Without printing and lower distribution costs, the pricing should be less than 50% of paper copies more like 33%.

I used to believe this too. It’s based on a massive misapprehension of where the costs in publishing really lie, though – printing and distribution make up a surprisingly small part of the cost. Very many of the costs involved in making a dead-tree book also apply to ebooks; with the added practical concern that the ebook market is tiiiiny.

If you get the Amazon version you are locked to Kindle. Maybe not too bad right now. But in a year or two say you want a different eReader. But wait your copy of Greatest Show on Earth is still locked up on the Kindle.

This is mess. The hard copy version is on my library shelf forever, but not very portable.

Without printing and lower distribution costs, the pricing should be less than 50% of paper copies more like 33%. The format should be general so anyone can make and sell an eReader. I store the backup in my personal private library.

When this gets worked out, eReaders could become viable – save a tree and so on.

Thinking about this makes me wonder if books form the right frame of reference for thinking about the medium. Everyone hates that so many ebooks are in proprietory formats, and that’s fair enough when ultimately the content is just the same as we can pass on to our grandchildren when it’s in dead-tree format. But a ‘book plus’ such as the kind of thing davidmaas envisages would not be so directly comparable with a paper book – it would be something new. People buy DVDs even when all they get for the money is a two-hour brainfart, after all. I do myself. But the value of a ‘book plus’ Water’s Edge, or Parasite Rex (my enduring fave), or Soul Made Flesh… it just wouldn’t compare.

Regarding the ‘everything free’ objection… I don’t think the culture of getting everything free online is going to last; advertising support is already showing cracks (the latest data I saw – on Gizmodo? – was pretty bleak) and it bears endless repeating that *someone, somewhere has to pick up the tab for content.* Free blogging and suchlike won’t go away, of course, but good book-length writing (and even well-researched article-length writing) needs professionals, and professionals need to be paid. Not to mention the costs of research…

Wirthlin’s suggestion is fun, and I’d likely go for such special editions, but ultimately a scheme like that can’t be enough of a volume driver to be the game-changer that’s needed. It’d be a good PR exercise, a buzz driver, but more than that? Not really. Just look at the numbers of sales involved…

Never really did read newspapers to get science material though. Instead I would take a full day about once a month and go to the library and read their science magazines (NG, Canuck Geographic, Astronomy and S&T, Discover, birding magazines, etc etc).

Essentially my attitude is let me read it (print and web), not hear it. I make exceptions though for anything done by Sir David Attenborough.

– Any sciencey articles in the paper would always be what I read first, but
the fact that there is so little science in newspapers these days actually contributes to why I buy them less often.

I believe this is why books are still so popular; people read a sample online or in a bookstore and say, “okay, that seems interesting, I’ll take it”. Convert that content to an e-book or online content and suddenly there’s nothing tangible that they’re buying. It’s all ether, shouldn’t that be free.

The exception to this seems to be purchasing music online, but I would argue that this is an entirely different sensory experience… it’s always been ether but people no longer get big glossy LP covers so they’re happier with a cheaper version of song in the ether that never wears out than a CD they have to find somewhere to put.

I still purchase numerous science books each year but I buy them Online via Amazon 95% of the time. I might browse a book at B&N but I’ll check my iPhone for the online price before committing to a purchase in the store. Is this honest, sure, the information is readily available to everyone. Can a brick and mortar store compete with the pricing of a wholesale warehouse operation, absolutely not.

People want to feel that the money they pay for a book or other object has intrinsic value. I can resell a book I’ve read at my neighborhood used bookstore. It’s worth a little less than 1/4 the purchase price in most cases. That’s a great deal if you can use that money to purchase other books at 1/2 price. It retains value. What value do we place solely on information? Where is the value-added component? Online sellers have to offer something tangible to keep people’s pocket books open. If they can get something similar for free they will.

But the majority of respondents seem broadly to reflect my pattern of reading.

I’m surprised though that noone mentions that to keep up with the astonishing pace of developments, you just have to access blogs. The print media just can’t keep up and anyway, most newspapers simply cannot report science properly. The complexity demanded by science seems to be beyond them, and of course when any controversy erupts, they have to present “both sides”, even when one side is correct, and the other is patently idiotic.

All the same, like others I still prefer to read old-style books if it comes to reading a longer outline of interesting science topics. (eg Water’s Edge). And I fairly regularly buy science magazines.

