Comments on: ‘Handplane Essentials’ – Now Available in Byte Size

By: Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:12:49 +0000

I’m a fan of lower prices too, but people should understand that price and cost are, more often than not, unrelated. I would guess there are additional drivers that dictate a higher price for the digital copy. For existing titles, it’s in the interest of the publisher to move the existing inventory. For new titles, they would need to meet a minimum print run to hit a reasonable cost per copy. With a dramatically lower digital copy price, it limits the ability to move existing inventory, and lessens the likelihood of selling through a reasonable percentage of a print run. Those would be my initial guesses anyway.

By: Mike890

Mike890 — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 09:11:10 +0000

Hi Megan,
I concur with altaylor with regard to the cost of the digital version of the book.

I certainly can appreciate the work involved in conversion but that is all you have to do; just once and it is forever available on your servers. Yes I acknowledge that there is a cost to keeping it available but lets get real here, the cost is very very small.

As an aside I live in New Zealand and have ordered books recently but the cost of shipping is very expensive (a $34 book costs $12 odd) and thats make it quite expensive. Whilst I am one for books the cost is one reason why I would take up the option of a digital copy but not at that cost.

A suggestion for those that make those decisions….Something like $15 to $20 max would be more like it.

Kind regards
Mike

By: Megan Fitzpatrick

Megan Fitzpatrick — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:56:48 +0000

Thanks for your feedback; I’ll pass your comments on to the people who decide that kind of thing.

By: altaylor

altaylor — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 14:59:20 +0000

Hi Megan,
Lots of hard work in creating that digital file, and compatibility is an important feature for general marketing appeal.

Please look at the following comment as constructive criticism, and just a little food for thought… Look at pricing the digital edition so its profit dollars per-unit matches the profit dollars for the physical edition. As it stands now I think your pricing for the digital edition is too high. Your ongoing COGS for the digital edition is so small that when you add on the required profit per unit to it, the price should be much lower. As it is today, I would buy the physical edition over the digital one as the price difference isn’t attractive enough to merit its purchase.

By: Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:36:52 +0000

Sorry Megan, you’re out of luck on the Grey Goose. Couldn’t find anyone that would ship or deliver…