Sony's Ebook Store Prices Too High? Try Shortcovers
Michael bought a Sony Pocket Reader last month, but with the exception of $10 bestsellers, he's finding that other books he wants are priced higher than he's willing to pay. For example, Tad Friend's memoir Cheerful Money is $10 on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble, but $17.49 from Sony. Michael wants to know if we have any advice on how to get Sony to lower their prices.
Yeah, can't help you with that too much, Michael. The problem is we're in the early stages of ebook sales going mainstream, and that means every publisher and every retailer is trying something different. The good news is sometimes it will work out in your favor as a consumer, like Amazon forcing competitors into selling new releases for $10 no matter how high publishers want to price them; the bad news is that sometimes you'll get screwed, like every format being locked down by DRM so that you can't read it on a competing device.
One thing you can do is buy from the independent ebook retailer shortcovers.com, which I've found frequently sells ebooks at prices lower than Sony, and competitive with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. (They're currently selling Cheerful Money for $10.49.) Shortcovers sells ebooks in the ePub format, locked down with Adobe Digital Editions DRM, and they say you can read their books on Sony Readers as well as several other ereader devices currently on the market.
The site doesn't offer as large a library as the other retailers, and as I noted the books come with the same DRM plaguing every ebook retailer. But it's a good alternative for owners of Sony Reader devices until Sony discovers competitive pricing.
Update: You can also try ebookprice.info to comparison shop—just make sure that whatever format you buy will work with your ereader. (Thanks to BinaryTB!)
(Photo: kevindooley)
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Comments:
Why should an ebook cost the same as a printed book?
Great post, the ebook market right now is going to be the reason that more people don't adopt it. The only benefit of owning one right now is not having to carrying X books. Unfortunately my virtual books cost the same, and I had to pay over $200 just for a device to carry these books!
Ebooks will definitely catch on once the media prices dip it a bit and we find more efficient/cheaper ways to make the readers themselves.
People pay for books?
I download all mine for free.
Yeah, I'm not even going to think about getting into eBooks until they start selling them for reasonable prices. Even $10 is too much for a new release. I mean, with eBooks, they get to forgo all the cost of shipping and distribution, and manufacturing. They have the one-time cost of editing, and the recurring cost of royalties. eBooks should sell at sub-paperback prices.
I've got nothing to do with this site, but I ran across it at mobileread, should help searching for the best ebook price:
[ebookprice.info]
Ok, I'm usually the last one to blame the OP; but why would you buy an ebook reader without first checking how much the ebooks cost? It would be like buying an xbox without bothering to check what a new game goes for (although I guess not quite the same as you can always get xbox games used).
@hewhoroams: As someone who doesn't read more than one book at a time anyway, I don't need the ability to carry all my books wherever I go. I also for the most part don't need to keep them forever either, so I'd like to be able to resell them.
@qwerty001984: A: Because there will always be people willing to pay. $0.20/SMS text message anyone? Price has absolutely zero to do with cost and everything to do with demand and what people are willing to pay. The music industry is slowly learning that people aren't willing to fork over very much to listen to songs. The news paper industry is just now starting to realize that people aren't willing to pay much for news. The business model these people are attempting is called "artificial scarcity". In theory if you control the supply part of "supply/demand" you can affect pricing. The reality is that unless a government exerts control or allows a monopoly to occur, eventually the market will force prices to balance the supply. For now, we are forced to endure $0.20/text message, $0.99 song downloads and $10 eBooks. It won't last too long though. And this is good!
@mizike: In his original email, he noted that he bought the Sony Reader after seeing that new books were priced at $10 just like Amazon. It was only after buying it and looking more deeply into the catalog that he found other ebooks were frequently priced higher than Amazon.
Here's what I buy for my books collection:
It only costs about $30, and it's compatible with books from all the major sellers. Best of all, no DRM!
@qwerty001984: Excellent question. And here's the only answer: They should be cheaper than printed books. No printing, no paper, and no physical distribution.
@mizike: Because you will probably buy more than one book, and may even buy ones that aren't published yet. Sony doesn't price all of their books that way (and neither does Amazon).
The point is: why are they so expensive when they cost virtually nothing to distribute. The answer is basically the same as that for other digital versus hard copy media:
No one wants to dilute their hard copy media. Now, you may ask yourself, "If it costs $6 to print a book they wholesale for $9, they make $3, but if it costs $.00001 to distribute a digital copy and they wholesale it for $4 (or direct sell it for $6) they make a ton more money! Why worry about dilution?"
The reason is the dilution of the hard copy media doesn't happen in a vacuum. First, not everyone owns the digital device (whether kindle, reader, or iPod). Second, there's a devaluation that can occur if the price disparity between items is too great, even though common sense suggests otherwise.
In other words, if people see a digital 'thing' for 1/10 the cost of the hard-copy 'thing', they will think the hard copy is too expensive. This is true even if they don't own a way to have it digitally.
