Dear Jerk: Apple has a right to set their terms. No publisher is forced to sell through Apple. Publishers recognize that Apple's platform is where profit lies, and Apple is forcing competitors to compete on something other than price, which they can't. There is no collusion. Apple simply kicked everyone's butt.

I don't buy e-books. They're too expensive. I have yet to regret not having an e-copy of some book.

Ahhh a well hidden apple fan troll, basically saying people only buy the competitors because they offer a good experience for a cheaper price, thereby forcing people to buy their more expensive devices with more expensive titles all while cutting deals with publishers to not make their book available to amazon.

I guess they had to do something since they couldnt sue them for having a device to similar to theirs, fark apple, if this were the 80s they would try suing IBM for making computers.

Nem Wan: It is derp. Apple has always preferred to have flat or simply tiered pricing. Every song on the iTunes Store was 99 cents originally. This no different than a brick and mortar dollar store pricing everything at a dollar. Apple has simple terms for content owners: if you want to sell something in Apple's store, Apple gets 30%. This is not collusion or a "deal", it's Apple informing everybody that these are the terms under which Apple will resell your product. Apple was only trying to do the exact same thing with their iBookstore that they've done with their iTunes Store and App Store.

Reading comprehension failure, the set prices are not the issue, its the collusion between publishers and apple that they will not agree to discount their product at all, thereby killing amazon(who is hated by publishers and book retailers) and making them more profit. The collusion is the illegal part, not the prices they set their books at, apple can keep theres at 14.99 but what publishers cant do is tell a store/site that they have to sell it at that price.

Carousel Beast: Ebooks were overpriced well before Jobs, but you keep right on going there, cupcake.

This has nothing to do with pricing and everything to do with collusion between apple and book publishers.

phyrkrakr: cirby: Amazon lets you self-publish very easily, and they give the author a HUGE cut of the price - about 75% of the sale. Even selling an ebook for $4 means you get almost as much profit per copy sold ($3) as a successful author usually makes off of a $25 hardback.

FYI: That "75% royalty" stuff is a bunch of baloney. Amazon's 30% cut doesn't include the "Average Delivery Cost" which can be $2.58 on a $9.99 book.

I still agree that self-publishing is going to be the future, however. As stated above, the biggest value-adds from publishers are editing and publicity. I could easily see small editing houses start up with a few people who work through manuscripts and then take a cut after publishing.

If I set up a website now, and solicited manuscripts from anybody on the internet, do you think people would email me the novel they've got parked on their hard drive? If I just picked out the best ones and spent a few months on each working it over before setting it up and putting it on Amazon, do you think they would allow me $0.20 a copy of a four dollar book?

Of course, the idea behind this isn't new or original - I'm sure lots of people have come up with the same business plan, and there's already probably people setting this up. The real trick is going to make it so that you know that I'm worth my 20 cents - that I'm not just some teenager at a keyboard that will hold onto your manuscript for six months without communicating with you, butcher it to pieces by adding vampires or something, and then still expect to get paid when you undo all of my laborious work. It would be better for some kind of marketplace - writers looking for editors, where everybody is peer reviewed and the writer knows that the editor they're signing up with is actually qualified.

Anyway, somebody give me some money to start setting something like this up.

Actually the royalty is 70%, not 75%. But you're wrong about the average delivery cost, at least in my experience. I do sell some books on Amazon and my average delivery cost is like 3 cents per book.

cirby:
...except the producer and audio engineer aren't the labels - who do the most damage and take the most money out of the stream.

Indeed, there just seems to be a mentality that these behind the scenes people aren't needed or should be avoided... which isn't a bright idea unless you happen to be a producer/engineer as well. Same as people wanting to self-publish books... go find a freelance editor FFS.

MugzyBrown: ApatheticMonkey: I've been wondering why in general, it only costs a couple bucks more to get a physical copy of a book (sometimes even hardcover!) than the ebook version. I'm a little annoyed to know this was the reason. That was a major driver in me not ever having bought an actual ebook, despite having a dedicated ebook reader. (I've been downloading from the local library.) If it only costs me a little more to get a physical copy that I know won't suddenly disappear, I have almost zero incentive to bother buying a digital copy. Yes, I can carry dozens of books with me with the ereader, but honestly, I'm only reading one at a time.

Supply & demand. The demand for ebooks has risen, so the price has also risen. It's that simple. To think of a monopoly in e-books is silly. There is no reason for government interference.

Econ 101 fail.

MugzyBrown: cutullus: You are conveniently ignoring the fact that as soon as we start talking about ebooks, the supply is infinite. Any limits on supply are totally artificial, designed to keep the prices high.

Then don't buy them. If people don't buy them, then the prices will come down.

If I'm selling a product I want to maximize the ratio of volume/price. It doesn't matter my production cost.

If I can sell 10,000 at $10 or 11,000 at $2, it doesn't matter if it costs me $.01 to make each unit. I want my $100,000 instead of my $22,000.

Fark, you're an idiot. You're not wrong, but you're not understanding the point either.

