Should ebooks be free or at least much cheaper?

[Gravy]

This topic has always bothered me, but I've only just realized why.

I mean, obviously, everyone involved still needs to be paid for their effort, and that's enough of a reason to argue against this.

But that's not really what's been bothering me.

How many of those who think ebooks should be cheaper/free see no problem paying more than the cost of most books for a game they never actually have, that's just downloaded right to their switch (or whatever other console)?

It just sucks that we dismiss authors, often because of the "Richard Castle" problem (assuming most authors are disgustingly rich), when the truth is that most (meaning nearly all of them) are writing in their free time while working one or more other jobs to support themselves.

[Michael Villanueva]

This topic has always bothered me, but I've only just realized why.

I mean, obviously, everyone involved still needs to be paid for their effort, and that's enough of a reason to argue against this.

But that's not really what's been bothering me.

How many of those who think ebooks should be cheaper/free see no problem paying more than the cost of most books for a game they never actually have, that's just downloaded right to their switch (or whatever other console)?

It just sucks that we dismiss authors, often because of the "Richard Castle" problem (assuming most authors are disgustingly rich), when the truth is that most (meaning nearly all of them) are writing in their free time while working one or more other jobs to support themselves.

I certainly see your point that author's deserve their fair share for the work that they put in. My issue is that e-books often inflate the prices without giving the author their fair share.

The price of physical books may include the author, editor, distributor, marketer, and the printer. A digital book must include all the same but there is no cost associated with a printer. If you remove a printer from the total cost, but keep the price the same, that means that someone is making more for less work, and often times that is the distributor.

Amazon is the biggest distributor for e-books and they have two royalty options for authors, 35% and 70%. I believe that the 70% option is if you agree for Amazon to have sole distribution rights for something like 10 years. Those royalty options for authors are the same if a digital or a physical copy is sold. That means that Amazon will make 65% or 30% respectively even if there was no cost incurred by Amazon for printing and delivery.

This is why I believe that e-books should be cheaper. It has nothing to do with the author getting paid. It is the distributors who are taking advantage of their platform to reap outsized profits at the expense of the consumer with no additional compensation to the authors.

[Gravy]

This topic has always bothered me, but I've only just realized why.

I mean, obviously, everyone involved still needs to be paid for their effort, and that's enough of a reason to argue against this.

But that's not really what's been bothering me.

How many of those who think ebooks should be cheaper/free see no problem paying more than the cost of most books for a game they never actually have, that's just downloaded right to their switch (or whatever other console)?

It just sucks that we dismiss authors, often because of the "Richard Castle" problem (assuming most authors are disgustingly rich), when the truth is that most (meaning nearly all of them) are writing in their free time while working one or more other jobs to support themselves.

I certainly see your point that author's deserve their fair share for the work that they put in. My issue is that e-books often inflate the prices without giving the author their fair share.

The price of physical books may include the author, editor, distributor, marketer, and the printer. A digital book must include all the same but there is no cost associated with a printer. If you remove a printer from the total cost, but keep the price the same, that means that someone is making more for less work, and often times that is the distributor.

Amazon is the biggest distributor for e-books and they have two royalty options for authors, 35% and 70%. I believe that the 70% option is if you agree for Amazon to have sole distribution rights for something like 10 years. Those royalty options for authors are the same if a digital or a physical copy is sold. That means that Amazon will make 65% or 30% respectively even if there was no cost incurred by Amazon for printing and delivery.

This is why I believe that e-books should be cheaper. It has nothing to do with the author getting paid. It is the distributors who are taking advantage of their platform to reap outsized profits at the expense of the consumer with no additional compensation to the authors.

(In my reply, I'll be referring to trad. pub. books. Obviously, self published books will work out differently. At least in some cases.)

The problem here is that most people (as indicated by this thread and the majority of those who argue FOR ebook piracy) think authors aren't the ones losing, but they are.
Also, the price difference between the formats per book is less then a $. Printing, shipping, and storage are literally the cheapest parts of creating a book, and are broken up among so many books (and due to this are often even cheaper) as to make it negligible.

Also, all those cheap ebook sales? Bad for authors. Their share (the books "earnings") is where that discount is coming from. Which also means it takes that many more books being sold for the book to earn out.

Fighting against the price isn't hurting the companies (including Amazon). It's hurting authors and, in the end, readers.

I've had countless authors stop writing, not because no one read their books, but because too many people think piracy is the way to stick it to the publishers and/or Amazon.


(And yes, this thread isn't technically about piracy, but it is about the sentiment that leads to piracy.)

[Michael Villanueva]

This topic has always bothered me, but I've only just realized why.

I mean, obviously, everyone involved still needs to be paid for their effort, and that's enough of a reason to argue against this.

But that's not really what's been bothering me.

How many of those who think ebooks should be cheaper/free see no problem paying more than the cost of most books for a game they never actually have, that's just downloaded right to their switch (or whatever other console)?