Finally, there's the "shopping" piece. Many people buy things by seeing or touching them. This is why brick-and-mortar stores do well in spite of price differences. It's quite frankly very difficult to find new music, authors, or movies from searching around a web site. It's much easier to pick them off a shelf. This is one of the reasons so many online places rely heavily on recommendations/look at this also.
@qwerty001984: Why do cd's cost more than cassettes? The cost to manufacture cd's is a fraction of cost for cassettes, yet what did they do? Gouge us. That's why I've no sympathy for Media's piracy problem.
Too bad. I've played with the Sony eReader and figured it was the best thing that Sony has put out in nearly a decade.
@diasdiem: That will take care of a couple boxes of my books. Now what about the rest. I have the Kindle app on my iphone and love it. It is 10 for a new release but normally cheaper for one that has been out for a while.
@Colonel Jack O'Neill: I make my own at home, but it's kind of a bummer because I know how they all end.
Ebook readers are gonna die within the next 5 years, and print media is gonna make a comeback.
Even though you can fit hundreds of books on a reader, you still don't have the technology there.
And now everyone wants to put touch screens in everything, so when you flipping the pages, you would get oil and grease over the screen and you have to consistently be wiping it off.
And some of these screens are annoying when you have any kind of light hit off of it. I hate those glossy finishes.
Say if you spill some water or food on it, water on it is most likely gonna kill it, and then now you won't be able to use it anymore. Water spill on paper, wipe it off and let it dry.
You won't have to worry about dropping and having a regular book break. You can drop a thousand MacBooks on it, and it still won't break.
On a reader, it's hard to flip back and fourth between pages.
@Colonel Jack O'Neill: I'm not willing to pay for a book that I can't resell, loan out or trade in. Paperback for me thanks :D
@mizike: OP here. I saw that all the bestsellers were $10, but it was when I got the Reader and I looked for books I actually wanted to read that I discovered that most of the books are overpriced.
@crichton007: OP here. I should take a minute to say that the Pocket Reader is a really great device, despite the issues with the store. If there were another avenue to get books for a reasonable amount, I would recommend it to anyone.
I'm the Michael mentioned in the post. One big issue that I have with Sony that was not mentioned in the article is that Amazon in many cases offers less-popular books for LESS than the $10 bestseller price. In the email I sent that spawned this article, I mentioned another book I wanted to purchase that's selling for $13.45 at Sony, versus $4.06 at Amazon. Obviously not all of the pricing issues can be put to the publishers, as it's apparent that SOME publishers are working to drive down ebook prices. Sony seems to be the only device manufacturer that wishes to keep the price of the media up. What else can explain a 230% markup?
@dbshaw: there's still a place in the US that you can purchase a cassette tape? are you sure about that?
until such time as my payment for an ebook doesn't go to a "license" for the "content" but rather ownership of the data, I will not even consider paying money for an ebook.
I don't know why anyone buys an ebook reader anyways when netbooks are so small and they do far more than the ebook reader can do even when it's not hooked up to the internet. They'll read any of the books with normal software uploaded in a pdf form which is one of the most common forms. The netbooks usually has more memory than the ebook readers and you don't need a light source to read. Plus, most netbooks last around 5-6 hours and if you're reading for that long, you should get up and move around. As for buying books, I know many people have their favorite authors just like I do, but what about free ebooks? There are many classic and classical works out there to pick up for nothing and plop them onto your computer. Free-eBooks.net is where I've picked up a few good books (not an employee, no paid endorsement).
I understand a lot of people think the bulk of the cost of producing a book is in the printing and shipping, as that's the most obivious part of the process to a reader, but that's actually a fairly small percentage. First and foremost is the royalty to the author. Then there are the salaries for editing, copyediting, and proofreading. There is a designer (yes, we could all just read everything in courier with no page numbers but really, is that what we all want?), a jacket designer (even eBooks have cover images), and there still needs to be a publicity or marketing staff (or trust me, you'd never hear about that book you're dying to buy but only for $10). Publishers have to pay for legal departments, finance departments, HR, Sales, not to mention rent, utilities, and health benefits for all the above people. Yes, not printing, warehousing, and shipping the book saves a couple of bucks, but that's about it. A book, even at $25, is a lot of bang for your buck Entertainment-wise. I can easily spend as much at the movie theater for only 2 hours of fun, whereas a book, even a pretty short one, is usually at least twice that, if not 8-15 hours (depending on the length, difficulty of subject, and your reading speed.) Read on!
@Carin: I understand there is the cost of getting the book from the authors mind to the paying customer, but more than $12.50 of that $24.99 book is profit for the brick and mortar store. So ebooks should really be inexpensive because once you have it in a computer and ready to print, you can just sell an electrical copy over and over for nothing!
@hewhoroams: I'll consider an ebook reader when I can find one that allows me to do the same thing I can with a paper book; read it more than once, mark it up, lend it to a friend, and keep it in my library should I want to read it again ten years later. Until then, I'll stick with what works.
