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pienipple posted:Dear Publishers, It's not bullshit, the paperback is lower because of the economic realities of the current publishing industry right now, unfortunately it means eBooks don't fit in very well.
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Nov 22, 2010 20:19
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Atasi posted:It's not bullshit, the paperback is lower because of the economic realities of the current publishing industry right now, unfortunately it means eBooks don't fit in very well. That's just stupid. Most publishers don't do that bullshit (and it is bullshit).
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Nov 22, 2010 20:21
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madprocess posted:That's just stupid. Most publishers don't do that bullshit (and it is bullshit). Well it's either that or a sliding scale on eBooks to keep the price in parity with the current lowest priced physical copy, in which case people will complain about getting ripped off when they bought it x months ago.
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Nov 22, 2010 20:24
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Atasi posted:Well it's either that or a sliding scale on eBooks to keep the price in parity with the current lowest priced physical copy, in which case people will complain about getting ripped off when they bought it x months ago. Uh, tons of books on Kindle store, especially ones where the physical book has been out for over 5 years, are below the price of a new paperback (usually between $4 and $7 with paperbacks available for $6-$9). And the complaining about prices dropping thing is dumb. You're saying ebooks should never get cheaper because some people might get mad? Are you high? If you buy any piece of media new now, you'll pay more than it will cost in 5 years in the bargain bin, that's just how it works.
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Nov 22, 2010 20:29
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Atasi posted:Well it's either that or a sliding scale on eBooks to keep the price in parity with the current lowest priced physical copy, in which case people will complain about getting ripped off when they bought it x months ago. Yea, what madprocess said. Why is this any different than essentially every other piece of media or technology that people buy every day? I don't get upset when a book I bought at the book store ends up in the bargain bin a few months later. I might have a quick thought of "oh drat I should have just waited a few months to buy that" and then move on with my life. I can't imagine people get upset about this (maybe you do?).
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Nov 22, 2010 20:36
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http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/pr_burningquestion_ebooks/ In brief: ebooks are still new enough that there are legal and technological costs, paper copies of books aren't that expensive to make so the savings is minimal and yes, publishers still price them higher "because they’re concerned about devaluing people’s perception of books.” That last bit sounds strange to with Borders etc. selling Top 10 books for $3 two months later, but whatever. So they are overcharging, but they aren't complete bastards all of the time.
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Nov 22, 2010 20:37
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Yeah, that's the most surprising thing to come out of the rise in popularity of ebooks. I never would have guessed that the equivalent digital copy of a book could somehow be worth more than a new printed copy. That's completely unintuitive from the consumer's point of view. If it makes sense at all, it must make sense only from the publisher's perspective. Even if publishers do have a calculated business reason for making ebooks more expensive, their decisions look arbitrary and their practices seem like price gouging to the general public.
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Nov 22, 2010 20:40
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There's also actually no logical reason an ebook needs to be more expensive than a physical book, ever. If publishers really "need" to have a strict pricing hiearchy, there's no reason it can't be, in order of expensive to cheap, hardback > paperback > ebook. Since it's all fluid, you can sell the hardback for say $30 new and charge $9-$11 for the ebook. Later you release the paperback for around $9-$11 and leave the ebook as is, then as time progresses you drop the ebook to $4 or $5. Maybe you even do it when the paperback comes out right away. Mathlete posted:Yeah, that's the most surprising thing to come out of the rise in popularity of ebooks. I never would have guessed that the equivalent digital copy of a book could somehow be worth more than a new printed copy. The thing is, most publishers aren't even pulling this BS. I think almost all of them have even stopped pulling the "wait a month for the ebook release after hardcover" scam. If you look on the major stores, most ebooks where the physical book is only hardback are in the $9 to $12 range, and if you go up to $15 its nearly all. Ones where the paperback is out are mostly $4-$7. And frankly the publishers not pulling the bullshit get more money in sales.
