Blog

Month: November 2012

  • November 17th, 2012 2:43am

    A Rant about E-Book Pricing

    fishingboatproceeds:

    So the final volume in Ally Condie’s MATCHED trilogy came out today. The last book, REACHED, is a great ending to an excellent series, and I think very highly of both the series and its author.

    All the pre-publication reviews have been great, and the initial Amazon user reviews were awesome, too. But then this afternoon, I noticed the overall rating for the book had dropped from five stars to four entirely because of a single one-star review complaining that the e-book is more expensive than the hardcover on Amazon. (Edit: The review has been deleted.)

    The hardcover of Reached retails for $17.99. The kindle edition retails for $10.99. As you will notice because you are great at math, THE E-BOOK IS FAR CHEAPER THAN THE HARDCOVER.

    But Amazon discounts the price of the hardcover. They discount it so much, in fact, that they LOSE MONEY on every sale of the hardcover. Why do they do this? So that you will buy your hardcover books at Amazon instead of at a bookstore, and then you will get used to buying things from Amazon, and then you will start to buy far more profitable items that are less steeply discounted, like a Mini Tractor for Your Kid or Kim Kardashian’s Perfume or E-BOOKS. Publishers cannot control this discounting.

    So an Amazon user writes a 1-star review of a book they haven’t read to blast the publisher/author for making the hardcover cheaper than the e-book. But in fact neither the author nor the publisher did any such thing. It is not Ally Condie’s fault that Amazon wants to lose money on her books.

    Obviously, if you don’t believe that an e-book is worth $10.99, then you shouldn’t purchase one. But it’s wrong to see pricing as a simple competition between print and e-book.

    In the end, what makes a book valuable is not the paper it’s printed on, but the thousands of hours of work by dozens of people who are dedicated to creating the best possible reading experience for you.

  • November 16th, 2012 12:33pm

    I would like to rant for a moment, if I could, about one of DC’s most underrated and most awesome characters, Matthew Ryder, AKA Waverider. Ryder first appeared in the pages of DC’s ‘91 major crossover event, Armageddon 2001. When the story begins Ryder is a scientist and family man in the year 2030, living in a totalitarian world ruled by the ruthless Monarch. Now, Monarch used to be one of Earth’s heroes, but something changed. Monarch’s identity and the circumstances surrounding his shift to evil are unknown. 

    Ryder becomes increasingly unhappy with the world he lives in, even going as far as buying forbidden discs from a black market shop that show images of heroes from the past (any information regarding the past or heroes is considered politically dubious and is forbidden, punishable by death). This creates conflict between Ryder and his family, since his daughter is the equivalent of a police officer and believes in Monarchs world. 

    Ryder finds out that Monarch is experimenting with time travel to make sure that his spot in history is secure. The problem is each one of Monarch’s test subjects disintegrate upon entering the time stream. In this, Ryder sees an opportunity to change history and rid the world of Monarch. Through extensive research Ryder realizes that the test subjects don’t survive because they lack will enough to make it. He believes that his will/hate of Monarch will be enough to secure him through the time stream.

    He destroys a statue of Monarch to get the tyrant’s attention, which works. He then fools Monarch into believing that his love for his family is so strong that he wouldn’t do anything in the past to endanger their existence, which is actually the opposite of the truth. Ryder’s increasing desire to rid the world of such tyranny has created such a rift between himself and his family that he is easily willing to give them up for the greater good. 

    He survives the journey through the time stream and emerges in the year 2001 a completely different person. The unknown effects of the time stream transform him and give him special abilities, which aid him in his quest to find out which one of Earth’s heroes becomes Monarch. He adopts the moniker Waverider and the story continues. 

    One of greatest characters that DC has ever come up with, and such a fantastic story. Definitely recommend it! *Please excuse any and all typos, I’m rapidly typing this up before work lol.