Eli5: Why is the purchase price of e-books basically the same as print.

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I would expect e-books to be considerably cheaper than printed books, since there are reduced distribution and production costs. Yet the retail price often doesn’t match those savings versus an e-book. I would hope that the authors royalties would reflect some of the savings in production costs.

In: Economics

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

“Because they can”. 

The publishers *do* save on production costs…and they keep those savings as profit. Because they can. 

Once upon a time ebooks were indeed cheaper than physical books, when they were new and not many people read that way. Now that people *are* buying lots of ebooks, publishers are charging more because they want more money. There’s no trick or secret here. 

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