OnlineBookClub.org

I've just been reading on the web that the US Dept of Justice has sued Apple & five other publishers, saying they conspired to fix the prices of ebooks. Apparently Amazon have already committed to reducing the price of their Kindle editions

Is this happy days for us book purchasers or could the downside be that it hastens the demise of the hard copy book?

It's manipulation all the way, Fran. They get you hooked on cheap e-books then squeeze out the bookshops, close down the free public libraries and before you know it, they control the whole supply. When demand becomes too great, they start restricting the flow of e-books and the bestsellers will start to incure a higher and higher fee.

They will move on to the academic arena (where you already to have to pay-to-view most journals online) and set a fee according to the purse of the educational establishment. You can see what's developing here. The rich get richer and the underdog struggles to keep up. Rifts in society will occur where older people will cling desperately to paper books, seeking comfort from the worn pages, while the younger people churn through e-book after e-book, disconnected, heads in the Cloud. To paraphrase Irving R. Kaufman "There remain some truths too ephemeral to be captured in the cold pages of an e-book".

Worst case scenario, of course.

OMG Maud Armageddon crept up on me there & I never even noticed.
Seriously though I know Amazon are not a charity (or any of the other publishing houses either) & it goes without saying profit is the driving motivation but there has to be some good news if it knocks the publishing cartel on the head & stops them engaging in price fixing.

Maud Fitch wrote:It's manipulation all the way, Fran. They get you hooked on cheap e-books then squeeze out the bookshops, close down the free public libraries and before you know it, they control the whole supply. When demand becomes too great, they start restricting the flow of e-books and the bestsellers will start to incure a higher and higher fee.

Makes sense to me. They did the same thing with cable TV here in The States. The whole enticing argument for "cable" was that you paid a reasonable fee for this service and in return you were not subjected to commercials. Totally logical - the subscribing viewers were taking the place of the sponsors and their subscription fees were paying for the programming. In this scenario there would be totally commercial-free viewing of all programming and when a program you are watching was over there would be only a short lull to present coming attractions before programming recommenced. Today there are more commercials on cable TV than on regular TV and the "reasonable" entry rates have skyrocketed.

I've been following primrose's thread about her book fair experiences and every time I read one of those posts I have to wonder if book fairs will soon be considered in the same light as antique auctions. When I was a kid I used to wonder why "older people" were always so cranky .... now that I AM an "older people" I am beginning to learn the answer to that question.

Being a serious collector, I am in two minds about the inevitable rise of e-books. I believe that they will definitely grab the lions share of the literary market, it is only a matter of time. It's a no-brainer for publishers who see their production overheads disappear almost completely. I do however think there will always be a niche market for hardcover books. In the future hardcovers may become antique items, I think that their value will soar and will really only be purchased by collectors. We are already seeing book stores and libraries close and sites such as Doubleday etc, drop their prices and postage. For readers, it's great. Novels can be downloaded instantaneously and prices are much lower. For collectors and bibliophiles however the future is very cloudy indeed. I love collecting as much as reading so I am, as I said, in two minds. I hope that the book industry will follow a similar path as the music industry. Even today there are still stores that exclusively sell vinyl records to a tiny market of hardcore collectors. One thing I know for sure is that I would be very sad if hardcovers did disappear forever.

Hate to make the comparison between books and Cd's, but I think its a valid point. Everyone thought people would stop buying Cd's when they became available online but people still by Cd's. I mean the industry isn't great but its still there. I believe that's how its going to be with books. They might be a little more expensive and harder to come by but they'll still be there.

Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

When Blu-ray first came out my mom insisted that it would sputter out and not go anywhere. I know some people still feel this way about ebooks and I think that's one of the big pushes to make them reasonably priced. They want to establish themselves as a solid format despite the fact some people feel they aren't purchasing something tangible.

Hmmm......I'm all for cheaper books. Hard to spend so much on a hardcover when I can buy the e-version for so much cheaper. Less money, means more books for me. Don't know what it will mean for the bookstores though. Look what Redbox did to the video stores. Practically nonexistent now. I know a lot of bookstores have shut down because of the e-books. But it's the same thing in every arena. Post offices versus e-mail, dvds versus netflix or however you watch it. Sign of the times.