’s not fair to the author, but I’ve given Kleypas plenty of money in the past.

I am a self-proclaimed techie.  If I can store it on a little digital thingy, bring it on!  But….I’ve hesitated on the e-reader because of the DRM, memory (ipod at 30G is too small for my music/video/movie library), and now the pricing issue.  I was hoping that this stuff would be bottomed out for Christmas this year, but I guess not.

Guess the paperback stacking will continue on….as well as figuring out how to stuff 5 novels for 1 week of business travel.  :(

I did say that the publisher’s profit margin would also have to be factored in. 

I don’t think the equation works for HB, which is a whole different beast (I only buy HB for books that I know I’ll read often and will cherish; the added expense is worth it for the HB’s superior durability and for its “displayability”).

I’m unsure of what the right answer/price point is, but I’m DAMN SURE it isn’t more than the price of the printed book!

Now you know why I refuse to do e-books in any reader.!!!
come35????  I’ll let you debate why this is my word…LOL

Ummmm…I thought ebooks were supposed to be cheaper?  Silly me!  I won’t consider getting a reader.

Oh my gosh. I totally agree.

E-books should be cheaper or on-par with what you’d pay in a store. Like iTunes but for books.

That’s all I’m asking for.

And you’d think publishers would be wiling to go along with this in light of the whole they-don’t-have-to-pay-for-printing thing.

I’m with Kalen. I switched to ebooks for reasons beyond a ‘cheaper’ price for digital—convenience being the biggest factor.

I don’t mind paying the same for a MMpback, but paying MORE for ebook causes my hackles to rise.  I’d really like to understand the *why* behind this backassed marketing strategy.  If a pub can’t be bothered to price it comparably (or release it at the same time—another peeve of mine), I may not be bothered to come back and check later to see if reason has returned. I dang-well won’t be participating, so it’s entirely possibly they will have lost a sale. Even when the author is someone I enjoy as much as Kleypas. 

I’ll probably even discover some mid-list author I could adore to replace that auto-buy author. There is so much talent out there, and many other authors who would appreciate the sale.

Sony particularly annoys me as they take sometimes as much as a year or more to adjust their “hardback” price to the available “paperback” price.  And as you said, the difference is certainly NOT going to the author, which might make it more acceptable.

If the problem was with the distributors, Amazon & Sony, etc. taking the lion’s share of the profit, which I believe Amazon does at least, I could understand it. I checked the SMP site for this book. You can buy the ebook direct from the publisher. The cost, $14.00.

I will not buy this book, period. There are plenty of other books available to be read. I have bought quite a few e-books by authors I had not heard of and have been very happy. I’m off to read Craig Ferguson’s new book (hard back) in e-book format which I purchased at Amazon for $12.99. Sorry Ms. Kleypas.

This is an example of what I term “another nail in the coffin” that would be me buying an e-reader.  I love books - always have, always will.  I read primarily romances (although less than I used to), mysteries and SF/Fan with a small dose of urban fantasy and an increasing amount of nonfiction. 

But over the last 5-10 years I have found myself reading more and buying less.  I have been ruthlessly weeding my own collections and offering them for trade credit or swapping on several book swap sites.  Not because I have no space, no.  Because, as I looked around at all my books, I realized that most of them, especially the romances, were not ones I was even tempted to read again.  Oh, I tried - and most of the time I tossed the book down and asked myself whatever made me think this was good and keepable?!

But I do use the library - a lot.  More and more libraries not only offer the latest romance mass markets in paperback but also downloadable e-books.  Why pay $6-14 for a book that I will in all likelihood not even be able to finish and then not even be able to give away to someone who truly wants to read it?  I can reserve a book (hardcover, paper, audio) from any library in our four county system for a mere $.25.  A real bargain!  And if it is really good - and something I think I will actually re-read more than once - then I actually buy it.

