eBook Prices

How do you put a value on a digital book? It doesn't seem like this should be the conundrum it is.

Paper books are priced to cover the amount it cost to produce them plus a markup for both the publisher's and the bookseller's profit.

Ebooks should be priced the same way, right? The problem is, we assume the production cost will be significantly cheaper because there is no paper and no binding--forgetting that paper is cheap and binding is not especially costly either.

All the costly things--cover art, editing, etc.--must happen in the production of a digital book, just like a paper one. So logically the price isn't going to differ dramatically.

And yet, it doesn't seem right.

Maybe because so many eBooks are "free." It seems like the average price thus should be lower.

But those eBooks are free because either they are classics, antiques, if you will, long ago falling into the public domain, so libraries or volunteers can legally digitize them, or they're new books whose publisher wants to boost word-of-mouth on a particular title or author and is willing to take a financial hit to do it.

Those eBooks still cost time and money to produce, but your tax dollars, the goodness of others, or a marketing plan paid for them.

So, again, digital books should cost about the same as paper.

What about resale value? Maybe we feel digital books should be cheaper because we can't resell them as we can paper books?

That isn't within the publisher's purview. Paper books are not priced with any thought to the used market because neither publishers nor authors get any money from those venues. Why should eBooks be any different?

We aren't automatically entitled to resell things in our possession. Many items you buy cannot be resold, and we accept that. The video games industry may be going toward a used-games-are-unplayable model. That there is no used market for digital books may simply become the standard of the future.

So again, digital books' and paper books' prices shouldn't be that far apart.

But then why, when I am faced with a $12.99 eBook, do I wince?

I've paid $9.99 for eBooks. I'd pay $12.99 for a paperback. And yet I stall at $12.99 for an eBook.

$12.99 is what - the price of dinner for one? Lunch for two? Food you'll never get back (unless it gives you food poisoning and then it will be returned to the world in a state far different from when you last viewed it) whereas an eBook lasts forever. You can even lend it to others and, trust me, no one wants you to lend them your food or other perishables.

$12.99 is a few hours of work at minimum wage to pay for something that took the author months of agony to produce. If the eBook is nonfiction, it might have taken years. And yet we won't shell out our coffee money for it.

Why is that?

I really should buy that $12.99 eBook. I just... argh. Do any of you have this problem?

Identify The Tanks

One of my best friends can name every tank in this picture.

Can you?

I'm With The Band

I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie by Pamela Des Barres
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having recently had occasion to use the phrase I'm with the band in actual conversation, I thought I should read this book next. The cover image captures the sexy yet innocent vibe of the 1960s perfectly. I mean, the rock stars called her "MISS Pamela". There's an endearing formality amongst all the wild sex.

It really was a different time. You could phone-up the backstage at arenas. Miss Pamela hitch-hiked *everywhere* and only once did the driver who picked her up try to kill her.

Also-- Not sure why people have called her a slut. She didn't lose her virginity until 19 years old, she made Jimmy Page really work for it before she slept with him, and she turned down Mick Jagger because she was being faithful to Jimmy Page (who was not faithful to her). It wasn't until later, on the rebound, that she went from one relationship to another, but they were relationships, not one-night-stands. (And yes, she did end up with Mick Jagger for a while, don't worry.)

I thought she was fairly self-aware. The horrors visited by hard drugs and alcohol are plainly depicted. "Intimate diseases" are present as well.

Oh, for what it's worth, Timothy Hutton is not in this book, so that other reviewer is thinking of another story.

I found this book to be a very entertaining read, a glimpse behind the curtain at the 1960s-1970s rock scene as experienced by a woman of the times.

View all my reviews

Let's Spend the Night Together

Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies by Pamela Des Barres
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found this an interesting and mostly fun read. Each chapter of the book is devoted to a SuperGroupie - a gal who knew what she wanted, went after it, and succeeded. And in the process inspired her rock heroes to write songs about her.

These particular women interviewed consider themselves freewheeling feminists who were neither victimized nor exploited, but flashes of girls who did experience degradation at the hands of cruel bastards drunk on fame can be seen hovering at the edges of some of their recollections. And violence even found one of the SuperGroupies. (The rape scene in Showgirls seems to be based on what happened to one of the women interviewed.)

Full of advice for anyone wanting to become a SuperGroupie, though it also warns of the dangers and heartbreak that accompany the role, this book is a fun read for those interested in the 1960s-1970s rock scene. It gets somewhat repetitive when it gets to the 1980s stories.

And if Elvis is on your radar at all, you should read the first chapter at least.

View all my reviews

Chris Avellone's Help for Writer's Block

From Reddit

I thought these tips were pretty ingenious. How about you? What are your suggestions for combating Writer's Block?