What Book Publishers Should Learn From Harry Potter 196
New submitter Volanin writes "The e-book versions of the Harry Potter series are being released through Pottermore, and J.K. Rowling has chosen to do a number of interesting things with them, including releasing them without DRM restrictions. 'One of the encouraging things about the Pottermore launch is that the books will be available on virtually every platform simultaneously, including the Sony Reader, the Nook, the Kindle and Google's e-book service. ... even Amazon has bowed to the power of the series and done what would previously have seemed unthinkable: it sends users who come to the titles on Amazon to Pottermore to finish the transaction.'"
Only sort of DRM free? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2012/03/27/harry-potter-ebooks-are-not-drm-free-in-kindle-format/
Re:Only sort of DRM free? (Score:5, Informative)
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You mean we can convert from Epub to the kindle format using Calibre? Cool.
Re:Only sort of DRM free? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Only sort of DRM free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having purchased one DRM'ed Nook book before I got a Kindle, and one DRM'ed kindle book since then, I wised up and now I only purchase DRM free ebooks (generally epub), manage the collection with Calibre, and convert the books as needed for loading on devices.
If a book is not available without DRM, I do not purchase it.
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If a book is not available without DRM, I do not purchase it.
"If a book is not available without DRM, I do not purchase it." Buy it and strip it from the drm. Then you can load it unto every type of device you own, and don't have to rely on Amazon. And yes, even since amazon changed drm-scheme it still works with the latest un-stripper (weird word btw). Or are these things illegal where you live?
Re:Only sort of DRM free? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Shrug.
IMO, anyone who bought a Kindle has already made a pretty clear statement that they're perfectly happy with DRM and willing to reward it financially. What do they expect?
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On the contrary, I have a Kindle loaded up with nothing but DRM free books. Amazon will probably take a loss on me, since I refuse to buy their DRM laden wares, but I'm happy with the hardware at what is probably below their cost.
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I thought about going that route, but had a horrible suspicion that the installed base is what publishers look at when deciding how and where to release ebooks. From that perspective, the fact that you're keeping your Kindle clean is irrelevant. It's another Kindle, and as such is another argument for them to release with DRM since that's "obviously" what customers are happy with.
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And in addition to iceaxe, I too have no DRM books.
Almost entirely Project Gutenberg, or similar projects. And scanned copies of things I already own (archival exception to copyright restrictions).
Since a Fake Book / Real Book has mostly just one-page tunes (the head and changes), you could load up 20-30 songs and play jazz for several hours, just pausing between songs long enough to push "next page". Want to change the set list? Re-arrange the PDF and send it to the band. I haven't scratched the surfac
Free Cheese! (Score:2)
If you want fewer features, turn them off!
"You have to get an account first!"
Well, tough fuckin' nuts.
http://slashdot.org/my/preferences [slashdot.org]
good on her (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just sayin'
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it will take authors of her stature to claw back some author's rights back from apple and the publishers
That's a ridiculous statement. What rights have authors lost specifically to Apple? All available evidence indicated Apple would prefer that DRM be removed from media.
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it will take authors of her stature to claw back some author's rights back from apple and the publishers
That's a ridiculous statement. What rights have authors lost specifically to Apple? All available evidence indicated Apple would prefer that DRM be removed from media.
They lost the right to sell the books at a reasonable price. People on Slashdot keep forgetting that the iBookstore or whatever it's called came along with negotiations that contractually forced Amazon to raise ebook prices by >50%.
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And you seem to forget that was a lie.
Re:good on her (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that's not an author right they lost. They gained that right with Apple's agency model.
Otherwise what happened was Amazon was selling books at a loss (to them) in an effort to drive out everyone else from selling e-books. The publishers and authors had no right to say what price Amazon could sell at. So if Amazon decided your books were worth $1, sure they could be paying you $3 for each copy, but you won't be able to sell your next book for any more than $0.50 per copy as everyone thinks your book is only worth $1.
As well, Sony/B&N/Kobo won't be able to compete and exit the e-book market (if they have to pay $3 per book and Amazon's big enough to dump it at $1...), leaving Amazon the only player in town.
