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Murdoch Says E-Book Prices Will Kill Paper Books
hrimhari writes "The settlement between Amazon and Macmillian got the attention of a known dinosaur. Consistent to his views, Mr. Murdoch wants to defend his book editors by killing the cheaper solution. '"We don't like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99," Murdoch said. "They pay us the wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge," he said. "But I think it really devalues books, and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.'"
another old wrinkly dinosaur doesn't like change! news at 11.
Well hell, there's reason enough for me to oppose whatever else is in the paragraph below, never mind TFA.
However, upon reading TFA I learned that he owns HarperCollins. So there's another publisher I don't need to feel bad about ignoring.
John
If a new product comes along that is cheaper and more desired by consumers the old product becomes a dead market? What fascinating insight! How can I pay money to see more news from this "Murdoch" guy?
He thinks everything exists for the sole purpose of carrying a price tag.
First they have to be cheaper then paper books.
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
You don't own the book, you can't sell it, you can't loan it and you can't donate it to a library. The paperback edition will eventually cost less than the 9.99 to 14.99 that Macmillan wants to charge. They need to enter the real world where you can go to a used bookstore a couple of months after a book is published and get it for less than their ebook prices.
Yes, eBooks DO devalue books - as they should. Books are just a very (very!) old medium.
What eBooks don't devalue is content, or at least they shouldn't. Up until now, the content has been tied to the medium in the publishing world. We've seen what happened when the two became decoupled with music and movies (and even video games, to some extent - at least for PC gaming), and it's about damn time that the same thing happens with the written word.
As for companies that sell hardcovers... well, sucks to be them. That's what happens when your business model is tied to a single medium.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
"But I think it really devalues books, and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.'"
No kidding. Competition is funny that way.
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
If they're getting paid $14 and the retailer is selling it at a loss, well, he already got $14 for it!
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
Paper books will always live. One the one hand, there are still a billion people in the world without access to regular electricity. On the other, we might have limited resources in the future to make new electronic devices, due to peak oil and climate change. Yet, we can always make paper on a small, local scale if necessary. But electronic devices require a large industrial infrastructure.
After all, we have thousands of years of written human history, but only a tiny moment of digital history. It would be presumptuous of us to assume the latter will last longer than the former.
http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/10/ebooks-versus-paper.html
Information has artificially inflated in value. The prices coming down are a natural result of people realizing this.
We have been paying too much for books, films, and music for years. Party's over. They still get to make profit, just not obscene profit.
I love books. I much prefer to read a dead-tree book than an e-book. There's just something I love about sitting on a couch with a book in my hands turning the pages as I read. It doesn't matter if it's a technical book, fiction, nonfiction, or a textbook of some sort. I prefer the actual thing. Looking at a screen trying to read an e-book just sucks in my opinion(admittedly I have yet to use the Nook or other such devices).
That said. I can't afford the dead-tree versions of alot of the books I want. So I have to resort to e-books. The people like Murdoch need to catch up with the times. Amazon makes it to where I can afford to read the books I love. As far as I'm concerned, they get my business because they tend to do things for the customers from what I've seen, not their wallets.
I sided with Macmillan in this little argument, because I think the way Amazon acted was really shitty and totally lacking in class. But when Rupert fucking Murdoch starts speaking out against Amazon, it almost makes me want to side with Amazon. Almost. I guess I can always just hate them both.
... and then they built the supercollider.
e-readers have their place. I'd say it would be for viewing more dynamic docs or quick reference over a networked feed for tech docs. Paper books, for me, are not replaceable. You don't have to worry so much about a paperback. I can smack my son (allegedly) with it when he acts like a kook. I can throw it off a twenty story building and it still works. I can treat my book like the $6.00 price it cost.
I know this is an old argument. I am an old dude, (allegedly), but I see what my son reads. And how he reads, and he decidedly did not want an e-reader for his reading needs.
I just wish I could buy books printed on hemp like God intended.!
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
This is a preemptive reply to the ten million people who are about to post variations on the following theme
"e-books should only cost a few dollars because they don't have the cost of printing/shipping/storing a book"
This is wrong.
