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Amazon Caves To Publishers On eBook Pricing
AusPublishingWorker writes "With the iPad arriving on the scene, it seems that Amazon is feeling the pressure on eBook pricing from publishers. ITNews reports that Amazon has agreed to deals with both Harper Collins and Simon and Schuster which would allow the companies to select their own prices rather than the default US$9.99 price tag. Given the recent deal with Macmillan, it seems likely that we'll be seeing eBook prices moving up towards $14.99 in the near future."
Therefore I have the right to take it for free.
let me just give a preemptive counterperspective.
I buy ebooks and I'll buy them at this price, too.
Yes, I prefer (by far) reading using ebook readers with eink displays. Since the first Kindle emerged I've probably read 10,000 pages or so using ebook readers. Love them.
Also, tools exist to unDRM and convert between just about every ebook format, including Mobi, Azw, Topaz, ePub, PDF, Lit, PDB, and others, so books can in fact travel with you as you upgrade devices in the future, should you choose to go this route.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
The same phenomenon could be observed with iTunes' .99 cents pricing. Attempts to raise the price higher (especially without unilateral price raises across the board of offerings and publishers) resulted in significant sales drops.
It is also one reason we may never see a $99 netbook. That sub-factor of 10 number is quite magical for sales numbers, but kills any hope of raising prices in the future to combat inflation, increased salaries, admittedly raising profits, etc.
I don't think the predicted $14.99 price will be for all eBooks, though it will probably be the 'release price' when new titles come out by big name authors (and maybe some or all of the textbooks). If the eBook version is more expensive than the paperback version then I think we'll see eBooks sales stall.
I think the shift to the eBook model will affect the publishing industry's current practice of releasing a hardcover first (at a higher price) and then a paperback once the hardcover has run its course. We're not going to get rid of hardcovers all at once but there will probably be more 'straight to paperback' titles than we're used to now.
Amazon was to some extent using its pricing power to push the Kindle platform, and indeed to their credit, despite the monopoly this handed them, without their effort the ebook market may have continued to flounder. Now, as their monopoly collapses, they have the choice of seeing publishers vacate the platform possibly moving competing devices to the fore, or letting the prices rise.
The rise in prices, however, IMO cannot stand, and I don't think even the $10 price point can be maintained for long. Self-publishing is going to undermine that, and the result should be much lower costs for us readers.
If I have to pay that much for an ebook I'll just buy the real thing.
I can resell it when I've read it, I can take it wherever I want and I don't have to worry about someone pressing a button and removing it from my read.
Best of all, I don't have to spring for the price of a reader before I can even start reading a book
to contribute a little royalty to the authors? And because I suspect brand new releases aren't on that "nice bay place," and I have better things to do than trudge all over the internet looking for something to read when I can just drop a few bucks and not waste my time?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Weren't we promised that competition drives down prices? People are actually enthusiastic about buying an iPad so they can pay MORE for the electronic copy than the paperback editions cost? no thanks.. not unless it comes with ifriends and ilatte
It is the shortage of bits that is driving this. This has been a growing problem since 1995: http://ifaq.wap.org/computers/bitshortage.html
My first thought was that competition should be good for consumers, as another dominate player enters the market prices should be forced downward. Stealing the book is a natural reaction to the publishers oligopolistic practices.
Don't forget distribution. Any books not sold are the responsibility of the publisher or distributor to buy back. Trying to gauge demand takes effort too. And I'm sure there are many other costs that people unfamiliar with the business are not aware of. What I do know is that serving 300KB files, with no regard for how many copies of each to stock takes no effort at all.
...to stick a little bit of completely unrelated paid viral marketing right in front of the “article”.
With the iPad arriving on the scene,
If you paid twice the price of the same thing from an other manufacturer, now you know where that money went. ^^
One could even make a meme out of it, since it really fits anything:
With the iPad arriving on the scene, the Haiti earthquake victims were all saved! ...
With the iPad arriving on the scene, war in Iraq ended and peace broke out!
With the iPad arriving on the scene, 351 people died in the latest terror attack!
With the iPad arriving on the scene, the Teabaggers finally managed to overturn the government and proclaim a theocracy!
With the iPad arriving on the scene, fanbois around the world came for a week straight.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
``electroinc books have neither a cost advantage nor a "convenience factor".''
