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Apple Raises E-book Prices For Everyone
Nom du Keyboard writes "I was informed by my publisher this week that they would have to raise my e-book prices because they planned to sell them through the Apple iBooks store. How could this happen? A lot of my individual stories sell in the $1 to $3 range, which is well within the impulse purchase amount for many people. In this price range a 50-cent price difference may well be the difference between a purchase and a pass. Meanwhile, Apple is touting its new 'agency model,' whereby the publishers set the prices. However, it seems that Apple requires books sold in its iBook store have prices ending in .99 — nothing else." (More below.)
"Furthermore, Apple requires that if you sell books through them that you absolutely cannot sell them for less through anyone else. To my understanding Amazon also requires this, so Apple and Amazon prices should be identical in the future, but Amazon doesn't force prices to end in .99. What this means is that an e-book that the author was quite happy to sell for $2.29 or $2.49 is now going to cost $2.99 from everybody. While that sounds like only a few extra cents, it adds up over time and can lead to resentment against authors for charging higher prices, even though they have little real control over pricing. I, for one, do not understand why Apple computers only understand numbers ending in .99, or just how Apple is making it better for the consumer this way."
I thought we'd all be used to spending more money for the same thing because Jobs slapped his gay little Apple logo on it.
Because you obviously couldn't charge $1.99 for that book both places?
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Apple charges for the use of the App site, So I guess this is just the same this yeah?
Someone should remind Steve Jobs that The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 42 not .99
Almost all my ebooks come from Baen. They may cost a little more, but they are 100% free of Apple-style dickery, including DRM.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
I'm really beginning to hate Apple. I'm in the process of putting together a manuscript and I would not agree to have it put in the Apple store just on this issue.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
See, whenever there is a book transaction, a few cents go into a bank account. They're shaved off as a remainder. Initech will never know it's missi.. oh wait.
Yeah, this sucks.
How would that work out? I see no reference to any minimum price.
Which makes no sense to me. Apple gets to keep all of those pennies...
It sounds like the problem is really between you and your publisher, not between you and Apple. It may be time for you to find a publisher that shares your position on the situation, because it doesn't sound like your publisher does.
This is ridiculous , you perfectly know how Apple operates, so either conform to their wish or say to hell with you Jobs, I am taking my business elsewhere.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
I, for one, do not understand why Apple computers only understand numbers ending in .99, or just how Apple is making it better for the consumer this way.
Two thoughts come to mind:
1) Possibly, it's just for uniformity sake. When all the prices end in the same digits it might appear to Jobs that it looks cleaner in the store app?
2) It could also be to prevent snowballing pricing wars (thus keeping the costs of e-books somewhat buoyant which doesn't help the consumer at all). For example, publisher A lists a book for $1.99; publisher B lists a similar competing book for $1.97; publisher A strikes back pricing their book at $1.89, etc. This behavior is discouraged, if the publisher has to drop the books price by $1.00 when the price is only $1.99.
It's Apple's store, they can do what they want. You are free not to put your works up for sale in any Apple affiliated store, just as we are free not to read them.
THINK DIFFERENT.
THINK BETTER.
THINK APPLE!
How can this possibly be legal? I know they get away with minimum advertised price (barely), but this sounds like straight up price fixing.
Um, who cares about those extra few cents. Do you really think sophisticated readers would blame the author? Who does that? I thought that if the book costs more, the author gets more money for each sale. If you're so set on your own price, don't go with a publisher that will price things higher. Seems simple, eh? Why not just self-publish to the Kindle or iPad?
I truly hate the .99 gimick. I actually wish they'd roll tax into the prices so what you see on the label is what you pay and its a nice round number $X.10 $X.20 $X.50 $X.00. Worse is the stupid gas stations with 9/10's of a cent. Why is it they can charge a fraction of a penny you can't possibly pay, ensuring they skim 10ths of a cent gazillions of times. I think they did that in Superman III or something. How is it after all these years, they're still stealing money?
You're blaming Apple for your publisher raising prices even though you admit it's the publisher setting the price?
However, it seems...To my understanding...
It seems like maybe you're hearing things kinda third-hand and sorta don't have direct knowledge of what might be going on between Apple and your publisher, doncha think?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
About the only reason to sell through iBooks is that Apple is very good at marketing and riding on Apple coat tails could increase sales. The fear, as I get from the submission, is no one would buy any of these books if read some of it first, so the only hope is to sell it so cheaply that people will just read it, and not feel ripped off when they find out it is crap. The solution, then, is obvious. Write book that people are willing to pay for.
