The True Cost of Publishing On the Amazon Kindle

Barence writes "Ever wondered why Kindle newspapers and magazines don't have many photos? PC Pro has done an analysis of the costs of publishing on the Kindle and discovered that Amazon effectively taxes newspapers and magazines for including more images. Amazon applies 'delivery charges' to publishers at the cost of $0.15 per MB/10p per MB. At those prices, PC Pro claims it's cheaper to mail out a physical magazine than have it delivered electronically on the Kindle. What's more, publishers have no control over the price of their newspaper or magazine: Amazon sets the prices itself, leading to huge customer complaints for titles such as The Economist."

Comments

Not really a moving narrative

[shogarth]

There are two things to consider here

1.) Amazon is handling the distribution. If their formula is unreasonable, that is something to kick around but they do need to cover those costs.

2.) The publishers probably cannot "pop it in the mail" for less. The article's author is forgetting about or intentionally ignoring the printing costs.

At the end of the day, the question has to be "Is the publisher getting a better or worse return?" This article (and most others on this subject) neglect that issue entirely. It's easy to bash at Apple's or Amazon's costing formula. It's much harder (and would display a lot of the publishers' proprietary data) to discuss the real fiscal impact on the publishing industry.

Re:Not really a moving narrative

[dorre]

At the end of the day, the question has to be "Is the publisher getting a better or worse return?"

This is not the only question to ask. I am really surprised at Americans (I am not sure you are, but I see this argument a lot) who say 'well if you dont like apple/amazon/evil-megacrop restricting what content they are distributing you can always get it some other way, it's not like they have a monopoly'. In fact, they DO have a monopoly and I am going to explain why:

A monopoly is when you have 100 % control of the market. While amazon do not control all electronic distribution. They do control the distribution to all Kindles. Basically you can take everybody who owns a kindle and consider them a separate market. And this market they control. To a 100 %. This is the same thing apple does, google and everybody else wants to do this.

This is really the new black. Do not be a monopoly. Create a market (for e.g. stupid apps). Do not conquer the whole market because then you will be regulated. When someone complains about you locking up your market you can always say they can go buy a nokia or whatever.

I think it is really important to realize that these companies are trying to create monopolies that do not look like traditional monopolies. This is no conspiration theory. It's just nobody likes the free market and if you want it free, it must be regulated.

Define 'cost'

[emagery]

Oh, come on... money is not the only resource by which one survives. In fact, it was never meant to have any meaning beyond measuring the value of resources and labor, period. That considered, resources on this planet ARE finite, and I find much more value being able to inhale my entertainment in digits rather than in paper. I can have a single metal and plastic kindle (which, btw, can be powered off a freakin' hand crank (as I did last night when the apartment complex was without power due to a failed upgrade by maintenance.)) replace 10s of thousands of paper items over the course of its useful lifetime. Me, I like to breath oxygen and have the luxury of, you know... EATING FOOD... things that I cannot take for granted in a world that is well beyond sustainable cultivation practices in most every regard. Define 'cost,' because going without a survivable future is too high a price to pay, at least if you ask me.

Re:Costs

[commodore6502]

Whether a magazine is pure text, or has a tons of photos, doesn't make much difference in printing costs. It used to, but not anymore.

And "it costs amazon a lot of to download" is a bit specious. My dialup connection lets me grab 14 gigabytes a month, but still only charges me 7 dollars (basically 0.5 dollars per GB). There's no reason why photos in e-magazines should be charged at $150 per GB.

I think the problem is in the 3G...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is in the 3G carriers pricing...

Nook is no better for end users

[Just Some Guy]

I'm not sure how Barnes and Noble's pricing structure works, but it's no better there for the end user. For example, here's most of a message I posted on B&N's Nook forum:

I was playing with the store on my Nook and was really impressed by the magazine prices. For example, I picked "National Review" at random and saw that it cost $3.95 an issue, or $4.95 for a subscription. "Wow," thought I. "These magazines are early adopters, expanding their readership through cheap subscriptions in a digital form that has approximately zero distribution costs. How clever of them!"

Looking at the bn.com page for the magazine, I found the catch: that's $4.95 per month.

Holy cow. First, that's $59.40 a year. I could subscribe to the physical version for $29.50 (and apparently get a free book as a gift). Second, I have never, anywhere, ever seen magazine subscriptions priced monthly. They are universally priced annually. Upon reviewing the Nook screen, sure enough, there it is at the top: "Monthly Subscription: $4.95". I missed that in favor of the large-font, glowing "Subscribe for $4.95" button on the touch screen. Tapping that button gives the prompt, 'Would you like to buy "National Review" for $4.95?", again with no indication that you're buying a monthly subscription.

I love my Nook, but I'd never pay for a small, electronic, black-and-white version of a magazine when I could get the colorful, ergonomic dead-tree version delivered for half the price. Their subscription model is miles away from making sense for me.

Re:I want PARAGRAPH BREAKS and proofreading!

[cruff]

Indeed, even recently published material that you would think would be available in digital format to begin with seems to have OCR style errors in the Kindle edition. Either that or editors and proof readers aren't doing a very good job. Oh wait, that's always been the case for a lot of publishers.

Crappy OCR is the bane of e-readers.

[wiredog]

When you read the Note on the Text for the ebook of LoTR, which was excellently done, you see how much effort it takes to get a good copy. "The Victorian Internet", OTOH, is a crappy OCR. Much of the action took place in "Rritain", and sometimes entire words are rendered as "????" when the OCR broke down.

Re:I 3 my kindle

[KeithJM]

Ignorant shits like you give them a reason to push for DRM.

I'm certainly not going to defend the guy who's pirating books, but I don't think this gives an excuse for DRM. Quite the opposite -- this method will circumvent any DRM they apply. I don't want to pirate books. I just want to buy a book and have permanent ownership of it. I want to back up the file and put it on laptop, or ipad, or phone, or even print a copy out if I feel like it. I'm willing to pay pretty much the cost of a hard-copy book to do it. With or without DRM, the publishers already depend on the customer's goodwill to not steal from them. Why don't they try to maintain that goodwill by letting us buy the product that is already available if we were willing to steal it?

Re:Costs

[commodore6502]

No obviously not.

I was comparing/contrasting the huge difference in cost. My dialup is 50 cents/GB. ATT is $40 per 5GB cap == $8 per GB. So why is amazon charging $150 per?