This topic has been broached before (see, e.g., Valuing a Book: How Do Publishers Decide on Value?, On Books: Deciding to Buy or Not Buy (III), and The eBook Wars: The Price Battle (IV) — Value) and is likely to be broached many times in the future. It is a worthy topic that just won’t (can’t?) go away.
What brought it to mind again was the confluence of several events: I had to replenish my tea supply, a Smashwords July sale was being promoted, I read an article about the price of coffee, I went to see a terrible movie (and also a good movie), and a few other similar events.
Like many coffee drinkers who believe Starbucks is the barista and who are willing to pay $4 for a cup of joe, I like my tea with breakfast and the newspapers, and I don’t hesitate to spend a premium price for a premium cup of tea. Yet the pleasure that the coffee/tea brings is fleeting. A few moments after imbibing and the thrill is gone (as B.B. King would say).
Similarly, I saw 2 movies over the holiday weekend, one very good and the other exceedingly poor, yet these, too, were fleeting entertainments.
Yet, books are different. The thrill of a good read doesn’t disappear after an hour; a good story can captivate us for many hours — not only as we read the story but as we think about it long after we have finished reading it and as we discuss it with friends or recommend it to others. Nonfiction books may be books that we regularly return to for some factoid. Books do have a fading quality, but that fade occurs over a long period of time, unlike that luscious cup of tea with breakfast that fades quickly.
We all recognize this, even if only subconsciously. We often think about a book we read as a child or in high school, and we can still recall some of the characters and much of the plot — even if we haven’t reread the book in 50 years.
But in the pricing scheme of things, books, particularly ebooks, are significantly more price sensitive than our coffee. We who are willing to spend $10 a day on a couple of cups of coffee, hesitate to buy an ebook for $10.
There are lots of excuses — who knows if the ebook is really any good, the ebook has DRM (Digital Rights Management) that limits our use of it, publishers are greedy, and on and on. Aren’t the same excuses, however, applicable to that cup of coffee? How do we know in advance that the coffee isn’t too strong (or weak or burnt)? Isn’t our drinking the coffee like DRM — once drunk you can’t share it with a friend? Isn’t $4 for a cup of joe a greedy price when once can buy other coffees for half that price? And, besides, we know it doesn’t cost $4 to make that cup of coffee.
Doesn’t the same hold true for movies? Even the price of a movie rental is often more than the price that many ebooks. And we rarely go to see a movie alone, so the cost really adds up. And we willing pay the movie price — whether box office or rental — even though we know we can’t duplicate the movie, we can’t share it with friends over the Internet, and we can’t watch again in 3 weeks without paying again, and paying the same price as we did originally.
What makes ebooks different? That’s what I don’t understand. If anything, I would think the values should be reversed. The transience, for example, of the cup of tea versus the long-life of the ebook should indicate a reversal. But it doesn’t.
There was a time when books were so valuable that only the very wealthy could afford them. The books were gilded in gold and silver, painstakingly hand crafted, and highly sought objects of art. Although this esteem diminished with the advent of the mass-produced hardcover followed by the even more mass-produced paperback, the aurora of esteem didn’t wholly disappear — until the Age of eBooks and the inability to of a reader to see a finely crafted book and to hold it in his or her hands.
Perhaps that is the problem — ebooks lack a sensory touch. The cup of coffee exudes smell, a smell that pleases (hopefully), along with a taste that pleases (again, hopefully). Plus there is the sense of touch, of holding the cup in our hands and knowing that we are holding a cup of coffee that is desirable. Similarly, movies appeal to our visual and aural senses. But to what sense does an ebook appeal?
Really none. The traditional sensory reactions that we have toward a print book — the smell, the feel, the sound, the look — all disappear in the current incarnation of ebooks. Most readers agree that cover design and interior design of a pbook are important parts of the experience of reading, yet both are missing from the ebook experience.
I’ll grant that it shouldn’t matter – after all, aren’t we reading for the pleasure of reading and stimulating our mind — but the lack of the traditional sensory experience, the sensory experience that we grew up with, is, I think, the cause of our discontent with ebook pricing. All else, I suspect, is just our way of expressing that discontent because we don’t really recognize the root cause.
Of course, this will change over the next decade or two as ebooks become the standard reading method and readers lose their connection to the print book, but for those of us trying to make that transition, I expect we will continue to undervalue ebooks (and concomitantly overvalue other transient experiences) because we miss the sensory experiences we have become accustomed to associating with reading. I think readers need to become more accustomed to the ephemeral experience of ebooks. Once readers do and once readers recognize that ebooks are valuable simply for the mind stimulation they provide, then ebooks will be valued in the marketplace as they should be, with a lessening of the pressure on very low pricing.
Editor’s Note: the above is reprinted from Rich Adin’s An American Editor blog. PB
For me, it has nothing to do with the sensory experience, it has to do with the relative price of an ebook compared to a print book. The print book is a physical object you can own, sell, trade, give away, share and use in any circumstance. I typically pay $11 or so for one. The ebook is ephemeral, encumbered by DRM so rights are limited, not legally shareable and in a format that is not guaranteed to work forever. Therefore, its price should reflect these losses in use. If print books cost $50, I would happily pay $20 for an ebook. But with print books costing so little, and many cheap options available for them, it is unreasonable to me to charge such a high price for the electronic version. I have seen ebooks go for MORE than a print copy. That to me is totally unreasonable for something so limited and restricted in its uses compared to the print counterpart.
I agree with Joanna. Sensory experience does not enter the equation. I compare the price with pocketbooks and am not at the moment inclined to pay more than that for an ebook.
An ebook is not really a product, it’s a license. You buy not the book, but the license to read the book for an unspecified, but limited time and are not allowed to give, lend or sell it. So an ebook offers more downsides than upsides compared to pocketbooks and are therefore IMO worth less.