So it is not Apples fault or Amazons fault that the price is going up. There is no reason at all for anyone to sell books through them, except that Amazon, and soon Apple, are going to be selling a lot of books and both have already set up infrastructure and pay for advertising that is unfeasible for most authors. But that only matters to authors who want to sell a lot of crap. For the author in question, who obviously cares much more about the fact that Apple is out to rip off the public rather than volume sales, I think DRM free ebooks or Apps is the answer.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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I, for one, do not understand why Apple computers only understand numbers ending in .99...
It's a math fixation... row one, column two. Mind you I don't get it either ln(2*pi) is much more challenging.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
... but I'm genuinely interested: What exactly does a publisher of e-books "publish"?
I'm serious. You've written the book, you've put it in whatever form you decided on. I understand that you need some vehicle to distribute it -- isn't that what Apple and Amazon are doing? So what is your publisher doing? What value does he/she/it add?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
doesn't sound like the problem's with Apple. It's with you and the publisher.
I know it's unfortunate that Apple requires your price to end with ".99", but can't you lower the price of your book by 30 cents instead?
Looks like Apple is lowering your E-Book price if you look at it this way.
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If you don't like Apple's censorship and their tight grip on their devices and marketplace, DON'T BUY FROM THEM.
"Furthermore, Apple requires that if you sell books through them that you absolutely cannot sell them for less through anyone else.
Uh....
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
If so, take the money and run.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
every other day a new stunt and im sure apple is still not evil and there will be people to defend apple's non evilness with me to the extent of defending some private corporation sending private 'representatives' (non pi, non law enforcement) to SEARCH your home as 'not creepy'.
but im waiting. im wondering the precise point at which they will start to realize that if something is going upside down, it means that the going is bad.
Read radical news here
Suppose Amazon started pricing all their books at $N.98? Remember, you can't sell your books for less on Amazon than on iBooks.
Sounds to me like Apple and/or Amazon are your publishers. Whomever it is you're talking to? I think they're just taking your money in return for, well, talking to you.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What this means is that an eBook that the author was quite happy to sell for $2.29 or $2.49 is now going to cost you $2.99 from everybody.
Or it could make the book $1.99, right? Why is there an automatic round up? I don't see how this is really Apple's fault. Your publisher has the option to make it any dollar amount they want it to be, but they're choosing to make it cost more for the consumer, and they're using Apple as a scapegoat for it. How about this - everything that's over 2.50 gets rounded up to 2.99 and everything under 2.50 gets rounded down to 1.99 and split the difference? It's not like the means of production are any indication of price anymore. In the online world, it's practically ALL profit, and by putting their books on the Apple bookstore, they now have an extra 20 million potential customers. I'll just chalk this price increase to the continued greed of the publishing industry.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
since that .99 thing doesn't appear to apply outside the US
Seriously, will this .99 and .95 thing ever die? Does anybody really look at a price-tag that says $4.99 and not just think in their head "$5"?
Do marketers really think people haven't figured out that 2.99 is three dollars? Are they right?
-Lod
Remember: total revenue is the product of price and quantity. As long as the change in price is larger than the relative change in quantity sold, you will be making a more optimal decision.
Buying a physical copy of a book, downloading the text version from IRC, and reading the physical if I feel like or reading the text on my no DRM Chinese 7" Chuwi media player that has a great ebook reader application for it. Then when I'm done with the book I can give it to someone else to read.
Their higher prices and more limited availability will prevent you from spending so much on eBooks (or any other kind, for that matter.)
I was a sinner once, buying an entire series at once if one book looked interesting. Spending as much as $50/week on eBooks and thinking nothing of it, as I rejoiced in the comfort of knowing I'd never run out of things to read.
Now, after HarperCollins, Penguin, and other major publishers have pulled out of Fictionwise, I've spent maybe $20 on eBooks (other than Baen) in the past month. My budget can go to elsewhere, and my addiction is under control.
[ecstatic scream] Thank you, oh publishers. Thank you for shrinking my urge to buy your books to something I can manage! [/ecstatic scream]
Are people really this stupid??
If you get a $25 card (as a gift), just spend the extra $0.74 and get 26 items at $0.99.
There!! You got your extra $0.25.
