Murdoch Says E-Book Prices Will Kill Paper Books 538
hrimhari writes "The settlement between Amazon and Macmillian got the attention of a known dinosaur. Consistent to his views, Mr. Murdoch wants to defend his book editors by killing the cheaper solution. '"We don't like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99," Murdoch said. "They pay us the wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge," he said. "But I think it really devalues books, and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.'"
Re:"Murdoch Wants" (Score:5, Informative)
To those who modded this Flamebait: Ten media conglomerates control over 75% of the media in the U.S.A., and over 50% of the media in the world. But Fox "News" viewers are some of the worst-informed Americans. [people-press.org] Who do we blame but the CEO? And why would we believe different standards would apply to any other media under his control?
As an aside, I was asked to download comment.pl the first time I clicked reply. Then I got a reset connection. Finally, I got a reply form. Coincidence? :)
Re:Price??!? (Score:2, Informative)
The words are free. The book is not. If you want to go find it, scan it, OCR it and format it, good on you. Great if you can find someone who's willing to do all that for you. But it's not free.
It's not unreasonable to pay a small fee for someone to put together an e-book, catalog it, put together a web page so you can choose which ones you want, and, in Amazon's case, pay for the cell bandwidth to send it to you. If you want to make some beer money in the public domain publishing business I'd pay you a buck for a good, easy to acquire and use electronic version of a PD book I was interested in.
Re:Not for My Personal Library (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly... Especially when the government decides to ban a book and all your copies of it mysteriously disappear... Maybe not in the USA, but I can see it happening in many other countries.
China decides to ban a book and everyones government provided ereader deletes it. Book burning of the 21st century.
More context for that study. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So what he's saying is... (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corporation [wikipedia.org]
Hurry, he's almost 80, the clock ticks on, and he can't spin that no matter what.
Re:For what it's worth (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Prices (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So what he's saying is... (Score:3, Informative)
Surprised they own Gamespy and Hulu. Then again, Gamespy is garbage now since they changed up their site (as if they were somehow awesome before though) so I wouldn't care one way or another but Hulu is actually a pretty good site IMO.
Re:Prices (Score:3, Informative)
Baen's eBook price is a lot lower than $9.99...
eBooks (Score:3, Informative)
Hi,
First of all i have to mention that i am addicted to reading.
This was already a problem as a kid: Once i was ill my aunt gave me five books as a gift. The next morning i called her and asked for more. In a hindsight, this was really embarrassing.
But once i started earning good money, this problem has multiplied. I am running out of shelf space. With my marriage i gave away about 1.000 books to friends just to have a little space for my wifes books.
So started with ebooks as a measure of self defence. I started with the Iliad Irex about 3-4 years ago. Since then i purchased several hundred ebooks. The good thing is: i drive on vacation without any fear of running out of input.
Therefor i am very interested in everything that concerns costs of books.
I totally hate any kind of DRM. Since i started i went through several different reader. Any restriction to move a book with me feels like theft. This one reason my favorite publisher is Baen. They have the most honest approach towards the reader. I think Eric Flints Introducing the Baen Free Library [baen.com] gives the best summary on that topic ever written.
I also worked as author, editor and publisher for books (on a very small scale). Therefor i know how much money is in the production (very little) and distribution (a lot) process and how little ends up with the authors. So i think that ebooks will greatly improve the percentage an author will get from the book sales (but not the overall revenue).
Current contracts give authors a certain percentage of all revenue. So it is in the interest of publishers and authors to get the prices as high as possible. But while the publishers still get the same share, they do a lot less for the sale of an ebook than for one of a paperback.
So at this point customers are on the side of Amazon, that an ebook should cost significantly less than a paper based book.
Currently the frontlines run between Amazon and the customers on one side and publishers and authors on the other. But the authors are not on that side due to their own interest but due to the current publishing system. I don't think that this situation will remain static. The publishers are bound to loose the authors as allies and then the fight next.
A typical question is: It's the same book, why shpould the reader pay less for an eboook?
It is the same book but it is not the same service. With a paper based book, they have to print it, ship it through the world, provide shelf space in the bookstore, pay the cashier guy,...
The transport of an ebook is by a factor 1.000 cheaper than a paper book, the cashier is fully automated, it does not take shelf space,....
If the producer has less costs, the product should become cheaper.
Where i agree: The author provides the same service, so he/she should get the same amount as before.
Who works less is the publisher and the bookstore. They should get less for an ebook.
The problem is the typical contract between author and publisher. Usually there is a certain fix percentage of the revenue (no matter wether ebook or paper book) designated for the author. While the percantage of an author at a book is around 10-15%, it should be higher (e.g. 30%) for ebooks. Of course the publishers are not in favor....
