John Scalzi makes a series of posts on his blog called “The Big Idea”, in which he lets an author discuss their latest works. Lately, he has gotten fed up with people leaving comments on these posts saying that they won’t buy the book because the e-book is too expensive. He posted to his blog today announcing that he would be deleting any such comments he came across from now on, Scalzi writes:

I think it’s important to understand that eBooks are not special snowflakes; they’re just books in electronic form. As someone who prefers to read in eBook form, you are not substantially different from someone who prefers hardcovers, or trade paperbacks, or mass market paperbacks. If someone who preferred paperbacks (or at the very least paperback pricing) showed up on my site on a regular basis to whine and moan about how books should always be priced at that paperback level, on a comment thread that is meant to be on another subject entirely, I would find them tiresome too. Books: They have variable price points! Based on release dates, consumer interest and format, among many other factors! If you don’t like the price point, wait — it’ll come down eventually. Or visit the library (which in many cases you can do with electronic books now) and borrow the thing legally.

He also points out that it’s rather rude to the authors of the pieces, given that they don’t have any say over how their publishers price their e-books to begin with. If you want to complain, Scalzi suggests, complain to the publisher instead. “They are not hard to find and e-mail.”

Most of the comments that follow the post seem to be generally supportive of Scalzi’s declaration. I must admit I can see his point. I do feel that e-book prices are in general too high, and we should be making our feelings known on the matter to try to convince publishers to cut them. But there are better places to do that than Scalzi’s Big Idea posts,, and I can see how that sort of thing would get old fast when it happened on post after post. There’s speaking out, and then there’s being downright antisocial—and a lot of the time Internet commenters have a hard time finding the border between the two.

Still, commenter chupageek points out that there really aren’t many ways to reach a publisher on complaints about these issues. (I know when I wrote to a publisher complaining about format and DRM, all I got for my pains was a nice pat-on-the-head form letter.) He adds:

I also think it is niave to believe there is variability in the pricing, or that prices will drop. Half of the Vonnegut books are actually *more* expensive than the physical editions at amazon, despite having been in print for decades and the author being dead for 4 years now. This wouldn’t be the case if the publishers hadn’t colluded to force an adoption of the agency (quite possibly illegally, per the class action lawsuit, and DoJ and Euro investigations). For a lot of publishers it really seems like it is their intent to punish readers for prefering the format that is cheaper for the publisher to produce, and I suspect the real message of folks complaining (at least speaking for myself, though as I am a rare commentor in general here, I don’t feel particular guilty of this post) is “hey, I want what you sell publishers, why do you want to discourage me from buying it”. For authors I think the message is “I want what you sell, please stop using dickish publishers that want to discourage me from buying it”.

I do find it interesting that so many people are complaining about the high prices, though, even on blogs like this. As commenter rickg points out:

[Before] ebooks if a book was priced at $9.99 in paper, what did you do? Right, you bought it or not. You didn’t say “OMG, that book is priced too high! WAAHH!!!”. Books were priced at what they were priced at. If the hardcover was too much for you, you waited until the paperback versions came out.

He is using that to say people shouldn’t be complaining about high e-book prices either—but I’d rather ponder why it is that people are complaining about high e-book prices rather than, say, high hardcover prices. Is it perhaps that they feel that the lack of a physical book means they aren’t getting something of real value for their money? That they should get a price break after spending so much on a reader? Some other reason?

At any rate, it should be very interesting to see how the antitrust investigations of e-book pricing go. It may be premature to expect them to have an impact, but we can at least hope. In the meanwhile, we probably shouldn’t complain about it on Scalzi’s blog.

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19 COMMENTS

  1. We all know that the big 6 keep ebook prices up to protect paperback books. It is a scam, not based upon economics. If enough people understand that perhaps they would be less likely to buy from the big 6.

    I have seen on various boards the efforts by paid shills of publishing companies to badmouth indie authors so that they won’t take over. That seems to be tolerated everywhere.

    Go figure.

  4. I think most people feel on an instinctive level that a tiny digital blip of words that can only be read using a special device under strictly limited conditions without any true rights of ownership should not cost as much as a physical book that is owned and can be read independently and then passed to another person or saved for decades.

    Publishers on the other hand see ebooks only as a new source of revenue that needs to be strictly controlled in order to maximize profits while minimizing any impart on traditional forms of publishing.

    This disconnect isn’t going away anytime soon.

  5. True, they are still lost sales for the author and publisher but if I no longer follow the author then I don’t even look for new releases or backlist books released as eBooks. As far as I am concerned the author is no longer of any interest for me, even if the eBooks do eventually become available for me to purchase. I don’t even borrow their books from the library. At last count I have removed 27 authors from the big 6 publishers and I’m sure I’m going to be adding several more due to the excessive price of eBooks for New Zealand buyers.

