The cost of paperbacks

[Ian Keldon]

Conversely, try carrying 10-12 books with you on a two week business trip. I much prefer having a nice ereader that weighs just a few ounces that can fit nicely in a backpack instead of needing a second suitcase.

Not saying eReaders don't have a place, just not as the sole or primary means of communicating the written word.

You can also look at it this way, books are printed in batches. That initial print run may sell through eventually, but not quickly enough to justify the cost of a second printing. An ebook on the other hand, while roughly the same cost to produce as that initial print run, never sells through and will always be available.

PoD takes care of that.

There are various benefits to ebooks that saying books don't need to be "teched" just doesn't work. Heck, you're a fan of Star Trek, and while many characters on the show read regular books how often do you also seen them reading on their PADD?

More than you might think, going all the way back to TOS.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]COGLEY: What's the matter? Don't you like books?
KIRK: Oh, I like them fine, but a computer takes less space.
COGLEY: A computer, huh? I got one of these in my office. Contains all the precedents. The synthesis of all the great legal decisions written throughout time. I never use it.
KIRK: Why not?
COGLEY: I've got my own system. Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn't so important, I'd show you something. My library. Thousands of books.
KIRK: And what would be the point?
COGLEY: This is where the law is. Not in that homogenised, pasteurised, synthesiser. Do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, Learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the tribunal of Alpha 3? Books. [/FONT]

Picard keeps a folio of Shakespeare in his Ready Room. And his most prized possession is his scrapbook/album, a real album, not a computer file.

 

[Therin of Andor]

or with eye problems...

eReaders permit the enlarging of fonts, IIRC.

With PoD publishing, there is no excuse for saying that.

And yet PoD publishing can be very expensive per item, because the savings made by MMPB numbers don't exist.

The rest of us, who either cannot afford or do not find eReaders desirable can just go hang, is that it?

It's a matter of economics. You want something very specific to your needs, but also seemingly demand the lowest price. If you're no longer in the largest demographic, you're highly unlikely to get that low price point.

 

[iarann]

PoD takes care of that.

As Therin pointed out, Print on Demand is more expensive than you think it is. Instead of paying $8, you are looking at $25 for that novel. It just isn't worth it when at that price they are looking at so few sales.

 

[Christopher]

^Right. There's an economy of scale. Recently I got some Advance Reading Copies of my upcoming Only Superhuman, printed in paperback and on cheaper paper than I assume the final hardcovers will be, but it actually costs the publisher considerably more to print the ARCs because there are so few of them in comparison.

 

[Sci]

Exactly.

Listen, Ian, the fact of the matter is that these works are available, but you are choosing not to purchase them because you don't like the delivery format. Well, that's absolutely your right and your prerogative. But by the same token, if the publisher does not feel there is a sufficiently large market for printing it in a codex to warrant selling it in such a format, then you have to accept that that is the publisher's right and prerogative. You're not entitled to something just because you want it, and if there is no demographic large enough for the publisher to think that it's worth it -- well, then, sorry. But if you want the story that bad, either buy it as an eBook or get over it.

 

[Mr. Domino]

And, as per usual in this type of debate, everybody accuses the other side's arguments of being completely invalid instead of acknowledging that "hey, maybe there's room for both!"

Comparing people who don't want to make the switch to ebooks to people who don't want to let go of VHS is every bit as ridiculous as saying that ebooks aren't "real" books. A much better comparison would be people who are still buying DVDs/Blu-rays as opposed to switching to digital delivery services for movies.

I'm a child of the technology age. I'm under 30, I love gadgets, use my smartphone for a lot of my daily tasks, hell, I even worked in the video game industry briefly if that tells you anything. I should be the ideal candidate for "decluttering" my life and getting rid of the shelves upon shelves of books, games, books, comics, books, cds, books, DVDs, and more books taking up space in my home. But I'm not comfortable with digital-only media. I'm not comfortable paying for something that I can't hold in my hands. I don't have any problem with people who are all-digital - the important thing is that you enjoy the content (although I do think that digital makes content more easily disposable, but that's a topic for another day), but what I wish is that there could be room for both.

New and shiny oftentimes directly equates to better. What more shining example is there than the aforementioned switch from VHS to DVD, or from DVD to Blu-ray? Those were instances where nothing, or at the very least almost nothing were lost, and so very much was gained. But there are other times when just because a new system is new, doesn't mean it should suddenly be the only system. When CDs came out, everyone abandoned vinyl in droves, and its only recently that some have returned to it, and realized that there was never anything wrong with it in the first place. Vinyl vs. CDs is one of those arguments where they both do different things better than the other, and so, in a perfect world, there should be room in the marketplace for both. The same could be said for pBooks vs. eBooks. Unfortunately, everyone's abandoning pBooks for now in droves, and I think here in another 20 years or so (these things always seem to run in 20-year cycles), we'll see a movement back towards physical product.

