Wait, Amazon takes %55 of the list price, and has control over the actual price its sold at.
Meanwhile, Apple takes %30, and you have total control over pricing.
Yet whenever the iBookstore comes up here, people go on and on about the "Apple tax" and how Apple is trying to drive authors out of business? By taking Less?
55% of MSRP, which in practice is around 30% of what Amazon actually charges since things seem to be perpetually on sale for 20-30%. More significantly, Amazon stores your stuff in warehouses and covers the costs associated with shipping the product to customers, which is significantly more expensive than storing some files in a data center.
Jobs tried to get you to make HTML5 apps for the iPhone. He even gave you nice ways to install them with their own icon and run them offline. But nooooooo, you're having none of it. No HTML5 installable apps with access to native APIs for you. You prefer to insist there's no alternative...
Excuse me if I'm incorrect here, but I believe the "Apple tax" refers to the markup on Apple hardware. That is, if you were to buy the same parts separately for a Windows machine it would be far cheaper.
Meanwhile, Apple takes %30, and you have total control over pricing.
Yet whenever the iBookstore comes up here, people go on and on about the "Apple tax" and how Apple is trying to drive authors out of business? By taking Less?