This is wrong because actually printing a book is the smallest cost involved in making one. When you look at the price of, say, a $35 hardcover book perhaps $4 is physical costs. Almost all of the cost of a book is the cost of paying the author/editor/proofreader plus the retail markup. These costs remain the same regardless of format.
And you will note that I have not mentioned publisher's profit. That's because there basically isn't one. Publishing is notorious for having no profit margin. Always has been. It was famous for not making money a century ago, famous for it fifty years ago and still a great way to get well known while losing money today. Publishing is not the music industry and it is not the movie industry. Almost all the profit is spent in up-front costs before the product even hits the streets.
Because of this, publishing has always had a very sane pricing policy. First they publish the hardcover for a high price point. Everyone who can't wait to read it buys it. Then if it is popular enough to pay off the costs six months or a year later they produce a softcover for $10 to pick up everyone who didn't want it enough to pay the hardcover costs.
Now, this doesn't mesh very well with the electronic music or video markets which is why Amazon tries to run with a fixed price point. But that's a nuts way of doing things when you are talking about books. Doesn't work because it doesn't pay off the fixed costs involved in paying the people who produce the books.
So, really, a fair e-book price is about $5 less than whatever it is selling for on the shelf. When a book first comes out that means $30-$40. A year or so later $6 is pretty likely. If you can't stand waiting don't bitch about the higher price.
For a real understanding, check out this post from John Scalzi (author) that is really fantastic
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-pricing/
Even though ebooks are definitely the future I think people will always buy hardback and paperback books because there's nothing like actually having it in your hands, unless of course we cut down all the trees.
How is this NOT price fixing? They use licensing semantics to do an end run around the idea, but in the end it's price fixing. Last I heard, anti competitive practices like that are illegal in the United States.
Burn Hollywood Burn
At some point, ebooks will be on-par or better readability-wise than paper books. I'm no apple fan but the iPad's demonstration as an ereader got me interested for the first time.
When the convenience and ubiquitousness of downloading books on a reader reaches a certain critical mass, I guarantee you people will ditch paper books. Not completely. LPs are still popular but they're certainly not the dominant format. CDs are still the dominant format but we've all heard and can see the day coming when digital downloads for movies, music, tv will come. Books will come along with that.
Heck it's already a huge industry. Just google for ebooks. There are businesses laughing all the way to bank while naysayers like you and others say you don't understand the attraction. In truth, you do, you just haven't connected all the conveniences your computer gives you with digital goods with books.
In the end, the medium isn't what matters. It's the content. In 10 years the kids will be creating fond memories sitting at their cottage not with an old paper back but with an old ipad their dad got them for their previous birthday.
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
Exactly... Especially when the government decides to ban a book and all your copies of it mysteriously disappear... Maybe not in the USA, but I can see it happening in many other countries.
China decides to ban a book and everyones government provided ereader deletes it. Book burning of the 21st century.
The Fox News claim is commonly repeated and is misleading in a broader context. The same study showed that by its measure people who get their news from blogs are statistically indistinguishable from Fox News viewers at how informed they are. Indeed, both Fox viewers and blog readers are very close to the average level for people in the US. If you look at the data what is actually really bringing the average down seems to be the people who either have no regular news source or who are getting their news primarily from local TV news. There are other details about that study that make the claim about Fox News not nearly as bad when you look at in context. And now the plug:For a more detailed analysis see my blog entry on this subject: http://religionsetspolitics.blogspot.com/2009/06/bloggers-fox-news-and-informed-audience.html. Fox News is wretched and is damaging America in many ways. But it is very hard to see this study as evidence for that fact.
What about the power part? real books don't need them!
You have to ask yourself how much energy it takes to produce a book. Certainly they contain quite a bit of energy...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I read about one novel a week, i have a large book library and a Sony PRS-300, and to tell you the truth i much prefer the E-book reader now as i don't have to worry about book storage or if i have a spare book with me. I tend to load up the next 4 or 5 books i plan to read so i am always ready to go. Plus its light so easy to carry in my briefcase, and i can just pop it out while i am waiting for an appointment.
Only thing i really like now in printed form is my Saturday newspaper and cooking books.