 

[Sci]

And, as per usual in this type of debate, everybody accuses the other side's arguments of being completely invalid instead of acknowledging that "hey, maybe there's room for both!"

Comparing people who don't want to make the switch to ebooks to people who don't want to let go of VHS is every bit as ridiculous as saying that ebooks aren't "real" books. A much better comparison would be people who are still buying DVDs/Blu-rays as opposed to switching to digital delivery services for movies.

I did not compare Ian to people who still want to buy VHS; I compared companies that don't want to produce a codex in favor of an eBook because they decide there isn't enough market for that codex edition, to companies that don't want to produce VHS in favor of DVDs because there isn't enough of a market for VHS.

I don't have any problem with people who are all-digital - the important thing is that you enjoy the content (although I do think that digital makes content more easily disposable, but that's a topic for another day), but what I wish is that there could be room for both.

There is room for both; every month, a new Star Trek novel is published in both mass market paperback edition and eBook edition. But that doesn't mean that companies have any obligation to publish in one format or another if there isn't enough demand for it in that particular format -- as there often isn't enough demand for codex editions of much shorter works such as S.C.E.: Distant Early Warning or Typhon Pact: The Struggle Within.

 

[Deano2099]

I am sick and tired of people trying to "tech" things that don't need to be "teched", books being one of them. JUST PRINT THE DANG BOOKS!

I'm a little confused at who you are shouting at? Who isn't printing the dang books? Nearly every title of note gets a paper copy, a far higher percentage than get an electronic one. I'm not sure why you're so angry.

Yes, we get older and our eyesight starts to go and we struggle with the small fonts, but book magnifiers and other solutions are available.

Not "whims", but rather the legitimate concerns of millions of other readers who are in situations similar to mine, either unable to afford expensive tech,

Fair enough. But paper isn't getting any cheaper. And you seem to favour print-on-demand which adds a huge premium to the book. You'll have paid for your e-reader in 10 POD books. Hell, get the ebook, strip the DRM and print it yourself in whatever size you want, job done.

unwilling to be tethered to a computer

Hence e-readers, which are increasingly affordable.

or with eye problems.

Eye problems are nothing new. When my grandparents started losing their sight a little, they were just stuck with only being able to buy books with large enough fonts that they could read. They were cut out of the market for some books entirely. For my generation, we can read nearly anything on an e-reader. The fact is, you'd be equally screwed right now regardless of whether e-books existed or not. You're bloody lucky to have e-books as an alternative, because no other generation did. If you don't want them, that's fine. Then you remain in the same place as every generation before you: having to pick your reads based on the size of the typeface. Or buy a book magnifier.

 

[JWolf]

Ian Keldon, Let's say you miss out on a book and it's no longer available as a paper edition and all that's left is the eBook, would you buy the eBook and read that or would you forgo the book entirely? Let's say it's a Star Trek book and one of the new in print Star trek books is a follow-up. Would you miss out on what came before and not get as much enjoyment of the new book?

What is it about eBooks that you seem to dislike? I have an eink reader and I find it no different really then reading the same book on paper. Reading in bed is easier with my reader as I only need one hand to hold and flip the pages. I can read in the dark as I have a light built into the cover. A MMPB doesn't really hold up to having a light clipped onto it. It's lighter then a hardcover novel.

My 80+ year old mother uses a reader and she likes it. She can set the font a little bit larger then she'd get from a paper book and it's lighter for her to hold. Also, she can read in bed without disturbing my father. It's a win-win for her.

 

[Therin of Andor]

ILet's say it's a Star Trek book

It's the only way I got to read the eBook exclusive, "The Magic of Tribbles: The Making of 'ST: DS9: Trials and Tribble-ations'" by Terry J. Erdmann.

 

[tomswift2002]

^That trend is reversing in recent years. My past couple of novel contracts have been for books in the 70-80K range.

Currently I'm reading "Incident At Arbuk" (the Voyager novel with John Gregory Betamcourt's name misspelt), and it has got too have less than 70k words, since it is the thinnest Voyager novel ever published.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Currently I'm reading "Incident At Arbuk" (the Voyager novel with John Gregory Betamcourt's name misspelt), and it has got too have less than 70k words, since it is the thinnest Voyager novel ever published.

But it was not an atypical length for a ST novel in 1995.

Wasn't the misspelling "Greggory", with two g's? It was correctly Betancourt, as per the cover, not "Betamcourt".

 

[tomswift2002]

Currently I'm reading "Incident At Arbuk" (the Voyager novel with John Gregory Betamcourt's name misspelt), and it has got too have less than 70k words, since it is the thinnest Voyager novel ever published.

But it was not an atypical length for a ST novel in 1995.

Wasn't the misspelling "Greggory", with two g's? It was correctly Betancourt, as per the cover, not "Betamcourt".

His name did have two g's. As for the m I typed, I was using my iPad and I might've hit the "m" instead of the "n", or for some reason the built in autocorrect changed it without me realizing it.