Publishers dislike ebooks not just due to the prices. If ebooks become too popular, the need for publishers is decreasing. An author could go just directly to Amazon without the help of publisher. Currently an ebook will not sell very well if there is no paper book to create demand. But this will change. The publishers (like the RIAA before them) wants to fight it. But they will have as much success as fighting entropy....
Personally i am totally in favor of the development. The service i am interested in is someone like Pat writing fascinating novels. I am also willing to pay for the editor and the distribution. But i am not interested in trees getting chopped down and trucks blowing carbon dioxide into the air while carrying harcovers.
CU, Martin
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Informative)
the DOJ can step in and smack them down for price fixing.
It's hard to successfully nail IP industries for price fixing as copyright itself is price fixing and the products are not exactly fungible. Even when you nail them in the short term, monopoly pricing is set as a function of the consumers disposable income, not as a function of production cost and competition. Thus the prices will always tend to rise (in nominal terms, as reductions in disposable income will be hidden with inflation in the current economic system) and are unlikely to diverge far from each other (either lower or higher prices will result in lower revenue than the optimum monopoly pricing). You'll get the effect of price fixing whether they collude or not.
Basically the only way to affect pricing is to encourage large scale private copying and distribution of the products in question, which is pretty much what passes for 'competition' in that segment of the economy.
Re:Not a New Concept (Score:3, Informative)
The Encyclopedia Britannica costs $70/a for an online subscription. It costs $1300 for a paper copy. People still buy the paper copy.
Not many. Britannica has been in trouble for years. When Microsoft did Encarta, they talked to Britannica about some kind of business arrangement. Britannica turned Microsoft down. Years later, with Britannica doing badly, they went to see Bill Gates, who told them that, because of their expensive sales force, their organization now had "negative value".
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Informative)
The following book price breakdown from Kindle Review (http://ireaderreview.com/2009/05/03/book-cost-analysis-cost-of-physical-book-publishing/) is instructional:
Book Retail Price: $27.95.
Retailer (discount, staffing, rent, etc.) - $12.58. That's 45%.
Author Royalties - $4.19. Exactly 15%.
Wholesaler - $2.80. Exactly 10%.
Pre-production (Publisher) - $3.55. That's 12.7%.
Printing (Publisher) - $2.83. Translates to 10.125%.
Marketing (Publisher) - $2. That's approximately 7.15%.
Basically the numbers of interest are the retailer (45%), printing (just 10%), and the wholesaler (10%). So it's fairly easy to see that online books can dump wholesaling and printing costs... but that's just 20%, or $6. Retailer costs can drop, but most retailers still need to make a profit, even selling ebooks (servers cost money).
Given the breakdown, I can see how a publisher might charge Amazon $15 for a first-run book, and how Amazon might decide to eat the $5 (for first run books) if it means gaining ebook market share and if it also encourages people to buy older books on which they DO make money. And sells the occasional Kindle.
And if you think Amazon would not decide to lose some money now in order to build up market share, then you're completely forgetting how Amazon became Amazon in the first place.
Re:Devalues books... (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with hardcovers in the US is the extortionist pricing (it's just paper and cardboard FFS) and the sometimes multi-year wait until softcover editions come out. Hop over to Canada and you will see much saner retail pricing in their bookstores. Books are much cheaper in Japan too and the paper, printing, and binding is WAY higher quality than what you can get in North American mass market publications. If hard cover book sales suffer in the US it's because we're tired of being raped and finally have an alternative.
Re:"Murdoch Wants" (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, but accuracy is important here, especially when so many people don't read the article.
The lowest scorer among "high knowledge" was... network news.
Wrong. The lowest scorer among high knowledge was Network Morning Shows. And if you've ever seen one, that should come as no surprise.
Re:9.99 isn't CHEAP for an ebook you don't own (Score:3, Informative)
....now take a book to the beach
and watch the guy with the kindle squint to read the same as a ebook, then bet on if his batteries will fail before the kindle dies due to overheating in the sun, or becomes unusable due to salt or sand damage?
ebooks are now at least usable, but the readers are still too expensive and fragile to replace books (so far ...)
When the readers are much less fragile, and come down in price, then perhaps the book printing industry will contract, but if the publishers are smart they will carry one as they are currently, ie. here is a book, how do you want it, hardcover, softcover, ebook, audiobook .... ?
Re:Let's do the math. (Score:2, Informative)
Pirated eBook: $0.00
# times you can loan: unlimited
# years you can own: unlimited
Resale value: $0.00
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Informative)
If you're selling your books as bits, then "making it into a book" is a software process. The proof reader can do it as an incidental step.
Technical works are statistically insignificant.
Re:Actually, Murdoch hates paper (Score:1, Informative)
I think this is the one you were thinking of:
"I would like nothing more than to kill paper (newspaper, books, etc.) and replace it with digital. Pulp and printing equipment are increasingly expensive, and it's no secret I despise the paperworker unions that control my labour costs. Plus I like the idea of DRM." ~Rupert Murdoch