Amazon went for the wholesale model - they bought N books for $X, and sold it for $Y (X and Y have no general relation, though Y > X for a profit). Apple went with the agency model - the publisher sets the price, and Apple sells it for that price.
Consumers love the wholesale model - books are cheaper and get discounted, though publishers hate it (devalues the book) as do authors. If you want to see this in action, check out developer complaints about 99 cent games making it hard for other developers to charge $4.99 for games (better ones, of course) and such.
Of course, Amazon could be devaluing the market to be the only contender (Amazon's Kindle store is the largest after all) and with the DRM, once you're locked in and the other stores are gone, Amazon is free to jack up prices.
No DRM but has tracking (Score:5, Informative)
They call it watermarking, but it's tracking by any other name. "The Pottermore Shop personalises eBooks with a combination of watermarking techniques that relate to the book, to the purchaser and the purchase time. This allows us to track and respond to possible copyright misuse."
So don't copy the floppy..... er, book to your friends.
Re:No DRM but has tracking (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nothing's wrong with it, so long as it doesn't put anything visible (like Macrovision did on some VCRs) that would degrade the quality.
Re:No DRM but has tracking (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like publishers have a method of getting one of the tinhgs they want -- no "used" ebook market.
Re:No DRM but has tracking (Score:5, Funny)
"I don't understand potions", said Ron gloomily.
"You don't understand anything!" said Hermione snootily.
"Cut it out, you two. I'm trying to watch the Quidditch", said John Thompson, the twenty eight year old living at 17 Acacia Avenue, Surrey, credit card number 5753100085692323.
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And does this watermarking survive being converted to other formats through Calibre or other similar software people use to manage their e-readers? I doubt it.
Re:No DRM but has tracking (Score:4, Interesting)
It could be something subtle, non-markup-language-related like inserting zero-width space characters within the text or replacing the Latin letter "O" with the identical looking Cyrillic letter "O" in a kind of individualized code. Unless you know the exact code, or someone "diffs" two copies of the text to determine what's being done, you can't strip it. And, instead of going through a lot of trouble and potential risk to get a watermark-free copy to disperse, you might as well just tell your friend to download a rip from any one of billions of websites. Hardcore pirates have used stolen credit cards anyway, so they're not going to care about some silly watermark.
Although, I suspect we will soon be finding out what happens when Amazon et al add a term to their license saying that you agree to allow them to automatically delete any books from their, er, your device that have an "invalid" watermark, meaning anyone's watermark but yours.
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Just make sure the friends you share it with don't upload it to a public place.
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The average author is not making a living off their books, at best they are paying for lunch. So every pirated book counts for much larger percentages of their revenue.
She's part of the problem (Score:2)
Re:good on her (Score:5, Informative)
which means they have lost the right to discretionary pricing and possibly from offering the book for free...
I'm just sayin'
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They in no way lose any of that "right".
What they lose is the "right" to charge less for it in other places, they can offer it free on iBooks just as they do elsewhere. You can change prices anytime you like.
Apple is doing a substantial amount of legwork for free (yes, free, even if you never actually sell a copy) and they don't want people getting the advertising and such from iBooks but encouraging people to direct-buy it for 20% less.
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What exactly do they do that could possibly be described as "substantial legwork"?
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Re:good on her (Score:5, Informative)
30% is comes out of the publisher.
"not being able to offer the book for less anywhere else"
and that's just false.
return of the king
Apple: 9.99
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-return-of-the-king/id503026877?mt=11 [apple.com]
Google: 8.51
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/John_Ronald_Reuel_Tolkien_The_Return_Of_The_King?id=WZ0f_yUgc0UC&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImJvb2stV1owZl95VWdjMFVDIl0 [google.com].
That's just one example.
Stop 'Just sayin' and start thinking for yourself.
Re:good on her (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/08/us_justice_dept_apple_ebooks/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/13/apple_ebooks_cases_cost/
-I'm just sayin' -what I think and hear and feel...
Who needs DRM (Score:5, Funny)
A) Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
They should learn form this that we wanted these 5+ years ago, preferably released simultaneously with the print version, and ideally the print versions should have included one free e-Version each.
