It's not just GW Mini's that are getting priced out of people's pockets!

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**htj**

Steve steveson wrote:Do people have any idea how much of the cost of a book is in the cost of the physical product itself? About 10%. That is why they cost almost as much. Its the same with music. Have you ever pusrchased bulk cd's (not even music industry bulk, but 100of them). They are pence each.

The fact is that most people who say "i would buy it if the price was fairer" are either lieing or willfuly lacking in understanding of the actual cost.

Again, this. The actual production cost of the physical book is marginal compared to the costs that are incurred in all the steps that lead up to it. I think a lot of people imagine that publishers just take a word document from the author and feed it into a printer.

**The Dwarf Wolf**

to OP: Nah, you are not ranting. It is just stupid.

I was getting money to ship a lot of books from Space Wolves series, all at once into my country (GW Shipping is absurd), and they got me by surprise increasing all their books prices, not only the online ones. Well, sent them to

themselves, and made my way into more afordable digital copies (if you get me).

I hope GW realize how dumb they are playing and take a step back soon (at least in this digital thing), but they are not playing dumb... they ARE dumb, wich is sad, because they have the most fantastic fantasy world i ever have seem.

And serious, the great point of digital business is to explore the low "prime matter" cost, and sell in bunchs at low prices o.O

**juraigamer**

You think this is new?

For PC games it's been going on for a long time with digital items being the same price as boxed ones.

The same is true for many many other things, the difference is the end user loses out even more with digital, as they cannot re-sell their items, thus the companies make even more money. This is one reason why the next consoles will not only be the last wave, but they will probably require internet.

**Indarys**

I don't see why people get so up in arms about e-books costing the same as normal books. Why wouldn't they? Printing costs? That's nothing. Digital games cost the same as in store games, and no one throws a fit about that.

**Doofry**

Well i beg to differ!
I am not happy with Digital games either, but that is another story!
My problem as, i explained in the beginning still remains the same, now i ask you, here is something and let's see if this is justified? :
I can preorder a paperback from BL (at normal price) so there isn't really an incentive from them, HOWEVER.....
If i go to Amazon, i can preorder the exact same book and actually save a significant amount on the cover price?

Again, my point being is very simple, although i do know that once formatting/printing etc is done, a book goes on sale, now for paperbacks, i can shop around and pretty much everytime i can a book i want at half price (give or take).
Electronic format is the same, but never needs printing, just a random download every now and again,however, you can't get the ebook from amazon, therefore take advantage of a nice discount!

And please before anyone bangs on about 'ebooks suck go back to paperback' or any of that, bear in mind, i can be at sea for months at a time, so an ebook reader is a must have, we have limited living space and take 40 paperbacks is a no-no, also there are plenty of people that have converted and as sad as it is for real books, i think ebooks are here to stay!

**The Dwarf Wolf**

I like ebooks, and i think the tecnology for it is always improving. I could not stand and read a book in my computer for more than 30 minutes, but when im talking about my touch pad, i can read on it until the battery goes off (a good thing, couse i normally read all day if you left me lol).

The space question is great, and it have its advantages: one of them is exactly the producing cost, and the public you hit. Selling a physical book you deal with transport, storage, prime matter and production costs. For Digital, you will have other costs, production, storage and transport, but except for production, those will be a lot more cheap.

Them, what the company do? Instead of keeping the cost low, with the same profit as the physical one, and even getting more (due to market, and reach of the new media), they charge the same price for the physical and digital products.

I would never buy the digital thing, simple because i would feel cheated, if i buy a digital thing it must be for at least half the price of the physical thing.

**EppE**

There is an ebook lawsuit going on right now with regards to pricing.

The problem I have is this. Ebooks are slightly cheaper than real books, say 25%. My issue is I have to buy a $100-$300 reader for those books. So I save a little bit of money on each book, I'm still paying alot more up front. How long will that ereader last too? Will it be long enough to see a savings on the initial investment over buying actualy books?

If you are buying one simply because it's more convient, then price isn't a major factor. I bought it because it was cheaper, and by cheaper I mean I had 3500 ebooks given to me.

**Scott-S6**

Doofry wrote:Electronic format is the same, but never needs printing, just a random download every now and again,however, you can't get the ebook from amazon, therefore take advantage of a nice discount!

The almost 50% discount they're giving you on the eBook isn't enough?

**Doofry**

Scott-S6 wrote:
Doofry wrote:Electronic format is the same, but never needs printing, just a random download every now and again,however, you can't get the ebook from amazon, therefore take advantage of a nice discount!

The almost 50% discount they're giving you on the eBook isn't enough?

