Scumbag Apple guilty of PRICE FIXING e-books

Ever wonder why an e-books costs
almost as much as a printed book, ...

I've always wondered why people buy e-books in
the first place. For a bit more one can actually own
the real book rather than leasing access to a transcript.
(And that's not counting the initial, steep investment
to buy a reader.)
I imagine the market is probably mostly women who
buy cheap emotional drama novels to read in the
space of a few days on the way to work. Junk books
used as pacifiers, which are probably cheap and there's
no reason to keep a copy of them, anyway.

Jobs had a winning strategy of going to the suppliers
and offering to fleece the customers together and split
the profits. ($1 for a song is also overpriced.) But don't
forget about Amazon. Apple's loss is Amazon's gain, and
that may be even worse. The NYT ran a piece last week
about how Amazon is starting to charge higher prices for
books now that they've nearly killed off bookstores. It's
the same way that CVS/Walgreens have driven out
drugstores, Home Depot has killed off lumber yards, and
Walmart is killing off much of merchandise retailing.
People can't resist the bargain prices, but it's not long
before only one store remains, with limited selection, and
the prices go up. Amazon now threatens to own both kinds
of book market -- printed and "e". If you shop at Amazon
(or at Walmart) you're helping them to pull off their strategy
and will have no basis for complaint when they succeed.

In article , am says...

Ever wonder why an e-books costs
almost as much as a printed book, ...

I've always wondered why people buy e-books in
the first place. For a bit more one can actually own
the real book rather than leasing access to a transcript.
(And that's not counting the initial, steep investment
to buy a reader.)

The reader can pay for itself quickly--there's a lot of good stuff out
there that is public-domain--Caesar and Plato and Aristotle and the rest
for example, and Shakespeare, and Verne, Dickens, Austen, Dumas, etc.
Once one has the reader, one quickly discovers the convenience aspect--I
have the whole of the Harvard Classics in my pocket for example.

I imagine the market is probably mostly women who
buy cheap emotional drama novels to read in the
space of a few days on the way to work. Junk books
used as pacifiers, which are probably cheap and there's
no reason to keep a copy of them, anyway.

Jobs had a winning strategy of going to the suppliers
and offering to fleece the customers together and split
the profits. ($1 for a song is also overpriced.) But don't
forget about Amazon. Apple's loss is Amazon's gain, and
that may be even worse. The NYT ran a piece last week
about how Amazon is starting to charge higher prices for
books now that they've nearly killed off bookstores. It's
the same way that CVS/Walgreens have driven out
drugstores, Home Depot has killed off lumber yards, and
Walmart is killing off much of merchandise retailing.
People can't resist the bargain prices, but it's not long
before only one store remains, with limited selection, and
the prices go up. Amazon now threatens to own both kinds
of book market -- printed and "e". If you shop at Amazon
(or at Walmart) you're helping them to pull off their strategy
and will have no basis for complaint when they succeed.

J. Clarke wrote:

In article , am says...

Ever wonder why an e-books costs
almost as much as a printed book, ...

I've always wondered why people buy e-books in
the first place. For a bit more one can actually own
the real book rather than leasing access to a transcript.
(And that's not counting the initial, steep investment
to buy a reader.)

The reader can pay for itself quickly--there's a lot of good stuff out
there that is public-domain--Caesar and Plato and Aristotle and the rest
for example, and Shakespeare, and Verne, Dickens, Austen, Dumas, etc.
Once one has the reader, one quickly discovers the convenience aspect--I
have the whole of the Harvard Classics in my pocket for example.

I have the whole Jack Aubrey series and did have the entire set of
Alatriste. Oh, I also had most of Benito Pérez Galdós, a load of Sherlock
Holmes and just about everything that Isabel Allende has written, some
Cervantes and a little of Lope de Vega.

All was on my Sony Reader, which I recently dumped in favour of a Kindle
Paperwhite. Still got all the books in Calibre though. Excellent program.



--

Pablo

http://www.ipernity.com/home/313627
http://paulc.es/

On 2013-07-12 06:20:10 -0700, "J. Clarke" said:

In article , am says...

Ever wonder why an e-books costs
almost as much as a printed book, ...

I've always wondered why people buy e-books in
the first place. For a bit more one can actually own
the real book rather than leasing access to a transcript.
(And that's not counting the initial, steep investment
to buy a reader.)