“…the lack of the traditional sensory experience, the sensory experience that we grew up with…”
This faux-sophisticate attitude, more than anything else, is what has held e-books back for so long. It’s a bunch of old farts saying “see here ya damn fool kids, text media means marks on paper and there ain’t no other way of doin’ it, now go play with yer Nintendo Station or whatever you call it.”
I want to smack people who talk about “the feel and smell of a book”. It’s like someone in 1905 saying that cars are a foolish waste of time because the most important part of personal transportation is the feel and smell of a horse.
While I wouldn’t have come up with sensory experience myself, I think sooner or later publishers and everyone else are going to have to accept the simple fact that people don’t consider ebooks to have the value of a physical book.
I am an indie author and happened to agree to deliver something to an acquaintance as a favor. When I got to her house, she told me she’d bought my book for her Kindle, enjoyed it, etc., etc. As it happened this person was present some weeks later when I bought several paperbacks of my book to an event a club we both belong to was giving. The club was giving them as prizes. When the Kindle owner saw the paperbacks, she immediately wanted to know if I had more with me, could she buy one. I asked her why she wanted to buy a paperback when she had the book on her Kindle and had read it (you can tell I’m a great saleswoman). She reached out, touched a paperback and said, “But this has real VALUE.”
Like it or not, that’s how we all instinctively feel about ebooks and paper books, even those of us who don’t want paper books around to shelve and dust any more. The book market is going to have to adapt to this gut human feeling because it isn’t going to go away.
If I really love an e-book, I will likely buy it again in paperback, and I will not buy e-books if I know I will want to read the book over and over. Why? Not for the ephemeral “sensory experience”, but for the utility.
As Joanna pointed out, I have no faith that in 10 years I will be able to read that e-book. Hell, I have no faith that I will be able to read the e-book next year, (thanks Fictionwise, for teaching me that although you promise to have the books always available, they are really not). I can’t lend the book to a friend to read, and I know it won’t be “on my bookshelf” so to speak, for years to come. I can’t even sell it if I decide I have too many books.
While I appreciate the convenience of e-books and have spent, according to Quicken, over $500 on them over the last 2 years, until the permanence issue is sorted out, I will NEVER pay the same as a paper copy. Never.
And just to respond to your point about the comparative “value” of things we buy, by your argument we should pay far, far more for music than we are seemingly willing to. A good CD (or download) will give me pleasure every day if I want for years to come. (And I make my own coffee, thank you.)
I agree with Joanna as well. I don’t compare the price of an ebook to anything except the price of the physical book. You can compare Starbucks to home made coffee, but not to ebooks. eBooks provide less value than their physical counterparts and prices should reflect that loss.
The value of movies is similar in reverse. When I go to the theater, I pay for watching the movie once, plus the experience (if you call sharing noise, bathrooms, and sticky floors an experience). When I purchase the DVD, I’m willing to pay a bit more because I can watch it as many times as I want to and with as many people as I can fit in my living room. Most of the time, I value the DVD more, the movie isn’t likely to be worth the time, effort, and expense of seeing it at the theater.
One more point, if I want to share a book with family members, or I know I will want to keep it forever, I buy the physical book. eBooks are just mind candy because you can’t expect them to be around forever.
Nicely written article.. but I just don’t buy the comparison with coffee. It just doesn’t hold water.
Few books I have ever read left me with a long lasting inner glow. Many films have. Many meals have. It’s a mug’s game playing this kind of subjective matrix.
I value an ebook exactly the same as a hard copy book. No different. But the hard copy comes with perks, the perks you list above, and that MATTERS to me.
However having said all that. You have struck on one seed thought that I believe will be important in the coming years. That old reliable in the market place .. “Added value”.
The music labels screwed us for ridiculous prices for years and so much so that they even stopped adding lyrics and photos. They asked us to pay $20 and more for a box with a CD… nothing else.
If I were in the ebook business I would be exploring this whole added value issue intensely now. What does a book reader value as well as the core story itself ? Video ? interview with the author ? Photos ? background info ? photos of the original manuscript ? the list can be continued. Voucher for the next book ?
If e-books values are tied to paper book values- minus the value of true long-term ownership, and public libraries allow you to read paper books for free, then logically, doesn’t that mean that e-books have no value whatsoever?
If e-books also lack some of the sensory experience value of paper books, then should I be paid to read them?
I wonder if Rich only buys hardcover books. I don’t see that the mass market paperbacks I buy have any great cover or interior designs that make a big difference in my reading experience. For me, when I’m reading fiction, which I do most frequently, I just want a book that’s correctly formatted with minimal typos.
What I do object to is the publishers who insist on setting the price of ebooks to the MSRP of the cheapest print edition, so that the ebook costs more than the discounted print edition sold by the same booksellers (Amazon & B&N), even though with the paper edition, I can sell it, or buy a used copy, or lend my copy to friends and family. Thank you very not, John Sargent and Steve Jobs.
I don’t mind eBooks at all. I remember when I once used to think this way. Now, you cannot get me away from my eBooks. I purchase all my eBooks through booksonboard.com, and I love all the titles I have decided to get. The thing with eBooks for me is that I am purchasing it for convenience. If there is a book out there which I know I will keep, which some of you mentioned, I will make an effort to buy the paper/hard back, b/c I want to keep that with me and read it again (my favorite by the way: Wuthering Heights –> a classic). I don’t sway either way, but I can say I love both eBooks and traditional books. Just depending on the occasion results in which method of reading I pick up.
How much does it cost them to copy and distribute those e-books?
I support piracy and spit at all of you who support the restriction of “literally” priceless content.
I’m sure the authors of the 1-million books published in the US last year are happy to know you want to steal from them, Rob.