I love my reader (Sony 505) and I love e-books.  It stinks that I can’t lend them, but I’ll happily trade that for their environmentally-friendliness. 
My opinion is that e-books should be equal or slightly less than the least expensive paper format on the market, whether it be hardcover, trade, or mass market.  And I expect the price of the digital version to decrease over time, as cheaper paper formats are released. 
E-books don’t have to be ridiculously inexpensive, but they should never, ever, be more than the list price of a print copy.

Just adding my voice to the multitudes who won’t buy a reader until this is fixed.  An e-book should cost the same, or ideally less, than a MMP that I can take anywhere, including the bath or traveling in unsafe areas, without worry, that I can sell/trade/donate/loan, and that has the soothing feel of paper.  The ONLY reason for me to want a reader is space, both in my home and in my purse.  I’m not willing to pay a premium for that alone.

Sometimes it’s not even the publisher, it’s Amazon. I contacted a writer whose e-book was 9.99 while the paperback was 6.99 and told him exactly why I wasn’t buying it.  That while I knew he didn’t set the pricing, his publishers did, and that I knew it wasn’t exactly fair to him, but maybe if the authors took their concerns to publishers, they might consider doing something about it.  Especially as I sincerely doubted I was the only person feeling this way.

He wrote me back to say that Amazon itself had set the price on his e-books and there was nothing he could do about it and that maybe more people could take it up with Jeff Bezos.

I don’t know if that’s actually true, but he certainly seemed to think it was, because frankly the tone of his email to me was kinda cranky, and not towards me.

Whenever I find something cheaper in paperback than the Kindle I always tag it as “cheaper in paperback.”  And of course, don’t buy it.  I don’t know that it does any good, but it makes me feel like at least I’m doing something, you know?

This is appalling.  Really it is.  I have a Kindle and don’t even want to pick up a paper book ever again.  BUT, I can’t do this.  It’s insane.  Why would I pay more for the ebook version?  It doesn’t make any sense to pay more for something I don’t truly own. 

Please, publishers, get your shit together and stop ripping us off!

For giggles I just checked Amazon’s price for the Kindle version. It’s now selling for $7.99. Maybe Amazon felt the vibe here. Sony still has it for $9.99, which is cheaper than the publisher’s list price for the e-book.

Why does the supposed 5% of book sales scare publishers? Their collective heads may need surgical removal out of their bottoms.

The authors really need to start paying attention as well. Life as we know it is changing.

I had my own “WTF?” moment with this when I went online to purchase Dawnbreaker by Jocelyn Drake today.  HarperCollins is the publisher.  The MM price is $7.99, the ebook price at Sony, Fictionwise and BooksonBoard is $14.99 retail.  I absolutely do not understand the logic of this.  If I buy the paperback, I get colored cover art and a volume with one has to presume higher production costs.  The ebook is twice as much for less product.

How do we make publishers realize how upset people are over this?

Pratically, it is possibly still just cheaper to buy the ebook than try to get the paper book here in New Zealand. But just as a matter of principle, I’m unlikely to buy an ebook that is that much more expensive than its paper equivalent. Like everyone else, I become a lost sale. If I really want to read the book, I’ll go to the library.

I’m very sorry about what this means for the author, who also misses out on my sale, but this is ridiculous.

I really don’t understand how publishers can let this happen.  it obviously doesn’t make sense that an e-copy of the book costs more than a paper copy!!  i can’t believe no one in those publishing houses have brought it up!

I don’t get the ereader hate. If you like books, keep buying books. I don’t think the appeal of ebooks is price. I buy ebooks because physical books are completely impractical for me. Even if ebooks only cost $.50 less than the MMP, I’ll have the ereader recouped in cost in under a year, but I don’t care. It’s just my format of choice. iPods took off in popularity when they were $300-400 a pop and the songs were all proprietary and DRM festooned and not much cheaper than a CD. I’d rather own data than house an object.

However, $14.99 is too much for a book. If I wanted to pay trade pb prices, I’d read lit fic.