What will they learn from this? They'll learn that they can fake it and promote themselves as "DRM-Free" by releasing material that everyone already owns in another form (and therefore piracy doesn't much matter), which continuing to burden new releases and reference material under as onerous of a lock as they can clamp on.
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Exactly. We bought all of these as they came out in print (for my daughter - I think they're drivel). We're not going to pay for the electronic versions, even though they'd be nice to have.
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The first 3 books are drivel. The latter 4 books are pretty dark (I'm not sure children should even read them).
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I disagree; the series was derivative and while maybe not drivel, was far from exceptional. It was lowest-common-denominator coming-of-age fantasy. The only thing exceptional about it was its wide appeal due to its far-from-novel mechanics and themes.
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Derivative from what?
I don't really consider that a flaw. Most things are derivative from something earlier. It was an enjoyable read just like watching Stargate SG1 was enjoyable even though it was nothing new.
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I agree. A free e-version should be included with all physical book purchases. True, someone could just go and sell the physical book and keep the e-book, but that only counts for first-time sales. Seems that game publishers are more than happy to provide free DLC to first-time buyers - maybe this will catch on with books. I don't doubt Kindle might be around for 20 years or more, but maybe I'll move on to a different ereader before then. Therefore, I'm only willing to spend a small amount on an e-vers
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That strikes me as a dangerous distinction to make - Would you say (and I don't mean this as a leading question) that you have the "right" to rip a DVD or CD for playback on your computer? And if at some point in the future, the studios start o
Funny how she went from (Score:4, Insightful)
Never releasing digital, to a digital release.
And by funny, I mean money.
Re:Funny how she went from (Score:4)
So? Is it evil to like money now?
All of the Harry Potter books are within what would be a reasonable copyright term, so she's entitled to maximize the money she makes from them. It makes perfect sense to hold back the eBooks until the hardcopy sales dropped, and she's done the right thing here, which is not to penalize legitimate users of the eBooks in the name of piracy prevention.
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Evil is a social construct that's pretty fluid between time and space. Not sure that just because greed is one of the seven deadly sins, it automatically becomes evil in the here and now. Not even sure that sinners are automatically evil, or that every sin is an evil act.
Not about her, about YOU (Score:3)
How much money is it really worth to earn before you don't feel you have to have more?/em.
What a horrible, selfish, evil attitude you have.
It should not matter if someone made zero or ten billion dollars on something. If they make something you enjoy, they should get money for it - it really is that simple. If they manage to make something wildly popular why is it a problem that a huge number of people will be rewarding them?
It's only a problem if you are a dick who wants everything for free and artists t
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Look up "I want things for free because other people have done something fantastic and made money from it and I am just sitting on my ass."
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Need I add, I wish more gazillionaires were as generous. How many million do you need in one lifetime, after all.
Re:Funny how she went from (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps she decided she needed more money to give away.
Apparently, she donated ~$160 million to charity this past year, and fell off Forbes' Billionaire list as a result.
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digital spell: (Score:2)
Alohomora DRM!
Price still too high (Score:2)
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I think maybe this is why there is no DRM restrictions, she will have made so much money from the sale of the virtual book from legal copies, that the illegal ones will havebeen paid for...I think this is why they are selling as expensive as the paper back versions....just my opinion...
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It doesn't cost them $8.79 to print a book, either. What's your point?
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The point is electronic versions don't have snail-mail shipping costs, and should be cheaper. Take Fantasy&Science Fiction magazine for example:
$36 for the print version but only $12 for the electronic version. They save money by not printing the magazine & adding postage, and those savings are passed to their e-mag readers.
Re:Price still too high (Score:4, Insightful)
An Ebook version of Potter has ZERO shipping cost and ZERO printing cost. There's no logical reason why the last 3 ebooks should cost 2 dollars more than the print books. In fact they should be about 2 dollars cheaper.
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Why should they be cheaper? They COULD be cheaper, but why SHOULD they? There is a perfectly logical reason that the ebooks cost 2 dollars more than the print books - people are willing to pay it!
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Re:Price still too high (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yep. Economies of scale and all that. A bottle of beer costs even less to make -- an order of magnitude less.
