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In case you weren't paying attention...
James Joyce, Ulysses, Kindle edition, $3.19. Free shipping, too.
Is the book market going the way of the music market, where there is a systematic redistribution of the surplus toward suppliers of the hardware rather than suppliers of the content?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 1, 2008 at 09:40 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
This is unbelievable.
I just paid $3 for a 20 year old copy of Ulysses at a yard sale lat Saturday and I thought I was getting a pretty deal. That is the only thing I've ever purchased at a yard sale in my entire life.
Posted by: steve at May 1, 2008 10:10:13 AM
Surely Ulysses is in the public domain, so you're just paying for something that you can legally download for free.
Posted by: Vincent at May 1, 2008 10:11:36 AM
Vincent: correct.
Posted by: Kat at May 1, 2008 10:19:48 AM
(I note that's the very short answer: Ulysses, and Joyce's work in general, has a fairly interesting copyright/a> history...)
Though I worry about books whose technological protection doesn't expire when its copyright protection does (well, assuming copyright isn't extended again), a potentially more immediately interesting situation for books than for recorded music. And we're already seeing some of the consequences of buying DRMed music that consumers probably weren't prepared for.
Posted by: Kat at May 1, 2008 10:47:16 AM
Right, but which Ulysses text? How much is the Annotated Ulysses, or the Stuart Gilbert companion text? And the copies of Hamlet and the Divine Comedy and Portrait of the Artist and the Odyssey which you have to read before you have a chance in hell of figuring out the Circe chapter...
Posted by: Pup, MD at May 1, 2008 12:03:37 PM
Does the Kindle version of Finnegan’s Wake take you back to the first page again once you’ve reached the end?...
Posted by: Bonapart O Cunasa at May 1, 2008 12:51:01 PM
"Is the book market going the way of the music market, where there is a systematic redistribution of the surplus toward suppliers of the hardware rather than suppliers of the content?"
Not until the hardware reproduces the printed page as well as the iPod reproduces CD audio.
...i.e., not until OLEDs are cheaper.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at May 1, 2008 1:02:06 PM
"Is the book market going the way of the music market, where there is a systematic redistribution of the surplus toward suppliers of the hardware rather than suppliers of the content?"
Important to differentiate between the suppliers of content and distributors of content. In both the music and book industries the distributors (publishers) are collecting the surplus. If Amazon becomes the new “publisher” of books the way Apple hopes to be with music, then no, the paradigm doesn’t change, it just gets a new face. This isn’t really a new model, just new technology.
Posted by: SC at May 1, 2008 1:15:11 PM
Now you can have Ulysses sitting not only unread on your bookshelf but now unread on your Kindle!
Posted by: Clark Goble at May 1, 2008 2:13:14 PM
Don't we learn in Econ 101 that innovation generates overall surplus such that both the hardware provider and content provider both can earn more? And isn't it proper that the one with the innovation (the Kindle) gets more of the surplus by said innovation?
I thought that a big problem in the book industry is that the middlemen (publishing, storage, distribution) ate up much of the surplus. Last I checked, even in the current paper-based book industry, it is a rare author making a lot of money.
Call me unsurprised and pleased.
Posted by: Jesse Blocher at May 1, 2008 3:24:52 PM
James Joyces, Ulysses, Project Gutenberg edition.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300
Price: free
Posted by: Stephen Downes at May 1, 2008 4:14:29 PM
But how much do they charge for the decoder ring that you need in order to translate it into English?
Posted by: Adam at May 1, 2008 4:50:58 PM
My book royalties are about 4-5 bucks a sale. So, 3.19 for a book with zero marginal cost and zero royalty (public domain) seems not unreasonable. Add $4 to that for my royalty. The book now costs 7.00. What is cut out is the cost of of producing and distributing a hard copy of the book. That hits paper producers and printers and binders.
Posted by: Social Scientist at May 1, 2008 5:16:24 PM
@Adam:
They charge more for the decoder ring than the average consumer surplus obtained by understanding Joyce. Hence no rush on the decoder rings.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at May 1, 2008 5:55:40 PM
Agreed, Michael. In fact, those public schools that assign Joyce as reading material could be said to be imposing a government-subsidized deadweight loss on consumers.
Damn that Rent-seeking Irish modernist!
Posted by: Adam at May 1, 2008 6:17:43 PM
Also, who would want Ulysses on a Kindle? It's certainly not a book that is read straight through. I've talked to Joyce scholars who admit to having not read all of Ulysses. Certainly the bulk of sales are to college students, for whom the book wouldn't be useful on a Kindle anyways.
Posted by: TG at May 1, 2008 6:33:02 PM
Also, who would want Ulysses on a Kindle? It's certainly not a book that is read straight through. I've talked to Joyce scholars who admit to having not read all of Ulysses. Certainly the bulk of sales are to college students, for whom the book wouldn't be useful on a Kindle anyways.
Posted by: TG at May 1, 2008 6:35:10 PM
Hell, I already own a copy of Ulysses I'm never going to read.
Farkin' Joyce.
Posted by: Sigivald at May 1, 2008 6:52:19 PM
"Is the book market going the way of the music market, where there is a systematic redistribution of the surplus toward suppliers of the hardware rather than suppliers of the content?"
I'm sure James Joyce is upset about his reduced royalty payments. Shakespeare and Milton too.
Posted by: Lucas at May 1, 2008 7:23:50 PM
Joyce could have heirs.In most countries, every country tath signed and respect Bern convention, copyright runs from publishing until 75 years after authors death.
I read Ulyses in full at 20.
Odyssey at 13
Divine Comedy and Hamlet at 12.
Posted by: karl at May 1, 2008 10:34:41 PM
Cost of a Kindle: $399.
Cost of membership at your local public library: $0.
I maintain my stance that buying books in any format is irrational. Yes, there's "opportunity cost," but you're already paying for the library in real money. Would you not managae a brokerage account that was losing money because of the opportunity cost? And how hard is it to get to the average suburban library or the local branch of any big city library?
A fairly common book like Ulysses seems like an especially foolish purchase.
Posted by: Ted Craig at May 2, 2008 8:52:56 AM
Not until the hardware reproduces the printed page as well as the iPod reproduces CD audio.
For my purposes, the hardware has long surpassed the printed page and by a huge margin:
- As much color as you want for the same price as black and white
- Self-illuminated with no reading light required
- Sound, video, and animation
- Hypertext links
- Font-size adjustment
- A whole library in one book-sized object
- Text search
- Non-destructive annotation
- Zoom
- Text-to-speech
- Wireless web-browsing
Of course, the B&W, non-illuminated Kindle doesn't offer all these features, but my Nokia internet tablet does.
Posted by: Slocum at May 2, 2008 12:20:15 PM