It just sucks that we dismiss authors, often because of the "Richard Castle" problem (assuming most authors are disgustingly rich), when the truth is that most (meaning nearly all of them) are writing in their free time while working one or more other jobs to support themselves.

I certainly see your point that author's deserve their fair share for the work that they put in. My issue is that e-books often inflate the prices without giving the author their fair share.

The price of physical books may include the author, editor, distributor, marketer, and the printer. A digital book must include all the same but there is no cost associated with a printer. If you remove a printer from the total cost, but keep the price the same, that means that someone is making more for less work, and often times that is the distributor.

Amazon is the biggest distributor for e-books and they have two royalty options for authors, 35% and 70%. I believe that the 70% option is if you agree for Amazon to have sole distribution rights for something like 10 years. Those royalty options for authors are the same if a digital or a physical copy is sold. That means that Amazon will make 65% or 30% respectively even if there was no cost incurred by Amazon for printing and delivery.

This is why I believe that e-books should be cheaper. It has nothing to do with the author getting paid. It is the distributors who are taking advantage of their platform to reap outsized profits at the expense of the consumer with no additional compensation to the authors.

(In my reply, I'll be referring to trad. pub. books. Obviously, self published books will work out differently. At least in some cases.)

The problem here is that most people (as indicated by this thread and the majority of those who argue FOR ebook piracy) think authors aren't the ones losing, but they are.
Also, the price difference between the formats per book is less then a $. Printing, shipping, and storage are literally the cheapest parts of creating a book, and are broken up among so many books (and due to this are often even cheaper) as to make it negligible.

Also, all those cheap ebook sales? Bad for authors. Their share (the books "earnings") is where that discount is coming from. Which also means it takes that many more books being sold for the book to earn out.

Fighting against the price isn't hurting the companies (including Amazon). It's hurting authors and, in the end, readers.

I've had countless authors stop writing, not because no one read their books, but because too many people think piracy is the way to stick it to the publishers and/or Amazon.


(And yes, this thread isn't technically about piracy, but it is about the sentiment that leads to piracy.)

Thank you for explaining your side. I hadn't thought about this post from the piracy perspective, and even though I disagree with some points, I also agree that this post goes beyond pricing. The online piracy issue goes back all the way to music piracy which hit its peak in the early 2000s.

The two big things that the music industry did was reduce prices and provide free music to the end user. The first was accomplished by shifting focus from selling from full albums to individual songs. The second was implemented by providing their music for free on streaming platforms with ad support that gave a revenue stream to the recording artist and studio. Users could choose to listen to their music with ads or pay a subscription fee to get rid of the ads. Platforms like Pandora at the time was one of the first to do this.

When it comes to eBooks there is already a huge movement with the second solution through e-libraries. Apps like Libby, Overdrive, Cloud Library provide eBooks for free to readers through local libraries that pay royalties to authors.

As for the second solution, I do think that to further fight against piracy, eBooks could and should reduce prices. Even if we say that the costs of physical book overhead to include: printing, storage, and distribution, are negligible, the costs of downloading an eBook are near zero. The smallest of savings in dollars or cents per book is huge when accounting for the volume a publishing house or distributor like Amazon is dealing with. That is my issue with eBook pricing, even the most negligible difference in cost is still a difference, so that should be reflected in the price. I wouldn't mind it as much if those extra profits went to the author, but they are banked by the distributor.

I am very much against piracy, and no solution will ever bring piracy down to zero. Free library apps are a great move in the right direction by providing revenue to authors and distributors while fighting the "free" problem with piracy. The other tried and proven method of reducing prices could be implemented easily, they wouldn't even have to dice up their product like music did by selling singles from albums. Distributors could just reduce the cost by whatever percent would normally go to physical overhead.

[Gravy]

I certainly see your point that author's deserve their fair share for the work that they put in. My issue is that e-books often inflate the prices without giving the author their fair share.

The price of physical books may include the author, editor, distributor, marketer, and the printer. A digital book must include all the same but there is no cost associated with a printer. If you remove a printer from the total cost, but keep the price the same, that means that someone is making more for less work, and often times that is the distributor.

Amazon is the biggest distributor for e-books and they have two royalty options for authors, 35% and 70%. I believe that the 70% option is if you agree for Amazon to have sole distribution rights for something like 10 years. Those royalty options for authors are the same if a digital or a physical copy is sold. That means that Amazon will make 65% or 30% respectively even if there was no cost incurred by Amazon for printing and delivery.

This is why I believe that e-books should be cheaper. It has nothing to do with the author getting paid. It is the distributors who are taking advantage of their platform to reap outsized profits at the expense of the consumer with no additional compensation to the authors.

(In my reply, I'll be referring to trad. pub. books. Obviously, self published books will work out differently. At least in some cases.)

The problem here is that most people (as indicated by this thread and the majority of those who argue FOR ebook piracy) think authors aren't the ones losing, but they are.
Also, the price difference between the formats per book is less then a $. Printing, shipping, and storage are literally the cheapest parts of creating a book, and are broken up among so many books (and due to this are often even cheaper) as to make it negligible.