Bhruic: MugzyBrown: Then don't buy them. If people don't buy them, then the prices will come down

Actually, when the number of people purchasing something goes down, companies for some reason tend to increase the price in an attempt to make up the profit. So relying on prices coming down by not buying them isn't really a winning strategy (even if A) the company knew you weren't purchasing because of price, and B) there were sufficient other people not buying them because of price).

That's not entirely true. It completely depends on the elasticity of the demand of the product. Gas/heating/water, sure. Baseball cards, no.

Nem Wan: RexTalionis: I don't see how it's derp. The allegations of the DoJ, if true, is a serious violation of the Sherman Act.

Just to recap what the allegations are:

Apple made a deal with 6 major publishers to fix ebook prices at a certain level on the Apple Store. Since the publishers, once having set the ebook prices with Apple on Apple's store, cannot undercut Apple anywhere else (i.e. at the B&N store, Kobo Store, Sony Store, and most importantly, the Amazon Store), the prices for ebooks rose everywhere.

Remember when ebooks were $9.99 for most books? Remember how prices everywhere suddenly jumped to $14.99 overnight for new books? Yeah, that was because of Apple.

Hard to see how that's derp.

It is derp. Apple has always preferred to have flat or simply tiered pricing. Every song on the iTunes Store was 99 cents originally. This no different than a brick and mortar dollar store pricing everything at a dollar. Apple has simple terms for content owners: if you want to sell something in Apple's store, Apple gets 30%. This is not collusion or a "deal", it's Apple informing everybody that these are the terms under which Apple will resell your product. Apple was only trying to do the exact same thing with their iBookstore that they've done with their iTunes Store and App Store.

Bullshiat. Way to water down the facts. The laws in this country are geared towards facilitating a free market. However innocuous you think Apple's terms are, if they are disrupting the free market and preventing fair competition, then something's illegal.

Carousel Beast: The Banana Thug: RexTalionis: I don't see how it's derp. The allegations of the DoJ, if true, is a serious violation of the Sherman Act.

Just to recap what the allegations are:

Apple made a deal with 6 major publishers to fix ebook prices at a certain level on the Apple Store. Since the publishers, once having set the ebook prices with Apple on Apple's store, cannot undercut Apple anywhere else (i.e. at the B&N store, Kobo Store, Sony Store, and most importantly, the Amazon Store), the prices for ebooks rose everywhere.

Remember when ebooks were $9.99 for most books? Remember how prices everywhere suddenly jumped to $14.99 overnight for new books? Yeah, that was because of Apple.

Hard to see how that's derp.

Done in one. Subby's an idiot. Ebooks are overpriced thanks to Steve Jobs, and being an Apple fanboi is not worth defending that.

Ebooks were overpriced well before Jobs, but you keep right on going there, cupcake.

Depends on how you look at it. If the cost of duplicating a digital copy of a product is a penny, that doesn't mean an ebook should be $0.02 to be profitable. No author or producer would cannibalize an existing product line (hardcopy books) by pricing ebooks too low. Hardcopy books have a considerable fixed cost that needs to be recovered, so that means selling an X amount of books minimum to break even. If they set their ebook prices too low, then they cannot publish hardcopies and hurt overall profit across all mediums. In addition, hardcopies amplify sale of digital copies. For example, how do you know those strangers on the bus are reading "50 Shades" on their ereaders? You don't, so awareness is low. So yes, we might differ on what "overpriced" is at the baseline level, but there is no doubt that prices jumped after Steve Jobs.

cirby: Flint Ironstag:
But Apple then told the publishers that they could not sell through any other channel at a lower price. That is collusion. Amazon do not do that.

From Amazon's terms:
"You must set your Digital Book's List Price (and change it from time-to-time if necessary) so that it is no higher than the list price in any sales channel for any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book."

In other words, they actually do do that, in a slightly different way.

"Slightly"? Big farking difference. If the average apartment rent in your area is $500 per month, and the city passed a law saying price floor is $200, chances are it doesn't affect anyone at all. But a price CEILING of $200, every landlord on average is incurring an economic loss of $300 per month and the free market is heavily disrupted. "Slightly" is hardly the word you want to use.

The Banana Thug:
"Slightly"? Big farking difference. If the average apartment rent in your area is $500 per month, and the city passed a law saying price floor is $200, chances are it doesn't affect anyone at all. But a price CEILING of $200, every landlord on average is incurring an economic loss of $300 per month and the free market is heavily disrupted. "Slightly" is hardly the word you want to use.

Nope - the real result of the Amazon policy is to prevent their authors from discounting it with other sellers - in effect, they put a maximum price on their ebooks. In conjunction with the policies of all of the publishers and major distributors, it locks their ebooks into the same price as everyone else.

It's still the same sort of price fixing - it's just in the opposite direction.

clkeagle: I'm just a layman, but I don't see any reason why that couldn't work. And I think it would work equally well for nonfiction, textbooks, reference books, or even downloadable compilations of popular web comics.

Board rules for one; the forums I frequent all have strict guidelines about promoting stuff, it's a good way to get banned there.

