What are you reading?

Stuart Dren said:
That's Indigo brick and mortar just charging too much I think. Maybe if it's my favourite author ever? Even then I'm not big on collecting [hardcover].

Allegedly $29 CAD on Amazon for the hardback (no. 1). $21 CAD paper. $5.00 CAD Ebook. The physical prices will vary on there though. No. 2 is also $5.00 ebook, but its physical prices are higher than no. 1.
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I'm not a fan of Amazon. I don't like their business practices and the way they treat their employees, plus they walked out of Quebec last year and told Quebec/Canada "too bad."

But if the savings are that much, $21 paper....I gotta get over it.

As for Chapters charging too much, the inside jacket has the USD and Cdn prices listed. I will need to 2x check tmw when I can look at the one copy I have. But I thought the price was the price? That the retailer had to sell it at that price per publisher/author contracts?

EDIT: The one copy I have is a hardcover "The Gate of the Feral Gods" by Matt Dinniman and the inside jacket cover price is $30.00 USD and $39.99 Cdn. It's 589 pages.
 
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CdnWriter said:
I don't understand the calculus that publishers/authors use.
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Calculus? Good heavens, no wonder no one asks me anything about pricing. :eek: My books come out as trade paperbacks, audio book, kindle, and audio cd. No one suggested hardcover and I'd have thought it a bad idea if they had.
 
CdnWriter said:
I'm not a fan of Amazon. I don't like their business practices and the way they treat their employees, plus they walked out of Quebec last year and told Quebec/Canada "too bad."

But if the savings are that much, $21 paper....I gotta get over it.

As for Chapters charging too much, the inside jacket has the USD and Cdn prices listed. I will need to 2x check tmw when I can look at the one copy I have. But I thought the price was the price? That the retailer had to sell it at that price per publisher/author contracts?
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First, yeah your criticism of Amazon is entirely valid and I respect you opting to not give them your busineds.

Second, I'm on mobile right now so it's hard to see if those Amazon prices are possibly for used books. I only looked at the overview. It might be worth checking to see if I'm full of shit.

Third, I guess that makes sense since the price is usually printed on the dustcover or book. I retract my under developed take that blamed poor Indigo. I don't really know all that goes into trade pricing.
 
Also when a series is doing well, they switch to hardcover to milk as much moneybfrom you as they can.
I had a whole series of mass market paperbacks. And then book 13 came out as a hardcover and threw of the whole look of my collection! And it didnt stop there. 14 and 15 came out as hardcovers.
I stopped buying and just started reading the library copies
 
CatrionaGrace said:
Calculus? Good heavens, no wonder no one asks me anything about pricing. :eek: My books come out as trade paperbacks, audio book, kindle, and audio cd. No one suggested hardcover and I'd have thought it a bad idea if they had.
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There has to be some type of decision making that goes into deciding that a premium, hard cover book will sell which publishers/authors are using.

There's three competing interests - the publisher, the author, and the customer. If the books are priced too high, they won't sell. If they're priced too low, the author might get a pile of sales but won't make any money, and the publishing company also won't recoup its investment & make a profit.

A related issue that I see with some series (Game of Thrones for example) is that if the series takes too long to conclude or if people who are into the series have to wait and wait and wait to buy the books (softcovers that come out a year, 2 years after hardcover) the customers might give up on the series and walk away.

The author needs to keep the audience satisfied, so they keep buying/reading the books. I realize the publishing company has a vote here, they may already have all the books ready to go but they're releasing them in drips and drabs to tease the audience and keep the interest high.

"Smart" customers who love the series will wait for the books to be available in softcover before they buy the books or they'll learn patience and wait for the book to be available in the local library or at the used bookstore.

It's hard to know which way to vote. I do want the author to do well, I want the publishing company to do well, but I also want the books to be affordable and accessible to customers like myself.
 
With all the choices and marketplace options, I'm surprised anyone pays anything for books. Or video games or movies or music. There's a few gotta have it ones out there for sure--like the next Elder Scrolls or GTA--but I never have a problem finding a free* alternative.

*nominal monthly fees aside
 
Homer Potvin said:
With all the choices and marketplace options, I'm surprised anyone pays anything for books. Or video games or movies or music. There's a few gotta have it ones out there for sure--like the next Elder Scrolls or GTA--but I never have a problem finding a free* alternative.

*nominal monthly fees aside
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I'm the type that likes to "own" the things I pay for as much as I possibly can on my end. So I buy all my music, some good movies, some tv shows, and games. I do stream tv shows now and then if they aren't available for purchase.

The only things I really feel like I'm owning of all those above, however, is music. I buy it at Apple's Itunes, and they come as files I can download and put on a storage device and keep on various computers and devices.

The rest sadly is bought via some marketplace that I need to be logged into to access, like Steam for games.

The day Steam shuts down or goes into the hands of someone other than Gabe is going to be a sweaty day for me!

Edit:
Oh yeah, and books! They are still the things you can own physically, thankfully. But I'm going to lend or give away mine when my small library becomes more full.
 
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