Amazon are selling an ebook of Siddhartha by Herman Hess for the Kindle for $3.51 and it appears in different versions for even more. Siddhartha is out of copyright so it costs them nothing for the rights on this book. The $3.51 is all for them.
Does this mean that $3.51 is the cost of distributing an eBook through the Amazon system? That would imply that the publisher (nee the author) would get the value of any ebook that retailed for over this sum. With Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (which retails for $9.58 on Kindle) for example the authors would get $6.07? Somehow I doubt it!
That price tag of $9.58 doesn’t compare very well with $10.19 for the paperback version of Pirsig’s book. The Kindle version can be yours in 60 seconds or less but it is controlled by Digital Rights Management (DRM) so really all you are buying is the right to have a permanent relationship with Amazon who will supply you with a copy to read on an authorised device. For 61c more you could have one made out of real paper that you could hand on to a friend or loved one, sell, donate to charity or even burn to keep warm. Sure it won’t last forever but it still has a residual value. My paper copy is yellowing but perfectly readable. It was printed in 1978 (that is 32 years ago!). It has a price tag of £1 and I bought it from a second hand shop for £1.50 ($2 ish) about 10 years ago. Continue reading »
Follow me on Twitter as rogerhyam