Are The Days Of The $14.99 Ebook Numbered?
From Forbes Blogs:
Readers upset at paying more than $10 for an ebook could soon rejoice: The days of the $14.99 ebook may be numbered.
When the Department of Justice announced that several publishers had settled a lawsuit that alleged ebook price-fixing, which would eventually give ebook retailers pricing control that they didn’t have before, an Amazon spokesperson said, “This is a big win for Kindle owners, and we look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books.”
And lower prices they did.
In the past several months, prices for ebook best-sellers have plummeted, hitting a new low this week. The average price of a top-25 ebook best-seller is now $8.09, down from $8.23 last week and$11.79 in Oct., the last time ebook prices increased.
Part of the reason is the continued success of self-published ebooks, which are usually priced at $2.99 or lower. But another part of it is the discounting of the $14.99 or $12.99 ebook to under $10. It’s a lot of the same books but at lower prices.
. . . .
What’s replacing them? Books priced $3.00 to $9.99. It’s a combination of new best-sellers being discounted and old best-sellers — already having been discounted because they’re no longer current.
Link to the rest at Forbes Blogs
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I hope so.
I was looking at a trade-published book yesterday on my Amazon wishlist. The paperback was $13, so I thought I’d get the e-book to save a few bucks.
Except the e-book was $19.99.
I know which I’ll be buying.
I’ve run into the same problem. :\
And there you have the reason for the price difference.
Publishers are trying to slow the adoption of e-books, so they are pricing them higher than the paperbacks, and the same as hardcovers.
This is one of the reasons for the whole DOJ thing. Publishers want to keep e-book prices high to slow their sales. They don’t care if they lose money; they’d rather try to save Print.
Absolutely. In spite of the evidence, they still think they’re in the business of moving paper around, and anything that interferes with moving paper–for which they have a known infrastructure, however flawed–must somehow be bad for them. Sometimes they make me want to stomp my tiny feet and scream.
I usually buy a used paperback under those circumstances.
That’s not a bad idea, though the extra postage for used books through Amazon may make them an even worse deal.
That’s when you use a site like abebooks or alibiris, which are directories of used bookstores. ^_^
I usually buy something else entirely. It tasks me to think I’m being forced to buy the paper version. It indicates the publishers contempt for me as a customer.
Something like that really gets under my skin, and I respond with my wallet.
^ This. There are maybe four or five authors, TV shows and movie franchises that I’ll make certain I read or watch as soon as possible when a new instalment is first released. As for all the rest, if it’s too expensive or too inconvenient, I’ll read or watch or do something else. I might remember to check back in a few months to see if the price has come down to what I consider a sensible point, or I might not…
Same here.
“Except the e-book was $19.99.”
Edward,
As long as people keep paying it, they’ll keep charging it.
Now that AMZ are getting into a certain monopoly-type position, their charging structures are becoming more fixed on the things they control.
We’ll see, but I suspect ebooks are going to head south for a good bit yet.
$20? They’re ‘aving a laugh.
brendan
As long as people keep paying it, they’ll keep charging it.
Who’s paying it? As far as I can tell, the whole point of charging that is to discourage people from paying it and make them buy the paper edition instead.
“Now that AMZ are getting into a certain monopoly-type position, their charging structures are becoming more fixed on the things they control.”
In what world is Amazon a monopoly?
“In what world is Amazon a monopoly?”
Mikhailovich,
Mine, for one. ‘Cos I seldom shop anywhere else.
Yew try finding an episode of HD instant video for less than $2.99.
Or even, shall we say, Crocodile Dundee, a movie made in 1984/5 and released in 1986.
Yours for $9.99 in questionable HD, senor.
That’s the kinda thing I’m talking about.
When they’ve gotcha by the short and curlies, their grip is firmer than dominatrice.
Uncle Josef*
*every blighter here is under some nom de flower or other. So, I thought I would too.
“Who’s paying it?”
Tom,
No idea.
If ’twere offered to me, and I thought I was being manipulated, I’d keep hands and wallet firmly in pocket.
Let ‘em die.
brendan
I’ll say this: There are only two times in my life I’ve paid that kind of money for an ebook. One was Steve Jobs’ biography; it seemed appropriate to have that one on my iPhone. The other was the required textbook for a workshop I was attending; none of the local bookshops had it in stock, and there was not sufficient time to have a paper copy shipped to me. (The book, by the way, was Story, by Robert McKee, which I recommend to any writer of fiction who hasn’t read it yet.)
All this makes me wonder if the paper industry has much power. Are they behind publishers’ reluctance to produce affordable ebooks?
I doubt it. The publishers would be more likely to run to ebooks if they were feeling crimped by the paper-sellers.
I would suspect they just can’t figure out what to do with ebooks. How do you market without buying an end-cap? How can you control a monopoly/oligopoly without being the only ones who can provide the economies of scale necessary for “inexpensive” mass-market paperbacks? How do you sell to a zillion tiny bookstores when you’ve bowed the neck and retooled to sell to B&N alone, with all those scrabbling tiny bookstores sort of along for the ride? (B&N being the Big Baddie in its day, for not-bad reasons.)
That’s what scares them. Nobody really needs them for eBooks. They’ve built themselves around the concept of controlling access to printers and shelf space.
I can’t get my books onto the shelf at Barnes & Noble or Chapters/Indigo, but I can sell eBooks at B&N and Kobo without needing to get past their gates.
Even if they embrace eBooks wholeheartedly, folks will still realize that they could have gone direct. I don’t think they bring enough to the table for writers anymore.
I think readers are getting the same impression as well. Too many over hyped books from celebrity dimwits have left them wondering about the credibility of the big houses. The hue and cry about amazon reviews is starting to ease up, but we still hear rumblings about books from big media conglomerates being reviewed by newspapers owned by…
Then again, who knows what sits just over the horizion. A new sea change may be about to wipe out the eBook market in favor of something even more exciting, perhaps even something the publishing companies can control.
That’s the big problem with wheels – the darn things keep turning.