They are searchable, aren't they?
And also, for people who move around a lot, electronic books probably have a weight advantage.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
and I'm not trolling. DRM has changed the way publishing works. Copyright as it is written in the US constitution has been fundamentally broken by new technology. This is why I hate conservatives. I can't get them to understand that a legal document written 200 years ago might, just might, not be 100% relevant any more. Principles are great when everyone subscribes to them, but when they other guy (the publishers) runs roughshod over them it's time to do the same.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
14.99! Yay! I'll buy the PAPERBACK!
There is no reason why an ebook needs to cost more than a paperback, let alone 15 bucks. At least it can't be removed remotely from my reader. I suspect that brick & mortar book stores don't need to worry about their futures the way things are going.
--
BMO
Considering the fact that you get no physical copy and are encumbered by DRM, it seems to me that fair pricing is as follows:
$9.99 for the period when the only physical copy available for sale is hardcover,
$4.99 once the paperback comes out.
Anything above these prices is, to me, a rip-off.
This explains why I have never purchased an e-book, yet the bookshelves in my home are overflowing.
While I consume multiple novels at the same time
You consume your books? Aren't you aware that books were meant to be read and not eaten?
This space unintentionally left blank.
I definitely wouldn't dismiss the cost/portability factor.
I spent 2 weeks bed-ridden in a hospital a few years ago. I'd have died of boredom if it weren't for my kindle giving me instantaneous access to more books than I could ever read (as it was, I must've read like 50 books during my hospital stay).
I can't believe no one even mentioned this: /. all praised the iPad and Apple's scheme to make the publishers more money. Well here are the results of your joyous praise!
Now instead of Amazon keeping e-books at $9.99 and the industry in check--we now have a locked down, DRM-laden, inferior versions to the paperback, for...
$14.99! And that's only the beginning of the price increase!
Thanks Apple fanboys!
Would it kill you to admit that a marketing major might know a little more about this than you?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
While I am upset that they feel the need to jack up the prices, it is nice to know that my local used book store will still feel a market niche. To some degree, it is almost feels better to buy a used book than a new one. With a used book, you can see the wear and tear on it, that someone actually has enjoyed this book and that they are passing it on to you.
Only useful for certain types of books. When's the last time you've taken out a fiction book and flicked through it to find something in particular (apart from your bookmark)?
That's not "probably". I only have a limited collection of books, but they still weigh about 50 kg. The upside is, that if someone drops a book down a flight of stairs, they're still able to use it afterwards. Accidents do happen.
Now, if you drop it into a lake, or you're reading at the beach and a freak wave comes in and soaks you ... the book or two you brought you might be salvageable, but otherwise it's just a matter of replacing two books at maybe 15 bucks each. Your eBook reader on the other hand is toast, and depending on the DRM involved, so are your books.
Don't get me wrong though. I like the idea of ebooks and ebook readers. I just don't have the money for one. And you can do things with readers that you cannot do with books, like making them waterproof. I'd love to get an e-reader I can take into the bathtub, hot tub or the beach and not have to worry about it getting wet. My Garmin Edge 705 GPS + heart rate monitor is water proof down to a meter for 30 minutes, and that's a US$ 479 item at Amazon, has a built in Micro SD-card slot and USB connector. That's 10 dollars less than the Kindle DX, and I'm fairly certain the DX wouldn't survive if you let it get wet.
Obviously they aren't the same kind of device, but my point is I can get an advanced piece of electronic hardware that includes user interaction AND is waterproof for less money than a Kindle DX, so waterproofing the DX should be doable within that price-range.
Maybe he is a book worm!
They were only trying to protect publishers from themselves. Amazon knows a lot more about what customers will pay for ebooks than publishers do, and their tactics which appeared heavy handed existed because it was the point where the maximum amount of profit could be obtained. Yes the $9.99 price point would hurt the sale of physical books, but you sell so many ebooks at that price that makes up for it tremendously.
The only concern publishers had was that in public you couldn't tell what books other people were reading if they all had Kindles. They felt they lost some free advertising when going to ebooks. What they failed to realize is with an ebook reader attached to a network you can tie it into twitter or facebook which is a far more powerful advertising vehicle than some random stranger in public.