  6. Scalzi writes: “Books: They have variable price points! Based on release dates, consumer interest and format, among many other factors!”. It is ironical that he mentions comsumer interest, yet he doesn’t like consumers to express their outrage, i.e. lack of interest, for expensive ebooks.

    An increasing number of readers are becoming more and more familiar with ebook production, and practice at least part of it at some level. Not just technological issues such as digital formatting and distribution, but also writing, editing and business issues. Readers now have some background to express at least partially informed opinions on costs and prices. And they no longer buy – no pun intended – what Big Publishing claims about pricing.

    Still, most readers have Stockholm syndrome. They keep buying books from publishers who abuse them with expensive pricing. Just don’t do that: let Big Publishing go the way of the Netflix.

  7. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t give a crap what John Scalzi thinks.

    See, I run a Ebook & Ereader blog to and post a lot of BIG ideas there as well.

    Let me throw some light into this room full of darkness this arrogant man has created.

    First off ebooks are too expensive for what they provide. Ebooks provide a license to read content and that is all. They have no resell value, no lending value, and cannot by anyone who enjoys even a modicum of sanity be considered personal property.

    Paperback and hardback books enjoy all of these values and thus are more deserving of the price people pay for them.

    Ebooks on the other hand are currently a thorn in consumers hands and they are only discussing what is on their minds.

    Now lets go to the point where Scalzi makes a real fool of himself:

    …He also points out that it’s rather rude to the authors of the pieces, given that they don’t have any say over how their publishers price their e-books to begin with. If you want to complain, Scalzi suggests, complain to the publisher instead. “They are not hard to find and e-mail.”…

    Well, well. What have we here but a shill for traditional publishing which has had authors at their mercy for nearly a 1-1/2 centuries.

    More and more authors every day are waking up to the fact they can sell their work through self-publishing platforms for a fraction of a price that publishers charge consumers and still make more money than they would through a publisher. Anyone who does not know this is either misinformed or willfully blind to hard facts.

    Authors and publishers also have to be aware that there is an increasingly large disruptive threat to their business model that will force them to lower their prices in time and that is the ever increasing number of ebooks available for no cost at all.

    Just the other day I downloaded over 250 ebooks from my favorite genres from a single ebook that were offered for free by authors. Some of these will turn out to be stinkers, but some will turn out to be gems…just like the books I used to purchase or borrow from the library.

    My ebook blog has a list of over 30 sites that offer free ebooks and were not talking about any of the hundreds of thousands of sites that offer pirated ebooks either. All the ebooks available through the sites on my site are there because the author has offered them up for free.

    The very fact that John Scalzi feels he has to speak out about this and go to the trouble of deleting organic comments shows that a large number of people feel very strongly about this issue. These are your customers folks. You either listen to them or they go where someone will listen to them and you can sit there in them middle of your sandbox and play by yourself….broke and forgotten.

    For those of you who feel I may have been a little to harsh on John Scalzi, well I feel someone needs to wake him and some others up to the the real forces of our economy, consumers. The consumer is always right. When you tell the consumer he is not right and he still feels he is, his money stays in his pocket and he leaves your store without buying anything. You have the choice to be right or let them be right and make some money. Even if its not what you thought you were worth your still doing better than the poor 20 million saps in America who are facing long term unemployment because of other disruptive technological and political flash points. Do you as an author..or a blogger want to join the ranks of the unemployed? If so, far be it from me to stand in your way for any longer. Be my guest.

    And let it be know that the majority of the fairly paid authors of tomorrow will be thanking you for leaving the arena. Their free ebooks of today will convince readers in the future to part with a couple bucks for books down the road. A couple bucks goes a long way when you don’t have to share it will a publicly traded company and the usual assortment of parasites associated with the traditional publishing business.

  9. While I understand Scalzi has the right to focus the discussion on his blog, his argument is flawed. Yes, variable price points, release dates, and format have been factors for years. BUT, they didn’t all compete at the same time. If I preferred paperback pricing or format, I had to wait. And by the time the paperback came out, the hardcover was on the remainders bargain table, so I could get that for even cheaper.

    With eBooks, I log in to my favorite e-bookstore and have the price difference rubbed in my face. And that’s not even counting the used copies for pennies, or the bookstore loyalty programs that allow me to buy dead trees for a discount. So I’m left with the option of destroying more forests or paying more. It’s a lousy place to be.

    And this is more false than true:
    “If you don’t like the price point, wait — it’ll come down eventually.”
    Based on several series I’ve been tracking since April 2010, they have not come down. One or two have gone up about a dollar per book, some of the first books are discounted to about $5, but most are stuck at their initial list price. This is particularly annoying when the paperback has been released for $8-12, the hardcover is remainder fodder for $5-7, but the eBook is still $16+

    And this just shows that he isn’t paying attention:
    ‘Or visit the library (which in many cases you can do with electronic books now) and borrow the thing legally.”
    Since 2 of the Big 6 won’t let libraries buy eBooks, 1 is limiting check outs, and the other is holding new releases indefinitely, this isn’t a solution either. And there is the little detail that libraries are hurting as state and city governments implode nationwide.

