Are ebooks too expensive?

[psikeyhackr]

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 1965 = £0.175, 2014 = £3.85 (both paperback)

$4 for smaller YA to $12 for larger Adult book (in Paper) doesn't seem unreasonable compared to 1966. An eBook should be a bit cheaper, maybe 50% for niche books and 25% less compared to cheap supermarket paper prices.

I am pretty sure I would not have bought The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was a kid. But so much of the kind of stuff I did buy and would have bought had I known about, is now free. And there is actually some fan fiction that is pretty good but it is free. So how are writers supposed to compete among all of this free stuff.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7648212/1/Rediscovery

And then there are the marketing strategy give aways.

https://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx

psik

 

[Nerds_feather]

It is all of these positive reviews that hardly explain anything that I find more annoying than "bad books".

Absolutely. There have been some people arguing that one should only review books if you want to recommend them. This is exactly why I think critical views are helpful, and why I don't shy away from writing negative reviews. I try not to pile on unnecessarily, but I feel like honesty is the best and most useful policy.

I think authors should give away the first few chapters then the readers that are interested can pay $1 to $3 for the whole thing.

Both Amazon and iBooks offer free previews. This is one thing I find really useful about ebooks over print books. But even in the latter case, I tend to read the first two pages in the store in order to see if the style matches my capacity to pay attention.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's not unusual for me to read the sample for the ebook version and then buy the print book if there isn't a large difference in the price, because I'd rather have the physical book.

I think authors should give away the first few chapters then the readers that are interested can pay $1 to $3 for the whole thing.

Are you saying that authors should feel obligated to do this, or that it would be to their benefit if they did? If the first, I think that's rather dismissive of the time and effort that many writers put into their books. If the second, I have my doubts. Back when there were fewer books being published, if something was published as a cheap paperback the difference might be more than made up by the volume of books sold. But with ebooks, there are so many books being offered and so many of them in that price range you suggest, I am not at all sure that lowering the price would attract that many more readers. Those who already want the book will pay whatever they think it is worth; those who are simply looking for a bargain have a million other choices.

(Not that traditionally published authors have any say in how much their books will cost; that's up to the publisher.)

 

[psikeyhackr]

Are you saying that authors should feel obligated to do this, or that it would be to their benefit if they did?

Those who already want the book will pay whatever they think it is worth; those who are simply looking for a bargain have a million other choices.

I just regard it as a form of marketing. It is not like the reader is getting much from 20 pages of a 200 page book. I consider avoiding crap to be the major problem. The trouble for me is what I regard as crap gets so many good reviews and recommendations. Of course if I buy a book and never finish it then the publisher and author and retailer still make money. I waste money and the time to read enough to learn that I don't like it.

But the real bargains are free anyway.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/256041/chapters/399445

I would not say obligated. But I probably would not try a new author that didn't. Everybody seems to get fans. I can't understand why anyone would read these:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2334538.Quarter_Share

It averages 4 stars. I gave it one. So reviews and ratings seem worthless to me.

psik

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I can see offering free samples as good marketing.

But pricing new books at between $1 and $3 doesn't make sense in terms of a return on the investment the author has made in time, and the publisher in money. I'm talking about books by writers who spend years developing their writing skills, then take a year or more to write each book, not books by first time writers who dash something off in a few months.

And it is strange to me that so many people who are willing to put out large amounts of money on their other pleasures are so reluctant to pay seven or eight dollars for a book they can read again and again if they like it. If they don't ... well, it's probably less money wasted than going to a movie that it turns out they don't like, and heck of a lot less than if they go to a concert that disappoints them, or a play, or any other form of entertainment that fails to live up their expectations.

 

[psikeyhackr]

And it is strange to me that so many people who are willing to put out large amounts of money on their other pleasures are so reluctant to pay seven or eight dollars for a book they can read again and again if they like it. If they don't ... well, it's probably less money wasted than going to a movie that it turns out they don't like, and heck of a lot less than if they go to a concert that disappoints them, or a play, or any other form of entertainment that fails to live up their expectations.