Just to clarify, I am not boycotting ebooks at all.  I have been reading ebooks since February of 2003.  95% of the books I receive for review are in electronic formats.  I LOVE ebooks… what I don’t like is the fucked up POV and practices from some “big gun” publishers out there.  I’ll continue reading ebooks and supporting smaller indie epublishers ... however, I am not touching overpriced ebooks any longer.  The instant gratification factor is not so “gratifying” when you have to pay $4, $5 and even more for the “privilege”.

The instant gratification factor is not so “gratifying” when you have to pay $4, $5 and even more for the “privilege”.

Exactly right.  It’s horse shit.  I’m so pissed off.  Blech!

I don’t have ereader hate - I’d love one. but price is the main thing keeping me from getting one. The Sony Pocket is (marginally) affordable, but the inconsistent price of the ebooks is keeping me away from them. But then, I didn’t get my iPod until the price came down, and I use it more for audio books than I do for music, so the price of music isn’t an issue for me. But I won’t buy audiobooks at full list price, either: I either get them from audible or I rent them.

caligi, I could see the “recoup the cost” part if we actually got to own the books we bought. But we don’t. Not like a paper book. A paper book I can lend, sell, or trade. An ebook I can do nothing with but read on my one reader. If, say, I could share my ebooks with my friends, or even if they could download from me for a small additional fee that might be different. But paying the $$$ for the reader *and* paying $$$ for something I won’t own? No thanks.

I’m pretty techie by the way; make my living on the computer, love my digital camera and digital recorder. But I just don’t see the value of the e-book or the e-book reader at this time.

Can’t lend an mp3 either. Hasn’t hurt the iPod trade. It’s against copyright, but you could technically send your copy of an ebook to a friend. I don’t see why it’s any different than lending someone a book. DRM isn’t impenetrable.

In truth, I never lent or sold my stuff anyways. I hated never seeing it again or getting it back 5 years later in crap condition.

@chisai Amazon (or any other ebook retailer) only set the price to the extent that they sell it based on the publishers list price and apply any discounts from there.

@Darlene Marshall Yeah, Harper has been another house that’s guilty of the double the price for ebooks policy.  They do seem to eventually drop it to the same as the MMPB, but only after it’s been out a while.

It would be nice if publishers would do like Baen.  All books are $6 or less.  No DRM.  Tons of formats.  Samhain is doing something similar in their store (MBaM).

The bookstore I work for sells the Sony Reader and this is NOT going to make it easier to sell those suckers. Aside from pissing off the people who already have ebook readers it discourages new buyers. Why buy a $200 reader when an e book costs more than a paperback? This is something I hope Sony and Kindle address when their sales suffer, maybe they can convince publishers to settle on lower and standard ebook prices.

Hmmm… I have a Sony reader and only buy ebooks for.  I’ve never paid more than the dead tree version of the book.  I always pay less, sometimes a lot less. 

Between shopping around for the best price, and taking advantage of sales, specials and rebates, I can usually get ebooks for 20% or more off the list price (sometimes 30% or more).  In fact, coolerbooks.com has their ebooks at 20% off list price all the time, though I haven’t bought any ebooks from them yet.  But I have them bookmarked just in case. 

Then there are the 27 ebooks that Harlequin and Mills & Boon are still giving away free.  I’ve never walked into a dead tree bookstore when they were handing out free books. 
http://www.eharlequin.com/store.html?cid=1317
http://www.everyonesreading.com/index.html

I have been buying e-books for almost 10 years now. I started buying at Baen, and they are the standard against which I measure other e-bookstores. Baen has none of the crap that infests most other e-bookstores: Baens books have reasonable prices, no DRM and no geographical restrictions crap. Did I mention no DRM?
They have the $15 for a month’s books as soon as they put that month up for sale at www.websciption.net

When I buy books other places - which means mostly Fictionwise - books without DRM are an easy sell. Books with DRM I tend to think at least twice about buying before I -perhaps - put them in the cart. Remembering migrating my book collection to a new computer tends to dissuade me.

