Trek Books for Kindle

[Thrawn]

^ Well, actually, Amazon would almost certainly set much lower prices, but not for the reasons you think. Before the Agency model spread around, Amazon was selling the vast majority of eBooks *at a loss* so they could get people to buy Kindles, for the cheaper eBook prices, and corner the market.

Amazon.com sold print books at a loss for many years, doing the same thing with the online ordering market. The company didn't actually turn a profit for YEARS after it had been established.

 

[label]

^ Well, actually, Amazon would almost certainly set much lower prices, but not for the reasons you think. Before the Agency model spread around, Amazon was selling the vast majority of eBooks *at a loss* so they could get people to buy Kindles, for the cheaper eBook prices, and corner the market.

That's exactly right. I remember when Amazon switched to the agency model that there was so much complaining to Amazon about the prices that now all of their eBook prices that are higher than what Amazon was charging have the great big italic letters next to the price: "This price was set by the publisher".

 

[Thrawn]

^ Right, exactly. The point being, that was unsustainable in the long run ANYWAY, so it's even less clear to me what JWolf is complaining about.

 

[label]

I will agree that prices are dictated by what people are willing to pay for things. For me, I'm split down the middle on the price point of eBooks.

On the one hand, I feel eBooks should always be cheaper because they should be cheaper to produce when there are no physical materials required. On the other hand, I love the convenience of eBooks and being able to have my library of books accessible to me on a device that's as small and light as a typical mass market paper back. So, for me, I'm willing to pay about the same price for an eBook as a mass market paperback version of it because even though it's probably yielding a higher profit margin for the publisher than the dead tree variety, I prefer the electronic format.

 

[JD]

I'm with Thrawn and lable here. For me the convenience of the ebooks more than makes up for the price difference... unless the price differences are absolutely ridiculous, which I have not come across yet.

 

[label]

I'm with Thrawn and lable here. For me the convenience of the ebooks more than makes up for the price difference... unless the price differences are absolutely ridiculous, which I have not come across yet.

My wife has, she pointed this out to me:

http://www.amazon.com/Bridget-Jones...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295050901&sr=1-1

This is where I would cry foul on the publisher. It's not a brand new book, it's been out forever, and it's almost a full $3.00 more for the eBook. That's crossing the line for me.

That being said, I haven't run across any books I'd be interested in reading that are like that. Just thought I'd provide an example of a "ridiculous" price for an eBook compared to a dead tree book.

 

[tmclough]

I agree with those who find ebooks worth more than paper books. Even more than the convenience factor of having them all in one place, or the space factor (I won't be needing an ever-increasingly larger apartment), I like the fact that I can enlarge the font to any size I want (within limits, of course). This helps my reading speed and comprehension a lot.

 

[JWolf]

The latest Star trek SCE/CoE omnibus is available in paper. It's cheaper then buying all the combined stories as eBooks as the separate eBooks now cost $4.99-$6.99. What's Past has six stories in it. The listed price is $16.99 without any discount. To buy the six stories as eBooks, you'd be paying at least $24.94. Thanks to the agency model. The agency model has actually raised the cost of the individual SCE/CoE eBooks.

So how is the agency model good? It's not. What the agency model takes away from the consumer is the ability to have a discount on these eBooks. And because of this, we seem to have lost the ability to get discounts on most non-agency eBooks as well. So not only are the Agency 5 screwing us on their eBooks, but they are helping to screw us on innocent non-agency eBooks as well. LS is way off base here saying that the Agency model doesn't matter. It matters and it matters big time. The Agency model also gives us georestrictions which we didn't have before the Agency 5 came into being.

To put it into terms Trekkies can understand, the Agency 5 is akin to the Typhon Pact. Neither are good things for the good guys.

 

[LightningStorm]

LS is way off base here saying that the Agency model doesn't matter. It matters and it matters big time. The Agency model also gives us georestrictions which we didn't have before the Agency 5 came into being.

Saying that over and over again, doesn't make it true. But you've yet to address any of the points I've brought up.

I'm willing to entertain the idea that Agency is somehow uniquely bad for consumers (as opposed to non-Agency) but you've got to prove it and everything I've seen about it doesn't prove anything like that.

 

[Thrawn]

^ Hear, hear.

 

[ATimson]

I'm willing to entertain the idea that Agency is somehow uniquely bad for consumers (as opposed to non-Agency) but you've got to prove it and everything I've seen about it doesn't prove anything like that.