Except the reality is that only a very few actually make an "obscene profit". The vast majority of books, films and music wither and die with very little revenue. For every Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling there are a thousand other writers who will never make even a part-time wage for their works.
Book publishing is an expensive business and e-books level the playing field considerably. The three biggest costs in book production are (not necessarily in this order):
1. Printing
2. Marketing
3. Distribution
A publisher needs to have confidence that a book will sell X copies at Y price in order to know that they will at least break even on publishing it. And I guarantee you that every publisher has a warehouse full of books they guessed wrong on and nobody bought. But those costs are sunk. They pay get pennies on the dollar at the paper recycler but otherwise they've blown a lot of cash printing books they never sold.
As on-demand, and now e-book, publishing has become more and more viable the break-even point has come WAY down and books that would never have seen the light of day are getting their chance.
And publishers should LOVE eBooks - it takes printing and distribution largely out of the equation and means far greater profits off a much lower price. I wouldn't mind if my publisher did Kindle versions of my books, that's just one more medium and a much higher net profit from the books.
-B-
I read a lot. What I want is the hardback/paperback to come with a free download of the eBook. I like to read the paper book when I can but it's a lot easier to carry a Kindle or iPad with me when I'm out of town, or just at the office, than half a dozen books. Also I like being able to search a book - it's especially handy for textbooks and tech books. I have tens of thousands of books saved on my laptop. I tend to buy the paper edition of books I like but if the publishers make me feel like they are out to screw me I could easily just stick to the digital copies. Some of my textbooks didn't have electronic versions available so I had the bindings cut off and ran them through the scanner (it has a feeder) and ran OCR on them. It works quite well. Just refusing to offer electronic copies won't keep them off the Internet.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
"Dead tree" is an attempt at humor while being clear what you are talking about. The vast majority of people using the phrase are not trying to make a moral judgment about killing trees. Having a separate term for different types of books is useful, especially as both become more common. This is the same way that we had just "mail" and then "voice mail" and "e-mail" came along. Other types of mail became common enough that we needed a way of talking about physical mail as a subclass, hence the phrase "snail mail." This has happened historically with many technologies. There are many historic examples. Sure, some people are making a moral judgment but that's a pretty tiny fraction of the people. And the moral judgment might not even be negative. Someone might even like killing trees.
eBook: $10.00
# times you can loan: 0
# years you can own: probably 10
Resale value: $0.00
Paperback: $7.00
# times you can loan: personal best, oh, about 10
# years you can own: personal best, 34
Resale value: personal best, $27.00
Yeh, I can see how eBooks are undercutting paperbacks.
Hardcovers? Who buys hardcovers?
Huh? Why do eBooks necessitate DRM in your mind? I've got plenty of eBooks that aren't restricted. And you suggest using PDFs instead. Why don't PDFs count as eBooks? Because they're in your preferred format? PDFs are absolutely useless to read unless you've got a device that will display the whole rendered with of the PDF legibly. Much more useful are formats that allow text re-flowing so you read them on mobile devices with smaller screen-widths.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Hi,
First of all i have to mention that i am addicted to reading.
This was already a problem as a kid: Once i was ill my aunt gave me five books as a gift. The next morning i called her and asked for more. In a hindsight, this was really embarrassing.
But once i started earning good money, this problem has multiplied. I am running out of shelf space. With my marriage i gave away about 1.000 books to friends just to have a little space for my wifes books.
So started with ebooks as a measure of self defence. I started with the Iliad Irex about 3-4 years ago. Since then i purchased several hundred ebooks. The good thing is: i drive on vacation without any fear of running out of input.
Therefor i am very interested in everything that concerns costs of books.
I totally hate any kind of DRM. Since i started i went through several different reader. Any restriction to move a book with me feels like theft. This one reason my favorite publisher is Baen. They have the most honest approach towards the reader. I think Eric Flints Introducing the Baen Free Library gives the best summary on that topic ever written.
I also worked as author, editor and publisher for books (on a very small scale). Therefor i know how much money is in the production (very little) and distribution (a lot) process and how little ends up with the authors. So i think that ebooks will greatly improve the percentage an author will get from the book sales (but not the overall revenue).