I'd imagine that if your idea really started to take off that the rules would get stricter.

Apple has no monopoly in e-books. Apple is unlikely to have a monopoly in e-books. Apple will NEVER have an monopoly in publishing. I can't fathom why Apple is on the receiving end of an Anti-trust suit that involved e-books.

The collusion that the major publishing players did, well, that's a different story. They, as a whole, are a monopoly on the e-books AND publishing. When they colluded against Amazon's prices, that was very likely illegal.

Renowned transvestite sexologist: Apple has no monopoly in e-books. Apple is unlikely to have a monopoly in e-books. Apple will NEVER have an monopoly in publishing. I can't fathom why Apple is on the receiving end of an Anti-trust suit that involved e-books.

The collusion that the major publishing players did, well, that's a different story. They, as a whole, are a monopoly on the e-books AND publishing. When they colluded against Amazon's prices, that was very likely illegal.



But it was Apple chairing the meeting of that collusion....

Bungles: But it was Apple chairing the meeting of that collusion....

What Apple did was set prices at their own store. If the publishing industry hadn't of then colluded against Amazon all on their own, nothing illegal would have happened.

Renowned transvestite sexologist: Bungles: But it was Apple chairing the meeting of that collusion....

What Apple did was set prices at their own store. If the publishing industry hadn't of then colluded against Amazon all on their own, nothing illegal would have happened.

You're probably trolling, but as the poster you quoted said, Apple set prices at their own store, then initiated the collusion between the publishers to ensure other retailers had to sell at Apple's prices at minimum as well. Apple IS a critical part of the collusion.

MugzyBrown: ApatheticMonkey: I've been wondering why in general, it only costs a couple bucks more to get a physical copy of a book (sometimes even hardcover!) than the ebook version. I'm a little annoyed to know this was the reason. That was a major driver in me not ever having bought an actual ebook, despite having a dedicated ebook reader. (I've been downloading from the local library.) If it only costs me a little more to get a physical copy that I know won't suddenly disappear, I have almost zero incentive to bother buying a digital copy. Yes, I can carry dozens of books with me with the ereader, but honestly, I'm only reading one at a time.

Supply & demand. The demand for ebooks has risen, so the price has also risen. It's that simple. To think of a monopoly in e-books is silly. There is no reason for government interference.

Not sure if trolling or just completely retarded.

There is no limit to supply on an electronic file. There is no cost to supply past the labor to craft unit one.

jvl: RexTalionis: Remember when ebooks were $9.99 for most books? Remember how prices everywhere suddenly jumped to $14.99 overnight for new books? Yeah, that was because of Apple.

You know there's an actual graph of prices in the linked article? And that it disproves what you just said?

Average ebook price takes into account the 1 copy of "My Life of Living in the Basement Posting on Fark" that someone published and sold for a penny through Amazon.

They need to look at the average price of books that actually sell. (Classics, current hits, etc).

As another poster said, most of the time ebooks and paper books cost the same, or the ebook costs more. That is price fixing.

Nem Wan: It is derp. Apple has always preferred to have flat or simply tiered pricing. Every song on the iTunes Store was 99 cents originally. This no different than a brick and mortar dollar store pricing everything at a dollar. Apple has simple terms for content owners: if you want to sell something in Apple's store, Apple gets 30%. This is not collusion or a "deal", it's Apple informing everybody that these are the terms under which Apple will resell your product. Apple was only trying to do the exact same thing with their iBookstore that they've done with their iTunes Store and App Store.

0/10 Obvious troll is obvious.

ZiegZeon: Swoop1809: I was going to buy a copy of the Great Gatsby the other day. I go to amazon and see the ebook price at 12.99, which by itself is ridiculous for an ebook. But next to it is the paperback for 9.99. I decided the publisher doesn't deserve any of my money.

Pretty much why I don't give 2 shiats about ebooks. I see no reason for any e-book to cost more then 5.00. That data is just so damn expensive after all.

At of the start of this thread, I would have said $5. Now I'm closer to $2.

If Netflix is $8/month and I can read 4 books a month with the time I watch Netflix, then ebooks should be no more than $2.

Vaneshi: malaktaus: Honest Bender: If they just can't save themselves, then maybe we don't need middle-man publishers anymore.

What do they actually, you know, do these days? I mean, promotion, fine, and also editing, but there are other ways to do both. Even more than record companies, it seems to me that publishers are in a business that has no future. They provide no essential services and the artists they depend on don't really need them.

Editing, typesetting & layout, cover art, advertising and in some cases PR related duties. Even going straight to e-book with no need to layout the pages for printing there is a lot of tidying and tarting up of a manuscript before it ever makes it to market.

You'd be surprised just how much editing and how many revisions it takes for that well crafted book you enjoyed to appear from it's original draft.

I can see publishers changing their form but I can't see them going anywhere soon, self publishing is nice but... unless you are shiat hot in the required skills AND can write like a demon you aren't going to get anywhere.

"just how much editing" and yet they still sell just as well as utter trash like Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray.