I’m an avid reader and was not happy when ebook prices went from $3-4 to $9-12. However, being in publishing at SAS, I realize a book is priced based on its value and not the format.

Shifting the cost from paper to digital is not as easy as you might think. It takes an enormous effort to convert the files to digital formats and quality check each book for each device. The graphics and equations in our technical books don’t always convert well. We’re giving our legacy books our best effort but have discovered that many of them cannot be digitized. We’re planning ahead with new titles to ensure that if they’re offered as an ebook it will be quality.

We’re going to keep our paperback books around for a while - many of you might prefer paper books. I can agree with that! But with technical books, many of you prefer digital books or ebooks because of the convenience of having the information at your fingertips and the search capabilities. Many man hours of tracking down information are saved when the information is readily available and searchable.

I don’t think we’re going to have a huge cut in SAS Press book prices – in fact I know that we’re not. We did, however, recently reduce our ebook retail price by 20%.

It would help us plan our future directions if we knew more about what you need. Please use this forum to let us know what you’d like to see with ebooks regarding delivery, size, price, and content. We’d love to hear your ideas!