  11. I think on some level, most consumers realize there is a lower cost in the production of e-Books. Yes, the costs may be very similar near the beginning due to the same editing, formatting, and design costs of each; but with each print run of a paper book, publishers spend more money. e-Books only have that first initial investment, then they can be sold forever with no additional costs.

    Michael Stackpole had an excellent blog post about how publishers for years used the rising costs of paper to justify the increase in paper book prices. Now that e-Books are here, the physical costs of paper books is being downplayed.

  12. I have some sympathy for Scalzi’s point, but at the same time, no one is tying him to the big six. I suspect that Amazon or Smashwords would love if he would self publish with them at lower prices. I suspect also that Baen would also love to get his books on their list.

    Yes there are conveniences to e-books that offset, somewhat their disadvantages, but at the same time, publishers need to recognize that they need to change the consumption model. As tablets start taking a larger share of the e-reader market, they are going to be competing against video and audo a lot more. Do I spend 11.99 for an ebook, or watch this movie on Amazon Prime for free?

  13. You don’t have “full ownership rights” over print books. It’s just not worth the effort of going after people who violate the rights they do have.

    You know that bit in the front of the book that says “all rights reserved”?

  15. A least indicator of quality is price. A free book can provide a better reading experience than an expensive one. The reason that price is considered is that it provides an absolute comparative metric. All other reasonable evaluations of book quality include a variety of inconclusive considerations.

  16. I think that most complaints come from people who are new to ebooks and readers. Once you’re informed as to the reasons, you vote by spending your money elsewhere, buying indie books, or using the library.

    I quit buying full-priced ebooks when the agency model was implemented. Instead, I have thousands of free, low-priced indies, low-priced backlist books, or sale books. If there’s a book I must read, I check it out from the library for my Kindle. We’re fortunate to have a good selection of ebooks.

    “Is it perhaps that they feel that the lack of a physical book means they aren’t getting something of real value for their money? That they should get a price break after spending so much on a reader?”

    They don’t provide as much value and people instinctively pick up on it. You can’t loan an ebook freely, you can’t sell it, and you can’t give it away, all of which provide more value for a physical book.

    There’s also an underlying fear that bits and bytes are not permanent, that you will lose access to your ebooks sometime in the future when devices and/or formats evolve. My thousands of ebooks are mostly stored at Amazon. What happens if Amazon no longer exists? Yes, I can download or backup to my computer, but that ebook only works on the device it was downloaded for. To do a real backup, I would have to strip the DRM, which most people either don’t know how to do or don’t want to bother with. What about the format? Again, I would have to strip the DRM in order to convert for use in another device.

    It seems that publishers don’t understand the basics of the free market. It takes a seller willing to sell at a price the buyer is willing to pay in order to complete a transaction. The buyer won’t pay more than his perceived value of the item. When that happens, the seller needs to either lower the price or provide more value.

    While the Big 6 publishers are pondering the issue, small publishers and indie authors are filling the void.

  17. I think John is exasperated that people are trying to inform him that the insipid policies of his publishers (DRM, high prices) are COSTING HIM MONEY. Much like trying to shrug and say, “What can you do?” when an eccentric relative does something foolish and outlandish.

    Readers: Here John, take our money!

    John: Nope, sorry, no thanks.

    Arrgh.

    The big publishers are going to get pummeled because they refuse to acknowledge the desires of their customers. I have no sympathy for them.

    Authors who stick with the familiar but sinking ship are going to be badly hurt — and while I have a bit of sympathy for them, it’s not hard to see the result that’s coming.

  19. Scalzi is the president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, an author, a reviewer, and has his own blog. The purpose of his “Big Ideas” blog posts is to highlight an author and allow the author to comment about his/her recent work. It’s not a discussion of the publishing industry in general, or ebook prices in particular. He wants the comments to be directed about the author’s work so that people can decide whether they are interested in buying the book based on the ideas behind the book. Scalzi already moderates reader comments when he feels they’re abusive or off topic. He’s decided that he’s tired of seeing comments like two out of the first 3-4 comments discuss the price (like the Big Idea post that caused this decision), and has decided they are off topic, and has given notice to his readers that they will be deleted. It’s his prerogative, and I don’t see why this is particularly newsworthy.

    While I have my opinions on what makes a book too expensive, it’s usually not going to change someone else’s idea whether they want to buy the book. On the other hand, if I really liked or was disappointed in the book, or one of the author’s other books, that might make a difference to the prespective reader.

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