I don't understand why someone would buy an Ebook reader, when (I don't mean to sound like I'm a paid spokesperson here, but still), I, for example, bought an Ipod Touch that's a lot more useful than an Ebook reader AND I can read my ebooks on it.
It doesn't make sense to me at all to buy something whose sole use is to read ebooks.
@BabyFirefly:
For some people, it's not too fun reading a book on a 3" backlit screen like on the ipod. Also, not everyone wants a Swiss Army knife type gadget that can do many things they don't need or want.
@qwerty001984:
Simple. The cost of the book isn't tied to the printing.
That would be like saying all computer programs should be free because digital distribution is much less than paper punch cards.
The publisher spends a lot of money promoting the book and the author, a well as paying editors and artists.
My guess is that they simply ate the cost of printing before as part of doing business. When printing gets more expensive books generally don't.
I've had an Sony PRS for almost two years now. I originally got it so I wouldn't take as many books with me when I travel for work, instead I take it and a lot of books. For the most part its been pretty durable, I've dropped it a few times and it still works fine although the casing is beginning to come apart a bit now. As far as books are concerned, you can get pretty a lot of older stuff that's in the public domain for free. You can now access google book search from inside the Sony library software. Also if you search online you can find legitimate free books. Maybe its time to re-aquaint yourself with Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens, Verne and the like.
One of the very first publishers to try ebook publishing is Baen Books ([www.baen.com]), an SF and fantasy publisher. A few years ago they added a subscription magazine, and in the past couple years some other imprints have begun selling through their site. All the material they sell online is published - DRM free - in a variety of reader formats. Books are e-published as individual books or packaged into monthly bundles at a significant discount. They even offer a "free library" containing lots of books.
Jim Baen, the founder, passed away not long ago. But his...strong...anti-DRM stance continues to hold at Baen Books. Honestly, I rarely read fiction in paper form at all anymore, and haven't for years.
Lastly, I agree with the poster above that ebook readers are dumb. Touch capable tablet form computers and - especially - high resolution small form factor devices like smart phones, iPods, and Zune's make the whole idea pointless. I read my Baen ebooks (among others) on my phone (currently a Touch Pro).
@Techguy1138:
That makes no sense. They did not eat the cost they priced books based on the costs and the profit they wanted to make.
The price of an ebook should always be less than the price of a print book.
You should definitely take a look at Project Gutenberg, [www.gutenberg.org] . They have a huge variety of free books that are past copyright, and they are very well proofread, unlike the free Google books on the Sony store, which I found to be painfully rife with typos. You can nominate books to be added, or if you like you can volunteer to proofread (which is fun because you're exposed to a wide variety of literature).
@stacy75: Interesting. That's what I use now, but it takes a very long time (days) to search for something in a few dozen books. I usually don't bother.
@diasdiem: The only time is really benefited me was on a weekend trip where I finished 3 books. I had a school book, a novel I was reading, the sequel to that novel, and a poker book.
No way I was able to tote all those with me, and having the e-reader really helped out.
@H3ion: So does the Nook appeal to you at all with it's lending feature?
Reading stuff more than once isn't an issue AFAIK, and neither is keeping it. I might be wrong depending on the format/store though.
Okay, if you use an ereader you need to log on at mobileread.com and browse the forums. Even if you THINK you might be interested in an ereader you should do this. They have all kinds of tips on where to get books on the cheap, such as baen, fictionwise, etc. A new site that has been talked about there is www.addallbooks.com, which will search different sites for you and tell you how much the book you want is at all of them, letting you make the decision of where to buy, without having to go to each site separately.
You can even search by format, such as epub, pdf, etc.
And don't forget books.google.com for all those lovely free books they have, though you can usually find them through B&N or Sony stores. Mobilread even has some free boks on the site, though I haven't tried any of them.
@stuphology: Some of us want something a little bigger to read on than a phone or iphone, and not backlit. I am currently looking for a good reader for my textbooks for college, and I don't like reading them on my computer. I want the ability to pick up a reader and immediately start reading without turning on a computer or having all the 'extra' stuff that a tablet computer will have.
No one said you had to use one, but don't tell me I shouldn't have that option, if I so choose.
@SaraFimm: And if I don't want to start up a netbook, and don't like the backlit screen that causes eyestrain? And I want the ability to read in the vehicle on the way to ball games and on trips. Hard to do with a backlit laptop or netbook. I don't want all the extra stuff of a netbook, just a good reader.
just one thing - shortcovers isn't an independent retailer. it's the ebook arm of indigo, which is basically the barnes & noble of canada.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but aren't the books you "actually wanted to read" the relevant ones to have researched?
FTA:
"Yeah, can't help you with that too much, Michael. The problem is we're in the early stages of ebook sales going mainstream, and that means every publisher and every retailer is trying something different."
I disagree with this. While eBook sales ARE a new concept, Sony has always been trying to squeeze a few more bucks out of the pocket of the consumer. Sony Vaio laptops used to be insanely priced.
Furthermore, I've always tied Sony to the IBM of the 80s. Memory Stick Pro or MiniDisc, anyone?