A New World: Scheduling E-Books [Telecom]

Why would I want to read it in e-book form, which may evaporate at any time (This Means You, Amazon)? I don't see that as being worth

9.99 microcents, including "shipping" and tax.

Has he decided when to disappear the electronic version?

No, it sells receipts. Nothing more. And if they figure out a way to make the receipt vanish ...

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:57:46 -0400, after what Monty Solomon wrote, the Moderator asked:

I'm privy only to *some* information that goes into answering this question: the distributor's nominal discount below publisher's SRP (or "suggested list price"), the distributor-to-bookseller markup, and the final bookseller's likely markup to the consumer. Publishers' markups to distributors are largely unknown to me, except in one case (my own).

So:

For Baker & Taylor (B&T): standard nominal discount below publisher's SRP is 55%. This means publisher will receive $4.50 for providing B&T a [book which sells at a Suggest Retail Price (SRP) of] $10 per book.

For Amazon.com: same as B&T, above, except that Amazon may also order not from the publisher directly but from B&T or other distributors.

Distributor-to-bookseller markup: roughly 40% to 80%, all depending ... .

Booksellers' likely markup: anywhere from 15% to 40% of the SRP is markup, just how much or how little depending on their relations with their distributor.

Publisher's markup to distributor? Ya got me. In our own little publishing venture, we try to mark up enough over our production costs to cover the postage to the distributor, if at all possible, and far prefer selling direct through amazon. [We strongly *suspect* professional publishers aim for 100% markup, or more, including in their "costs" not just production costs, but royalties & publicity.]

For a $10 paperback of *ours*, B&T will pay $4.50, probably get $6.50 from Amazon, and the final buyer will likely pay Amazon the full $10 *plus* shipping.

Our own production costs (not counting amortized printer expense) on that $10 book (of 64 pages, produced using 16 half-sheets of legal paper with duplex printing) probably come to about $2 (paper, toner, pro-rata share of printer consumables). Clearly, when selling to B&T, we barely break even :-) .

But we do proofread our books more carefully than I proofread this post, so please forgive me my typos, as I forgive those who typo against me :-) .

Cheers, -- tlvp

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:16:29 -0400, Gordon Burditt wrote, in part, at the end:

Staples, office Max, and other stores which accept returns for refund if accompanied by a valid sales receipt, have indeed figured out a way to make the receipt vanish: print it thermally, on unstable thermal paper.

On occasion, I've had their receipts fade to virtual illegibility within the two weeks they allow for returns.

And I've certainly learned to photocopy whichever of their receipts I might later need as tax documentation, using a laser-toner photocopy device.

Cheers, -- tlvp

With an academic fulfillment house, it was 10-12%; i.e. we [publisher] got 88-90% of what the distribution house took in.

Note that there's a BIG difference between such and a wholesaler. The wholesaler *buys* books from you, and stores them to sell to retailers.

The distributor does not own any books. You ship your books to them, they store them for you, they ship them out when ordered, they collect the money, and split it with you.

Amazon acted like their own wholesaler; they would buy books from the distributor only as they needed the, (+ a small cushion) and ship them as sold. But if Amazon bought the books from us directly; I think we got a mere 20% rate; i.e. on a $10 book, we saw $2.00.

The REAL gotcha is "returns" -- a wholesaler can and would order dozens of copies of a title, and return however many were unsold. Mass-market titles [say Harry Potter] could easily have 75% returns, and were 'sold' 4-5 times. No distributor grants volume discounts on a title because if they did; wholesalers and stores would overbuy to get a lower price, and return most...

This has happened one time, so you've decided the entire technology is worthless? [This is a way to] blow something out of proportion.

You can also lose books, but I doubt that stopped you from buying them. And if that happens, you don't get your money back, like it did with the deleted Kindle e-books.

It was designed in deliberately, and activated deliberately, and I consider the licensing technology used to be a form of fraud. Taking any particular e-book as an example, how many corporations (and list them) can cause that e-book to become unreadable by their bankruptcy? Amazon, probably. Microsoft probably has its fingers in there somewhere, too. And certain combinations of telcos and internet service providers. And maybe the individual publishers.

