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Thread: What makes iBooks so expensive?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    41

    What makes iBooks so expensive?

    I have been trying and comparing the costs of e-books that I usually download from iBooks, other e-book charges from other websites and the same old printed category of books. iBooks, to my shock is comparatively very expensive when compared with Amazon and all and shockingly, all types of e-Books are almost as expensive as the printed versions and some are more expensive
    I really do not understand the logic behind this. How much does it take to develop a downloadable version of a book? I mean, it is hardly an expense right? That too, just a onetime investment after which the cash of that will be recovered and the cost can still go down. If I was into business I would have simply brought the price to half of the original price. If this was the case a few years back I would have assumed that this is because of the lack of demand but as of now, there are lacs of downloads happening.
    By the present scenario, I would actually prefer buying a printed book because I would atleast feel I have bought something due to its physical presence. Also, if I refund this book or donate it to VA, I will get some refund and a good cause satisfaction to add to it!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    22

    Re: What makes iBooks so expensive?

    Exactly! I have been wondering about this since quite a some time now. I mean, what is required to do? Just publish a set of pages into PDF and upload it on the server? Neither is there any major effort involved (i.e. if they don’t sit to scan each page) or any major investment. Nor does it involve any huge manpower or scientist brain to do this task. This is no rocket science. A school going kid can definitely do this with utmost ease. And the charges they implement seems like they sit and type each and every copy that is downloaded.
    According to me, this is because we e-book readers are giving them signs that the rates they are implementing are perfect and we rich brats can easily afford this. I think if we show a bit of hesitation in buying these e-Books and iBooks till they become a bit little expensive, they will be forced to cut down the prices. But er need to stand together for that

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Posts
    1,239

    Re: What makes iBooks so expensive?

    No No! you are wrong. It has nothing to do with what you are talking. The demand factor is not behind the raise in the price of e-Books on iBooks. It is something else. Imagine the rates of eBooks going very down may be half or quarter of that of its printed version. Have you ever wondered what will possibly happen to the printing industry? 50% or more than that of their readers will move to eBooks. And typically, no author goes to the e-book provider or Apple directly. They sell their creation to the publisher who get the entire rights for the book and the author(s) are paid their part of royalty on sales. Now these publishers are contacted by the e-book providers or iBook for rights to publish a downloadable version of the book they own. Keeping their long run business, they chose to regulate the prices of e-books. now this gives their printed product a better credibility and avoids reader migration due to high costs.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Posts
    1,425

    Re: What makes iBooks so expensive?

    Totally agreed to whatever you said. What you said was out of ultimate logic and research that you have probably made concluding on what you just suggested. However, I happened to read an article by Motoko Rich who is a journo at the New York Times and she has made a thorough research on the issue after interviews with the big tigers in the industry. She has done a very nice differentiation between the costs of printed books and e-books. the article is publisher’s explanation that they hardly earn any big difference in ebook and printed one I have mentioned a few extracts from her article here which goes as follows:
    Publishers basically have their own cost structure and it varies from publisher to publisher. Their cost, composite is quite different from one another but according to the survey conducted, we can conclude the following as the basic structure of cost and composition
    • It is the publisher who sets the price of a typical printed book. On an average it is around $26. Te bookseller typically pays half of the amount which is $13.
    • From the entire revenue earned, the publisher possibly, printing storing and shipping of the book, returning of unsold books etc costs him around $3.25
    • Around 80 cent per copy is spent on cover-designing, typesetting and copy-editing of the book
    • Marketing cost may be around $1 per copy which varies as per the popularity of the author and the title
    • Almost all of these costs come down with the sale of more copies
    • We cannot forget the author who is typically paid the 15% of the total cost per sale as royalty which in our case sums up to $3.90.
    • In certain cases, when the author is too popular a name, the author’s advance goes above the amount earned by the publisher
    • Minus, such write-offs and all, the publisher has some amount around $4.05
    • From this amount, they have to pay for editors, design, office space, electricity bill and other overheads that follow
    Talking about e-book, the profit that they earn is not much as suggested or assumed by you all. It is hardly of any difference.
    • Publishers sign an agreement with Apple which states that the cost of the eBooks will be fixed by the publishers and not by them
    • Here, they are settled down with a payment of 30% of each sale, that is if the book costs $12.99, the publisher earns $9.09
    • Out of this, the publisher pays around 50 cents to the convert to text software which also involves manpower
    • It pays almost the same amount for copy-editing, alignment and typesetting again involving an expense of manpower
    • The marketing amount sums up to around an amount of 78 cents on each copy
    • The 25 percent of the gross revenue earned from the e-book selling that the publisher earns is paid as royalty to the author, which comes to $2.27
    • Now, all of this leaves $4.50 for the publisher, still leaving other overhead expenses and the writing offs
    For a layman it might look like that e-book earns a lot of profit to the publisher, but the facts and numbers say something else only. If there is a permanent replacement of the printed e-books with e-books, then they will be in the above mentioned profits as the structure’ll get much more balanced and defined.

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