Posted on 04/21/2010 8:04:12 AM PDT by mattstat
Traditional publishing is screwy. Book makers set a cover price, say $25. They sell that book at half that to bookstores; which nets publishers $12.50.
Publishers give authors about 15 percent royalty on the cover price, which is $3.75. This leaves the publisher $8.75. From that, all bills must be paid: salaries, lights, printing, shipping, warehousing, marketing.
There is a twist: booksellers are allowed to return unsold merchandise for a refund! Depends on the book, but returns average about 50% or more. Paperbacks are not even physically returned; the cost of shipping not making it worth reselling them.
This means the publisher has to eek a profit out of about $4.38 per book. Most reports say profit is about a buck a book.
That’s “on average” which, regular readers will know, is always a dangerous way of presenting statistics. Much can be hidden in a single-number.
For example, bestsellers won’t be, by definition, returned (the discounting booksellers apply to blockbusters affects publishers only indirectly). Plus, back-lists—classics that remain in copyright—are also unreturned.
This means publishers make their money on back-lists and bestsellers—however, big-name authors are freer to negotiate bigger royalties. Publishers lose money on many other books.
Electronic books save money three ways: no printing, no shipping, and no returns. Eliminating the first two saves only about two bucks a book. Eliminating returns saves about four bucks—but only for those titles that would be returned. ..
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
Which is the best “E” book to buy? I’ve been told the Nook is better for library books ....
In my opinion the iPad ebook reader is THE killer application on the device. Apple and Co. are goping to make another fortune off of it.
I LOVE my Kindle.
And how is this different from the music industry selling physical product vs. digital download?
And movie distribution is going the same way.
But why would someone pay $10 for a digital download of a movie when they can buy a DVD for $11 and then resell it later? There is no resale value in downloads, it is prohibited by your purchase “agreement”.
Ditto. The only thing I’d change is I’d enable backlighting of the text screen.
I heard they’re not compatible with downloading from libraries ... I think Nook is the one to use for that ... still investigating since these E books run almost 3 hundred.
I don’t think I can have any affection for an e-book. Can’t collect it, can’t enjoy the cover art. There is something about having the book in your hands. I have loved books since pre-K and even worked in my local library at one time (loved it). I just can’t see it. Maybe in time it will grow on me....
Me too. I wouldn't trade it for anything. And it's so easy on the eyes. It's not backlit like the iPad, and its smaller and easier to hold than the iPad. (Plus, maybe it's just me, but I'm not crazy about a device that I constantly have to wipe down because my finger smudges are all over it.)
I'm amazed at the classic books you can get on Amazon for less than a dollar (and sometimes for free). Go on Amazon, click a button, and 30 seconds later you have a book.
iPad and eBooks ... :-)
I personally like my eBookwise device. Until they make a ebook reader that will read the 2000+ ebooks I already have, I am not forking out big bucks for a nook/kindle/etc.
www.ebookwise.com
RS
I would love to have a large portion of my library in ebooks...my collection is dominated by text heavy history and folklore and other such stuff....takes way much room to store it all...I have 7 full to overflowing bookcases, and probably need one or two others.
And I like being able to search text electronically.
But my map books, art books, and other heavily illustrated books, I want them in paper. And probably my crafting books as well....
I haven’t bought an ebook reader yet because I’m usually not very far away from my puter and I can read on it, but I’m sure the day is coming when I do pop for one.
Uh, that’s not going to happen...ever. Do yourself a favor and convert all those book because no one will ever make a reader to view .rb files again.
Here’s a program that’ll do it.
http://www.processtext.com/abcrocketebook.html
An ebook reader will be as good as a real book when it can mimic the texture of the paper and the smell of leather.
Thanks for the link. I will definitely look at that at home. Most of my books are HTML processed to IMP through the GEBLibrarian software. The ones I buy from ebookwise and fictwise get downloaded directly to the reader itself.
My problem is that I dont want to do anything but read my books, and all these other machines nearly sit up and sing. :-)
I still enjoy the smell & feel of book stores & books. And, I totally agree with you about the feel of a book, etc. Having said that, I also enjoy the Kindle when I travel, especially. Most of the history books I read a in the 500 to 700 page range and that makes it tricky to travel with.
To me,the Kindle has a place in my life.
I thought the very same thing. I am a veracious reader and I am pretty set in my ways. When my wife got the Kindle for me on my last birthday, it took all of 3 minutes before I forgot I wasn't reading a "real" book.
Ah, I’m sure there is an imp converver out there but EVERYONE who uses ebooks should have Calibre
it converts pretty much any ebook format (including rb, I just checked) and it free.
However it won’t convert DRM’d files which I know fictionwise sells. You’ll have to deDRM them first (PM me if you want to know).
As for the readers, here is a comparison chart of over 30 of them. Most do one thing and do it well, display clear non-eye straining text.
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix
Oh neat, thank you for the information. I really appreciate it.
SD, come check this out, this might be an alternative to what we’ve been doing.
I got a Nook for Christmas. Let’s just say I have a love/hate relationship with it. It’s a little quirky when it pages, and the lack of cursor control makes moving around on a page frustrating. The lack of backlight is troubling at times, although I recognize that it was eliminated to save battery life.
On the other hand, I have downloaded a dozen free books and read them with no trouble. The same books in hardcopy would have been in the neighborhood of $200. So I expext it to pay for itself quickly.
And it should be noted that many of the free books are scans of hardcopy. Quirks in the character-recognition software make for some interesting lapses in the text.
But it’s fairly certain that epublishing is the future. The notion of ink on paper is in its last days.
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