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Nov 22, 2010 20:43
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madprocess posted:There's also actually no logical reason an ebook needs to be more expensive than a physical book, ever. Actually I don't even care if they are the same price as the current edition of the book. I'd be particularly happy if the savings they got from not having to produce a hardback (like $3-4) went to the author. Unfortunately it won't happen. I'm not sure of the price of a paperback (it has to at least be $1), but same idea there. Mostly I don't the ebook to be more expensive than ANY physical copy. If there's a paperback out that cost $7, the ebook should be $7 (or less). I hate looking at a book and there's a paperback for $7 and ebook for $10. gently caress that, and I won't even go buy the physical copy either. I choose to vote with my wallet, because it's the only way to get through to a publisher.
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Nov 22, 2010 20:49
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madprocess posted:Uh, tons of books on Kindle store, especially ones where the physical book has been out for over 5 years, are below the price of a new paperback (usually between $4 and $7 with paperbacks available for $6-$9). Yes there are a lot of books out now that are being sold for less that the publishers would like, but that's due more to Amazon's pressure on pricing than publishing houses trying to make eBooks popular; hence all the talking about devaluing books. quote:And the complaining about prices dropping thing is dumb. You're saying ebooks should never get cheaper because some people might get mad? Are you high? If you buy any piece of media new now, you'll pay more than it will cost in 5 years in the bargain bin, that's just how it works. No, I'm saying that the people most likely to buy eBooks are also the people who do complain about the price of digital goods and want them to be free, or nearly free. They're the people who go "$9.99!? But there's no paper, it should be .99" subx posted:Mostly I don't the ebook to be more expensive than ANY physical copy. If there's a paperback out that cost $7, the ebook should be $7 (or less). I hate looking at a book and there's a paperback for $7 and ebook for $10. That's not realistic since the paper copies price is influenced by certain externalities that don't affect digital goods. Gynocentric Regime fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Nov 22, 2010 |
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Nov 22, 2010 21:31
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pienipple posted:Please stop with the bullshit prices. There's no reason for the ebook to be more than the paperback edition. I recently decided to re-read Lies My Teacher Told Me because I remember enjoying it and I haven't seen my copy since I lent it to someone in 8th grade. It was available for $4.50 for Kindle, so I bought it. And you might want to think about A People's History of the World instead. Its a bit cheaper, and its quite an amazing book.
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Nov 22, 2010 21:52
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I just got my Nook Color today, and it seems pretty awesome so far. My one complaint is that it doesn't currently seem to be possible to make notes on PDFs, although maybe I just haven't figured out how to finger my Nook correctly to make it do what I want. *snicker*
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Nov 22, 2010 23:01
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I'm looking for something roughly pocket size, that can read PDFs decently. I'm not going to be looking at full color photos and not many charts, mostly text. PDFs themselves are mostly text based, as for scans, I guess least-worst is all I can ask for based on response to the last person who asked about that. 3G isn't a concern, I'm mostly reading stuff from feedbooks/guttenberg/etc. Audio would be nice, but not necessary, Web browser and video playback not needed. Hoping to stay under $150. Been looking at stuff like the Sony pocket, but don't know how they all compare.
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Nov 22, 2010 23:03
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cybrancyborg posted:I'm looking for something roughly pocket size, that can read PDFs decently. I'm not going to be looking at full color photos and not many charts, mostly text. PDFs themselves are mostly text based, as for scans, I guess least-worst is all I can ask for based on response to the last person who asked about that. 3G isn't a concern, I'm mostly reading stuff from feedbooks/guttenberg/etc. Audio would be nice, but not necessary, Web browser and video playback not needed. Hoping to stay under $150. Been looking at stuff like the Sony pocket, but don't know how they all compare. If you're doing feedbooks and gutenberg why not just redownload in a reader-friendly format? Both offer epub and mobi/Kindle formats. I'll say I don't mind if the ebook is more than the paperback up to a point. If say the paperback is 7.99 and the ebook is 9.99 I'll say whatever and get the ebook. If it's an expensive paperback I'm ok with the ebook being above 10 bucks, like if the paperback is 19.99 and the ebook is 14.99 that's cool. It's just when the ebook is jacked up above the paperback for no real reason that annoys me. pienipple fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Nov 22, 2010 |
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Nov 22, 2010 23:17
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Atasi posted:Yes there are a lot of books out now that are being sold for less that the publishers would like, but that's due more to Amazon's pressure on pricing than publishing houses trying to make eBooks popular; hence all the talking about devaluing books. Quit being obtuse. The publishers are going to have to suck it up just like the music industry did and sell for cheaper than they "like" because that's where the market is. Devaluing books is code for WAH IM A BIG BABY IN A THREE PIECE SUIT AND ANYTHING MORE COMPLEX THAN A VCR SCARES ME. No, those people are just going to pirate the books instead because they know they won't be 99 cents any time soon. Welcome to the world of electronic media, where you're competing with free stuff, not just other sellers! cybrancyborg posted:I'm looking for something roughly pocket size, that can read PDFs decently. I'm not going to be looking at full color photos and not many charts, mostly text. PDFs themselves are mostly text based, as for scans, I guess least-worst is all I can ask for based on response to the last person who asked about that. 3G isn't a concern, I'm mostly reading stuff from feedbooks/guttenberg/etc. Audio would be nice, but not necessary, Web browser and video playback not needed. Hoping to stay under $150. Been looking at stuff like the Sony pocket, but don't know how they all compare. Ain't such a thing as a pocket size eink reader that handles PDF well period. And there really aren't any pocket size LCD devices that read PDF well and are under $150. PDF is a format meant for printing an exact copy, and it shows.