The reader can pay for itself quickly--there's a lot of good stuff out
there that is public-domain--Caesar and Plato and Aristotle and the rest
for example, and Shakespeare, and Verne, Dickens, Austen, Dumas, etc.
Once one has the reader, one quickly discovers the convenience aspect--I
have the whole of the Harvard Classics in my pocket for example.

I have found that having a single repository, easily accessed for my
manuals, saved as PDFs to the iBooks app, to be quite convenient. Add
to that a few interesting books such as "Ansel Adams in Color", and
"Ansel Adams in the National Parks".

I also have the Kindle app on my iPad and I have picked up a few
e-books from Amazon as a way to get something I wanted to read
immediately, and not to have to pay shipping. Many times the Amazon
"Kindle" edition is far less costly than a physical copy.

Then there are the many public domain issues available from several sources.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 2013-07-12 13:20:10 +0000, J. Clarke said:

The reader can pay for itself quickly--there's a lot of good stuff out
there that is public-domain--Caesar and Plato and Aristotle and the rest
for example, and Shakespeare, and Verne, Dickens, Austen, Dumas, etc.
Once one has the reader, one quickly discovers the convenience aspect--I
have the whole of the Harvard Classics in my pocket for example.

I do a lot of personal research and appreciate very much the fact that
public domain litterature is now available for free through the
Internet. I have use Amazon's Kindle for that, albeit I have to convert
from epub to mobi. It was not always that easy. I now use
http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-mobi

Other onlive converters did not work well at all with accented
characters such as Jules Verne French copy.

The issue of pay-for ebooks, apart from the recent sentencing of Apple,
is one of what does the publisher and distributor do for the reader, as
well as the author. If a publisher no longer provides paper and ink, he
should still provide visibility to the author, and advice to the
reader. After all, pubishing houses have for quite a while seved a
scouts in discovering new talents and let the readers experience them,
whithout undue hassle. Now, what if an excellent author sefl-publishes
a very good litterature on his personal page ? Would it be so easy to
find the needle in the haystack without the help of Amazon, Crown
Books, Penguin or -- Apple -- ?

Granted, prices have to fall. But free everywhere would kill certains
aspects of service that are useful.

Mitch
http://www.FontMenu.com
---
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain.
- Vivian Greene

In article , Mitch Bujard
wrote:

I do a lot of personal research and appreciate very much the fact that
public domain litterature is now available for free through the
Internet. I have use Amazon's Kindle for that, albeit I have to convert
from epub to mobi. It was not always that easy. I now use
http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-mobi

get calibre.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Other onlive converters did not work well at all with accented
characters such as Jules Verne French copy.

The issue of pay-for ebooks, apart from the recent sentencing of Apple,
is one of what does the publisher and distributor do for the reader, as
well as the author. If a publisher no longer provides paper and ink, he
should still provide visibility to the author, and advice to the
reader. After all, pubishing houses have for quite a while seved a
scouts in discovering new talents and let the readers experience them,
whithout undue hassle. Now, what if an excellent author sefl-publishes
a very good litterature on his personal page ? Would it be so easy to
find the needle in the haystack without the help of Amazon, Crown
Books, Penguin or -- Apple -- ?

being able to self-publish is a huge, huge plus for ebooks.

the publishers, of course, hate that, because they see their days as
being numbered. they'll do anything to protect their turf.

On 2013-07-12 16:47:24 +0000, nospam said:

being able to self-publish is a huge, huge plus for ebooks.

the publishers, of course, hate that, because they see their days as
being numbered. they'll do anything to protect their turf.

Being able to self-publish is, indeed, a huge plus. *BUT* then,
marketing falls back on the shoulders of the author. And it is not that
easy.

Some publishers are, no question, parasites. Some may say most of them
if not all. *BUT* how do you go about getting your books in all
bookstores in the US or the whole world as a self-published author ?
Among readers, some will never want to use ebooks, or seldom. What
should a self-published author do, then ? Give up the paper books
altogether, or find a publisher who wil do all the promotion efforts to
have it sold ?

Nothing is ever absolute. For the time being, ebooks have not replaced
paper, and a lot of people enjoy taking a cup of coffe at Borders and
flip a real, paper book. It has nothing to do with technology. It has
everything to do with human psychology.