I won't say that it's uniquely bad. I'm sure there are other bad models too. But if you haven't seen anything proving that Agency pricing is detrimental, obviously you don't remember what the ebook prices were like before April 2010. You know, back when you could routinely get 20% or more off the price of even a "mass market" title in ebook form?

On the day Agency pricing went into effect, prices on titles from those publishers went up across the board, and haven't come down. And new releases have been consistent with those higher prices.

 

[Thrawn]

^ Sure, but as we mentioned further up, that wasn't at all a market situation that was sustainable. In the long run, as consumers, we might be better off with this structure; if it's more profitable for the publishers, we'll get them taking more chances / buying more books. Which strikes me as important these days, with physical book sales dropping every year.

I mean, I don't know if this is the right answer or not; I haven't seen any evidence either way, frankly. But I can certainly imagine things playing out in a way that showed that it WAS the right answer. I don't think it's evil or worth getting all huffy about. We'll just wait and see. Within the next 5 years or so, eBooks will be enough of the market for things like this to get sorted out for real.

 

[LightningStorm]

I recall exactly what they were, but as I said in my previous posts on the topic, that is only indirectly related to this, it is not why Agency is so evil.

It just so happens that the Publishers wanted to charge a higher price than the retailers, so when the publishers became the ones to dictate the prices then they went up. Had it been the other way around and the retailers wanted to charge a higher price but the publisher wanted to charge a lower one, then no body would be bitching about the Agency model, it would be heralded as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The point being that the customer (with or without Agency) doesn't get to dictate the price point. Either way the price is being set by someone else and whoever gets to decide that can set it really high, really low, or "reasonably" (what ever that means). The Agency model specifically has nothing to do with what price is being charged, only who gets to decide what that price is.

 

[JD]

The latest Star trek SCE/CoE omnibus is available in paper. It's cheaper then buying all the combined stories as eBooks as the separate eBooks now cost $4.99-$6.99. What's Past has six stories in it. The listed price is $16.99 without any discount. To buy the six stories as eBooks, you'd be paying at least $24.94. Thanks to the agency model. The agency model has actually raised the cost of the individual SCE/CoE eBooks.

So how is the agency model good? It's not. What the agency model takes away from the consumer is the ability to have a discount on these eBooks. And because of this, we seem to have lost the ability to get discounts on most non-agency eBooks as well. So not only are the Agency 5 screwing us on their eBooks, but they are helping to screw us on innocent non-agency eBooks as well. LS is way off base here saying that the Agency model doesn't matter. It matters and it matters big time. The Agency model also gives us georestrictions which we didn't have before the Agency 5 came into being.

To put it into terms Trekkies can understand, the Agency 5 is akin to the Typhon Pact. Neither are good things for the good guys.

I'd rather deal with no discounts, than have to worry about getting over charged for something on a regular basis. And besides, like I've said three times now, there are apparently quite a few situations where the ebook is cheaper, so I'm still getting a discount on the story just by getting it in ebook form.

 

[ATimson]

^ Sure, but as we mentioned further up, that wasn't at all a market situation that was sustainable.

Depends on which books you're looking at. The deep discounts on "hardcovers", I can understand. But why weren't the shallower discounts on "MMPBs" sustainable, especially when Borders and Wal-Mart routinely offer similar (or even bigger) discounts on MMPBs?

In the long run, as consumers, we might be better off with this structure; if it's more profitable for the publishers, we'll get them taking more chances / buying more books.

If each consumer only has $x to spend on books, and $x now buys less books than before, how will that encourage publishers to release more titles when that person is buying fewer titles?

Had it been the other way around and the retailers wanted to charge a higher price but the publisher wanted to charge a lower one, then no body would be bitching about the Agency model, it would be heralded as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

You'd still have people bitching about the philosophical problems, but it's usually a lot easier to get people to see that paying more is evil than destroying the First Sale doctrine is evil.

The point being that the customer (with or without Agency) doesn't get to dictate the price point. Either way the price is being set by someone else and whoever gets to decide that can set it really high, really low, or "reasonably" (what ever that means). The Agency model specifically has nothing to do with what price is being charged, only who gets to decide what that price is.

[/quote]
True. But before, there were a lot more "who"s involved; in a case like that, where competition was possible, it's inevitable that a Walmart of retailers will evolve, offering consumers reasonable service levels for a cheap price. (In this case, it was Amazon.) High prices simply couldn't be sustained, because there would always be someone willing to sacrifice their bit of margin for more sales.

