Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

[odelay]

v2 has just been released. Total awesomeness.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=328723086&mt=8

Now you can buy/download (in-app purchasing) and read all 5 books from within the one app. You can even customise the covers of the books and change how they appear on the app's main carousel screen.

It uses the Eucalyptus Reader interface for reading the books. From the Eucalyptus blog:

Don't Panic…
September 10th 2009

Some very exciting news! In conjunction with the publishers Pan Macmillan and Missing Ink Studios, the first book apps embedding the reader from Eucalyptus are now on sale! They're available worldwide, except in the USA and Canada.

If you're a fan - and probably even if you're not - you'll have worked out from this blog post's title what books I'm talking about: all the books in Douglas Adams' seminal Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy, reissued to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first book's publication.

The books are £5.99 each. Great value for the best books in the universe. Love it.

 

[gazzer82]

Is it just me, or should a digital version of a book not be cheaper than the physical equivalent. I can walk into borders and buy these for less, and they are actually printed/shipped to the store.

It's the same with the other book in the App store, some of them are £7.99 when they are only £5.99 in the book shop.

Am i missing something here?

 

[odelay]

Is it just me, or should a digital version of a book not be cheaper than the physical equivalent. I can walk into borders and buy these for less, and they are actually printed/shipped to the store.

It's the same with the other book in the App store, some of them are £7.99 when they are only £5.99 in the book shop.

Am i missing something here?

No, I agree, they should cost less. But I font mind with hhgttg, as I love the books, not read the last 3 yet, but the first two are great.

But yes, they should be going for under a fiver IMO. Early days yet for this kind of sales & distribution method though I guess. It'll take time to settle. Although, kindle books retail at a similar price, so they probably base it on that. And you get more content (extras) in an iPhone app than a kindle digital version of a book. But now that there's some competition (iPhone, B&N Nook) for the kindle, maybe we'll start to see prices for digital books go down.

 

[samcraig]

Kindle prices are below their hard copy counterparts. I just read The Lost Symbol on my iPhone for 9.99 where the hard copy ranges from 16-30 bucks.

I would imagine - the app developer/distributer either has high costs or is looking to make a high profit. Only thing is - as much as I love Douglas Adams and his books - I'd never buy them for my iPhone. I have the books (one signed) and they aren't hot/new right now - so how many people are really going to get excited about the app? No offense intended.

If the app were for the latest dan brown book AND had extras not found in the hard copy book (maybe interviews, other stuff, etc) you could get away with charging more than the KINDLE version.. but more than the hard copy? I don't think so.

 

[odelay]

Well when the Douglas Adams books were available for Kindle (they're not anymore), they cost $6.39, so yes, less than the hard copy. Seems to vary from one book to the next where the kindle is concerned (some I've bought from the Kindle store are a comparable price to the paperbacks), I guess it's up to the publisher, much in the same way as selling their own iPhone app.

Personally I don't mind paying for this app, as I wanted to read the last three anyway, and I like reading on the iPhone. I get what you're saying though, I think the people that will go for this app will be h2g2 fans, and those (like me) who haven't read some or all of the books, and like the Eucalyptus interface for reading on the iPhone. But, it's currently sitting at #29 in the books section of the UK store, so it must be doing alright, however this doesn't tell us anything about the actual number of downloads

 

[CylonGlitch]

LOL I purchased a collection of the Douglass Adams books, including the story of Beatlebrox (sp?) a few years ago. Hard Cover, for $9.99 new. It has ALL of the hitchhiker books and several short stories.

Are these licensed copies or stolen?

 

[LostLogik]

Well when the Douglas Adams books were available for Kindle (they're not anymore), they cost $6.39

So glad I picked up HGTTG while it was available. Shame about the others. Wonder why they're no more. Shame.

 

[businessgo]

Really hard to say whether it's over-priced or under-priced, and of course this doesn't mean the price is right. All I can say is that I love the series, but no I wouldn't buy the App version for such a price... I guess I personally think it's a wee bit overpriced.