Today's most pirated ebook

[nacho]

Umberto Eco's new book - The Prague Cemetary

[monkey!]

I really understand why eBooks are being pirated to even greater levels than before, especially since publishers are now pricing eBook editions to be in line with even hard-back prints. An eBooks for 13-19 euros? Eat my shit.

I'd buy plenty of eBooks for 5.99 or even 7.99. The whole point of eBooks is to improve accessibility: cutting out all major publishing costs - cover art, layout designs, print runs, storage, transports, paying for shelf space, etc. - have been removed, saving a lot of money and effort for the publishers; buying eBooks is much easier, faster, and more accessible for the reader, and should also be less costly for the reader.

It seems like publishers are trying to kill off the eBook trade. One could also argue about whining authors complaining about their cut from cheaper eBooks, but shouldn't the publisher be taking less for giving out less?

[nacho]

It seems like publishers are trying to kill off the eBook trade. One could also argue about whining authors complaining about their cut from cheaper eBooks, but shouldn't the publisher be taking less for giving out less?

The authors are. The big name authors all got together and successfully sued to remove the $13.99 cap on ebooks. Previously, only bestsellers could charge more than ten bucks or so. Of course, authors noticed that their royalty checks were halved. So when you suddenly go from half a million a month to a quarter million a month, it must be hard to keep that champagne fountain going. So they banded together and forced the change. Amazon happily opened their doors to let the authors submit work and circumvent any publishers who refused to raise the price -- thus the creation of the Amazon publishing house, Kindle Singles, etc.

Held hostage by their authors, publishers had no choice but to comply.

The ebook breakdown (I could have sworn I've talked about this in, like, four threads) is pretty rough. Say an ebook costs $10.99. Amazon buys it for about 50% off. The distributor/publisher will take about 30% of that 50% profit. Maybe more. The author gets the rest. So even if the author is favored, it's still a massive cut.

There really is a big gap here, though. The authors who are hurt by ebook prices are the big name authors who make millions a year. The leaders to deregulate ebooks are James Burke, Stephen King, Rowling, Bradbury, and a few others. These are authors who will still sell ebooks no matter the price -- take Bradbury's announcement today. His library will now be available at not-really-ebook prices. But they'll sell like hotcakes.