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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.
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
``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.
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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
Did you forget that the reason Amazon was being pushed into this position was because of the deal the publishers made with Apple for the iPad, and thus MFN status would affect the discounts and other pricing given to Amazon?
These topics are not unrelated.
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?
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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!
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.
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
I suggest you look into the Sony PRS-505. Sony & the publishers can't do shit to the stuff I have put on my reader.
It supports damn near every format of displaying books (use Calibre if you don't like a format), it reads the data from an SD-card.
The fact that it doesn't connect wireless to the world is a GOOD THING.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
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.
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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