There’s a lot of discussion about e-Books and pricing.\u00a0 I think I understand the author and publisher view.\u00a0 I understand e-Books aren’t necessarily cheaper to produce than paper books, although the costs are different.<\/p>\n
The New Yorker has an interesting article<\/a> this morning asking if the iPad will topple the Kindle.\u00a0 I might have missed it, but it seemed more like an article about how Amazon wants to become a publisher and cut out the traditional publishers, working directly with authors.\u00a0 If, as quoted in the article,\u00a0 the average reader reads one book per year, their model may work.\u00a0 I’m not sure how it will work for the readers who value the texture of books.\u00a0 In today’s post, I’ll share my personal view of e-Books (and that’s all it is).<\/p>\n To me, e-Books are intangible and disposable.\u00a0 Because of that, I’m not interested in paying hard cover or even paperback prices for them.\u00a0 At this point, I haven’t been willing to pay anything for them.\u00a0 I don’t trust them.\u00a0 Why not?\u00a0 In one instance, Amazon pulled all copies of a book from Kindle (I believe they reimbursed customers what they’d paid for it, but still…).\u00a0 iTunes, Audible, and other electronic publishers limit the number of devices which can be authorized for an account.\u00a0 As computers die or get lost, some people seem to not be able to get those authorizations back, which eventually could result in dead accounts where people cannot obtain their legally purchased electronic material.\u00a0 If I want to give a paper book to a friend either permanently or on loan, I can do it easily.\u00a0 No so with an e-Book.\u00a0 I can sell a paper book in a yard sale or a used book store.\u00a0 I can donate it to a library, senior center, hospital, or paperback exchange.\u00a0 So far, no opportunity to do that with an e-Book.\u00a0 I have books in my collection well over one hundred years old.\u00a0 I can open them and read them at any time.\u00a0 I have no confidence someone will be able to do the same thing with an e-Book one years from now (not that I’ll be around to care, but I see much information being lost in the coming generations due to electronic data loss via various means.<\/p>\n I think the real question becomes, how typical or how unique am I and my “archaic” views and concerns?<\/p>\n Where do I see advantages for e-Books?\u00a0 They’re ideal for travel.\u00a0 If you’re carrying your e-Book device, you can haul an entire library in a pound and half (iPad) or less.\u00a0 I could see giving e-Book rights with the purchase of a hard cover or having a paperback\/e-Book combo price in addition to a stand alone e-Book price.\u00a0 Personally, I could see buy hardcover, get e-Book version free; buy paperback, get e-Book version for $0.99 or less.\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, stand alone e-Book for $3.99 or less (emphasis on less).<\/p>\n I’m certain many if not most published authors and publishers have a different view on this.\u00a0 What do you folks think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s a lot of discussion about e-Books and pricing.\u00a0 I think I understand the author and publisher view.\u00a0 I understand e-Books aren’t necessarily cheaper to produce than paper books, although the costs are different. The New Yorker has an interesting article this morning asking if the iPad will topple the …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[48,10,64,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-reading","category-tech-stuff","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14658,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions\/14658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}