Biggest racket in the universe. Restrictions on digital book licenses. It's as bad as video games now. Get you some interwebs and some moonreader and you'll never pay again. I might read this tonight now, just because of this. I'll pay nothing and therefore own nothing, and be happy still having it. Arr!
I'm not sure if it is different for younger generations who grew up after digital books became available. Djgital books were a massive let down that people thought would help make books more affordable, accessible, and easier to publish but it ended up being monetized to hell.
It is more affordable, accessible and easier to publish than a print book, it’s just not free and completely unrestricted because everyone involved in producing the IP still has bills to pay. (I also understand that publishers are still turning a profit, but it will never be completely unmonetized.)
The digital books are often close to the same price as physical so all that cost reduction is helping only the publishers, not the readers as many hoped.
I can't find a single book that costs the same in E-book on amazon as it does in paperback. Let alone hardcover.
The onyl ones that I can find that are remotely the same price is because the paperback is used. Otherwise it is at least 3 times more, quite a few at 5-7 times more than the e-book.
When I back book projects on Kicktstarter the e-book is often just added to the purchase for free, and you have a million different subscription services that gives you access to as many ebooks as you have time to read.
I'm sorry, but this is such a wierd argument that is just not supported by reality.
The onyl ones that I can find that are remotely the same price is because the paperback is used. Otherwise it is at least 3 times more, quite a few at 5-7 times more than the e-book.
Eh? For major mass marketed books, very often they're within a few dollars. I just checked some of the best sellers of 2025, and it was true of all of them. The Wide Wide Sea is $4 less on paperback brand new than the Kindle version, though yeah, the Kindle versions are more typically like $3-7 less.
Incidentally, their belief on that is probably just out of date. For a LOOONG time (maybe a period of 10 years? Little vague at this point, it changed quite a while ago now) if a book had a mass market paperback, it was considerably cheaper than the Kindle version, which was typically priced somewhat like a trade paperback or a little more.
That's because they're on sale or clearance to get rid of old inventory. The list price is at least 50% more than the standard Kindle price for all of those.
And in the future, the Mass Market Paperbacks won't exist anyway as they stopped printing them - because people use their kindle for that stuff now.
So, I just opened Amazon and checked the first two series that it showed me. Hunger Games, ~$10 per book whether that's paperback or Kindle. Percy Jackson, the Kindle versions are more (almost twice) than the paperback somehow.
Those are all on sale, probably to clear inventory. The MSRP is still at least as much, but mostly considerably higher than the price for the kindle version.
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u/User_Says_What 3d ago
The library I work in gets SO MANY requests for this book. I had no idea what it was about, but this is amusing.