I have even bought the occasional e-book at ripoff prices: Bad of me, I know, since that might actually encourage the publisher who use that sort of insane pricing. As well as that damned DRM.

As for the geographical restrictions crap - I may need a whole crate of soap for that too If I were to comment on that. (I am not an American and so fall foul of that - and ever more frequently of late, it seems.) Though those books always have DRM and often have bad prices, so perhaps I should look upon that as a money-saving device instead, as well as something to keep me from temptation.

Yes, MacMillan suck donkey gonads to put it politely, as far as this goes.

Great way to encourage people to scan and upload the books because they are pissed off, too.

I agree with some other commenters, though, if you do the double the price of the paperback, or more than the price of whatever version, I will not buy any version, ever.

Realistically, for most authors, don’t care too much if they never write anything again - there’s only a handful that matter much.

It is definitely the publisher’s fault in most cases, and where the ire should be directed.

I am only a very occasional romance reader, but HarperCollins certainly does the close to double pricing - they had a MMPB Year’s Best Science Fiction 14 at $14.99, a series that has been MPPB ONLY FOR FOURTEEN YEARS.  No other edition, other than ebook, ever.

I’d bought the previous volumes, but now they’ve lost an annual purchase.

However, to give Amazon their due, when I basically said ‘this sucks’ on their website, although a little more politely and eloquently, they did match the MMPB price to the ebook price, so good for them.

As someone else brought up, almost no-one at all is interested in selling to Australians (and Australian publishers are even more useless than MacMillan - hard to believe, I know :) )- maybe we are only a few percent of the market - and the publishers don’t care about this few percent, then fine, they will get the result that movies and tv did - getting perhaps the world’s biggest per capita english language media downloaders for free, as a result.

So, good to see some multi-genre criticism of such arseclownery.  Well done! :)

While they maybe couldn’t care less about Australian readers, American romance readers returning their publishing digitus impudicus rather forcefully may hurt them.

It is quite bizarre that some major publishing entities have t heir business plan for the 21st century to be ‘sell fewer books, lose the mass market reader’.

Saw an analyst recently when talking about publishing say that they are basically in the business of selling paper - and with actions like this it would certainly seem to be the case - the content doesn’t matter to them.

This reminds me a lot of the DVD v. VHS pricing.  For the time the two formats were running in parallel, the DVDs were always more expensive that the tapes, even though it’s much cheaper to produce DVD copies than VHS copies.  That never seemed to produce the same amount of outrage, though, I guess because it’s less immediately obvious that the differing costs in paperback v. e-pub.

Can’t lend an mp3 either. Hasn’t hurt the iPod trade.

Actually, you can lend an mp3, and without breaking DRM. Most of the people I know, when they first bought an iPod or mp3 player, copied the music they had on CD into digital format. All that music is DRM-free, will play on any player or computer, and can be shared easily (probably not legally). I have an iPod nano and a Sansa Fuze myself, and I have never bought an .mp3 - I wait and buy new or used CDs, and copy the music from them. It’s usually more cost-efficient than buying the songs separately as .mp3s, and as far as I know, it’s legal for my own use.

I read and prefer ebooks, but I use my laptop, Project Gutenberg, and the freebies that come up now and then. I also use the public library for paper books.

I hope eventually that I’ll be able to afford new music and new books, and I have an ongoing list of authors and artists I’d like to support with my purchases when I can. Right now they’re a luxury, and if it’s not free or cheap, I can’t have it.

I used to work for a big corporation, at a level where I got to see what went on across departments.  This leads me to believe that publishers are probably NOT doing this intentionally—it’s more a matter of poor communication between department and/or third party retailers.

Which doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed, and the the publishers should not stop “discussing” and start taking tangible steps to do so.  And, getting a big machine to do something different is not an easy thing.

If everyone who commented here would instead send letters to stakeholders—the publishers and the retailers of ebooks and ebook readers—it just might help grease that machine.