That needs to be disclosed to customers *in an unspoofable manner*, and the publisher shouldn't be allowed to change it after the sale. And the e-book should be usable at least until the longer of the actual copyright expiration and the scheduled copyright expiration at the time the book is purchased. (In the current environment of constantly extending copyright, that means it has to be readable

*FOREVER*).

This is not the first time DRM'd material has become unusable in the hands of honest buyers: there were some recordings put out by Major League Baseball, and Microsoft's old DRM scheme(scam) and probably others. Those did not offer refunds.

Books published in such a way that they can be/are continually modified cannot be cited reliably, and as I understand it, there's no way to freeze a copy as of a particular time. That makes them worth a lot less. While continual updates might be useful for telephone books, it's not good for anything that is the subject of research papers.

If the publisher could remotely cause the book to catch fire, I sure would. As it stands, if I lose books, it's probably my fault, and I'd probably be able to obtain/borrow another copy. I can take my own precautions against them being stolen or destroyed by fire or flood.

On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:42:32 -0400, David Lesher wrote: .......

Return rights directly affect the price a book store/seller pays for particular stock. Some publishers allow an overall return percentage for a period, with penalties for stock over that quota.

The whole (physical) book publishing industry worldwide is essentially corrupt, with ancient "Regional rights" creating virtual monopoly markets that protect the industry.

The new e-book paradigm will eventually dismantle the 19th century way things are still done in the publishing industry. Even Internet sales have dented the geographic control the publishing industry clings to.

Nowhere is "geographic control" more evident than in DVD (and DVD player) sales. Both discs and players are coded for one of six "regions", or may under circumstances be "region-free" or "all-region", respectively.

Must be meant to discourage, for example, a US tourist to down under from bringing back any Aussie DVDs -- they won't play on a US player.

['Cuz it sure won't *encourage* me to bring back an Aussie player :-) .]

How that "helps" the industry is beyond me -- they're *discouraging* sales!

Cheers, -- tlvp

-- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP

***** Moderator's Note *****

Use the Myth player.

The debate about Kindle is about to get hotter: there is a proposal to provide one to every schoolchild.

Please see

for details.

I love it when I'm right, even if only by accident. ;-)

Bill Horne

On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:11:22 -0400, after what tlvp wrote, Moderator added:

Thanks for the tip. But: care to elaborate? Decoding one-liners like that isn't my forte :-) .

TIA; and cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP

***** Moderator's Note *****

GIYF:

The great pity of the HD-DVD vs BlueRay battle was that HD-DVD was Region free, whereas BlueRay retains the same bogus Region system as DVDs.

A lot of people here have "Region 0" DVD players that will play anything, I myself have heaps of US & UK DVDs that just are not available on Region

4 release or are significantly cheaper to import from places like Amazon (I just finished my "Barney Miller" S3 for those old enough to remember it..... and my "Baa Baa Black Sheep" DVD collection consists of a UK, US and French mix of sets! - that WW2 based TV show should stump most readers).

The trouble with these industries that have virtual total control of certain geographical areas is their version of self-interest, either do it their way or do without. It's the same attitude in Telecom, DVDs, printed books etc. hiding behind legislative walls and only allowing more competition ever seems to change things in favour of the consumer.

The weird thing is that while removing this sort of protection may well impact on the incumbents who cling to the past, those who embrace the new environment can prosper along with the rest of us ordinary customers.

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:11:31 -0400, concluding a sequence of notes after what tlvp wrote, Moderator added:

Aaahh! Thank you, arigato, merci, grazie, gracias, sposibo, ... ! And cheers,

-- tlvp

Another "weird thing": my wife and I found a particular "el cheapo" portable DVD player model, region 1, that turned out to be so shoddily designed that:

(i) only four out of six samples could play anything at all reliably, and (ii) two of those four seemingly *ignored* the DVDs' region code.

We were testing Australian, European, South American, Japanese,and US DVDs (all region-coded) to see whether that portable could work as b'day present for European nieces -- answer: either of those last two instances could :-) .

So: one became that b'day present, and *we* kept the other, as a most economical alternative to a (much pricier) all-regions player :-) . [The other four all were brought back to the B&M store we got them at, for exchange or refund.]

Cheers, -- tlvp