Current contracts give authors a certain percentage of all revenue. So it is in the interest of publishers and authors to get the prices as high as possible. But while the publishers still get the same share, they do a lot less for the sale of an ebook than for one of a paperback.
So at this point customers are on the side of Amazon, that an ebook should cost significantly less than a paper based book.
Currently the frontlines run between Amazon and the customers on one side and publishers and authors on the other. But the authors are not on that side due to their own interest but due to the current publishing system. I don't think that this situation will remain static. The publishers are bound to loose the authors as allies and then the fight next.
A typical question is: It's the same book, why shpould the reader pay less for an eboook?
It is the same book but it is not the same service. With a paper based book, they have to print it, ship it through the world, provide shelf space in the bookstore, pay the cashier guy,...
The transport of an ebook is by a factor 1.000 cheaper than a paper book, the cashier is fully automated, it does not take shelf space,....
If the producer has less costs, the product should become cheaper.
Where i agree: The author provides the same service, so he/she should get the same amount as before.
Who works less is the publisher and the bookstore. They should get less for an ebook.
The problem is the typical contract between author and publisher. Usually there is a certain fix percentage of the revenue (no matter wether ebook or paper book) designated for the author. While the percantage of an author at a book is around 10-15%, it should be higher (e.g. 30%) for ebooks. Of course the publishers are not in favor....
Publishers dislike ebooks not just due to the prices. If ebooks become too popular, the need for publishers is decreasing. An author could go just directly to Amazon without the help of publisher. Currently an ebook will not sell very well if there is no paper book to create demand. But this will change. The publishers (like the RIAA before them) wants to fight it. But they will have as much success as fighting entropy....
Personally i am totally in favor of the development. The service i am interested in is someone like Pat writing fascinating novels. I am also willing to pay for the editor and the distribution. But i am not interested in trees getting chopped down and trucks blowing carbon dioxide into the air while carrying harcovers.
CU, Martin
Value is based on the principal of scarcity. With print medium the publishers could control the scarcity, AND create the demand through marketing, thereby increasing the value i.e. the price. But when talking about profit margins, I will hazard a calculated guess and say that e-books are far more profitable even at the lower price point.
The real issue here is that Murdoch and other redundant publishers no longer get to control the scarcity in the market, plus with the lowered cost barriers to market entry, a LOT more fish are now feeding in the same pond.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
Price fixing is when multiple producers of a similar product collude to fix the price at which all of them will sell.
That's essentially what Amazon is trying to do.
It's not price fixing to sell to your wholesale customers in a contractual arrangement that includes a retail price floor.
This is called business.
If you're seen the e-ink based electronic book reader such as the Sony Reader, I have to disagree with you. With e-ink, the text is very sharp and readable, and the weight of the PRS-600 Sony Reader with touchscreen interface is around 10 ounces--lighter than many hardback novels nowadays. If you're going on a trip and plan to read a lot, lot easier to carry one PRS-600 than carrying a whole bunch of books.
1) If you want to charge me $15 for an ebook, I would like to get the ebook immediately, followed by the real printed book in snail mail. Don't care how long it takes to arrive, as long as it does.
2) If you want to charge me $15 for a paperback, I would like to be able to register online somehow and also download the ebook.
ie: the ebook costs practically fuck all to duplicate and distribute. Leverage that advantage and turn it into a bonus.
I will not pay $15 for an ebook, ever. Especially if it's festooned with DRM. I will wait until the paperback is out (of course, I'm in Australia, where we get royally fucked because of bullshit book distribution laws, so it'll be more like $22 for the paperback, but still).
where's +1 'Used fungible in a sentence' when you need it?
Sure ebooks hurt the retail merchants but so what? Industries are not protected nor should they be. Buggy builders were slaughtered by the automobile. The telegraph industry was murdered by the telephone and computer industry. Telephone operators were blown out of work by electronic switchboards. Lawn workers were smacked down by gasoline mowers. The list is endless. So just why are we to be concerned about the loss of retail book sellers? Take a peek at movie theaters. In 1930 theaters were absolutely enormous. Today there is no such thing as a theater that seats 20,000. Soon even the small theaters that still exist will probably vanish as the television industry has better and better technology.