I agree - it is wrong of the publisher to charge more for the e-book version and less for the print. But, it may be to help cover the extra legal cost involved with e-books. Not that I think they should - they have lawyers on staff or retainer.

Piracy of ebooks is a huge problem. Once a customer buys a file they can, though it is illegal, upload to a file sharing site and hundreds of people can download it for free. That’s money the author never sees. I’ve even seen them on ebay.

Someone suggested “renting” ebooks. But if you have an ebook reader - how does it know your “rental period” has expired. Also, the company that purchases the book to offer the “rental” only has to buy 1 copy.

Don’t think print books only are exempt from ebook piracy. It’s been done.

I’m wondering if they have to pay for some kind of proprietary technology that they’re hiding in the pricing structure. Like a fee to create files in the format of certain readers? (Like Toyota offering their hybrid technology to other companies at a higher price than they use internally…)

That’s the only thing that would make the pricing system currently used make financial sense. It’s either Proprietary Tech, or someone in high places has stock in papermills.

If, say, I could share my ebooks with my friends, or even if they could download from me for a small additional fee that might be different.

Actually, you can in a limited way, assuming you all have compatible readers . . .

Most places let you register multiple reading devices. Three of my girlfriends and I all cross-registered our reading devices and now four of us can share our purchases, because we have one joint account. Works like a charm.

@Barbara they have to pay a fee to the DRM provider if they use DRM.  It’s usually figured as part of the distribution costs.

For example Adobe charges for their Content Server software ($6,500) which is usually owned by a distributor like Lightning Source or Over Drive.  There is then a per transaction fee of $.22 for a permanent license which you get when buying a book or an $.08 fee for a temporary license like when you check a book out of the library.  I don’t know if the distributors are charging this fee to the Retailer or to the Publisher.  Nor do I know if they’re putting any kind of markup on that fee or not.

IIRC some of the other DRM providers don’t charge a transaction fee they charge a flat fee to the distributor to offer their brand of DRM.

Which is exactly what DRM is.  Snake oil that extracts money from publishers.

Paying for it is entirely up to them.  Maybe they have some authors than demand it - so in that case, charge the authors.

Otherwise, nothing is stopping them selling open format books themselves directly and completely removing this cost.

I love my Kindle. Lisa Kleypas’s Tempt Me at Twilight was the first time I saw a Kindle e-book priced higher than a paperback (usually the e-version is $1-$2 cheaper). I was furious (even more than I was when I had to wait a few weeks before Eloisa James’s last release was offered in e-version).

I purchased my Kindle to be “green,” figuring I’d eventually recapture the $349 cost by saving $1-$2 at a time on my purchase.

But I was furious with St. Martin’s for charging MORE for an e-version. So what did I do?

I bought my copy at BJ’s. It was $4.99—$3 cheaper than the list price and $5 less than the e-version.

So thanks for helping me help the environment, St. Martin’s. Next time I’ll buy it at a used book store and neither you nor Ms. Kleypas (whom I love BTW) will get a red cent from me.

Ditto on the remarks about not going digital.  I had planned on buying myself a Kindle for my birthday, but I just can’t stomach paying that much money for the Kindle then paying MORE for the books and having to wait to get the books.  Too many cons and not enough pros.

@ Delilah -

Connecting overcharging to combating piracy or recouping pirated revenue is a false argument - that’s a road the music industry already went down, and they discovered that meeting fair pricing standards drew people away from piracy. (In fact, it’s a lesson they had to learn over again, because every time a new technology comes out something like this plays out.)

Yes, there is e-book piracy - but the proven answer to reducing it is to set up a system consumers view as fair and transparent. Most people will pay for their product and a huge % of those that won’t never would - because they are dishonest by nature and were never your customer. The only way to stop piracy is to stop having product. Even paper books are stolen and reproduced.

Someone suggested “renting” ebooks. But if you have an ebook reader - how does it know your “rental period” has expired. Also, the company that purchases the book to offer the “rental” only has to buy 1 copy.