Mitch
http://www.FontMenu.com
Self-published software (lots of work)
---
hum

| Among readers, some will never want to use ebooks, or seldom. What
| should a self-published author do, then ? Give up the paper books
| altogether, or find a publisher who wil do all the promotion efforts to
| have it sold ?
|

One can self-publish online. The book is printed
and sent out per-copy, as it's sold. That takes
care of distribution, but as you noted, that's not
of much use when there's no marketing.

In article , Mitch Bujard
wrote:

being able to self-publish is a huge, huge plus for ebooks.

the publishers, of course, hate that, because they see their days as
being numbered. they'll do anything to protect their turf.

Being able to self-publish is, indeed, a huge plus. *BUT* then,
marketing falls back on the shoulders of the author. And it is not that
easy.

nobody said it's easy.

Some publishers are, no question, parasites. Some may say most of them
if not all. *BUT* how do you go about getting your books in all
bookstores in the US or the whole world as a self-published author ?
Among readers, some will never want to use ebooks, or seldom. What
should a self-published author do, then ? Give up the paper books
altogether, or find a publisher who wil do all the promotion efforts to
have it sold ?

i'm talking about self-publishing ebooks. you could self-publish paper
books but that's nowhere near as easy. ebooks are the future. not
everyone thinks so just yet, but they'll figure it out one day.

Nothing is ever absolute. For the time being, ebooks have not replaced
paper, and a lot of people enjoy taking a cup of coffe at Borders and
flip a real, paper book. It has nothing to do with technology. It has
everything to do with human psychology.

it won't be that long until ebooks are ubiquitous and paper books are
thought of as an antique relic.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

Ever wonder why an e-books costs
almost as much as a printed book, ...

I've always wondered why people buy e-books in
the first place.

because ebooks are significantly better, that's why.

they weigh nothing, they are searchable, they can have audio and video
to enhance the book and more.

someone can easily have a large library of books in their pocket and
also buy more books at any time, anywhere, whether it's 2 in the
afternoon or 2 in the morning. try that with paper books.

ebooks *should* cost more, because they do more.

For a bit more one can actually own
the real book rather than leasing access to a transcript.

ebooks are real books, but in a newer and much more capable format.

and one does not 'lease access to a transcript' either. ebooks are sold
and owned. some are free.

(And that's not counting the initial, steep investment
to buy a reader.)

kindles start at $70 new, less for a used one. that's hardly a steep
price especially for someone who buys a lot of books.

some books cost that much just for one book, such as technical books,
reference books, textbooks, etc. plus there are a lot of free books
that can only be had in ebook form, which would cost money for the
paper copy.

also, readers can usually do more than just display books, such as
email, web browsing, games, etc., making it a very worthwhile purchase
for many people.

I imagine the market is probably mostly women who
buy cheap emotional drama novels to read in the
space of a few days on the way to work. Junk books
used as pacifiers, which are probably cheap and there's
no reason to keep a copy of them, anyway.

what you imagine and what is reality is as usual, two entirely
different things.

and even if all someone buys are junk books, what difference does that
make? it's their money and their choice. not yours.

Jobs had a winning strategy of going to the suppliers
and offering to fleece the customers together and split
the profits. ($1 for a song is also overpriced.)

really? how much should a song cost?

$1 is cheap enough that it's not worth pirating anymore, where someone
might get questionable quality and possible even malware.

it's comparable in price to a cd, and people can buy only the songs
they want rather than the whole cd and be stuck with crap they don't
want. that makes it *cheaper* than what came before. so much for being
overpriced.

But don't
forget about Amazon. Apple's loss is Amazon's gain, and
that may be even worse. The NYT ran a piece last week
about how Amazon is starting to charge higher prices for
books now that they've nearly killed off bookstores. It's
the same way that CVS/Walgreens have driven out
drugstores, Home Depot has killed off lumber yards, and
Walmart is killing off much of merchandise retailing.
People can't resist the bargain prices, but it's not long
before only one store remains, with limited selection, and
the prices go up. Amazon now threatens to own both kinds
of book market -- printed and "e". If you shop at Amazon
(or at Walmart) you're helping them to pull off their strategy
and will have no basis for complaint when they succeed.

that's exactly what apple wanted to prevent.