It's really pitiful that publishers are incapable of adapting to the realities of the 21st century. Amazon tried to drag them there kicking and screaming, but have failed.
(ex Amazon employee, so my views may be biased)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What about cook books? Or diet books?
Like this one: Dr. Tooshi's High Fiber Diet: A Revolutionary Diet that will Help You to Lose Weight, Prevent Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Digestive Disorders (Paperback)
It says so right on the front. High fiber diet.
Fuck e-books; fuck e-book readers, including, but not limited to the Kindle, the iFad, & all the others I've not heard of. May they all go belly up, bankrupt and take the crooked publishers with 'em. Why anyone would want a crippled computer to read crippled books which can be stolen back by the "publisher" on any whim, "Just because we felt like it ... Buzz off, Sucker!" completely escapes me. Preposterous.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Apple's customers are media conglomerates.
So they cut deals with them and it trickles down in smacking us the paying customers who used to use their service and use other services. In other words, they came to the realization that real money is making deals with publishers of content, not the users. This causes the publishers to lean hard on anyone moving their product as they can hold "Apple" up as an example saying well we have Apple on our side and we don't really need you.
Yeah. thanks a lot Steve
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Considering that they are not manufacturing anything nor paying for shipping, warehouses (including workers), etcetera. If I thought the authors were getting more out of it then I might not bristle as much but I have no illusion that anyone but the publisher is benefiting from the price hike. As long as there are libraries, if won't be a problem. As an aside, I wonder how long it will take before publishers challenge libraries in court?
Whoosh is no longer allowed now that J J Abrams copyrighted for Lost.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm traveling a lot now, so I'm reading a lot. I picked up the James Patterson "Alex Cross" series on my Kindle. I tried to buy the next book in the series Thursday only to find that no James Patterson books were available. Turns out that Hachette books had blocked all book sales while Amazon switched to the "agency model". Agency model means that Amazon acts as an agent for the publisher instead of a middleman/retailer like they do for paper books.
It was a short-lived outage, and I was able to buy the next book this morning. For a dollar more. Not a big deal, but I see the end of my love affair with the Kindle real soon now. If this is the way they're going to play, I'm just not interested.
A clever person solves a problem, A wise person avoids it. -Einstein
Usually when competition enters a market prices fall. In this case, Apple's entry seems to be raising prices. I suppose offering a higher price point is how Apple was able to get the publishers to partner with them after what happened with the music publishers, who are not happy with the $0.99 defacto single track price point. Hopefully once Apple gets a good foothold in the market prices will again fall as Amazon, Apple, B&N and other ebook vendors battle for marketshare, willingly cutting their own profit margins in order to obtain it. But for now, I view this as a giant step backwards for the "ebook revolution". Oh well, I refuse to spend over $10 for an ebook, so I guess my Kindle purchases will be much reduced.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
It might have something to do with the next evil trick in the marketing book.
If your Fast Food Chain offers "Burgers for 99c" as a consumer it's easy to see that. But once it becomes "Burgers for $1.00" it's like a glass barrier broken. Then after some hand wringing, it will be "$1.25" and then "$1.35" and then it takes off like a bottle rocket.
It's harder for a consumer to price compare $1.35 at Ye Olde Tourist Trappe vs $1.25 Strip Plaza.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. --Sir Francis Bacon
Ahh, the things Leonard Nimoy has taught me...
Only useful for certain types of books. When's the last time you've taken out a fiction book and flicked through it to find something in particular (apart from your bookmark)?
This happens to me a lot. For example, if a scene references an earlier piece of dialog, I often find myself wanting to re-read it in its original context. Maybe it's just because I'm a slow reader, but I think the ability to search is a pretty useful feature.
These stories never seem to mention that while the publishers want $14.99 at the high end, they also want the ability to price below $9.99 for back titles. Amazon has pushed the $14.99 price point so hard in the hopes that people wouldn't notice the cheaper part.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
Hundreds of thousands of people bought Kindles on the basis of their perception of the overall deal. I think most buyers know that the cost of the razor (Kindle) is dominated by the cost of the blades (eBooks). Of course there was no written contract, but those hundreds of thousands of buyers thought they were buying into an ecosystem of $10 eBooks. An eBook delivers less value than a trade paperback, but that was OK because it cost less than a trade paperback.