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Nov 22, 2010 23:33
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I remember a WSJ article from a while back that cited the higher cost of ebooks as a hedge against the decreased profitability of hardcovers. Essentially, as ebooks take up a larger segment of the market, the economy of scale at work with their hardcover editions starts to break down, such that the cost per unit starts to become prohibitive. Since they want to maintain this section of the industry, largely because it appeals to their most dedicated customers, they're trying to make that money back on ebooks. Obviously, while this cites a very real aspect of running a business, the claim of a cause and effect in this case seems somewhat specious. I much prefer the view that they are resisting price drops for the sake of resisting, and that trying to deal profitably with digital media still scares the ever-loving poo poo out of them. For once, having a megacorp as a seller works out to an advantage for customers, because publishers really can't afford to piss Amazon off, since they're a major part of the print market as well. Apple and Google are letting off some of the pressure there, but the $9.99 standard is Amazon's doing.
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Nov 22, 2010 23:56
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nook 1.5 is out!
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Nov 23, 2010 00:00
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pienipple posted:Dear Publishers, On another note, hi-five on book selection, I just read it myself. Great book. madprocess posted:No, those people are just going to pirate the books instead because they know they won't be 99 cents any time soon. Welcome to the world of electronic media, where you're competing with free stuff, not just other sellers! Music piracy was especially prevalent via teens and kids, because they knew how to do it. Not even completely getting into an argument that most of the Publisher's market it not smart enough to do it, but more saying books are definitely something adults purchase regularly, and many people either don't care or don't have time to bother pirating books, regardless of whether it is easy or not. Duckman2008 fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Nov 23, 2010 |
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Nov 23, 2010 00:19
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Then what's the least worst and how bad is it?
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Nov 23, 2010 00:21
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Duckman2008 posted:On another note, hi-five on book selection, I just read it myself. Great book. It is very good, I was disappointed none of his other books were available digitally. Lies Across America was excellent and I wanted to read his book on sundown towns.
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Nov 23, 2010 00:39
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On a different note, it's great to see e-ink devices finally begin to approach the $100 mark and attract much larger audiences. It was about this time three years ago when the first kindles rolled out for about $400 each. Before that, most people had never even heard of e-ink. The market for this technology has really grown over four years, yet it's easy to imagine that it might not ever have taken off if it launched a bit later when cell phones and tablets began to turn into multimedia platforms. At this point, it seems like most people expect that color will be the next big step for eReaders. That probably will happen, but I think that flexibility and disposability will likely be the selling points for e-ink in the future. Today, all commercial ereader models are a variation on a single design: there's a 5-10" screen surrounded by a bezel and mounted on a rigid board of plastic. Earlier models were just the same only more fragile because the e-ink film had to be backed on a sheet of glass instead of plastic. In the near future, I hope we'll see some vastly different designs that make use of rollable/foldable e-ink displays. It would be great to see a flexible device with the dimensions of a mailing envelope that unfolded three times to give you a display the size of an 8.5 x 11" document. Some 5" eReader manufacturers (Sony, Bookeen) exaggerate to call their devices pocket-sized. A truly pocket-sized device would have to fold or spool a flexible screen into a compact roll. The Readius prototype gives some idea of what might be possible, but unfortunately it looks like rear end. Hopefully we'll see improvements on that concept. In time, maybe the screens could be flexible enough to allow scroll-like displays that are no larger than a marker when rolled up. Until then, it is promising to see the prices of inflexible e-ink displays fall rapidly. A durable, low cost, low power reading device could have an enormous positive impact on a number of people around the world who lack access to educational resources. Where an internet connection is unavailable, unreliable, or unaffordable, these devices have the greatest potential to inform and educate.