Show me the 'almost' 50%' discount, i would happily buy it at that price.
Go to the BL website and look mate, i refuse to buy an ebook at £12 when a month previously similar books where £6.50
(ok prices are approximate so don't flame me)
Ebook only has to be created once,then stored, whereas a paperback will invariably go into multiple print runs.
Now, unless BL have started using Ceramite and plasteel printing presses and use the emperor's blood for ink, the price increases are absurd!
It was £6.50 for an average ebook (say the primarchs: horus heresy)
Now it is £11.99 for priests of mars (new book)
Nearly 100% price increase,so is THAT justified???

There is quite literally no excuse for the price hike apart from greed, it has nothing to do with VAT, cost for production or writers fees, it is all down to the publisher lining pockets and it is sickening to be fair!

**Scott-S6**

Doofry wrote:It was £6.50 for an average ebook (say the primarchs: horus heresy)
Now it is £11.99 for priests of mars (new book)
Nearly 100% price increase,so is THAT justified???

That's comparing two different books and priests of mars (physical copy) is twice the price of the primarchs. Are you complaining about the price differentials on physical book vs ebook or the prices generally?

Doofry wrote:Show me the 'almost' 50%' discount, i would happily buy it at that price.

Priests of Mars Hardcopy - £17.99 + £0 VAT
Priests of Mars eBook - £9.59 (+ £2.40 VAT)

**Doofry**

It is comparing 2 different books i accept that, but how the hell can they justify £11.99 for an electronic copy of a hardback book?
I have just looked at amazon and the same hardback book is £10.
I know there is VAT on Ebooks but that really is a separate conversation.
It is the fact that they feel that a book is hardback that the ebook therefore MUST cost more, doesn't really compare does it?
The book will come out in paperback soon enough so therefore the price will drop, i feel it is unjustified to charge a premium for something that has no mass or physicality to it unless its on a reader or computer screen.
I wonder how much the price of the ebook would drop by if amazon were given reseller rights?

**spaceelf**

Balance wrote:
grizgrin wrote:I just read this article. This dude is full of crap. I'm not going to present my credentials, experiences, or set myself up as an "expert", but for the love of the dice don't just swallow that line of crap. That's just insulting.

Exaggerated, perhaps, but I can't say it's crap: I've been posting news for the Heavy Gear Summer Blitz Event for the last few days and have definitely lost some hair due to the document conversion required for a few paragraphs a day. The same 'chunk' of text gets spun, fold, and mutilated into the store page text, the main website front page article, a 'Deals' web page, a forum post, a post here on dakka dakka, etc.

Each has slight differences in coding (store/website use html., forum uses BBCode, DakkaDakka uses a different flavor similar to BBCode) as well as text presentation (For different places, certain paragraphs are hidden, title formatting, etc.).While this is going on, there's also editorial processes at times.

Long term I could see trying to write a simple script to take one version and spit out the variants, but that's a lot of time to devote to a tool that would by definition be very specific to a single need to be useful. Or require making another markup language that meets my needs.

Or for another example, I believe author Charles Stross has noted issues with eBook conversions of his works. Some of it is just simple stiff like hyphenation getting confused, transcription errors, etc.

I do think eBooks should be a bit cheaper, but they're not as easy as some people think they are.

Yes, e-books benefit from editing and formatting just like paper books. However, it is not any more difficult to edit or format an e-book than a paper book. e-books will be much cheaper, as there will be authors who are willing to sell them for less.

**Balance**

spaceelf wrote:
Balance wrote:
grizgrin wrote:I just read this article. This dude is full of crap. I'm not going to present my credentials, experiences, or set myself up as an "expert", but for the love of the dice don't just swallow that line of crap. That's just insulting.

Exaggerated, perhaps, but I can't say it's crap: I've been posting news for the Heavy Gear Summer Blitz Event for the last few days and have definitely lost some hair due to the document conversion required for a few paragraphs a day. The same 'chunk' of text gets spun, fold, and mutilated into the store page text, the main website front page article, a 'Deals' web page, a forum post, a post here on dakka dakka, etc.

Each has slight differences in coding (store/website use html., forum uses BBCode, DakkaDakka uses a different flavor similar to BBCode) as well as text presentation (For different places, certain paragraphs are hidden, title formatting, etc.).While this is going on, there's also editorial processes at times.

Long term I could see trying to write a simple script to take one version and spit out the variants, but that's a lot of time to devote to a tool that would by definition be very specific to a single need to be useful. Or require making another markup language that meets my needs.

Or for another example, I believe author Charles Stross has noted issues with eBook conversions of his works. Some of it is just simple stiff like hyphenation getting confused, transcription errors, etc.

I do think eBooks should be a bit cheaper, but they're not as easy as some people think they are.

