eBook Pricing

Electronic formats for books, comics, texts, etc. are currently being price, in a majority of instances, at the same or very similar levels as physical copies.

In the 1980s, the average paperback cost between $2.00 and $4.00 to purchase from a brick and mortar book store, the only kind of book store that existed. This price was enough to cover the physical printing, publishing, royalty, distribution, warehousing/storage, and editing costs while also allowing for the brick and mortar store to make a profit.

When prices started to rise in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I contacted publishers and book stores to ask why. Each company on both sides of the business said the same thing: the physical costs of publishing were increasing. For a time it was the ink costs. Then they claimed it was the paper costs. Then they were outsourcing the printing, so the warehousing and distribution costs went up. An interesting thing to note along the way is that, when ink prices went back down, the books stayed the same price. When the paper bubble burst, the price stayed the same. When book sellers got smart and nationalized their distribution processes and started using better computerized tracking methods, the prices stayed the same. When Amazon (and other online distributors) came about, and could sell in bulk and didn't have any brick and mortar stores to affect overhead, the prices still went up.

The average paperback now costs between $7.00 and $10.00. If what the publisher, distributors, and retailers have been telling us for over 30 years is true, then it is primarily because of the physical costs of printing, storing, and moving the books around.

Now we have the Kindle and other eBook readers revolutionizing how we read and get the written word. A company like Amazon can use a tiny fraction of their online resources to house one electronic copy of a book that they can then sell to thousands of people. This e-copy of the book has no printing costs, infinitesimal "storage" and "distribution" costs, used no paper, ink, wood, glue, cloth, or thread to make. It requires no energy from planes, trucks, or trains to move it around the world, no people to box it and unbox, no brick and mortar store that requires people to work it, rent to be paid, and electricity to be used to light. It is, literally, a few hundred kilobytes sitting on a server somewhere that every person who wants that book gets a copy of. So, if the physical costs are the main reason we are paying so much for a physical book, then we should be getting the electronic copy for much, much less, right?

Wrong.

A friend shared information that a friend of his, who works in publishing, had, that indicates that, rather than what we have been told for the last 30 years, the real reason why we pay so much for the electronic copy is to, in essence, dissuade people from buying them. The publishers are trying to help brick and mortar stores by keeping the electronic copy artificially high so that people will continue to support their local store.

Er, what?

Instead of letting the market decide which is the better option and letting the strongest, most profitable system win (in this case, letting the brick and mortar store die, apparently), we are paying at least 50% higher for electronic copies to keep those failing stores alive a little longer. I use 50%, because the friend went on to say that about 50% of the recommended retail price is for the brick and mortar store. So, on each of those $26 hard cover books, about $13 is going to Barnes and Noble, etc. Of the other $13, that is used to defray the physical costs of printing the book, the royalties to the author, and for the publisher's needs. This is how Amazon was able to give lower prices at first: they didn't have the physical stores that Barnes and Noble's had, so they could eat into their half of the profits to sell more books. Now, they have that bonus and the bonus of being the biggest book retailer in the world to negotiate prices, and can keep the prices down through volume sales.

It appears that, until or unless we stand up, question this practice, and demand lower costs on these electronic copies of books, we will continue to be charged roughly 50% higher than needed on them.

As anyone who frequents this blog can attest, I LOVE my Kindle. My wife loves hers. My sister loves hers. Our friends love theirs. As Amazon has shown, they are now selling more Kindle versions of books than they are physical copies. The benefit to having, literally, your entire library on one slim, light-weight device to take with you is incredible. And, if you aren't in the mood for one thing, you have your entire library of other books to choose from, or can download a new one in the space of about a minute. If all of us contact publishers and retailers and demand lower prices, we will get lower prices. But we have to stand up and be counted. We have to make our voices heard, or these companies will continue to overcharge us for these products.

And, in case anyone thinks I'm against brick and mortar stores or physical books, I'm not. I have a wealth of books on my shelves. I love the smell of a new book (and even old ones). I love the feel of the paper and looking at the illustrations (which many electronic copies do not keep, even though most eReaders can display them (although maybe not in color)). There are many books I will continue to buy in a physical copy. However, the eBook format is here to stay. It is comfortable and has many advantages over a physical book. And they are constantly upgrading them and refining them to be more and more like reading a physical book all the time. I'm even seeing that color e-Ink Kindles and other readers may be around the corner. I just want the pricing to reflect the costs (and allowing for a decent amount of profit) for whichever copy I choose to buy. If I buy physical copies, I expect to pay more and understand that. If I buy an electronic book, I expect the pricing to be less due to the reasons I've stated in this post. When it is not, and especially when the e-copy is more expensive, I want to know why.