[toyg]

I love ebooks and I'm way too prone to impulse-buying them on my Kindle, but recent price movements are trying hard to kill the market.

I'm not going to pay £15 for a text file, sorry. I honestly don't care how good your editing is, chances are it's awful anyway: one I got recently, by a mainstream author from a mainstream publisher, has "renaissance" spelled "re nais san ce" (with spaces) throughout the entire book, clearly an hyphenation fail (and let's not go into "wrong" words you can clearly recognise as spellchecking fails).

So in the end, you publisher-and-author are just shuffling a text file from A to B and you want me to believe your profit is the same as when you were cutting trees, pressing ink and transporting heavy boxes around the land. I just feel insulted. I know cost and price are different and what the market will bear and yadda yadda, I just don't think a text file is worth more than a few quid.

[e40]

Hear hear. If the Kindle version of a book is not 10-20% less than the new paperback price, I don't buy the book. It's a simple as that.

Thankfully, there are enough books for which this isn't the case.

[nosuchthing]

I'd rather buy several used books, or just get the physical copy of a new book instead of paying $15 for an ebook.

Brick and mortar used bookstores seem to be able to profit on a modest volume of physical books at $3-$12.

I'm really surprised digital textbooks at a reasonable price ($20-$80) aren't more of a thing yet. Especially as interactive apps.

[on_and_off]

>, has "renaissance" spelled "re nais san ce"

if only that was the only issue. In my experience, ebook editing (both epub & mobi) is always pitiful. Theorically, pdfs can be nice but unless you are extremely lucky and the document size matches the device you are trying to read it on, you are out of luck. Even providing a reasonably sized cover seems impossible.

Do we need a new format dedicated to ebooks ? or do publishers simply need to start editing for the digital era ?

[saturdaysaint]

I believe that the right book at the right time can change your perspective, maybe your life. £15 is a pretty small price to dive into a well-written book on a subject, practically the moment your interest is sparked in the subject. Other conveniences - the fact that you don't have to trudge hundreds of pounds of books every time you move, the ability to read on any device - arguably make them more valuable than their physical counterparts to me, at least.

[mkaziz]

I would pay 15 pounds for a life-changing book, but not for my next pulp fantasy. That's just way too much, especially when the paper book costs around the same or less.