Ridiculous Pricing on older ebooks

[thejadegreengi…]

Links to said books, please.

[icebike]

Complain to the author: Raymond M. Smullyan.  At age 90, he probably could care less about these new-fangled gizmos.  Its his book and he can sell it at any price he wants.  B&N has nothing to do with this.

There are many paper books about Godel.  But Smullyan is a world class mathematician and has pretty well picked up Godel's theory and made something out of it that Godel was never able to do. 

Please tell me you didn't just sort all ebooks in Highest to lowest price order and rush to complain...??!!?

[icebike]

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Godels-Incompleteness-Theorems/Raymond-M-Smullyan/e/9780195364378/?...

[SmilinGirl]

Is this Godel book considered to be a textbook?  This is about what I would expect to pay for a graduate-level textbook.  Textbooks tends to sell in lower volumes, therefore higher prices.

[icebike]

Not so much a text book as the definitive work in this field.  It probably has a target audience of less than a thousand readers world wide.

The most perplexing thing is why it is in ebook form at all.  Probably because the author signed a generic contract and didn't notice the ebook clause in there.  

[thejadegreengi…]

At least it is a lend me book!

[Snowie]

Wow, that is kinda pricey but for a book like this I think I'd rather have a hard copy than an ecopy. It's not something I'd want to read on my commute.

[Globaltech]

Don't let evil authors and publishing houses abuse their consumers.  It's what the music and movie industry tried and failed at.

That's why piracy continues and will continue.

Price Fair, Share fair and profit fair.

OH, and you wanna raise prices, you better think about giving back those rights to consumers to lend their books WITHOUT restrictions.

Paying virtually the same price for a book doesn't mean they can take away your first sale doctrine privelages, no matter what their illegal tos are.

[icebike]

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Globaltech wrote:

Don't let evil authors and publishing houses abuse their consumers.  It's what the music and movie industry tried and failed at.

That's why piracy continues and will continue.

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So now you've taken to robbing 90 year old professors out of their retirement income?

My you are a courageous pirate, hiding behind a false name while condoning theft from retired scholar who's only possession of value is the knowledge he accumulated over a lifetime.   You want me to hold him down while you take his wallet too?

The man wants 200 dollars a copy for his book.  Who are you to call him evil?  Pay up or go back to reading your porn.  I'm pretty sure you couldn't fathom the most basic concept of his writing anyway.

[sub_rosa]

I think you have to be somewhat realistic about these eBooks.  I do believe there is some ridiculous pricing for older books, and availablity is an issue (then again, the Nook's only been available for a little over a month).

But this particular book - it's obscure, and a new one costs nearly 200 bucks.  Doesn't seem like the kind of book that will be in high demand in eBook format.  So you know what they say about supply and demand and pricing.

Be that as it may, I see that Amazon has nice used copies for 60-70 bucks.  Seems like a more logical choice to me.

[mythoughtisme]

Sorry for the length in reply time

I wish I had title's to other more expensive books I've stumbled upon recently, but it seems the Godel example is sufficient.  I understand why the book is $200+ dollars, but I think that B&N needs to realize that there is no such thing as a "rare" book once it gets into electronic form.  It can be dispensed to anyone quite cheaply and everyone gets to make a handsome profit.  Supply and demand doesn't quite explain it as supply is nigh infinite in e-books.  Part of the reason I got a nook is that i assumed (quite wrongly and naively is seems) that expensive, rare books could be much easier and cheaply obtained.

These books DO have a niche audience, and that's why B&N probably won't address this, but they should still do so as it increases the availability of great academic works that untill now are just available to the rich.

[LarryOnLI]

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mythoughtisme wrote:

Sorry for the length in reply time

I wish I had title's to other more expensive books I've stumbled upon recently, but it seems the Godel example is sufficient.  I understand why the book is $200+ dollars, but I think that B&N needs to realize that there is no such thing as a "rare" book once it gets into electronic form.  It can be dispensed to anyone quite cheaply and everyone gets to make a handsome profit.  Supply and demand doesn't quite explain it as supply is nigh infinite in e-books.  Part of the reason I got a nook is that i assumed (quite wrongly and naively is seems) that expensive, rare books could be much easier and cheaply obtained.

These books DO have a niche audience, and that's why B&N probably won't address this, but they should still do so as it increases the availability of great academic works that untill now are just available to the rich.