Now, suddenly, the whole proposition is changed. They're being asked to pay meaningfully more than when they signed on. A big jump. Pretty much all at once. And they're now being asked to pay more than the price of a trade paperback for something that for most readers is less valuable than a trade paperback.
If you don't believe eBooks are less valuable than trade paperbacks, then please name your price for my copy of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything." It's only six years old, and in mint condition (bits don't rot), and I'll sell it cheap. Oh, did I forget to mention it's a GemStar DRM-protected eBook edition, readable only on one GemStar eBook device in the world--mine--which I'd throw in for free if I hadn't already thrown it out when it crapped out last year. You can't buy a new one because they don't make 'em any more. And if you have a GemStar eBook device, GemStar customer service can't transfer my book to you because they're long since out of business
I believe this price increase, whether it's Amazon's fault or not, and despite the fact that $10 eBooks were merely an expectation set by Amazon, is going to make a lot of Kindle owners angry. Obviously publishers think they hold the balance of power and that it doesn't matter if their customers get angry. Maybe they're right.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If you like sci-fi or fantasy, buy your books from Baen Books. They sell eBooks directly to the customer, no DRM, pricing at about $2 per book (more for collections). Also, they give many books away for free - the first book in a trilogy, etc.
The free books are in the Baen Free Library, the shop is called Webscription.net. Support publishers like this, and the other publishers will have to fall in line.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
but sometimes, I just want to read something written after my great-grandfather was born.
Like your original post? That would make him cry. In your great-grand-father's day books weren't just magical, they were ubiquitous and democratic. Knowledge, it's not just for oligarchs and tyrants any more...
They can't sell e-books for $14.99 if people don't buy them for $14.99. It's up to the public to decide just how much they want to be screwed over on eBook prices.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why would "Major Book Publishers" insist on using an outdated bookstall model? If you prefer to own the means of distribution instead of the means of production, prices come down, volume goes up, and Apple laughs all the way to the bank. Means of production has been a cottage industry since Postscript. Even high-volume distribution channels have been around since Bittorrent. So it remains to be seen whether MBP's can make a living by clamping filters on the sludge.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
The kindle and Amazon's eBook sails channel is one of the most mature. Amazon has a ton of pricing data for these sales, much more than Apple. As Amazon is forced to raise prices they will be able to see if the higher prices lead to lower profits. Hopefully the higher prices do depress the sales and result in the book companies rethinking their pricing strategy.
Really, thanks for fucking everyone who buys ebooks up the ass. You got down on your knees and sucked off the publishing industry and now they're going to get more money for eBooks. Who's going to benefit from this? Not the authors, they probably won't see a dime of this money, but your good buddies in the publishing industry are really happy about this.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
"Ah, Mr. Worf. Eaten any good books lately?" - Q
But are you the average ebook reader? 'cause you might actually be in the demographic of early adopter which would pay a high price without a blink. I don't think this is the whole ebook user population. Therefore a certain part of the population will drop off for those ebook price. Whether this will be compensated by those buying at those price, I dunno.
It certainly *WILL* stop any increased mainstream adoption in its track. Which might be the objective, who knows.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The number of book I have by now must be not far away from the thousand. I count my book by the meter (all of them read, they aren't here for decoration). Lately I packed them in box, as I don't have any bookshelves. I buy a lot of paper back, I will never buy an ebook for 10$ (or 9.99 that trick don't work on me). And not even for 15$. Except early adopter (which will buy anything) I don't see anybody ofg the general public buying at those prices.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
A lot of authors (and I'm one) would agree with you on the pricing issue -- if not on the "right" to take it for free. Some of them will give it to you if you ask nicely (or visit their website) though.
Author J.A. Konrath has been blogging recently about how much he's been making ($4200 last month) off of his low priced ($1.99, $2.99) e-books on Kindle (books he's selling directly, vs others of his that his publisher is selling at higher prices). Unsurprisingly, lower priced books sell better than higher priced ones -- and in his and a few other authors' cases, they're selling pro-quality, professionally edited stories, not unreadable crud by a newbie author. His view is that the high prices publishers want to charge for e-books is a serious mistake, and in his next book deals he's not going to give e-rights to the publisher unless they fork over some serious (six-figure) cash for them, and a better percentage royalty.