In all, reading about science has become an overwhelming addiction, with few side-effects beyond greater knowledge.

In the pre-Internet age, I was an avid reader of magazines like NatGeo, Smithsonian, Natural History. I remember picking up Natural History, turning immediately to Steven J. Gould, and only then flipping through to read the rest of the magazine. (And does anyone else remember when Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote the stargazing column at the back of NH? “Readers in the Midwest will be able to see Venus in the southeastern sky, in the constellation of Leo.” Who knew that he would assume the mantle of Sagan and Gould?) As a teen, I had my own subscription to Omni — remember that mixed bag? (Thank goodness my parents never saw the name Guccioni on the masthead.)

And TV: Tuesday night was Nova Night in my house. When I was 15, I could do a killer Carl Sagan impression. Me and Dad bonded over Jacob Bronowski in The Ascent of Man. And I’ll never forget seeing little James Burke hack up a dead cow with a Scottish claymore by way of demonstrating simple tools (lever and inclined plane), and somehow tying it into the hydrogen bomb.

So, the web is the primary way I get my science today, but I never stopped reading science in newspapers, because I never started.

I knew I’d forgotten to comment on something. I didn’t answer this question because neither answer (if there were more than 2, I don’t remember them) applied to me. I’ll usually read long features, if they keep my interest, unless I have to click through to do so. If there isn’t a single-page (usually ‘printable’) option for the whole article, I almost never bother.

I’m not in a position to comment on the financial viability of ad/sponsorship supported podcasts, but certainly several of the science ones do carry them.

Otherwise, thanks for doing the survey and sharing the results with us. I guess I’m not as alone in my habits as I thought I was.

I actually think stepping this up would be amazing: get all (ok, most) of the top science blogs to partake in an annual “who are our readers?” survey. Questions are standardized and use the same technology (e.g. Google Docs). Each blog does the survey for its audience, and asks readers only to complete the survey for their favorite science blog. After a week, all of the data is combined into one master document… And I think you see where this is going.

What do you think?

[CZ: This is interesting...although it might be hard to get a bunch of bloggers to settle on one set of questions.]

I’m glad Morgan Wirthlin and Scott Sigler followed up with more detail on the type of ideas I was talking about, as I did not have the time to.

I completely agree with you that the value of good writing is not zero, but value and price are very distinct concepts. (For example, value of breathable air: Vital to life!, price of breathable air: Free!) Because the cost of distributing information is low, business models that distribute good writing for free and make their money elsewhere are favored. There are a lot of possible elsewheres, including advertising, lecture fees, special edition “art objects”, consulting fees, etc. Anything that is made more valuable by your writing or association with your writing is a potential thing to sell. This is a major disruption currently making its way through our economy, so people are still working out what models work in the new environment.

Some other partially thought out ideas that occurs to me:
* Something like models or stuffed animals of the parasites, carnivorous plants etc that you discuss.
* Poster size versions of illustrations that go with your books.

Gotta go. I wish you the best of luck in finding ways to support your writing!

[CZ: Thanks for coming back, Kevin. I am struck by the phrase, "best of luck in finding ways to support your writing!" It sounds unsettlingly like, "best of luck in finding ways to support your jazz flute playing!"...or ceramics, or poetry, or community theater.]

Cheers

Scott

[CZ: Scott--I did ask. See "news web sites" under question #1. Lots of people are indeed reading science at those places.]

Ebook readers are available for well below $250, and many models well below $200. The Jetbook Light can be bought on Newegg for $129.99– and it is scheduled to be one of their “shell shocker” one-day deals this Saturday– there is a chance it will break the $100 barrier.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16858723010&cm_re=jetbook-_-58-723-010-_-Product

Many or most people seem to have the impression that there are only 3 or 4 ereaders on the market, with the format invented by Amazon. Neither of which are true. There are dozens of models available now, over a large price range a conciderable size range.

As for myself, I still prefer paper for technical works with lots of charts and illustrations. But for fiction reading, or books with very few illustrations? I find deadtree editions to be a waste of paper and shelf space, and deal with them only resentfully.

(FWIW, Parasite Rex and Microcosm are available as ebooks at http://www.fictionwise.com)

Without the competition, meaning I can get eBook material anywhere and read it on any reader, prices will remain too high.