Culture minister says government will propose ending the 25% rate, the highest in the world, in its budget bill
    • RonnieB@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      4 days ago

      It’s crazy how much some ebooks are since they avoid printing costs. Seeing ebooks for $20 or more pisses me off so much.

      • MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        I’ve been using the soundleaf app with a self-hosted audiobookshelf server and it’s been a game changer for accesing books without those insane ebook markups.

      • warmaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        For publishers ebooks pay 25% royalties compared to the 50% of print books at bookstores. Sustaining a company on selling items for 25% of $20 is unrealistic. So, I would say you are not the one getting the worse deal.

        Books are not massively profitable.

            • moopet@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              3·
              20 hours ago

              I don’t, but the other costs, like management, promotion, formatting, etc., are shared by traditional print books.

              • warmaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                14 hours ago

                Typesetting, ISBN registration, image editing (if any), royalty processing, platform specific promotion, and more are not shared.

                I’m not saying they should be greedy. I’m saying we shouldn’t underestimate the effort of producing and selling an ebook. Most publishers are barely profitable due to how the industry works.

    • tormeh@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      14·
      4 days ago

      Eh, dunno about denmark, but Norwegian books are like 3x the price of the same book in German. That’s mostly because it’s a small market that still needs translation, though. Doubt fiddling with the VAT will make much difference.

      • cyberslask@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        4 days ago

        There has been no VAT on books in Norway, including e-books, since 2015. Norway scores very high on books read per capita, about double that of Denmark.

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.caEnglish
        9·
        4 days ago

        But if price was a concern, aren’t libraries an option? Buying new books isn’t very common, at least not in North America, where our bookstores have all but disappeared.

        I’d be surprised if there was a strong or growing market anywhere in the EU.

        • tormeh@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          7·
          4 days ago

          Yeah, it’s not looking good. There are still bookstores, but more and more it feels like a niche thing.