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Lower e-book prices, urges Sony content exec
August 28, 2009 | 6:42 am
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By David Rothman
E-book prices need to come down, warns Sony content exec Richard Palk—and with good reason, given the lower production expenses of e-books.
Granted, both E and P come with editing costs and all that. But really, should e-book prices be as high as they are now? (Bookseller.com via Don Linn.)
Related: 6,000 outlets reportedly to sell Sony Readers this holiday season—2X last year’s number (via Mike Cane). And actually that’s tied to the first item. The more e-book gizmos out there, the more e-book gouges will harm the growth of the book biz as a whole.
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Comments:
It’s nice to hear (“It’s happening… snif… it’s really happening!”). But it would be even better to hear it from someone who has the power of actually lowering prices, instead of just “warning” everyone about it…
Hey, would somebody just make a list on:
1. Costs on every and each process for printed paper books.
2. Costs on every and each process for ebooks.
Then compare what the difference is? Do you think that the difference is so huge? I dare anybody bragging about “lower production expenses of e-books” to compare points 1 and 2. Maybe there’s more than one surprise.
Yes. But how much lower? Both authors and publishers need to make something, so absurdly low prices aren’t going to make a whole lot of sense to them.
For me, I’d say if the ebook price should be based on cost of the currently available printed book price, somewhere along these lines:
If the book is hardcover between $25.95 to $35, then the ebook should be around$9.99 to $12.99
If the book is trade paperback between $13.95 and $17.96, the ebook should be around $7.99 to $9.99
If the book is mass market between $6.99 to $7.99, then the ebook should be around $4 to $6
There is no rocket science in these numbers, just what I think should be around the reasonable cost.
Josep, I think you might be surprised. As with many other industries, quite a bit of the production costs of books, especially at the paper manufacturing end, are hidden, ignored, obscured by accounting or written off in taxes (which means someone else is paying the real costs).
Add the real total costs of electricity, environmental damage from chemicals dumped into wastewater, storage and transportation (and its impact on the environment), etc, and I suspect you’d see a very large difference between the two. And a good reason to lower prices on e-books.