Macmillan trying to sell readers 'hardcover' ebooks

I've already seen books published ONLY in paperback at $6.99 sold for that same price on Amazon for Kindle. Yet that same title is being sold on iTunes for $15.99 as though it were hardcover, which it never has been! Ebook pricing is still seriously screwed up, and I don't expect it to settle down for a couple of years--book publishing is an old, hidebound business that doesn't react to change quickly.

The author (Mr.? Ms?) Luoma is being somewhat disingenuous here on the difference between hardcover and mass-media paperbacks. The binding is the most important difference, because hardcover is an archival format that will last practically forever and always be readable, while cheap softcover binding is only meant to last a few reads before falling apart — which is why libraries put hardcovers in the permanent collection and softcovers on a temporary reading rack. Essentially, books have to have a hardcover edition, and if they're popular enough to warrant it later, a paperback edition.

It's hard to compare with the ebook format, since the nature of DRM negates the advantages of permanency and long-term storage a digital medium might otherwise have. There's no guarantee you'll be able to decrypt and read that book 10 or 50 years from now.

I'd be willing to pay close to hardcover prices for an ebook with no DRM and no restrictions, not tied to a given device or store after purchase, that I could give away or sell in the secondary market - basically all the things I can do with a hardcover if I buy it. But if publishers or booksellers think I'm going to pay hardcover prices (or more than hardcover, as I've seen recently at B&N) for the license to read a book I don't truly own, they're going to need to think again.

I really cannot understand the logic behind this? If they just sold the book for $9.99, they would not have to discount anything. That was the beauty of the $0.99 model that Apple created. Some songs were worth $0.99, some were not. At $1.25, I have to seriously think about whether I want that impulse purchase or not.

Last year I purchased at least 10 e-books - novels - because I knew what the price was going to be and also because it is now more convenient to read an e-book (I rarely read outside of my field until the Kindle on the iPhone arrived). Now, with Macmillan's new pricing structure, I will just wait for a few months to purchase anything since I know that they are going to drop the price by 50% or more in a few months. This is a completely mindless approach to the whole concept of books. I hate paperbacks because the writing is too small. As far as I can see the Hardcover and Paperback e-book will have everything the same, but cost less because of "time depreciation???"

The problem is that Brick & Mortar companies do not do well in the virtual environment. They bring their brick and mortar concepts to the virtual world and try to follow the same rules online as they do offline. These concepts do not work (see Walmart and Video rentals version 1, Apple succumbing to $1.29 record sales = sales slump on itunes, Blockbuster's failed effort online) but they cannot see that.

The faulty thought of Cannibalization of the Hardcover market is impossible given that the publishers are making a serious margin gain with an e-book over the hardcover version. Quite simply, there is a lack of logic and it will only take an upstart company (like LULU.com) to figure out a way around this pricing structure and leave everyone scrambling.

Just like for hard back books, when it's an author I like I am willing to pay more for an ebook in order to get immediate access to it. But it pisses me off that McMillan wants to charge me more than $9.99 for the Kindle book but they aren't willing to make a minimal effort to provide acceptable formatting that might justify the higher price. Recent example: recently I paid $15 for a much desired ebook and the multi-line chapter headings were overlaid, making them near impossible to read. Here's a concept for McMillan: charge me LESS for the quickly done, poorly formatted version of the ebook, take some time to do it right and then charge me MORE for an ebook that has the goodies that should be possible in this format. Ultimately they'd have to drop the price again as popularity waned, but there have been some ebooks where I would have happily waited and paid more for maps and figures and readable text.

The authors link to Joel Spolsky made me
smile. He's a great blogger and I've learned a lot from his articles.

And man, it is a lot of frigging work leaving comments on this blog. Especially from an iPhone.

They are being sneaky. They keep trying various arguments to keep people thinking about the comparison with paper books.

There is not comparison. There is no actual item sold. Some bits on you own local storage are aligned in the same way as their master copy on their storage. It costs absolutely zero incremental dollars to sell the second and subsequent copy of an ebook.

The price should be simply what people are willing to pay. That way the publisher gets some positive number of dollars and not zero as it is now.

Think of the car salesman's trick about asking you what color you want. By assuming that you have already decided to buy, you can often be gulled into replying: "Red." By having these constant cost comparison they are assuming that any of the cost arguments matter. They don't. Not one bit!

I get most of my first edition hardbacks for typically 18$... if they think I am paying 15$ for the same book when there is no ink usage, paper usage, hard back boarding, stitching, threading or fabric covering, they have lost their minds.

"whereas Apple has enough money to buy Canada"

You know, that's almost offensive to those of us living in Canada. At any rate, it's a poor comparison the two are not even close. Canada's net worth is substantially more than Apple's (even taking the paltry difference between the US and Canadian dollar into account).

I do this with "real" books all of the time. There are books that, for various reasons, I want to pay a premium to read shortly after release. It may be that I am a big fan of the author; it may be that it is part of a series that I have been reading, and I want the newest one as soon as it is out. It may be that I have read a review of the book pre-release or shortly after release, and, for whatever reason, it interests me.

This is the only reason I buy a hardcover book. Otherwise, I prefer it in softcover. When I get some sort of device that allows reading of ebooks, it will be the same reason why I will consider paying a premium to read a book right away rather than wait for it later on.

As for what JD said above, I believe that publishers have been struggling to get profits from "real" books for years, so of course they will want to try to get higher profits, if they can.

In short, publishers will price books where the market says they should; where they maximize profit for their business. If they price too high, not enough people will buy; too low, and they will lose potential profit. If they predict enough people are willing to pay $15 at the date of release to make the most profit, *that* is how they will price the book.