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In large print quantities, that's true. In smaller print quantities for books from independent publishers the printing and distribution can be a significant expense, and it's also sunk cost. E-book avoids tying up a bunch of your money in printed copies that may or may not move.
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So what? How does the cost to the producer affect the value to the consumer? If they produced a book where every letter of your copy was hand-written by a graphic artist, would you pay thousands of dollars for it just because it cost that much to make?
Assuming you have a job, how much did it 'cost' you to work today? Practically nothing - just enough nutrition to keep you alive and functioning for the day. Bet you happily accept more than a few cents for a day of work though.
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How does the cost to the producer affect the value to the consumer?
In the absence of a monopoly, the price of the product would be production cost + small markup. That's how everything should be priced in a Free Market. Supply/demand curves are irrrelevant with ebooks and anything with a zero cost of production in a Free Market. But copyright is incompatible with a Free Market, something I've never seen a Free Market Libertarian reconcile.
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If they made a book like described, nobody that just wanted to read the story would pay that price. Anybody who did pay that price would be paying it because they valued the book at least that much (probably as a piece of artwork, or just to be able to show off how much money they have). Nobody would pay that price simply because if cost that much to make.
The point of the job comparison was that the price of pretty much everything, including the price you get for doing your job, is determined by how m
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Overall, the process of turning a manuscript into a book is estimated to cost $7000-$20,000 — an amount comparable to the author's likely earnings from the book. In fact, the actual division of labour on a book is split roughly 50/50 between the author and the publisher.
and
In particular, about 80-90% of the cover price of a book has nothing to do with the paper and ink object you buy in a shop; indeed, using current production standards, ebook production requires nearly as much work as paper book production.
Yes, yes, I know that they already have made their initial investment back an obscene number of times, but that is a different matter.
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Somehow the link got foobar'ed. Here it is:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/04/common-misconceptions-about-pu-1.html [antipope.org]
My apologies.
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Better yet, learn the real formula: Price != Cost: Price=what people are willing to pay (ie. how much value they assign to the thing)
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You formula describes something else, and is incorrect anyway (since different people will value the good differently). If you want to correctly state your formula, you'd need a bunch of qualifiers, and it would be much wordier. I'll paraphrase is as Price = the seller's valuation of the optimal price to induce maximum profits based on the demand curve.
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I think I'm missing the whole point of ebooks here. I went and bought a very expensive little gadget so I could:
(a) Buy more books without having to spend more money (cheaper books + old book budget = more books);
(b) Keep more books on hand without having to raise
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Once again, cost to manufacture does not equal value. Price is set by value. Let's assume that the value of the content is the same for the ebook and the paper book. Now, what additional value do you get by having the paper book? For some people, there is some value in that. For many people, there is no value in having the paper. What value do you get from NOT having a paper book? What value do you get from being able to carry your entire collection with you? What value do you get from being able
DRM Free? It's like Magic! (Score:2)
Why not give us the direct link? (Score:5, Informative)
Why link from Slashdot's summary to some other linkfarm's summary? Grrr. DIRECT link -
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-you-can-buy-the-harry-potter-e-books-now/ [paidcontent.org]
By Laura Hazard Owen
International translators V. Potter Franchise (Score:2)
It is good to see the artist in control (Score:2)
Nurture the artists. They are life.
Power to the content creators! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is what ebooks are made for. Eliminating the middle-man, and letting the creators own the distribution of their own works. I hope this trend continues. I'm only too happy to buy these books knowing that the creator is getting the lion's share of the profits and not some publishing house.
They didn't learn shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I've already downloaded and read all the Harry Potter books. By waiting this long to release them in ebook format, they only encourage pirating of the ebooks.
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If they had released in ebook form earlier, people would have pirated it earlier. So they are ahead this way. And perhaps there are some honest people who will pay for ebooks that they do not already have.
Baen has been doing this, for quite a while now (Score:2)
Baen has been doing this, for quite a while now.
David Weber's latest in hardcover is $15.39 from Amazon.or BN.
It's available DRM free on Baen's website for $6.00.
And the early books in his series - as in most of the series that Baen publishes, are available free at the Baen Free Library.
