Why are eBooks So Expensive?

For those of us who have embraced eBooks, the US district court’s ruling last week was read with more than a passing interest.  The court ruled that Apple played a "central role" in a conspiracy with the biggest book publishers in the United States to fix prices in violation of antitrust law.

To understand this ruling a bit of history might be in order.  When the sales of eBooks first began to take off, Amazon was in the catbird seat.  They sold most books at $9.95 or less.  Best sellers, classics, even special interest publications were sold below10 bucks. Then, all of a sudden when the iPad was introduced and Apple wanted into the eBook market, publishers raised their prices.  Apparently the Federal Judge took notice and ruled that this was not a coincidence and those meetings between Apple and some of the publishers were not as benign as Apple’s top brass maintained.

The publishers are not happy, insisting that they need higher prices to make a decent profit.  This is something that I just don’t understand.

Before the advent of eBooks and the Internet, the publishing business was much more complex.  It required the manufacturing, i.e. printing, of books, warehousing, transportation and agreements with affiliate books stores.  All was very expensive.  Even the decision of the number of copies to print was a big gamble.  Too many copies sitting in a warehouse of a less than stellar title was expensive.   Too few copies made available of a gang buster best seller could cost even more money.

Today, with the advent of eBooks publishers have no printing cost, no warehouse fees and no transportation costs.  They don’t have to have any product on the shelf waiting for a buyer.  In short, most of the risk and hard costs have vanished.  Nevertheless they lament that lower prices for the consumer will render their business unprofitable.

If they could make a profit selling traditional books at 15 bucks each, why can’t they make even more profit selling eBooks at $9.95?  Perhaps bits and bytes are more expensive than paper and ink but I think not.

Iconic Britannica Goes All Digital

Once it was sold door to door to the baby boomer’s parents hoping to give their kids an edge in school. The volumes were beautifully bound and were often the only real books found in many households. It could be purchased volume by volume beginning with “A” and ending with “Z”. Of course I am referring to the iconic Encyclopedia Britannica.

Last month, after almost 250 years, the Britannica announced it would no longer print the encyclopedia in paper and ink form. Instead the company will offer an online version for an annual subscription price of about $70. The print version retailed at about $1,400.

This decision was inevitable. Paper and ink reference books, especially those dealing with science, geography and even history are often out of date the day they come off the press. Now using the Internet and storing data in the cloud, reference material can be constantly updated and the material accessed almost anywhere using a PC, Tablet, even a phone.

The online Britannica with a subscription required will go head to head with Wikipedia which is free and partially supported by contributions. Britannica president Jorge Cauz said the move is a natural part of his company's evolution and that the print version of the encyclopedia accounts for only about 1% of revenues. The company is counting on its reputation for accuracy to set it apart from Wikipedia. The latter gets its information from “crowd sourcing,” that is allowing anyone to add information to an entry in the hopes that enough people reading and revising the entries will result in accurate information. Over time this may well be true. Nevertheless using Wikipedia as a sole source of important information can be dangerous.

The Britannica is only one of many hard copy volumes that are disappearing. The proliferation of eReaders and tablet computers has prompted some text book publishers to opt for online books. Not only does this negate the need to maintain inventory and shipping, it allows textbooks to be updated continuously. One can hope that the inflated price for textbooks, especially for college level courses, will be reduced commensurate with the savings realized by the publishers.

I for one will miss having the real books to page through. It seems to me that paging through the encyclopedia is a different experience that surfing Google or YouTube. That being said, any technology that allows the free flow of information and knowledge is a good thing. Kids will have to figure out a new way to press autumn leaves and flowers. I don’t thing a thumb drive will do it.

AvantGo™ turns wasted time into productive time

If you are like me you hate to waste time, but try as we might there seems to be too many occasions when we find ourselves waiting. Perhaps it is in the doctor’s office or the “Quickie Lube” joint. I sure can remember sitting for hours on gym bleachers waiting for my son’s 3 minutes of wrestling fame. One option of course is to always have reading material with you. I have an idea for those of you who use a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or other mobile device. You can download all sorts of information in the form of electronic newspapers, magazines, short stories and other information form the Internet using a service called AvantGo™ (www.avantgo.com)

Each morning when I get to the office I connect my PDA to my office computer to update any appointments I may have made since I last “synched” the two. At that same time my computer connects with AvantGo™ and downloads sections of the New York Times, articles from Wired Magazine and selected other publications. So when I have a few minutes I can pull out my PDA and do some reading. I would not recommend reading Gone With the Wind in this 2” x 2” screen, but for short articles it is great

AvantGo™ bills itself as the world’s largest mobile internet service delivering content to some 7 million people using PDAs, wireless PDAs, and smart phones like the Blackberry™. The service does carry advertising but this allows for the basic subscription to be free. I don’t find the ads intrusive and you will find that they will be customized to relate to the content you are requesting. So if you subscribe to GolfLine, an AvantGo™ offering in cooperation with Golf Magazine, don’t be surprised if you see lots of ads for golf clubs.

Another neat feature of AvantGo™ is a MapQuest™ option. You can have your MapQuest™ results sent to your PDA so you don’t need to print them. It saves trees and time and you can just erase the information after your trip.

If you have a PDA and you are only using it for an address book and Calendar, I think you will find AvantGo™ a way to make it more useful.