Yes, e-books benefit from editing and formatting just like paper books. However, it is not any more difficult to edit or format an e-book than a paper book. e-books will be much cheaper, as there will be authors who are willing to sell them for less.

What I was trying to reinforce is that formatting for eBooks isn't a 'one time' thing like preparing for a press run. eBooks publishers need to prep for Amazon, Apple, and whatever other vendors they want to use, all of whom have slightly different formats and requirements.

**poda_t**

EppE wrote:There is an ebook lawsuit going on right now with regards to pricing.

The problem I have is this. Ebooks are slightly cheaper than real books, say 25%. My issue is I have to buy a $100-$300 reader for those books. So I save a little bit of money on each book, I'm still paying alot more up front. How long will that ereader last too? Will it be long enough to see a savings on the initial investment over buying actualy books?

If you are buying one simply because it's more convient, then price isn't a major factor. I bought it because it was cheaper, and by cheaper I mean I had 3500 ebooks given to me.

you are neglecting to take into account space. Let's say you insist on keeping every book you ever read. Instead of investing in a massive library complete with bookshelves, you have a digital archive. those same 3500 books would have taken some time to organize, sort through, and possibly shelve. Add time to go to bookstore, or wait for book to come to you.... yadda yadda yadda, Ebook turns out to be cheaper in this way by a huge factor. If you wan't to be a bean-counter, then there's travel time to the bookstore to considder as well, and the gas to get there, or the shipping and handling cost.

**EppE**

poda_t wrote:
EppE wrote:There is an ebook lawsuit going on right now with regards to pricing.

The problem I have is this. Ebooks are slightly cheaper than real books, say 25%. My issue is I have to buy a $100-$300 reader for those books. So I save a little bit of money on each book, I'm still paying alot more up front. How long will that ereader last too? Will it be long enough to see a savings on the initial investment over buying actualy books?

If you are buying one simply because it's more convient, then price isn't a major factor. I bought it because it was cheaper, and by cheaper I mean I had 3500 ebooks given to me.

you are neglecting to take into account space. Let's say you insist on keeping every book you ever read. Instead of investing in a massive library complete with bookshelves, you have a digital archive. those same 3500 books would have taken some time to organize, sort through, and possibly shelve. Add time to go to bookstore, or wait for book to come to you.... yadda yadda yadda, Ebook turns out to be cheaper in this way by a huge factor. If you wan't to be a bean-counter, then there's travel time to the bookstore to considder as well, and the gas to get there, or the shipping and handling cost.

If you want to split hairs over prices I can buy used books on amazon and ebay shipped for less than ebooks. I can then turn around and resell them, even at a loss, and it saves me alot of money over ebooks. That also solves my space issue. In fact I've been buying my Warhammer books used off amazon recently because of the price savings. A huge reason I didn't want an ereader for a long time, well one of two reasons, was that I couldn't share books. My friends and I have always swapped books. "Oh hey I just read this book it's amazing here you go, oh you read a cool book let me borrow it." The other reason is most 40k novels weren't/aren't on kindle.

**poda_t**

EppE wrote:
poda_t wrote:
EppE wrote:There is an ebook lawsuit going on right now with regards to pricing.

The problem I have is this. Ebooks are slightly cheaper than real books, say 25%. My issue is I have to buy a $100-$300 reader for those books. So I save a little bit of money on each book, I'm still paying alot more up front. How long will that ereader last too? Will it be long enough to see a savings on the initial investment over buying actualy books?

If you are buying one simply because it's more convient, then price isn't a major factor. I bought it because it was cheaper, and by cheaper I mean I had 3500 ebooks given to me.

you are neglecting to take into account space. Let's say you insist on keeping every book you ever read. Instead of investing in a massive library complete with bookshelves, you have a digital archive. those same 3500 books would have taken some time to organize, sort through, and possibly shelve. Add time to go to bookstore, or wait for book to come to you.... yadda yadda yadda, Ebook turns out to be cheaper in this way by a huge factor. If you wan't to be a bean-counter, then there's travel time to the bookstore to considder as well, and the gas to get there, or the shipping and handling cost.

If you want to split hairs over prices I can buy used books on amazon and ebay shipped for less than ebooks. I can then turn around and resell them, even at a loss, and it saves me alot of money over ebooks. That also solves my space issue. In fact I've been buying my Warhammer books used off amazon recently because of the price savings. A huge reason I didn't want an ereader for a long time, well one of two reasons, was that I couldn't share books. My friends and I have always swapped books. "Oh hey I just read this book it's amazing here you go, oh you read a cool book let me borrow it." The other reason is most 40k novels weren't/aren't on kindle.

heh, swapping is still possible, both of you just need your own ebooks... haha, but no, i get what you mean. Add swaps into it, and the ebook gets slaughtered. It's easier to build a library with friends.