This very much parallels what some bands are doing with distributing their music themselves rather than going through RIAA companies. Indeed the term "indie author" is catching on.
There still needs to be some vetting of an unknown author's work, either by traditional publishing or word of mouth and reviews from early readers, but the change is coming. I'm certainly considering making some of my own work (initially previously-published stuff to which I have e-rights) available that way. Even a little success that way gives a bit more leverage with a traditional publisher (which is still the most profitable route to go and will be for a few more years yet).
-- Alastair
... but they won't see me paying that.
I don't object to paying that sort of price for ink-on-paper, but I can't see any reason to pay it for bit and alleged convenience. At that sort of price, if I'm interested in a product, then I'd be more likely to buy the ink-on-paper and then either snarf a torrent of a PDF, or if really necessary, scan/OCR the thing myself. I probably wouldn't seed a torrent of a PDF that I created (for my convenience, not for circumventing payment to the authors, but I don't have one qualm about getting and using PDFs of books that I have in ink-on-dead-tree format. I've paid for access to that information, and I'm damned well going to use it!
(Yes, I did see that the origiinal citation was for $14.99 ; I've just performed the normal trans-Atlantic currency conversion.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I really hope ebooks don't take off. I feel like we're headed toward the pay-per-reading world of RMS's "The Right To Read." When paper books go away we're fucked.
rooooar
Is pirating ebooks morally wrong IF you have the physical book? Wouldn't that just be a format switch?
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Stross's argument is an absolutely ridiculous rationalization, though. DRM is too expensive because of server processor time? Please. A fairly long novel can be about a megabye: the server will send as much data in https traffic while someone checks out.
Now, I have bought about a dozen ebooks, in fact all from Baen for $5-$6, each multi-format and with no DRM, because it was convenient to have a collection of novels always with me on my phone. I had no desire to shell out cash for some ephemeral "book" which I could only ever use on one device, or class of devices, and which I could not even be said to "own" in any meaningful sense. Instead, I insist on having a physical copy of all my books (recalling the recent poll, I'm up to about 75'), and only see ebooks as a supplement. I fear that the market does not agree with me on this, but the market does seem to agree that not actually receiving a physical possession lowers the value of the purchase, to say nothing of the DRM.
Some publishers hope to ignore this reality (which Amazon anticipated with their $10 price cap) and sell ebooks at the exact same prices as they would the hardcover or the paperback: they see it as a simple matter of price discrimination, and expect that you are paying for the freshness of the intellectual property, not its binding. If this were truly the case, why even bother releasing the new, more expensive books in the superior "hardcover" binding? Consumers would be perfectly happy to shell out $20 for the paperback (trade paperbacks these days do seem to command hardcover prices...which has sometimes prompted me to buy 1st ed. hardcovers "used" instead...) if that theory were true; in general they are not.
Thus, I suspect that though the publishers (except for Baen, which has, incidentally, managed to find a way to legitimately justify the $15 price discrimination "premium" ebook markup--eARCs! Brilliant!) seem to be winning this skirmish, the ebook war is far from over. If they intend to turn ebooks into a substantial part of their future revenues, demanding that customers purchase $15 novels that will disappear along with their Kindles is not going to be a long-term successful business strategy. Whether it stems from simple emotional reactions or not (purchase decisions generally seem to be extremely emotional, though the case for an objectively reduced value here seems pretty sound), the average consumer is not yet anywhere near the point where he will value a kindle ebook equally with a hardcover. As ebooks catch on, DRM or not, they will undoubtedly change traditional publishing models: the size of printing runs and finicky chain-bookstore buyers will no longer be relevant to publisher economics, as increased authorial royalty percentages in ebook contracts are already reflecting.
Stross' argument that the increased cost of DRM swamp out its values in reduced piracy might well be correct; his specific claim that this is because of actual marginal costs of DRM are laughable. The "cost" of DRM is in perceived customer value, and Baen and Amazon's ebook experiments will provide evidence one way or the other. Like too many science fiction authors (particularly, cough, ones in technologically avant-garde Baen's stable), he apparently believes that the fact that he is writing in a speculative genre excuses him from doing solid research. I could write a few (hundred) pages on that lamentable subject, but perhaps this comment is long enough already...