Recently, the NY Times published a story about the turmoil over prices for printed books compared to their electronic counterparts.
In some cases, the electronic version is priced higher.
In particular, the story focused on comparison pricing occurring at Amazon.com for books published both in paperback and for the Amazon Kindle electronic book reader.
The story starts by quoting customers who automatically assume a lower manufacturing cost for an electronic book, since the incremental cost of producing extra copies appears to be (or close to) zero.
Customers, unaccustomed to seeing a digital edition more expensive than the hardcover, howled at the price discrepancy, and promptly voiced their outrage with negative comments and one-star reviews on Amazon. “Really?” wrote one reader. “Why would it possibly cost more for a digital download than printed and bound ink on paper?”
Nowhere
Nowhere does anyone say anything about the fact that the reader gets the same VALUE from both books.
Nowhere does anyone say note that the reader can read the Kindle version on their PC, Jerry’s iPad, Dad’s Blackberry, Joe’s iPhone, Sandy’s iPod Touch or their brother’s Mac.
Nowhere does it talk about the ability to share comments/annotations, read a page on one device and find it in that same place when they start reading the next time on a totally different device.
Nowhere does anyone note that the value of the book has nothing to do with the cost of ink, paper, binding or electrons.
Neither should the author of a book, regardless of the means used to deliver it.
Oh the cost of it all
Yes, I realize that the printed book seems like it ought to cost more.
After all, someone had to put it in a box, put it on a truck and deliver it to the local bookstore. There’s the cost of the driver, the truck, the fuel, the paper, the ink and the store itself.
Most typically don’t see the costs invested to deliver the electronic form, all they see is that zero cost because it’s “just another download”.
When people “howl” about the price of an electronic book, no one considers the amount of research and development necessary to design the Kindle device and have it manufactured and shipped to the U.S.
They don’t see the costs of the servers and software to support the book’s transport to a wide range of devices and software viewers.
They don’t consider the executive and engineering efforts to work out deals with cellular carriers so that the device can download newly purchased books and sync anywhere in the world without so much as a login.
Those things are great talking points.
But they don’t matter one bit.
What matters
The value of the content inside the book is what really matters.
What if you opened a book and in two hours learned something that changed your life, changed your business or cured a problem you’ve had for years?
Is the (allegedly) zero incremental cost of that electronic book in any way relative to the value you received from it?
Are baseball bats priced like a 2×4? Are golf clubs priced like stainless steel and graphite you might find in an auto parts store?
So why is it so easy to assume that a printed book is worth more than an electronic version?
Because no one put any effort into convincing you that the electrons (or the paper and ink) don’t even begin to set the value.
98 cents
Your body is worth about 98 cents in “ingredients”.
Going by that measure, Winston Churchill and Einstein are equivalent in value to mass murderer Charles Manson.
I don’t think so.
Never let your products/services get to the point where the value you deliver is calculated primarily by the container it’s delivered in and/or the material it’s made of.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.