The calculus works for me, as well, with a twist. I place very little intrinsic value on the paper book, myself, other than as a delivery mechanism. As you point out, however, since I can resell it, the market places non-zero value on some instances of paper books[1].
Since the value, for me, is entirely in the convenience of delivery, hardback books, by their bulkier, heavier nature, have less value than mass market paperbacks. I even wrinkle my nose at "trade" paperbacks[2]. The size of the current crop of e-readers fail to be no larger than a mass market paperback, even the silly extra-tall ones.
An electronic copy, to me, does have some intrinsic value in that it's searchable, but that's primarily interesting for the bulky tech reference titles you allude to.
Everything else is delivery. I'm only willing to pay the full $8 price when I'm desperate, having nothing with me to read, but a local bookstore having something I know I'd buy eventually anyway. It's something I try to avoid by thinking ahead. Otherwise, for a brand new book, the Costco $6ish is my limit, and that's typically only for the more popular releases. Otherwise, it's $2-$5 at the used bookstore or online.
In contrast, perhaps since I'm not an avid game-player, or, perhaps because I read for pleasure 2-3 slower than I could, I find the price per enjoyment-hour to be one that makes some sense. This leads to a desire for a subscription model, since, after all, I can only read one book at a time. It would allow me to try out a writer without forking over my time and the cost of a whole book. Moreover, I'd be happy to pay several times as much for a 1k+ page Pynchon tome as for a pulpy novella or something in between[3].
If such a system were to pay royalties based on usage, I would expect it to encourage writing that's a balance between being so light as to be skimmable and so involved as to be inaccessible. I believe this to be a desirable consequence, though I recognize the danger in, if I may abuse the term, engineering regression toward the mean.
[1] This is on the order of $1 per item, in trade, at my local used bookstore. It's often $0.
[2] though some can mostly fit in a pant pocket, especially the Canadian Costco cargo pants I favor
[3] all of which I enjoy, but I can't fathom paying full price for 150 pages consumable in one sitting.
The calculus works for me, as well, with a twist. I place very little intrinsic value on the paper book, myself, other than as a delivery mechanism. As you point out, however, since I can resell it, the market places non-zero value on some instances of paper books[1].
Since the value, for me, is entirely in the convenience of delivery, hardback books, by their bulkier, heavier nature, have less value than mass market paperbacks. I even wrinkle my nose at "trade" paperbacks[2]. The size of the current crop of e-readers fail to be no larger than a mass market paperback, even the silly extra-tall ones.
An electronic copy, to me, does have some intrinsic value in that it's searchable, but that's primarily interesting for the bulky tech reference titles you allude to.
Everything else is delivery. I'm only willing to pay the full $8 price when I'm desperate, having nothing with me to read, but a local bookstore having something I know I'd buy eventually anyway. It's something I try to avoid by thinking ahead. Otherwise, for a brand new book, the Costco $6ish is my limit, and that's typically only for the more popular releases. Otherwise, it's $2-$5 at the used bookstore or online.
In contrast, perhaps since I'm not an avid game-player, or, perhaps because I read for pleasure 2-3 slower than I could, I find the price per enjoyment-hour to be one that makes some sense. This leads to a desire for a subscription model, since, after all, I can only read one book at a time. It would allow me to try out a writer without forking over my time and the cost of a whole book. Moreover, I'd be happy to pay several times as much for a 1k+ page Pynchon tome as for a pulpy novella or something in between[3].
If such a system were to pay royalties based on usage, I would expect it to encourage writing that's a balance between being so light as to be skimmable and so involved as to be inaccessible. I believe this to be a desirable consequence, though I recognize the danger in, if I may abuse the term, engineering regression toward the mean.
[1] This is on the order of $1 per item, in trade, at my local used bookstore. It's often $0.
[2] though some can mostly fit in a pant pocket, especially the Canadian Costco cargo pants I favor
[3] all of which I enjoy, but I can't fathom paying full price for 150 pages consumable in one sitting.