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e-Books should cost no more than physical books (and maybe less)

I own a lot of e-Books. I don’t read paper books anymore if I can help it (with the exception of graphic novels and other texts which have strict layout requirements). I’ve purchased most from Amazon (I have a Kindle Keyboard, which I love reading on), and a few from other retailers.

I didn’t expect to be able to transfer ownership of these e-Books; I knew that going in. I just tell friends about the great books I’ve read and they can buy the book themselves or borrow it from the library. Authors tend to make more money this way, I think, which is good.

But it sounds like I don’t own the e-Books anyway; it sounds like I’ve purchased a licence to read them on digital devices. (Aside: A greater concern for readers, but maybe not publishers, might be the legal terms like “Amazon reserves the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders in its sole discretion” which might instantly cancel your licence to read. DRM makes this possible. A little scary, and good reason to purchase from non-DRM e-Books retailers like Baen, which also has DRM-free books on Amazon.)

But there is still the matter of my ability to resell a hardcover book (and recoup some of my costs) but not a digital book. Is that the essential difference? e-Books are non-transferable but physical books are?

Here’s an example of some book pricing on Amazon. Note that the publisher set the Kindle Edition price at $16.10, which is why it’s not listed in the “Amazon Price” column:

Sample book pricing on Amazon.

Sample book pricing on Amazon.

Right now, many e-Books I consider buying licensing cost as much as or more than their physical counterparts. I can’t resell it, and there are no significant per-unit production and shipping costs, so I think it should cost less than the cheapest available print book (less than $11.55 in my example). I’m not buying a copy; I’m buying a non-transferable licence. I can even choose to revoke my own licence if I want to (I recently deleted a short story that was not very good because I don’t want it cluttering up my library). On the other hand, I like the convenience of e-Books, so that’s worth something too, but enough to justify charging more than for a hardcover? I don’t think so.

I’m fine with not being able to share, sell, and transfer the e-Books I pay for, but pretending that there is no residual value in a physical book or that it’s free to produce and ship that physical book is ridiculous. Make it easy to buy e-Books at a reasonable price and I will buy them (and keep them). I read about twice as many books now as I did pre-Kindle, even with the price discrepancies. I’m interested in reading great books and supporting great authors (and their publishers!) so they can create more great books.

1 Comment Posted on publishing, reading, writing

I think I want to read novellas

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I was flipping through Zite the other day and saw an article on the HuffPo about book length and how it’s dropping. Naturally I tweeted about it:

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But, I got thinking some more about how I select books, and it’s not just about how many stories I can pack away.

I like to read a long series

I started reading the Honor Harrington series by David Weber a while ago on Steve Gibson‘s recommendation. I’ve finished eight books, so I’m about halfway. I’m reading e-books, so I don’t have a page count, but these books would be about 400-900 pages each on paper. Let’s say 600-ish on average, which is about ten hours of solid reading for me per book. I’d like to read the rest of the series, so soon I’ll commit to book nine, “Ashes of Victory“, at 672 pages (or 1107 KB, or 11 hours).

The first eight books spanned from good to excellent, and the universe is certainly fascinating, so book nine is a pretty safe bet, I suppose. Goodreads tells me most people like it. So does Amazon (less so). I’ve already spent 80 hours learning about the world, so the buy-in is pretty cheap.

I have commitment issues

If I were to consider starting another series, I’d have to think pretty hard about it. I tried Steven Erikson’s “Gardens of the Moon: Book One of The Malazan Book of the Fallen” (that is a long title); the preface warned me that it would take a third of the book to get into it (that’s 222 “pages”). At 50% I still felt lost. At 100% I still felt lost. I don’t understand how the magic system works at all, so I found it too frustrating. I don’t think I’ll read the next bazillion books in the series because of it, although the writing was otherwise very compelling. I can’t spend 100 hours being confused. I can’t commit to maybe finding my way.

I’ve tried some short stories

I find them a little, well, short. They’re interesting, and they get me thinking about stuff, but I’m usually not satisfied. They feel incomplete to me, as though they’re a snippet of a story. They tease me with a world, but can’t seem to get enough of the magic system down for me. Perhaps I haven’t read the right ones.

I read “Legion” in audiobook

I enjoy audiobooks a lot if they’re well-narrated, and I despise them a lot if they’re poorly narrated. Legion had the right narrator (Oliver Wyman) and was a good story besides (by Brandon Sanderson). It qualifies as a novella (at 88 “pages”, somewhere around 20 thousand words, I think), and I listened to the whole thing one evening while I cleaned the kitchen and so on. I found it very satisfying.

So I want more novellas

I want a fantasy novella that lets me learn enough about a world to decide whether I want to immerse myself in it for 30-100 hours. Long enough to figure out whether I like the author’s style, short enough that I can read it over a cup of coffee (or two).

Message to fantasy and science fiction authors

Please write some novellas in your world. If I like them, I’ll buy the books in your series. You can publish them exclusively online if you like; that works for me. Also, please don’t charge $12.99 for 60 pages.

I’ll take recommendations

Srsly, let me know what you’ve enjoyed. Just keep it under forty thousand words.