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Actually supply and demand do play a part in this. At least demand does. Regardless of whether it is an e-book or hard copy, there is some cost associated with producing it. If it's a book that will be bought by thousands of people then that cost gets divided among those thousands of buyers.

For a book with a limited audience there might be a few hundred sold. So assume this book sells 200 copies whether electronic or paper. All the production costs plus the authors and publishers profit must be borne by those 200 buyers. 200 buyers at $200 per book is $40,000, hardly a fortune to cover all the costs.

[icebike]

I agree with Larry, this has nothing to do with rarity.  

The author wants that much money.  Its his seminal life's work.  He wrote it.  He gets what he wants.

Case closed.

[Globaltech]

icebike resorting to personal attacks.  Mental midgetry at it's finest.

[jynclr]

At this point you're also paying for the information in the book. Obviously they feel this information is worth this amount of money. If you don't think it's worth that much money, don't buy.

However, if you do, but you don't have the money to buy, then I feel for you.

[JakeZ]

Tokyo Vice (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Tokyo-Vice/Jake-Adelstein/e/9780307378941/?itm=1&USRI=tokyo+vice) has been in my wishlist for weeks at 9.99 and is now, seemingly at random, almost 20 dollars and is now more money than the actual hardcover.

How frustrating is that? Well, I'll tell you. I've spent somewhere around 160 dollars on ebooks since I bought my nook. It feels good to build a collection. After seeing how terribly they've decided to price Tokyo Vice I found it free and downloaded it, marking my first and hopefully only pirated ebook. I don't MIND paying 9.99 or even 11.00 for an ebook; it's a perfect price point. I'm NOT going to spend 14.00 dollars on a book that I cannot give out to friends or show on my book shelf.

If you see a book you think is priced unfairly review it with 1 star and let the world know. This is still capitalism. I know the days of bartering are long gone but just because the faces of the shop owners are hidden and ambiguous doesn't mean they wont respond to a decrease in profit.

If you don't like the price, find it somewhere cheaper, find it somewhere free if you don't mind. Go to Half Price books and buy it used for 4 dollars. Show these idiots that they can't always make a quick buck and SOMETIMES, I know this is hard to understand these days, you have to build a customer base with good service and competitive pricing before you start making a lot of money. It's a weird business model in this day and age, when everyone would rather try to fool you into parting with as much money as possible by pretending their product is worth much more than it actually is, but if you stop buying the ebooks that have been priced as absurdly as Tokyo Vice then they will understand.

[illmunkeys]

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Bookmark_71 wrote:

I noticed the same thing.  Books I added to my wish list yesterday for $9.99 are now $16. The prices are going way up as we speak.  I will return my Nook if they keep raising prices for OLD books that have long been in paperback (over a decade) to $9.00 MORE than the paperback price.  Why is Stephen King's "The Shining" almost $23 and "Salem's Lot" $28?

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I know, kind of silly, but I went in and downrated these books with a brief reasoning.

[Hypatia1]

Same thing happened to "The Red Door" by Charles Todd - was $9.99 now up around $17 which works out more than the hardback with standard discounts costs if buy through B&N - can get it for even less at Borders with one of their coupons.

I think B&N is in danger of shooting itself in the foot. Lousy customer support (yes, I know some people are posting great service - but I have not experienced it - now almost two weeks waiting on a response to an email), battery life far below what was promised, books that still cannot be read even in 1.2 even after sideloading, more in store feature not working, lend me feature not working, book prices rising fast and getting more expensive than the hardback... Added to that the cost of the accessories and the difficulty of getting things like the colored back plates and the poor communication about plans - None of these things alone makes me regret getting a nook - but taken together the case is getting persuasive that I was duped by the advertising....

[Radecliffe]

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ScrappersNook wrote:

Hey Radecliffe...sorry....I'm just used to typing in bold cause it's easier to read!!  So, don't want to offend, lesson learned......  

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No worries.  Bold and caps are our friends when used in moderation.  For example, while I could not read your post due to risk of eye strain I am well aware that Superman wears Jack Bauer PJ's.  Whether I wanted to know this fact or not is irrelevant.  This knowledge was forced on me by the effective (and evil) use of the bold font type.   

[Isanox]

I'm glad I bought the 3 fate of the jedi books at 9.99 on tuesday. They now are $5 higher.