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Nov 23, 2010 00:54
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madprocess posted:Quit being obtuse. The publishers are going to have to suck it up just like the music industry did and sell for cheaper than they "like" because that's where the market is. Devaluing books is code for WAH IM A BIG BABY IN A THREE PIECE SUIT AND ANYTHING MORE COMPLEX THAN A VCR SCARES ME. No, it's code for "The current content options are only brought to you courtesy of the money made in the "antiquated" system. If we do what the Google's of the world want and all the only books published will be collected twitter feeds, lolcats and Twilight fan fiction."
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Nov 23, 2010 00:56
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Atasi posted:No, it's code for "The current content options are only brought to you courtesy of the money made in the "antiquated" system. If we do what the Google's of the world want and all the only books published will be collected twitter feeds, lolcats and Twilight fan fiction." Except that's a scenario that only exists in the rantings of the babies-in-three-piece-suits, Einstein. I remember when the record company babies were saying that cheap music downloads would devalue music and we'd never have anything good to listen to back in what 2002? 2003? It's something that simply won't happen, so stop acting like it is. Also you're somehow saying if ebooks aren't stupidly expensive they'll be free? What sense does that loving make? If you keep the price HIGH you ENCOURAGE the pirates! There's not even a need for a major change in the system either! Unlike Music where people could basically only buy albums but can now buy collections of random single tracks, you still sell a single Book to a single person!
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Nov 23, 2010 01:10
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madprocess posted:The publishers are going to have to suck it up just like the music industry did and sell for cheaper than they "like" because that's where the market is. Devaluing books is code for WAH IM A BIG BABY IN A THREE PIECE SUIT AND ANYTHING MORE COMPLEX THAN A VCR SCARES ME. It gets even more interesting when you look at the top sellers since so many get bought and then sold on the used market for incredibly cheap prices.
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Nov 23, 2010 01:20
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SuperCaptainJ posted:nook 1.5 is out! Wow. Page turns are literally twice as fast now. Customizable shelves and author sorting in my documents. Even the touchscreen seems more responsive. 
hope and vaseline fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Nov 23, 2010 |
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Nov 23, 2010 01:22
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hope and vaseline posted:Wow. Page turns are literally twice as fast now. Customizable shelves and author sorting in my documents. Yeah, drat, I wasn't expecting them to be able to do much in software but with 1.5 my nook seems to turn pages just as fast as the Kindle 3 that I played with at Staples earlier today. Cool!
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Nov 23, 2010 01:26
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Parker Lewis posted:Yeah, drat, I wasn't expecting them to be able to do much in software but with 1.5 my nook seems to turn pages just as fast as the Kindle 3 that I played with at Staples earlier today. Cool! Wow...it's amazing. Makes you wonder what they were doing wrong with the software before.
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Nov 23, 2010 01:43
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There's a lot of reasons book piracy isn't as prevalent as movie or music piracy. For one it's labor intensive to make a digital copy of a book you own a physical copy of, which is the complete opposite of ripping your CDs or DVDs to digital files. There's also no big book sharing service or program like Napster, Audio Galaxy, or KaZaA was for music (and viruses) back in the day. While it's ridiculously easy to find pirated comics, if you're looking for a pirated copy of a book and it's not a recent, preferably big name release you're probably going to end up with either a PDF full of scanned images of each page or a poorly OCRed poorly formatted text file. On top of that while the ereader market was still miniscule Sony and Mobipocket both had stores catering to ebook buyers, along with a few early adopter publishers like Baen Books.