But now there's no more competition, which means that consumers gets screwed as normally happens when monopolies are created.

 

[LightningStorm]

True. But before, there were a lot more "who"s involved; in a case like that, where competition was possible, it's inevitable that a Walmart of retailers will evolve, offering consumers reasonable service levels for a cheap price. (In this case, it was Amazon.) High prices simply couldn't be sustained, because there would always be someone willing to sacrifice their bit of margin for more sales.

But now there's no more competition, which means that consumers gets screwed as normally happens when monopolies are created.

So, then we're in agreement. I do agree that Agency isn't the ideal model for the reason that retailers should be able to choose their own price for things they sell (like they do for everything else they sell). My problem is with the idea that Agency is bad for the specific reason that it increased prices, when that's not what Agency did. As I said previously it could just as easily have reduced them.

 

[JWolf]

What part of more expensive and no discounts doesn't compute? What part of my SCE/CoE example showing the eBooks considerably higher in price doesn't compute?

Let's take S&S and Star trek eBooks for example. S&S themselves sold eBooks for less then the do after the agency model was put in place.

We now have no discounts on agency eBooks. We don't have discounts on non-agency eBooks as most eBook shops cannot give discounts on the just the non-agency, so we get none.

Agency brought with them georestrictions.

Agency said that as soon as the paperback comes out, the price will drop the same day on the eBook. There are many cases where this is not true.

Fictionwise was one of the top eBook stores because they had a model that worked. That model had to stop and be taken away from the consumer because agency eBooks do not work in a situation where you get credit towards eBooks.

You can find examples where the agency eBooks may be cheaper then the cheapest paper copy. But not by much and when you factor in the fact that you can get discounts on the paper copies, you end up with more expensive eBooks.

I do not understand why you think the agency model is good. It's not. It costs consumers more overall.

None of this is untrue.

 

[JWolf]

True. But before, there were a lot more "who"s involved; in a case like that, where competition was possible, it's inevitable that a Walmart of retailers will evolve, offering consumers reasonable service levels for a cheap price. (In this case, it was Amazon.) High prices simply couldn't be sustained, because there would always be someone willing to sacrifice their bit of margin for more sales.

But now there's no more competition, which means that consumers gets screwed as normally happens when monopolies are created.

So, then we're in agreement. I do agree that Agency isn't the ideal model for the reason that retailers should be able to choose their own price for things they sell (like they do for everything else they sell). My problem is with the idea that Agency is bad for the specific reason that it increased prices, when that's not what Agency did. As I said previously it could just as easily have reduced them.

The agency model did increase prices and took away any chance of a discount. So yes, it's bad for consumers. The agency model took away store operating models that worked.

 

[Deano2099]

So how is the agency model good? It's not. What the agency model takes away from the consumer is the ability to have a discount on these eBooks. And because of this, we seem to have lost the ability to get discounts on most non-agency eBooks as well. So not only are the Agency 5 screwing us on their eBooks, but they are helping to screw us on innocent non-agency eBooks as well. LS is way off base here saying that the Agency model doesn't matter.

It's not the model though. The way it's been applied has been horrendous, but to try and drill down to LS's point, imagine a world where the publishers decided they really wanted to push ebooks, so were going to start offering them at half the price of paperbacks via the agency model. Amazon might not like cannibalizing their dead tree market, but would have no choice. It would be great for the consumer. It's the way it's been done, not the model that is the problem.

The Agency model specifically has nothing to do with what price is being charged, only who gets to decide what that price is.

The flip side of course, is there's an issue of practicalities and process. Amazon own their own store-front. If they want to change their prices to have a Christmas sale or start doing stuff cheaper or so they just change the price. If the agency publishers want to do this, they have to ask Amazon to change the price. I doubt Amazon will be okay with getting a whole bunch of price changes from the publishers every week (nor would they want to give the publishers direct access to their store software).

You make the faulty and completely unwarranted assumption, backed up by no data whatsoever, that most people are like you.

Except for, y'know, the fact that that dead tree books are still outselling ebooks by a huge margin.

 

[Thrawn]

^ It took until November of 2008 for digital music to finally outsell CDs, five and a half years after the iTunes music store opened. I'll bet you money that, in March when the December and January sales reports are made available, there will have been another enormous surge in eBook sales.