Kindles & e-Books Swindles
I used to be a “master” at Photoshop. But that was many, many moons ago, before the receding hairline and the white hairs on the chest and Lightroom. I need to do some Photoshop CS5. I went to a large book store, there were only 3 or 4 books on Photoshop CS5. They had many books available on Photoshop CS3 and CS4, but there are too many changes since CS3, especially the GUI and quite a few from CS4. I asked if I would get a large discount since the books were old and outdated. The clerk looked at me like I was from another planet and said no in such an outraged fashion.
Back to the office and I headed to Amazon.com. I looked for the “popular” books and the well reviewed books. I saw that some of the books had Kindle versions, the electronic book from Amazon. I looked around and did a few screen captures:
Outrageous Price of Kindle Book: Same Price as Paperback
Outrageous Price of Kindle Book: More Expensive then Paperback
Outrageous Price of Kindle Book: Almost Same Price as Paperback
- Some Kindle books cost more than the paperback versions!
- Some Kindle books cost almost the same as the paper versions!
What am I missing, except for the price gouging?
Kindle/e-Book version
- Cost per unit to manufacture: $0
- Cost per unit to store: $0.0001. Yes that's right, one hundredth of a penny for the hard drives and backup storage!
- Cost of delivery: $0.001. Yes that's right, one tenth of a penny for the Amazon bandwidth.
- Marketing, promotion: ?? same as the paper edition
- Cost of writing the book: ?? same as the paper edition
Paper book
- Cost per unit to print: around $3 to $15 depending on the size of the book, the quality of the paper…
- Cost per unit to store in warehouses: a few pennies
- Cost of delivery from printer to warehouses then to customer: $3 to $10 depending on the weight and speed of the delivery
- Marketing, promotion: ?? same as the Kindle edition
- Cost of writing the book: ?? same as the Kindle edition
- You do not own the Kindle book! You are allowed to read, but you do not own the Kindle book. You can lend your paper book to a friend, you can't lend your Kindle book.
- If your Kindle breaks…
The benefits of a Kindle or e-Book (according to me):
- Better searching/indexing
- Easier to carry many books
- Increased profits for Amazon
What about the environment? It's a toss. Trees and paper vs CO2/nuclear to generate the electricity and the e-waste.