[schammy]

Fair enough, however, $9.99 is no longer the common price point. Most new releases are $12.99 now, which many people think is too high, and the problem is the retailers can't do anything about it because of this "agency pricing".

I had no problem paying $9.99 for books on my kindle, but most of them are $12.99 now and I just feel like that's too much. In some cases, buying the physical hardcover is actually cheaper than $12.99 too, and that's what REALLY pisses some people off. The physical nature of the product surely is at least $1 - $2 of the actual cost of the the book, so buying it digitally gets rid of this cost.

Also, many books are destroyed if they're not sold (hence the "if you bought this book without a cover" warning in the front of many books). By moving to digital, the publishers no longer have to eat these costs.

So basically, eBook pricing is complete bullshit.

[JimmyL]

How is it more bullshit than any other pricing? Does it really cost github anywhere near $7/month to allow me to set five of my repos as private?

Just like private repositories are a service that brings value that people are willing to pay for, so is having an entire book in a small and portable format.

Ignore the costs related to making and distributing the physical objects when it comes to pricing them; if that's accepted wisdom for start-ups, why wouldn't it be for established companies?

[anto1ne]

It's bullshit because the biggest part in the price of a paper book is for printing and distribution. and VAT too in some countries, 20% instead of 5%, but it's going to change.

So the Agency pricing scheme is only changing the pocket where money goes.

And keep in mind that in countries like China, the same books cost usually $3, after translating rights, printing, distribution and publishers costs. And publishers still live on this, in a country where people buy much less books.

So what is fucked up is that someone is making money, and it doesn't even benefit the authors.

It's more or less the same problem as in music.

[loewenskind]

>It's bullshit because the biggest part in the price of a paper book is for printing and distribution.

Irrelevant. Pricing is based on value provided, not cost to create.

>and it doesn't even benefit the authors.

This is indeed an issue, but it is then up to authors to find better representation the way that athletes have so they can get a larger share in the value they create.

[rsl7]

It's bullshit when the ebook is more expensive than the paperback book.

[dagw]

If an ebook deliver more perceived value than a paperback to its target audience, why is it bullshit to charge more for it? As has been pointed out time and time again, charge based on value, not cost.

[Tycho]

But eBooks are really convenient, so customers willingly pay more for this extra value.

[gaius]

On of the quirks of pricing is that eBooks are VATable. That's 20% right there.

[dawgr]

I was going to buy a Kindle this week but this article is making me think twice. I thought it'd definitely be cheaper to buy books. What about PDFs? There are thousands of PDFs on the internet which you can get for free, is the quality of PDFs worse than books in kindle format? Do you have to scroll sideways or something? Or is the font smaller?

[rmc]

Yes, The Kindle can read PDFs. (I recently got a Kindle 3). However it's a second class reading experience. You can't change the font size (you can zoom in/out) etc. It's easy to convert a normal 'text pdf' to an ebook format suitable for Kindle (cf. http://www.technomancy.org/kindle/convert-books-to-kindle-fo...). If it's a PDF of scanned images from a book, then you'll need some OCR stuff.

[dawgr]

Okay thanks, so I can assume that hypothetically if I were to download text PDF books from certain places, then convert it to Kindle format, I would then be able to get first class reading experience? Are you happy with your Kindle 3 overall? I'm considering whether to get the one with 3G, but I don't know how good the webkit browser is, what do you think of it?

[bane]

I've found that PDFs kinda of stink (definitely much better on an iPad). However, txt files, and a few other ebooks formats work wonderfully. My Kindle is stocked with tons of Project Gutenberg books (that you can even download with the experimental web browser) and have found the reading experience really quite good.