Fun Size Bytes (from @Tj)

Sean kicked my ass, mostly rightfully so…

On a post I had written about digital content. It was written in haste, and, as such, was filled with some sloppy thinking.

Part of it was a bad assumption on my part, that the “digital version” would be essentially “Save as PDF”-esque quality, which Sean assures me it isn’t.

His strongest point (IMO, at least :-) was that the creation of the content is where the cost is incurred. He’s right.

If I could boil down my original idea of what had frustrated me about this, it would be:

• $20 for paperback at Amazon
• $22.50 for ebook on publisher’s website
• $30 for paperback on publisher’s website
• $40 for ebook and paperback on publisher’s website

I’d love to support the authors and I’d love to get a digital copy, but you’ve priced yourself way out of the market. Amazon may be the Wal-Mart of bookstores — and in fact it’s worse in some ways because I can easily buy from Amazon from just about anywhere — but if you can afford to tell something for $20 on Amazon, trying to sell me the same thing for 50% on your website isn’t very compelling.

What you can entice me with, which Amazon (currently) can’t, is the opportunity to pay more to get more, namely, a bundle of the ebook and paperback.

$40 is essentially paying for the book twice. Yes, it’s a “deal” compared to the $52.50 that it would cost to buy them separately, but it’s $2.50 more than if I just bought the book from Amazon + ebook from you.

That seems wrong.

Like I said, I don’t have a business degree. I’m obviously (I hope) in favor of people getting paid for their work. This setup seems broken.