It's nice to be ripped off ;)
I always thought that Cisco should almost give you those books for free, to make more CCNAs so it would be a no-brainer for companies which hardware to buy as finding support would be easier. But in the real world...
Anyway, all technical books are like that. MCSE from MSFT is 40 quid each.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
... it's that the basic point... eBooks are SUPPOSED to kill paper books. Or at least replace them, for those who use eBooks. Who will more every year, particularly once the proprietary formats fail and eBooks can be ready by every eBook reader.
As for Hardcover prices... well, there's a difference between the quality and longevity of a hardcover versus the paperback. That's the only true value of the hardcover book. The rest is marketing... the early release... like seeing a film in the theater now, or waiting for the DVD or Blu-Ray later... or the HBO presentation later still.
But that's not true of an eBook... there is virtually no cost of duplication, far cheaper to make than paperbacks. And more restricted, at least with DRM; you can't resell them, or lend them in any real way. You may not be able to annotate them, either. Thus, much less value than a paperback, in the same way that MP3 and AACs are of lower value -- the product itself, then a CD. Some value may be regained at the point-of-sale; they're sold in other ways: singles and impulse... I can buy a piece of a CD, and have it right now. That keeps the basic individual price relative high.. and yet, I've still managed to buy whole MP3 albums on Amazon for $2-$4 each. Which is about the right value, versus an $8-12 CD, or $15-$20 SACD or DVD-Audio Disc.
It's understandable that the publishers don't like this, in general. For one, they understand hardcovers and paperbacks, but can't quite get their heads wrapped around an eBook as being something different. They want it to be a hardcover, Amazon wants it to be a paperback, but delivered at about the same time as a hardcover. I think, in reality, this is a different form, and needs to be treated as such. For one, there are lots of publisher's expenses associated with a hardcover: printing fees, distribution, in-store kiosks, maybe shelving fees, etc. All of these, at the very least, should be subtracted from the retail price and the publisher's piece of the book sale. Otherwise, they're going to be using this as a trick to increase revenues, even though they're performing significantly less of a service.
And in fact, that's the real issue here. The book publishing industry has never been quite as abusive of "the talent" as the record industry, but they still want the bulk of profits if they can get it. If I buy a book, it still lists the author's copyright... most CDs will claim a copyright by the record company, despite their being just another kind of publisher. This has resulted in push-back by artists, some self-publishing, some going all digital or mostly digital. That works, particularly for established artists (Prince, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, etc). The rise of eBooks will enable this same route by writers. Maybe not for awhile.. the eBook reader is a relative new thing, but already at some level of acceptance due to the use of general purpose computers, just as the walkman and similar personal stereos laid the ground for an easy acceptance, then dominance, of the MP3 player/PMP.
-Dave Haynie
Jobs fits in because he is now selling eBooks to iPad users at a price agreed with the publishers. While this may smack of "cartel", Amazon's no better -- selling books at a knock-down price to encourage people to buy the expensive Kindle, with the single-minded goal of gaining a monopoly on the market. Looking at the case of MacMillan, Amazon were selling at 66% of the RRP for the eBook. As I understand it, if this became standard pricing, the publishers and authors would end up with less money than for a paper book sale. Technological improvements should reward creators with increased profit and reward consumers with reduced prices.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
5) Being able to change the fonts type and its size.
Both models have their place, or in the words of Thomas Edison "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."
You are mis-interpreting Edison - this statement does not at all represent the Murdoch model. If it did Edison would have said "We will make electricity so cheap that the candlemakers will have us banned". All Edison is saying is that if they can make electricity cheap enough then, given its inherent advantage over candles, why would anyone want to use them? He is not suggesting that anything be forced upon people like Murdoch is i.e. he is not saying that he wants to kill candles, just that most people will probably not want to use them in most cases because electricity will be so much cheaper.
This is exactly what I think will happen with books: nobody wants to set out to deliberately kill paper books but in the future I would imagine that only very popular "classic" books will end up in physical, high quality bindings and that the cheap paperback novels of today will be replaced by electronic media simply because eBooks are cheaper to make and more convenient.