h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm getting increasingly peed off at the way certain titles that I want to buy in kindle format are cheaper in paperback.Indeed I can buy Nigel Slater's latest book cheaper as a hardback than as a kindle format.

The plan in getting a kindle was to reduce the number of hardcopy books on my shelves and it's extremely annoying to think I'm getting penalised for using a kindle.

I understand the VAT is applied BUT when I can buy a kindle format book for 20p or nothing from Amazon I fail to see how there can be this discrepancy.

I'm thinking I'll go back to the library and get them to buy the books I want in paperback.

Forgot the question.

Has anyone else been struck by this and has anyone a suggestion for getting Amazon to rethink this thinking?

Are there any other ebook suppliers that play fair?

It probably has more to do with the publishers than Amazon themselves.

Fair to who? You, the e-book company's shareholders, or the book's author?

I've noticed a very annoying thing recently: a new book comes out that I'm interested in, I look on Amazon and find that it's got a load of one-star reviews. Only if you actually read the reviews do you find that they are all from people moaning about the Kindle price. They'll even say "I refuse to buy this book because of the price". A one-star review from someone who hasn't even read the ing book.

I don't know anything about this but is it possible for authors to self publish ebooks? I know I can get a .pdf file onto my ibooks on my itouch. I haven't figured out how to reformat it so that I can read it like a book but I do know that the capability and software for writing pdfs has been around for a long time. And isn't there software an author can use, anyway? At a decent price?

So is the question just about exposure? Amazon gives good exposure?

I am pretty sure that if you put a picture of a cute kitty on your ebook and put "cute kitty" as one of the tags that you will probably get noticed at the very least, in google image.

For example, I have noticed since "The Time Traveler's Wife" that there is an over abundance of book covers with female legs and feet on them. I just googled "book cover feet"

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=book+cover+feet&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=jDGYUPPpOZKi8gSW-IE4&biw=1030&bih=639&sei=kTGYUKqiEo2-9QSiq4GIDw

Okay, sorry, but, hehehe, look what I found:

http://www.abebooks.com/books/cats-feline-book-covers-spoof-satire/kitty-lit.shtml

You can self-publish both eBooks and dead tree books. A friend of mine has done so. And she put a guide on her blog.

The blog is at http://anamardoll.com. I'm not sure where the guide to publishing is, but it's up there somewhere.

TRiG.

What a neat person she is! I think I found the area http://www.anamardoll.com/search?q=publishing Thanks, Trig

Customers Icy North,customers, the final part of the equation without which there are no sales..If one rips off customers one is soon in the mire..How you could have missed that part I'm not sure.

I don't mind paying a fair price I just don't see why I should pay more for a kindle version than a paperback version of the book..

I did a lot of reading up on this a while ago, about why ebooks weren't a lot cheaper than the printed ones.

The theory went like this, you don't have the cost of the paper, distribution or shelf space, but you do still have the cost of the author and the promotion. Apparently the actual cost of the dead tree version itself was so low that the price of an ebook wasn't much less than the hard back.

Now, given that the cost of ebooks is going up, the only thing I can think of that would cause that without causing the dead tree version to also go up, would be for promotion. If a book is on a shelf in a book shop, it's often easier to find. Usually there's a huge table or a whole shelf given over to the publishing company's latest promotion. But within a site like Amazon for instance, there's a lot less space. Plus there's a lot more competition with people realising they can go elsewhere, such as Project Guttenberg.

Additionally to this, I wonder if it might actually be the opposite. That people don't realise that they can go elsewhere, and will just pay the price to justify the expensive reader they've bought.

I'm reasonably convinced that there are many areas in which consumers will buy a thing without really thinking through the cost and or alternatives.

In my world, buying a kindle book that costs more than the 'hard copy' is nonsensical. At least from the point of view of value. And If I think I am being ripped off, I generally won't buy a thing even if I want it.

I know that most of my colleagues (and Mrs PP) don't consider the price difference for petrol. They will just pull into a garage and pay what is asked. Within a 60 second drive of this office, there are three petrol stations selling fuel at different prices. The two most expensive show no signs of shutting down.

Personally I have a bit of a journey to make before I feel comfortable buying a digital book or music. I bought a Kindle and I tried. Really I did. I have still never downloaded music, partly because the cost is virtually the same as buying the CD with case and notes.

Digital distribution costs really ought to push the price down since many of the costs are now yours. AND you had to buy the Kindle / ipod / MP3 player / whatever.

And now Sony are reported to be unhappy with the possibillity of people selling on 2nd hand games - they don't get a cut when you sell a 2nd hand game on ebay. And they want it. So I understand that they are looking at ways of protecting games with a use once only password. And plan to sell 2nd owners a new password.

Can you sell a Kindle book on or give it to a charity shop? Or an ipod download? I don't like the way this is panning out.

PP.

The way to look at a Kindle is as an addition to not a replacement for paper books. If I want a new book, especially if it's part of a series I'm already collecting, I get hardcopy.

But older and less popular works are cheap and plentiful in Kindle land. I got the complete H. P. Lovecraft for about 80p, and the complete Dickens, M. R. James, and Sherlock Holmes for not much more each. Also currently working my way through the Harry Dresden stories, which are usually around £3-4 on Kindle but more in hardcopy.

So yeah, once you get beyond big selling popular stuff the funny book pricing is no longer an issue.

I recently priced up getting the books I normally read on a Kindle, as I reread a lot of books. Tom Holt's at the moment, some are quite old, still all a fiver.

But could be picked up at an Oxfam book shop for 20p.

PP.

But will not definitely be in stock. And I'd like to see you acheive a similar feat with the complete Dickens.

I've got the complete Dickens.

This is one of the problems, I have literally thousands of books, and whilst I'm warming to the idea of just picking up a Kindlesque, I'm not wanting to pay out all over again for the same books I can read for free, because I've already bought them.

It's a bit like the switch from VHS to DVD and now to Blu-Ray. I didn't fork out then, but rather only bought new ones. Thing is, I don't buy enough new books to justify the cost of the device.

And I'd like to see you acheive a similar feat with the complete Dickens.


Not that difficult surely what with Gutenburg and the fact that Amazon actually provide Dickens in kindle format for nothing.