eBooks cost less because they are cheaper to make and distribute and there is no warehousing fees, right? Sort of, but not entirely.
In his new book, Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back, author Robert Levine looks at book pricing for both print and digital books and concludes that publishers only spend $3.50 to print and distribute a hardback. This is not the $10-15 price difference that you might seen between a hardcover and an eBook price.
A Guardian UK column explains that the high cost of books is not due to printing and distribution costs: “You are buying the ‘text itself’. And why is that so expensive? Because the publisher will, in many cases, have paid the author a considerable sum for the right to sell it. And because that same publisher will also (if they’re any good) have ploughed considerable further resources into editing and marketing it.”