What they should NOT learn (Score:4, Interesting)
-
"Why can't I add this to my basket?
Due to publishing restrictions, this edition of the book is not available in your country. Please choose another book language."
So, Pottermore may have bought a clue about how useless drm is, but they still don't understand that it's a global economy now and consumers won't put up with that "not available in your country/region" crap any more.
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Then just pirate it. Don't be such a whiner.
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Yeah good solution. Personally I downloaded all 7 books four years ago! I didn't feel like waiting for the movies to be released, or the ebooks, and just went straight to the scanned copies off isohunt, in order to learn how the story ended
Do you shop at just one brick and mortar? (Score:2)
You spread your financial details all over the place in the real world. It's just as unavoidable over time on the web.
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No, it's not just as unavoidable. You can't hand someone cash over the web. Transactions are stored in databases that are attached to Internet-facing websites that can be SQL-injected, etc.
The only people who have my credit card are the bill companies that automatically hit my account once a month, gas stations, Steam, Newegg, and Amazon. No one else knows my CC. If I can't get it through one of those retailers...I don't get it.
I am the only person who touches my debit card. No one walks away with it.
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Do you also verify where every debit card reader is physically connected, and audit that none of the electronics are malicious and skimming your data? link [krebsonsecurity.com]
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Well, the local grocery store isn't going to let me poke around their electronics. And for good reason; if they let just anyone poke around then they could also get compromised pretty easily.
That said, I keep an eye out for skimmers and other devices that are attached to the reader. And I always visit the same grocery store, which is pretty much the only place my debit card is used. Again, my financial info is not just scattered all around, and I rather like it that way, which is why I hate when any new
Re:Do you shop at just one brick and mortar? (Score:4, Insightful)
How do I spread my financial details at a brick and mortar? If I buy a $20 book at a brick and mortar, I do hand over a financial document with a name and picture on it, but the name and picture are of former US president Andrew Jackson. I don't mention that's not really my name, and nobody has ever made an issue of it.
A majority of people don't pay cash. Even 20 years ago when I was working retail while going to school, people hand over their credit card to a minor who more or less can't be seriously prosecuted, and almost all of the time, nothing bad happens. Having worked both sides, I used to laugh at people who were "scared of the internet" in the 90s, as if a "rich computer guy" like myself is more likely to skim their records than a 16 year old waitress.
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There will almost always be some desire for printed material
It'll be like music CDs. In 2012 music you buy for yourself comes from legal or illegal sources online. I haven't bought a music CD for myself in about a decade. However, on christmas morning, birthday parties, etc, music cds are still being unwrapped...
In the future, you may never own a book that did not arrive in wrapping paper... but you'll still get at least some books. Just like music CDs now.
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Going the DRM-free route is truly surprising and appreciated, but it's tainted by the eBooks all being more expensive than the paperback versions. That's a hard sell for a lot of people. :-/
I agree that going DRM free was a surprise, especially from JKR, who has long been very much adverse to ebook releases, often citing piracy as one of her objections. Apparently once you are filthy rich its not such an issue any more.
As for the Ebooks being more expensive, this too may fall, because until Apple got involved with ebooks, it didn't use to be that way. Books in Ebook format used to be 5 to 7 bucks, 9 bucks for a best seller. Then Apple enabled the publishers to adopt their so called Agency M
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The vast majority of the RRP on a book is author's fee
I believe you meant to say 'retailer's profit' and 'publisher's profit'.
Authors typically get around 10% of the price of a book, if they're lucky; and 15% of that will go to their agent. A full-price book sale probably gets the retailer 30-50% (which is why they can sell at 40% off and still make money).
Given that layout is more difficult in an eBook
Uh, what? Most e-book formats are just a zipped HTML file which support a limited subset of HTML. And there are no returns to worry about either.
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Not finding that to be true anymore. The last three programming books I bought for the Kindle app were at least 25% less then the print version, and these were recent (within the last year) releases. Could be better, but it seems to be trending downward. I'd like to see them implement a system where we could get free upates for various errata, much like software patches, especially in technical books were an error in the wrong spot can leave you baffled for quite a while.