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| Just how are e-book costs arrived at? |
I have previously written many times about e-book costs on both this blog and the Publishing/Writing: Insights, News, Intrigue Blog (just refer to the labels on these sites).
Tonight we're presenting some old and new thoughts on this subject:
'E-books don't involve costs like paper, labor, and shipping, so why do they often cost more than their paperback counterparts?'
Some TP's say “The elimination of manufacturing and distribution costs are being offset by retail price reductions and the additional costs I have outlined. The good news is that we are making about the same margins, regardless of whether we sell the book in physical form or digital.”
'E-books cost as much to produce as hardcopy? Hogwash.'
'Anyone who produces anything digital that was formerly physical knows digital is cheaper. A website is cheaper than a newspaper. A digital version of a video costs less to deliver than a tape. An e-book costs less than a physical book. Anyone suggesting otherwise, like this publishing executive, probably has a dog in the fight.'
See these thoughts and others come together in this piece by Stacy Johnson in the Christian Science Monitor:
Why do e-books cost so much?
E-books don't involve costs like paper, labor, and shipping, so why do they often cost more than their paperback counterparts? Here's the answer, and why e-book prices may be falling in the future.
Here’s a question I got on our Facebook page. Maybe you’ve wondered about it too.
Why do your Kindle books cost more than a paperback copy? The Kindle version of Life or Debt on Amazon costs $9.73, but they’re selling the paperback for as little as $6.00. Since e-books should cost much less to produce, why do they cost more to buy? This seems unfair, especially when you’re writing about how to save money to pay off debt.
- Ted
I got a very similar question a little more than a year ago, published in a post called "Why Are E-Books So Expensive?" I’m going to answer it again, however, because since then things have happened that shed more light on this subject.
As I said in my earlier post, I have no control over the price of my books. When you work with a traditional publisher (mine is Simon & Schuster), you have no input – they set the price.
Whoever establishes the price, however, you’ve still got to wonder…
Why are e-books so expensive?
The first time I attempted to answer this question, I quoted an article called "Why Do eBooks Cost So Much? (A Publisher’s Perspective)" by Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. Here’s how he justified the high cost of e-books…
Read and learn more
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4 comments:
The content for an e-book and physical are basically the same. The physical book might have an index sorted on specific terms telling you what page(s) to find that term. Digital books require a dynamic table of contents which is a formating issue. The cost of a physical book based on self-publishing (and based on competitor analysis) is generally in the neighborhood of 30-50% depending on the quantity printed, use of color, etc. Digital books have royalties to the author depending on price breaks - $2.99 to 9.99 - you get 70% from Amazon. Above or below that you get 35%. A 200 page physical book might cost you near $10 for self-publishing (based on quantity produced) and you sell it for $15-20/book. You have a $5-10 profit per book, but you have to sell them at conferences, or website (additional cost for shipping and handling). The same book on Amazon might be $9.99 and the author gets $7.00 profit per book and no distribution costs. The profit margin can work nearly the same for both in the long run with large quantity orders of physical books. The marketing cost for both can be similar, but their is more return on your investment for digital marketing.
Red,
Thanks for your comment. I believe you are accurate in your return-on-investment analogy between physical & digital books :)
Both the article and comment by Red O'Laughlin are missing an important element in their assessment. While the formatting issue may have been true in years past, since the advent of digital printing, a nearly identical process is involved for physical book production (on the digital side) as is for pure digital production. Additionally, you will notice that when publishers changed from offset printing to digital printing, there was not cost savings to the book buyer.
In actual production cost for a 10,000 book print run, the cost difference per book between offset versus digital is between 20 and 40 percent savings for digital. Why? Because digital is less labor intensive.
Regardless of what publishers try to insist, ink and paper do have a cost. While the return on investment is greater with bulk printing, it remains that the cost doesn't go away and can't be eliminated from the cost equation. Ebooks cost less to produce unless there simply is no paper counterpart... in which case there is not comparison.
Within the last few years, the Texas legislature held hearings with text book publishers to address the ebook cost issue. Texas is one of the few States where public school text books are purchased on a statewide level. Texas is also one of the largest purchasers of text books. However, publishers have refused to offer reduced pricing for the purchase of ebooks, offering the same excuses to the State as in other venues. However, when examples were drawn for the publishers, in the hearings, where the same publishers offered ebooks to districts in other states at significant savings, it came out that the actual reason was "because they could".
A lie is a lie, no matter when or under what circumstance it's spoken. The cost of producing an electronic copy of an item is less than generating a single or multiple physical copies of the same item... it's physics.
Both the article and comment by Red O'Laughlin are missing an important element in their assessment. While the formatting issue may have been true in years past, since the advent of digital printing, a nearly identical process is involved for physical book production (on the digital side) as is for pure digital production. Additionally, you will notice that when publishers changed from offset printing to digital printing, there was not cost savings to the book buyer.
In actual production cost for a 10,000 book print run, the cost difference per book between offset versus digital is between 20 and 40 percent savings for digital. Why? Because digital is less labor intensive.
Regardless of what publishers try to insist, ink and paper do have a cost. While the return on investment is greater with bulk printing, it remains that the cost doesn't go away and can't be eliminated from the cost equation. Ebooks cost less to produce unless there simply is no paper counterpart... in which case there is not comparison.
Within the last few years, the Texas legislature held hearings with text book publishers to address the ebook cost issue. Texas is one of the few States where public school text books are purchased on a statewide level. Texas is also one of the largest purchasers of text books. However, publishers have refused to offer reduced pricing for the purchase of ebooks, offering the same excuses to the State as in other venues. However, when examples were drawn for the publishers, in the hearings, where the same publishers offered ebooks to districts in other states at significant savings, it came out that the actual reason was "because they could".
A lie is a lie, no matter when or under what circumstance it's spoken. The cost of producing an electronic copy of an item is less than generating a single or multiple physical copies of the same item... it's physics.
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