How much does an author make per book with a publisher? At what point do publishers go the way of book stores?

psik

 

[Timba]

I commented earlier that I would not spend more than $10.00 on an e-book but yesterday proved me wrong. I spent $12.00 for the latest S.M. Stirling book in his Change series. I guess if I am really invested in a series the price becomes less of an issue.

 

[Lilmizflashythang]

But not everyone wants to play the part of a publishing house Psikey. Why should we all take the same path? I don't want to feel like I have to compete with the fanfiction writers, even though I played with it when I was younger. Nor do I want to be told that I have to work as a strictly e-book writer. I still have the dream of seeing my novels in hardcover.

You focus on the cost of reading time for books you don't like, what about the writing time invested in the books that you do? Shouldn't the writers be paid for that, regardless of how they published their books?

 

[psikeyhackr]

But not everyone wants to play the part of a publishing house Psikey. Why should we all take the same path?

You focus on the cost of reading time for books you don't like

Everybody is going to do whatever they want. We are all victims of the so called market forces. And the forces that try to manipulate the market.

But it has been so annoying to try to find new books I like I have been rereading old books in my collection more than buying new ones for years. Even finding books if have in paperback form as e-books and doing text to speech to make them audiobooks. I did that with The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan which I think is better than Neuromancer. I read Gibson's work before he became famous and tried rereading it to see what was so great and could not finish it. My problem is that my SF tastes do not seem to be mainstream. And the stream has changed since Star Wars.

Reading books that I do like takes time also. How much does an author make per book using a publisher?

psik

 

[Brian G Turner]

How much does an author make per book using a publisher?

IIRC correctly, it's something like 8% list price for paperback, and 25% for ebook.

Last night I did some investigation into self-publishing royalties and costs via Amazon + Createspace POD. The % via self-publishing can be 70%, but a trad publisher can charge more and sell to more people. POD I found prohibitively expensive for anything except very low wordcount novels.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I don't want to feel like I have to compete with the fanfiction writers, even though I played with it when I was younger.

To a certain extent you are competing for taking up people's time. I admit my problem has been that reviews have been worth crap. I have deliberately read reviews of books I have read and like to see if I would have read them on the basis of reviews. Jo Walton is the only reviewer I have found so far who seems to have tastes similar to mine. And she doesn't like PK Dick. I don't much either.

That is part of why I came up with the word count program. It can go through reams of material in seconds. Eliminating material scoring below 0.20 on science density would work for me. That would filter out The Hunger Games. I read all three books out of curiosity but I would not mind having them filtered out. How much money something makes does not seem to have much influence on how much I like it. I have read better fan fiction. Scott Washburn seems to be quite good. Maybe he can write good stories within a framework but is not good at imagining a good framework himself.

psik

 

[psikeyhackr]

IIRC correctly, it's something like 8% list price for paperback, and 25% for ebook.

Last night I did some investigation into self-publishing royalties and costs via Amazon + Createspace POD. The % via self-publishing can be 70%, but a trad publisher can charge more and sell to more people. POD I found prohibitively expensive for anything except very low wordcount novels.

Thanks for the info.

Computers and the Internet has created a new and peculiar kind of market. It is still evolving. Computers make it easier for more people to write, and novels have gotten longer. Maybe they have gotten to verbose. 150 to 200 pages was the norm in the 60s. Now 300 pages is almost short. The 7 Harry Potter books are 6 megabytes. One megabyte is 500 pages.

I don't mind buying and reading long books, but I don't go for this, "It doesn't get good until after 200 pages." business. Some readers seem to be compulsive and will finish anything. That ain't me.

But I don't see why readers can't short circuit the book marketing industry to determine what is good and should be bought. Of course there will be different groups of readers with there concept of good. Some people want excitement. I have seen comments by people who like the early Vorkosigan books but not the later romantic ones. We need better book descriptions.

psik