The Digital vs. Print War
The war between digital and print information delivery looks more like a collusion of gougers than a revolution. As a result, the reader loses.
A recent personal incident provides an interesting glimpse into the supposed revolutionary war that’s currently going on between print and digital delivery of information and entertainment.
But before we describe it, let’s get to the point: Why should you care? Today we live in a world of information. How we buy, how we entertain or amuse ourselves, how we learn, and, it could be said, how we think and view the world in general, largely comes from the torrent of information – print or digital – that we consume daily.
It appears from all accounts that digital information-delivery is closing in on print and will overtake it sometime over the next couple of years.
The medium and its price becomes very important.
Now the incident: recently Google announced that its virtual bookstore was now open in Canada, meaning we could get digital copies of Canadian books (and American, of course) through Google Canada.
I put it to the test by searching a five-year-old book on the Google bookstore website, but the $19.95 price tag was too high for an old e-book. So I checked the same e-book on Amazon: the price was only slightly lower. Hmm.
Next, I searched out a “new” copy of the physical book on Amazon and, yes, it was even cheaper. But it included a $6.95 delivery charge, which brought it close to the digital price and involved a three-week wait for delivery, eliminating the “instant” advantage of an e-book.
Uh oh, I thought, they got me.
Then I noticed down in the used book section, some company in the U.K. was selling a used copy of the book for one cent – that’s right, one cent – plus the $6.95 delivery charge and tax. I bought it, and it should arrive any day now.
Let’s analyze this one little skirmish in the overall digital vs. print war. For $19.95 I could get an e-copy of five-year-old information that was only good on some kind of device like a computer or reader, and couldn’t be shared with friends or others who might interested. Tied, in other words, to a single user.
Or for seven dollars, I could get a portable piece of that same information in which I could make notations and share with friends. Its only problems were that it takes up physical space and may have resulted in the death of a tree for the paper.
I recognize that this pricing schedule has much to do with publisher agreements. With the physical book, the product was delivered and initially sold. It represents a sunk cost that can no longer be recovered unless it is somehow converted to a “new” product.
In their thinking, I presume, the digital delivery is brand new, so should cost more.
Personally, I think that’s stupid and is a leftover from the manufacturing era when the physical production (read: the factory) method ruled. Version six isn't any better than version one.
Also, the digital version involves very little extra cost, and is not as portable or usable, so, by all rights, should be cheaper. Instead, it's more expensive.
This comes across as nothing more than a gouge.
Save over 50% off the newsstand price with a subscription to BCBusiness Magazine
A penny for a book
Submitted by Goods on Wed, 2012-01-04 12:52.Perhaps the UK bookseller sold the book for a penny so that it could get rid of old inventory to allow room for newer, faster-moving, more profitable inventory. Inventory/holding costs could be a factor. Great deal for Tony though!
Very Little Cost. Really?
Submitted by Tony Wanless on Thu, 2011-11-24 10:42.Hi Linda:
Obviously, my example was written from a consumer point of view. And since I'm often involved in producing books, I understand the business of it somewhat.
I can't argue that there are no costs to creating digital. Of course there are.
But they pale in comparison to the input costs of creating physical books.
But my argument isn't solely about costs. It's more about the fact that publishers and (usually very large) "booksellers" charge whatever they can get away with, despite the input costs involved. Restricting a digital sale to one reader, thereby limiting resale, strikes me as overkill, since you're charging a pretty good buck for a book in the first place.
I have no idea why a bookseller in the UK chose to sell a used book on Amazon for one penny. Seems kind of odd to me. But I'll take it, thank you.
What I was trying to illustrate here is that the newest way isn't always the best way, and when you look for information "books" -- we're not talking about novels or other forms of art, which I believe should have higher prices -- you should be very careful to compare the costs.
It might seem like heresy in this modern world, but digital isn't always the way to go. Especially when it limits your use considerably.
Very little cost? Really?
Submitted by Linda on Thu, 2011-11-24 08:16.While I agree with some points in your article, stating that delivering a digital version of a 5-year old book "involves very little extra cost" seems a little short on knowledge about what it actually takes to 'go digital' from print.
Consider, for instance, the cost of hiring someone to re-format or perhaps re-create the digital text of an older book. The original files may not be accessible and I don't imagine they simply threw the book at a computer screen and voila, it suddenly appeared as a document ready for digital delivery.
And what about the back-end software used to deliver it online or to your palm-tastic iPad? There's a cost. And think about the exceptionally skilled people pushing all the right buttons to make it available online -- there's a cost.
I do agree that the price of the digital book you talked about is too expensive and could be adjusted down, but expecting that it be delivered almost free is a pendulum swing too far the other way.
I'm not sure what book you ultimately purchased for a penny plus shipping, but remember that there's also a bookseller behind that inexpensive order.
Imagine him, perhaps just yesterday, receiving your book order. "Oh boy!" he says. Then searches for the book on his dusty shelves, removes it from his digital inventory, creates an invoice, wraps it up, applies a label, weighs it, applies postage, drives to the post office and drops it into the mailbox where the package is handled umpteen more times before being transported to you across the Atlantic aboard a pollution belching 767. All for a penny?
So...who's made money here? It would seem the postal service made out like a bandit and everyone else lost.