????每當我撰文論述電子書業務時——尤其是在美國司法部（the Justice Department）對蘋果公司（Apple）及五家圖書出版商提出反壟斷訴訟的背景情況下，總會有人留言稱，電子書定價過高，因為銷售電子書的出版商其實并不用承擔紙質圖書印刷和發行通常所需要支付的任何費用。

????當然，電子書不會憑空從石頭縫里蹦出來，但我從來沒有看到過哪篇文章合理地闡述過出版一本電子書的實際成本。因此，我很高興地在最新一期的《紐約客》雜志（the New Yorker）上發現，肯?奧萊塔寫了一篇精辟的文章——《紙質追蹤》（Paper Trail），對電子書業務進行了闡述。其中有一段是這樣寫的：

????“電子書的生產成本比紙質書便宜，每本電子書在生產成本上大約可以便宜20％，因為電子書不需要紙張、印刷、運輸、倉儲等成本，而且也消除了未售出書冊的退還成本——這是一項重要的開支，因為有30％至50％的書最終會退給出版商。但電子書同時也會產生一些額外的費用：維護電腦服務器、監控盜版、對舊書進行數字化處理等。此外，出版商還得付錢給作家和編輯，以及支付租金及管理費用，更不用說精裝版圖書的印刷、分銷和倉儲費用，而精裝書仍然在出版商的銷售中占據絕大部分的份額?！?/p>

????電子書相比紙質書在成本上節省的20％似乎并不是很大一筆錢，尤其是考慮到亞馬遜（Amazon）一直在以14.99美元到4.99美元的價格銷售電子版圖書，有時甚至免費提供，而這些圖書的精裝版售價卻高達30美元。

????考慮到大多數圖書的成本超過了出版商的銷售收入，這種計算就變得更加復雜了。亞馬遜的杰夫?貝索斯認為，目前傳統出版模式的浪費令人窩火，而他的圖書出版模式對于讀者（降低了圖書價格）及希望成為作家的人（消除了作者和讀者之間的“把關人”）都更加高效、更加出色。

????正如奧萊塔指出……

????然而，傳統出版模式對作家而言具有一些優勢，尤其是在出版商發揮類似風險投資公司的作用時更是如此。作家向某出版商成功推銷出版一本書的建議時，他會收到一筆預付版稅，它有助于作家負擔相應的調查研究及寫作的費用。這些預付版稅大多從來沒有收回過。相當于暢銷書養著非暢銷書。光景好的年份里，出版商仍能夠獲得微薄的利潤，從而可以讓更多的作家通過獲得出版商提供的預付版稅來冒險啟動新的寫作項目，也就是說，這種模式養活了一大批職業作家。如果是在一個更高效的環境里，出版商只會付錢給那些能寫出暢銷書的作家，而很少會付錢給那些寫不出暢銷書的作家，這對于嚴肅的讀者和作家而言都是一個令人憂慮的情形。據Taleist網站最近進行的一項調查顯示，在所有自費出版的作家當中，有半數作家每年從寫作中賺取的收入還不到500美元。楊表示，如果出版商沒有錢向作家支付預付版稅的話，“我們擁有的優質圖書數量會更少。它對作家的影響堪稱巨大?！?/p>

????作為曾在印刷及電子出版業工作過的人，我認為奧萊塔的這篇文章對電子書戰爭雙方提供了一個非常公平的描述。訂閱了《紐約客》雜志的讀者可以點擊此處獲得這篇文章的PDF版本。

????翻譯：iDo98

????Whenever I write about the e-book business -- especially in the context of the Justice Department's antitrust suit against Apple (AAPL) and five book publishers -- someone in the comment stream invariably suggests that e-books are vastly overpriced because the publishers who sell them incur none of the usual costs of printing and distribution.

????E-books don't write or edit themselves, of course, but I've never seen a good accounting of what it actually costs to publish one. So I was gratified to find, high up in "Paper Trail," Ken Auletta's smart piece about the e-book business in the current issue of the New Yorker, this paragraph:

????"E-books are cheaper to produce, by about twenty per cent per book, because they do away with the cost of paper, printing, shipping, and warehousing. They also eliminate returns of unsold books—a significant expense, since thirty to fifty per cent of books are returned. But they create additional costs: maintaining computer servers, monitoring piracy, digitizing old books. And publishers have to pay authors and editors, as well as rent and administrative overhead, not to mention the costs of printing, distributing, and warehousing bound books, which continue to account for the large majority of their sales.

????Twenty percent doesn't seem like much of a savings, especially considering that Amazon (AMZN) has been selling electronic versions of books that cost $30 in hardback for anywhere from $14.99 to $4.99 to $0.00

????The accounting gets even more complicated when you consider that most books cost publishers more than they earn. Amazon's Jeff Bezos argues that traditional publishing is infuriatingly wasteful, and that his model is far more efficient and better for both readers (by lowering prices) and would-be authors (by eliminating the "gatekeepers" that prevent them from reaching readers).

????As Auletta points out ...

????The traditional model has advantages for authors, though, particularly in publishers' function as venture-capital firms. When an author sells a book proposal to a publisher, he receives an advance against royalties, which helps underwrite research and writing. Most of these advances are never earned back. But books that sell well support the ones that don't. In a good year, this earns the publishers a modest profit, and it allows more authors to take risks in starting new projects—which is to say, it supports a class of professional writers. In a more efficient world, publishers would pay authors who write best-selling books and rarely pay those who don't, an alarming prospect for most serious readers and writers. According to a recent survey by the Web site Taleist, half of all self-published authors make less than five hundred dollars a year from their writing. If publishers don't have the money to pay advances, Young says, "we're going to have fewer books of quality. The impact on authors could be huge."

????As someone who has worked in print and electronic publishing, I thought Auletta's piece offered a pretty even-handed account of both sides of the e-book wars. If you have a subscription to theNew Yorker, it's available as a pdf here.