Ebooks and e-publishing

For those that are hyper-concerned about ebook piracy, and say that it’s not about the cost of the ebooks, and people would ‘steal’ them anyway:

Let’s compare the download / physical prices for the fledgling ebook industry, and the mature music industry (that went through piracy traumas some years ago)

Firstly, from Amazon.co.uk, MUSIC:

Lady Gaga – “The Fame Monster”: CD £8.98, download £5
Black Eyed Peas – “The E.N.D.”: CD £8.98, download £5
Robbie Williams – “Reality Killed the Video Star”: CD £8.18, download £5

Secondly, from Waterstones, EBOOKS:

James Patterson – “I, Alex Cross”: Hardback £9.49, ebook £11.65
Patricia Cornwell – “The Scarpetta Factor”: Hardback £9.49, ebook £13.30
Robert J Sawyer – “FlashForward”: Paperback £4.89, ebook £5.60.

Where’s the justification for those daft prices?

What can we learn from this? That the music industry, from experience, knows that the way to stop piracy is to provide the goods at a reasonable price. A purchaser can save 40-odd percent by downloading an album rather than buying the CD. The actual price, too, is interesting. £5. Simple, no nonsense, none of this 98p stuff. The psychological message is: downloading is easy, simple, straightforward.

Book publishers have a lot to learn.

Reply to Lisa Jardin on Ebooks – “A Page-turning Passion”

LINK TO BBC WEBSITE

My reply:

So, “real readers” don’t use e-readers then? Ms Jardine may have her Point of View on this subject, and there’s no evidence that e-readers will completely replace books made from trees in the near future.

However, there is a growing army of consumers who are delighting in the practicalities of slipping a slim volume into their bag for the commute to work, or packing the same slim volume into hand luggage for a weekend away or a fortnight’s holiday. Same slim volume, huge choice of books to read.

There are issues to be addressed, for sure. The key one, as far as I can see, is that of book price. How publishers can justify charging less for a weighty piece of dead tree covered in ink, than the electronic file from which it was derived, is beyond me. They are in danger of following the head-in-the-sand attitudes of the music publishers of a few years ago. The secret is to understand the psychology of online purchasing, rather than attempt to bolster artificially high prices with legal threats against piracy.

On the other hand, high prices for ‘name’ authors encourages e-reader enthusiasts to seek out new authors whose works attract a somewhat more realistic price tag. Nine of Amazon’s top 10 Kindle book purchases were at the princely sum of $0.00. Free. What does that tell you about the acceptable price point for the e-reading public?

There’s a good review in an article from the Guardian today.

The Guardian

The good impressions of the Que continue, albeit out of range of all but the most dedicated private early adopters. The interest in the Apple announcement later this month grows, although the article makes a good point about dedicated readers versus multifunctional devices.

Worth a read.

CLICK HERE

So, first impressions? Nice. Very nice.

Two models, available from April this year. A 4GB version, WiFi only, for $649 (£407), and an 8GB version with WiFI and 3G for $799 (£501).

The idea of making newspaper downloads look like newspapers is great, and the automatic subscription downloads (similar to iTunes subscriptions) would make taking the morning paper a breeze.

But, at the end of the day, it’s expensive compared to other readers on the market – understandably, since the touch screen display is so large (A4 / foolscap sized). Quite rightly, Que are targetting their product at the business market initially, where I can see it being the executive must-have of 2010.

I talked some time ago about the price of ebooks. In fact, I talk a lot about the price of ebooks.

Yes, you can download free ebooks from a variety of places (see my links on the right for an ever-expanding list of freebook sources), but the majority of these are either technical works, ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes, or out of copyright classics. So, what if you want to read some good, contemporary fiction? Say, something of the bestsellers lists?

How about James Patterson’s “Run For Your Life”? Currently 4th on Neilson’s UK top 50. I like James Patterson, and have read a number of his Alex Cross novels. So I fire up my Kindle (if I had one), and go to the Amazon Kindle store, and find the ebook there at the princely sum of … $12.69. That’s £7.90 in British Pounds Sterling. The paperback version – remember, printed in black ink on dead trees, collated, bound, nice cover, put into boxes, and transported around the country – is $10.19. It’s cheaper than the ebook! Even the audio book is only $13.59, and they’ve had to pay an actor to sit there for hours reading the thing. data from here

So, how many people have downloaded this book to their Kindles? Amazon are tight-lipped about actual quantities of sales, but we can look at the Best Sellers in the Kindle Store. 9 of the top 10 ebooks selling on Amazon’s Kindle Store are priced at: $0.00. Free. No money. The 10th is unavailable, so we don’t know. Interestingly, the first non-free ebook on the Kindle bestsellers list is a James Patterson book – “I, Alex Cross”, priced at $9.99.

So, what does this tell you about the “Acceptable Price” that Kindle owners are prepared to pay?

Ahead of the QUE announcement, another large-screen reader has been announced. The Skiff Reader. At 228mm X 279mm X 6.8mm, it features a display with 4 times as many readable pixels as many other electronic readers. At 498g, it is around twice as heavy as most readers. More technical specs are HERE

Looks interesting.

Another scare story, this time from CNN- LINK

They’re still missing the point. Ebooks are TOO EXPENSIVE. Until you get to the stage of ebooks costing $5 or less (which they should), people will always try to find cheaper alternatives.

Oh my word. We start the year with a great piece from author Eric Flint on the e-piracy debate. Everyone (especially large publishers) needs to read this.
CLICK HERE

Interesting article and bit of video on the display behind the QUE.

CLICK HERE

Well, the rumours of an Apple tablet have been ‘doing the rounds’ for months (years, actually), but all the excitement came to nought, because (apparently) Steve Jobs wasn’t happy with the product.

Now, according to blog reports, Steve is happy with the product, and Apple have booked a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for the 26th January 2010 for a “major product announcement”.

All the talk up to now has been that it will be a cut-down MacBook, and oversized iPhone, or something with computer functionality. Now, for the first time, reports are coming out that it’s actually an eReader called the iSlate. See THIS LINK, although the report states that the announcement will be at WWDC 2010, on the 7th June.

So what is Steve Jobs announcing to the world in January? It’s something big, and there hasn’t been as much Apple-related frenzy since the iPhone came out. The iPhone is becoming a viable reading device, with many written works now available as apps downloadable from iTunes. Is the time right for a 7″ or 10″ version of this?

One thing you can say about Apple – like ‘em, or loath ‘em, they know how to wind up a PR bandwagon. All aboard!