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Nov 23, 2010 01:44
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pienipple posted:There's a lot of reasons book piracy isn't as prevalent as movie or music piracy. For one it's labor intensive to make a digital copy of a book you own a physical copy of, which is the complete opposite of ripping your CDs or DVDs to digital files. There's also no big book sharing service or program like Napster, Audio Galaxy, or KaZaA was for music (and viruses) back in the day. Honestly, this is really not the case. Ebook scanners get really into it, I've seen some impressive scanning setups. The books are out there and the scanners put some effort into it.
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Nov 23, 2010 01:47
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Paco de Suave posted:Wow...it's amazing. Makes you wonder what they were doing wrong with the software before. I imagine it just takes time to optimize. What I really wonder is if they upped the Android version with this update. I'm installing right now, I'm really excited for the shelves feature. I really wanted some better way to organize what I've read and what I haven't read. Before now I was just removing the books I had read, but I like the idea of being able to have everything with me. So, now, I can better organize my stuff.
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Nov 23, 2010 01:48
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tonelok posted:They need to suck it up and think about how much money used book stores and chains are making off of used books (not to mention the used markets on Amazon and eBay). The publishers get nothing out of used book sales and they need to stop and think about that fact when it comes to pricing and look at what they can do price-wise on the older books, or books that have been out for six months or a year. Especially since you can see something like this, right there on the same page, and think to yourself "well hell gently caress giving the publisher money I'll just buy it used even cheaper if they want me to pay $15 for this old book":
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Nov 23, 2010 01:54
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Whoa, nice. Shelves are actually more like tags than actual shelves. You can assign a book to multiple shelves. You can also now Archive and Unarchive books from the device. I will also say wow at the page turn speed, it's a HUGE difference. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Nov 23, 2010 |
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Nov 23, 2010 01:55
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Paco de Suave posted:Honestly, this is really not the case. Ebook scanners get really into it, I've seen some impressive scanning setups. The books are out there and the scanners put some effort into it. I didn't say there aren't people who do it. It's too much effort for the average user to do it. That and there's no "Bookster" you can just hop on and have access to practically all the books in the western world.
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Nov 23, 2010 01:58
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Anyone know if the kindle 2 will get any new software updates? I suspect not but worth asking I guess.
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Nov 23, 2010 02:13
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Can anyone who has a nook tell me how to make it so a certain book doesn't show up at all? When I go to My B&N library, a book I don't want other people to see that I'm reading shows up. I tried archiving it, but it still shows up on that last. Is there a way to remove specific books from the list? For the curious, it's a self help book.
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Nov 23, 2010 02:31
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Does it gray out after you archive it? If so, you just need to select the to hide archive books from the change view menu.
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Nov 23, 2010 02:35
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bull3964 posted:Does it gray out after you archive it? If so, you just need to select the to hide archive books from the change view menu. Yay someone who knows what I'm talking about! But I have no idea where the change view menu is  EDIT: It is greyed out though.
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Nov 23, 2010 02:46
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Nevermind, i'm an idiot. I finally found the "hide archived books" option you were talking about. Thanks so much bull!
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Nov 23, 2010 02:48
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Just got a Nook! I'm graduating in a few weeks and am looking forward to having some extra time to actually read for fun again. Currently loading up on my classics...I'd love to actually finish Anna Karenina sometime... Anyway, sounds like I was pretty lucky to get the new software update. The nooks in the store that I was goofing around on were updating as I was looking at them. Good timing? I'm pretty excited and I really like it so far. I'm looking forward to figuring out how Overdrive works and using that. I live in the Twin Cities and the selection isn't fabulous, but it isn't horrible either. I also have access to the South-Central Wisconsin one as well, so I'll have to see what they have available. I'm totally a convert. When the kindle came out around $400 bucks, I swore I would never own one of these things, but only a few years later, here I am.
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Nov 23, 2010 03:22
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Got my nook updated (surprised at the update, could have sworn it would have come out RIGHT before december. 1st company in a long time to keep it's update schedule ) I can't wait to see what calibre can do with the shelves, this might actually be pretty sweet. Here's hoping it can set up a reading order for the shelf. Anyone else kinda bugged about the lack of covers in My documents? I have a crapload of books with covers in epub that I moved over, but the only cover browsing I can do is from the main library of bn.com stuff
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