Also, all those cheap ebook sales? Bad for authors. Their share (the books "earnings") is where that discount is coming from. Which also means it takes that many more books being sold for the book to earn out.

Fighting against the price isn't hurting the companies (including Amazon). It's hurting authors and, in the end, readers.

I've had countless authors stop writing, not because no one read their books, but because too many people think piracy is the way to stick it to the publishers and/or Amazon.


(And yes, this thread isn't technically about piracy, but it is about the sentiment that leads to piracy.)

Thank you for explaining your side. I hadn't thought about this post from the piracy perspective, and even though I disagree with some points, I also agree that this post goes beyond pricing. The online piracy issue goes back all the way to music piracy which hit its peak in the early 2000s.

The two big things that the music industry did was reduce prices and provide free music to the end user. The first was accomplished by shifting focus from selling from full albums to individual songs. The second was implemented by providing their music for free on streaming platforms with ad support that gave a revenue stream to the recording artist and studio. Users could choose to listen to their music with ads or pay a subscription fee to get rid of the ads. Platforms like Pandora at the time was one of the first to do this.

When it comes to eBooks there is already a huge movement with the second solution through e-libraries. Apps like Libby, Overdrive, Cloud Library provide eBooks for free to readers through local libraries that pay royalties to authors.

As for the second solution, I do think that to further fight against piracy, eBooks could and should reduce prices. Even if we say that the costs of physical book overhead to include: printing, storage, and distribution, are negligible, the costs of downloading an eBook are near zero. The smallest of savings in dollars or cents per book is huge when accounting for the volume a publishing house or distributor like Amazon is dealing with. That is my issue with eBook pricing, even the most negligible difference in cost is still a difference, so that should be reflected in the price. I wouldn't mind it as much if those extra profits went to the author, but they are banked by the distributor.

I am very much against piracy, and no solution will ever bring piracy down to zero. Free library apps are a great move in the right direction by providing revenue to authors and distributors while fighting the "free" problem with piracy. The other tried and proven method of reducing prices could be implemented easily, they wouldn't even have to dice up their product like music did by selling singles from albums. Distributors could just reduce the cost by whatever percent would normally go to physical overhead.

Sadly, any discount they actually offer tends to be taken from the author's share/the books ability to earn out.

Also, an interesting fact about music piracy: there was a study that found that pirating music didn't actually harm the artist. This is most likely because artists make the bulk of their income from merch/performances/etc. and not from the albums themselves.

Sadly, a similar study proved that book piracy is definitely not harmless to authors, but a large portion of people use the music study to excuse book piracy.


Honestly, it all makes my head hurt, especially when there are ways to read books for free that DON'T hurt the author.

[Faatimah Noormahomed]

I definitely agree that they should be cheaper than physical books. However, I don't think that they should be completely free because of the hard work and time that the authors put into their work. It's also true that authors with more popular works usually have higher priced ebooks, but I think that's fair because their works are usually really good and liked by a large number of people. With that being said, if an ebook is really expensive and I really want the book, I'd rather get the physical copy just because that's more worthwhile in my opinion

[TusharJoshi]

They should be cheaper. Makes no sense to have high-priced eBooks as they will only lead to pirated copies being circulated in the market. Not free because authors make substantial efforts in writing them!

[MELIDOR]

Hi,
I am an author of an e-book. Concerning the comment that the price should be less than a conventional book. I would mention that the price of e-books is not standard there are different price on the market. as for the books to be free, one does not realize that an author need a salary, the the percentage to be paid to the publisher, cost of a model for the cover shoot also the unforgettable one: THE TAXMAN who takes a minimum of 15% of the royalties. cost of internet and electricity among others make it a business as anything else.

[Taxel]

I don't think they should be free, but yes, they should be cheaper, just for the costs that don't go into making a physical copy. The author still needs to make a living though.

[Hughes Davidson]

I do not think so. People dedicated their time to writing those books. Whether or not you read it in ebook format is immaterial because you will still get the same information and knowledge from it. Making it cheaper will not be rewarding for authors at all.

[Jeanne Clothier]

The prices of ebooks go up just like other books. They shouldn't be free. If there was no time or effort involved then you wouldn't value them. The currency does not have to be cash but you have to pay for them some way to give them value.

[Arianne Joy Melendres]

Authors should be paid for their work, but as a reader, I'd like to have cheaper books as well

[Faisal Kurfi]

In this world, nothing is ever free. I'd rather they are cheap.

[Melissa Best]

Despite the fact that they are only digital property, e books have nearly as much value as paperback books. Most of a book's value comes from the time of the author, editors, and publishers. You are buying the story, its medium is only secondary. I could only say that books might have the added cost of production and materials added on.

[FunkyFlowerLady]

An author puts in copious amounts of hard work in publishing a book to be even considered to be bought by a reader, so it definitely shouldn't be for free. but yes, as a person who primarily reads only ebooks, I'd prefer them to be cheaper. But you can always get a library card to avail of ebooks for cheap on monthly basis than individually buying them which is gonna be in the same price range as a paperback.