by quietthrow on 1/5/24, 4:17 PM with 56 comments
by neontomo on 1/6/24, 9:15 AM
"You bought my book, and because of your support, I am able to make a living as an artist. It means a lot. PS. if you want to read the ebook, it is included in your purchase of a physical copy. Press "View content" to download. However, I recommend waiting for the real deal."
The reason I do this is because in my mind, they have paid for the content not the paper it's printed on, so the ebook is a part of the same purchase and is an extra convenience for someone who might want to read on their Kindle or phone. It's also a way to reward customers with extras, leaving them happier and more likely to leave a positive review. They also get all future revisions and editions emailed to them.by autoexec on 1/5/24, 5:26 PM
Publishers may have to renegotiate their existing contracts with authors to include ebook downloads and that costs time and money although that doesn't stop them from adding that language to new contracts so... 100% greed really.
by tomduncalf on 1/5/24, 6:05 PM
by cookiengineer on 1/5/24, 7:07 PM
All their books are amazingly high quality, and they always give you a free ebook license (aka all updates/revisions that are published later) once you bought a physical copy.
by zajio1am on 1/5/24, 6:23 PM
by comprev on 1/5/24, 6:00 PM
As a DJ it's great to have both digital and physical.
by kirkarg on 1/6/24, 9:37 AM
by mattl on 1/5/24, 4:29 PM
I've seen some places that will bundle an eBook with a print copy at a discount.
More than a few books I've bought from Lulu.com had a note in the first few pages with a URL to download an eBook or PDF copy.
I've also emailed authors and asked them for an eBook copy of the book with proof of purchase.
by blueboo on 1/5/24, 6:54 PM
There are non-trivial implications associating a digital resource with the dynamics of physical ownership.
What happens when you sell or give away the physical book?
What happens when a library lends out the book?
Answers can be contrived but the concerns sufficiently inhibit wide adoptions of this pattern.
by Doomed2Repeat on 1/7/24, 2:44 AM
by VoodooJuJu on 1/5/24, 5:20 PM
by ilrwbwrkhv on 1/5/24, 6:16 PM
If someone has time, use AI to select from manuscripts and create multiple editions for them. I should be able to buy a book once and then get a version for the ipad, for the phone, a physical book and an audiobook (the whole set) with unique elements in each of them taking advantage of the medium and the device.
It's so dumb the way publishing and licensing is done right now.
And no, self publishing doesn't work because filters are important and quality control has to be maintained.
by samstave on 1/5/24, 4:19 PM
When I say "simple check" just create a hash for the game session, and if youre playing a multiplayer game - check the session hash, if they match, they are using the same license.
Else, play along.
by onion2k on 1/5/24, 4:25 PM
Cost is not the driving factor in pricing for most things. Value to the user is. Presumably in book sales enough people buy both formats to make it worthwhile charging the full price twice rather than using the ebook as a marketing tool to drive physical book sales.
by babyeater9000 on 1/5/24, 5:40 PM
by bobsmith432 on 1/5/24, 5:33 PM
by alanpca on 1/6/24, 5:26 PM
by smeej on 1/8/24, 6:20 PM
by badpun on 1/5/24, 9:23 PM
by ivanr on 1/5/24, 6:32 PM
For some context, after publishing my first book with O'Reilly, I decided to start a small publishing business in an effort to capture more revenue as well as experiment with continuous publishing (you buy one edition, I keep it up to date for a couple of years). I've written three books, with the last (Bulletproof TLS and PKI) being the best and the only one still relevant.
When we first started, we offered paperback and ebook options, with ebook free with paperback purchase. We had 3 virtual warehouses in the US, UK, and Europe. It was fun for a while, but we lost money on every paperback sale as we couldn't compete with Amazon on shipping costs (plus additional overhead of dealing with shipping problems). You have to pay your printer, shipping costs to the warehouses, order fulfilment, and shipping costs. Then insurance when something goes wrong, even if it's not our fault.
At some point we stopped selling paperback books, but we continued to offer free ebooks with a proof of purchase. This, too, ended up being a money-losing venture, because we make little money on each book, with most of the money going to the printer (print on demand is great, but expensive, and Amazon takes 40% of the list price.)
Today, we sell ebooks on our web site, and paperbacks via Amazon. We're nice people so we may give you a free ebook if you ask, but that's not a good way to run a business. It's fortunate, then, that we're not in it for the money.
To sum up it up: Amazon is the dominant sales channel. If they offered paperback and ebook distribution (Kindle, pub, and PDF—mandatory if you care about the user experience), we'd happily sell only through them and give everyone a free ebook with paperback purchase. We'd give Amazon the standard 40% (the minimum for paperbacks, not sure that it is for ebooks these days).
by caduceos on 1/5/24, 6:39 PM
by Sateeshm on 1/5/24, 8:35 PM
by Someone on 1/5/24, 9:14 PM
(Bundling the paper and digital products also could lead to “If I buy a physical book, and don’t want the ebook, why isn’t that cheaper?”, but such a very limited bundling of products, I think, is a much lesser concern)