Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Costs and Pricing of E-Books
The other day I discovered that the first volume of my four volume prayerbook had become water damaged with coffee. It was a stupid mistake. Replacing the volume, which is still technically useable, would run $35, so I'm not too eager to shell out the money at this point. However, I thought it might be a good time to check out CPH's prayerbook Treasury of Daily Prayer. Happily I found that the price for this single volume work was $30, hardback (It's on sale at the moment.) Then I saw they had an e-pub version. Great! I own a NOOK, so this could be an option. Then I looked at the price. It was $19 more! What? You've got to be kidding! A paper copy is cheaper than an electronic copy? How does that work? Well, I guess there are a number of things I didn't understand in the new world of printing and books, especially the costs associated with e-books. Even though storage is considered virtually, it comes down to bandwidth, which costs. And there are other expenses as well. If you are curious, as I was, I found a short article that helped me understand. I'm still not happy with it all, but hopeful that one day these e-books will be more cost effective. See: "What Making an E-Book Costs, Publisher Responds."
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I suspect much of the cost comes down to copyright/intellectual property/author royalties, Donald. Given the relative expense of e-books as compared with actual books, I listened to an interesting discussion on the radio down here recently. They were talking about the need to modify the law so that the data people store in "clouds" - books, music etc. - can be willed to others upon death. Apparently at the moment that is not possible. So we could soon have "virtual inheritances"?
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