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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
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
The problem with pricing books at $9.99 is the stickiness of the price tag. What is meant by this is consumer' perception of value. Although you can achieve large sales volume at price "below $10", if you ever try to raise the price by even a tiny amount, say $1, consumers *feel* like the markup was much higher than it really is, and sales subsequently drop off heavily.
You sound like a marketing major. They seem to be the only ones who believe that garbage. I don't know anyone who is fooled by pricing at 9.99 and being told "under $10". Just call it $10.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
You sound like a marketing major. They seem to be the only ones who believe that garbage. I don't know anyone who is fooled by pricing at 9.99 and being told "under $10". Just call it $10.
Almost everyone is fooled by 9.99 and "under $10" pricing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing
Endless studies have been done on the matter and it works.
We like to pretend that demand curves are smooth, but they aren't.
They go through all kinds of weird contortions because humans are not 100% rational market actors.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I know dozens of people who think that way. They're the people on the budgets.
I've seen it consistently at my mother-in-law's consignment shop and she confirms the behavior over the entire lifetime of the business (which has been in business for 14 years). Price it at $X.99 instead of $X+1 and you'll see almost twice as many sales. Similarly--though much more confusingly--people tend to buy stuff marked "Buy One, Get One 50% off," instead of "Buy One, Get One Free!"
I really don't get that one...
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
``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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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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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
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)
Almost everyone is fooled by 9.99 and "under $10" pricing.
Those people are known as women and they do that to justify their spending addictions.
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