Nono.MA

Chuck Wendig on eBook Sales

AUGUST 16, 2014

Keep in mind that books don’t just compete against books. Books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Books are not other things, so how do you compare? Facebook is free, so should books be free? I can kill two hours on Facebook easy, just by tripping and falling into a rage-hole. Oh, but wait, a Blu-Ray or digital download of a new movie probably $19.99, bare minimum, and that’s only two hours long. A book will last you more than that so … should the book be $19.99? Or maybe a little less, in order to compete? $14.99, maybe. It’s an odd point to make and does little to enforce the argument that e-books should be cheaper just as it would be a bad argument in terms of demanding e-books be more expensive. It’d be like saying ice cream should be cheaper because soup is cheaper.

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