How does Netflix handle digital downloads?  How did Amazon remove a purchased book from everyone’s Kindle simultaneously?  The technology is there, it works in other digital markets. The business model exists and is apparently quite popular and successful.  Why not add e-books to the mix somehow?

I know the author probably had nothing to do with this, but did you forward your complaints to her anyway? Maybe if she knows her readers are disgruntled, she’ll do something about it, if possible.

A couple of points that may shed some light on this.

First - DRM or not is not always the publishers choice. I know a publisher who wanted to sell no-DRM books, and the store said they only handle DRM’d books.

Second, don’t forget that you are not the publisher’s customers. The distributors and big book chains are. Yes, if they annoy you enough, you won’t buy any more books, and this will impact them eventually, but they don’t have to keep you happy from day to day. The people they have to keep happy right now are about a half dozen buyers for the big guys. As long as these people control 80-90 percent of the purchases from a given publisher, the publisher is going to do what they want. 

These buyers have a vested interest in not having ebooks succeed. If their store sells only paper books, then to them they are only competition.  Even if their store sells e-books as well, e-books don’t have to go through the buying process - there is no downside to hosting every ebook available and you don’t have to decide ahead of time how many you need.

I used to be rabidly anti eBook, for a couple of reasons, including the price of readers, and the DRM on books. I hate DRM like whoa, and while yeah, I could crack it like an egg, it doesn’t mean I want to encourage companies to use it. But then in July my husband and I moved… and we packed up upwards of 15 boxes of books, and that wasn’t even a full half of our collection.

Suddenly, being able to carry 300 books on an item I could fit in my purse became VERY attractive. And then Sony put out a reasonably priced (in my opinion) eBook reader in my favorite color (pink!) and I was sorely, sorely tempted. But like so many others I am just frustrated by the ridiculous inconsistency in eBook pricing. I’d be happy if eBooks were just like a consistent percentage cheaper… say 50% cheaper on hardbacks, and 20% cheaper than paperbacks.

Still, once my husband and I are working again I’m sure we’ll both buy Sony readers, but I’ll be very picky about how much I pay for ebooks. In the long run though, I feel confident that the eBook prices will equalize, just like MP3s did, so it’s worth investing in the reader.

Before you buy at B & N or Amazon, try www.deepdiscount.com

I buy 90% of my books and videos there because they are cheaper and there is no S/H.

As an eBook author, I think the price gouging the big companies are trying to get readers to pay is unconscionable .

I’ve written a “Dear Publisher” letter based on this - http://www.di2.nu/200910/01.htm

Up thread someone mentioned Ilona Andrews new release, and some else mentioned Baen’s ‘no geographical restrictions policy’.

This one recently bit me.  I have ordered On The Edge as a PB from BookDepository.
I also wanted the ebook, a, because I want to read it NOW dammnit, and b, because I loan my PB’s out to hook other people. 
Went to BooksOnBoard and discovered that while the PB cost me £5, to buy it as a drm’d ebook was going to cost me £13 at the UK site versus $9.50 at the US.

I was so enraged, I haven’t bought it in eform at all.  I’ll wait for the PB.

@liz m - notice I said that may be the publishers argument and I didn’t agree with it. Most file hosting sites only require the owner of the copyright to contact them to remove it. So using that as an argument - is frankly stupid.

@Gwynnyd = to answer your question - Netflix uses a proprietery viewer - that accesses the file on their server. Amazon through the wi-fi connection they have with the Kindle can do that - they also have a proprietery program that allows the Kindle versions to only be read on a Kindle. BUT there are other readers. eBookreader, Sony eBook Reader, and a couple of new ones that are in the works that don’t have wifi built in.

In case anyone missed my point - I disagree with the increase cost because of piracy argument - it doesn’t hold water. I disagree with publishers paying the same royalties for eBooks as print books. Charging more for an eBook is just a crappy way of making more money off folks that would rather carry a couple hundred books in one easy to manage device than paper books that can be heavy.