Echoes of the Multiverse

For a long time now, I've been annoyed at how electronic versions of books aren't that much cheaper than dead tree versions. After all, they are fundamentally cheaper when it comes to resources.

However, this video offers a better grasp on the entire subject. It doesn't answer all of my questions (like how rpgnow is able to do what they do) but gives a good high level overview.

Enjoy!

I always assumed it was because discounting electronic versions the cost of physical manufacturing would put physical publishers out of business and bring the whole system crashing down.

Spectrum wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 3:48 pmFor a long time now, I've been annoyed at how electronic versions of books aren't that much cheaper than dead tree versions. After all, they are fundamentally cheaper when it comes to resources.

They are not. The fundamaental resources that cost money to make books are paying authors, editors, artists, various other production stuff, and marketing. These all cost the same for print vs electronic.

Actually producing and shipping print books doesn't cost all that much at large scales (the difference between the cost of printing a mass-market novel in hardcover vs paperback is less than a dollar).

Transportation costs? The markup from the brick and mortar physical location?

Yes, there are costs in the data management of a vendor website but can't imagine that compare in any way to a physical product.

Last I saw generally on Amazon they take a 30% cut of any e-books sold on their website.

I'd be interested to see how much of a mark up for a print book is due to manufacturing, shipping, and the brick and mortar stores.
Now I get it, they wouldn't lower it too much as they're competing against themselves and their own resellers, but I have seen some crazy markups on certain books. I have even see occasions where they are selling the e-book for six or seven dollars more than the print version.

And I'd imagine they make more money off the e-books.

About 15 years ago, the game store I worked in, that had the best tier with Alliance/Diamond distributing, our markup was 45-50%.