Publishers are worried that Amazon.com will eventually force them to lower their eBook prices and diminish their profits. An excellent article here at Bloomberg.com claims that publishers now make “$2.15 per digital book versus 26 cents for a print copy” and they’re afraid that Amazon.com’s dominance of the eBook sales market will give the online eBook giant profit-slashing bargaining power and control.
I’m still wondering where publishers establish these figures. What are the actual costs of producing an eBook? (Show me…) Is their profit model based on the paper book business model or the digital? If those numbers are correct then at $9.99 per digital copy (right around the price of an ‘actual’ paperback) one wonders what the other costs are. Since there is no manufacturing (other than layout and file conversion), storage (other than mirror internet locations for an approx. 1 MB file), and no shipping to speak of (except for the download and cost of maintaining a web presence) then where does the other  $7.84 go?Â
I have a hard time believing it is split between the writer, advertisers and Amazon.com? Rent on a virtual warehouse? I just want to know how this works if the end price of the paperback version is about the same, but carries ‘real world’ costs.
Something fishy here, yah? Is it possible that these companies will continue to expose their soft underbellies in an effort to justify profiteering from eBooks, and in the process show us how much they want to overcharge? Honestly, can’t they see what they’re doing? Do they think the consumer is stupid? Consumers want to pay a fair price for a product. They don’t have a responsibility to maintain a publishing company’s pre-digital age profits. The publishers have to change to suit the new market or face extinction.