In the parent post it says the author did some trials and found out $2.49 was the price where he made the most profit. At a lower price, enough new customers weren't created to offset that lower price. A higher price caused customers to chose not to buy. Profit was optimized. So selling at $1.99 means forgoing revenue, as would selling at $2.99. Now if parent didn't say they had experimented with pricing, either pricing higher or lower could end up creating more revenue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand
I have been in a iPhone SDK group that has been testing out iPhone's implementation of HTML5 in Safari, and it looks like Steve Jobs has delivered on much of the Flash-like capabilites, especially in graphics. That means you can have peristence data (read: book) too. All told, someone could implement a web application that Apple cannot control which serves books much like the iPad's app. BTW, you could run it easily on Android too. At first, this might seem inadequate. But if you write a generic iPhone application that uses the SDK's WebView to read public domain works, you can customize it more and even put the DRM (if you want it) solely on the server. The point is that the web (and HTML5) may be the thing that gets the Genie out of the iBottle.
While this method would also work for Android and Palm, it probably would NOT work for Windows Mobile 7 which will use IE8, LOL!
Seriously, will this .99 and .95 thing ever die? Does anybody really look at a price-tag that says $4.99 and not just think in their head "$5"?
Quite the opposite: a lot of people think $4. That's the whole point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing
I've caught friends doing this on a few occasions, and when I call them on it they do a sheepish "oh, yeah". :)
and they hate that.
On the iPod they had no competition when selling content so they sold inferior content for higher prices then their competitors (who sold 192Kbps for $0.79, but never got far cause they couldn't license Apple's DRM).
They won't be able to repeat that trick for eBooks but their is a solution that allows them to avoid competing and continue selling things at Apple high prices: force the other retailers to raise their prices to Apple's levels. They can do this because of their clout and the new U.S. law that allows the publishers to enforce the recommended sales price. Actually, the publishers didn't mind and are happy to enforce the higher price now that they have a powerful ally.
This is primarily aimed at Amazon (though smaller publishers and consumers get hurt, of course) who could have competed on the iPad. Now, with everyone selling books on the iPad at the same price users are very likely to choose Apple because of the ease and the integration.
(If you think you detect some dislike of Apple, you are right. I have no personal interest in any of this, but I have grown increasingly disgusted by this company.)
Before I answer the question about the $x.99 pricing, let me address another logical fallacy. Apple is not raising prices for EVERYONE. Apple is raising prices for those publishers and/or authors who choose to use Apples service, and who choose not to lower their prices instead of raise them. Now, on the the $x.99. I don't work for Apple, so can only speculate. But don't think of it as prices that end in $0.99. Think of it as their iTunes connect app management pages refer to it, as tiers. You see, by limiting the amount of possible prices, they are able to set and keep set consistent pricing across the world, where currencies are not the same. $1.99 USD may be 1.45 currency X dollars one day and 1.56 currency X dollars the next day. Of course, they could always display the prices in the native currency of the content provider like Android does. Nobody ever complains about having to run to a currency converter program to figure out exactly how much they are paying for the latest and greatest fart app, right? The fact is, Apple has that pricing structure for a very sound, well thought out reason. One that benefits consumers in a way that competitors like Android fail them. It's why Apple has the market share that they do, and why you are all riled up that you have to play by their rules. You could very easily not publish on Apple platforms, but you want the market share. The market share that the very things you complain about help to build.
So selling at $1.99 means forgoing revenue...
selling at $1.99 in one market place.
I've worked for a large software company and we used to analyze this all the time. It is exceedingly difficult to account for all the variables. Did he, for example control for seasonality? Did he try to calculate if the potential additional sales from another marketplace would offset or erase the potential loss?
Obviously if he simply lowered the price in the Amazon store (my assumption) he would leave money on the table based on the information provided. But that is not the case we are discussing. I am suggesting that a simultaneous lowering of price and availability in another large marketplace might offset the price reduction and even net him more revenue. just a thought, hence my use of the word might above.
Regardless, you'd think that would be an analysis he would perform before posting.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Except that you fail reading comprehension, so to help you and a few of the other people who couldn't quite grasp the problem on round one, I'll yell it for you:
NEITHER APPLE NOR AMAZON WILL ALLOW YOU TO SELL YOUR E-BOOK AT A LOWER PRICE THROUGH ANOTHER VENDOR
You can't price the Apple version lower because Amazon won't let you, and you can't set the Apple price to anything that doesn't end with .99. Now I will yell out the summary vís-a-vís your proposed solution:
NEITHER PRICE IS ALLOWED TO BE LOWER THAN THE OTHER, SO YOUR POINT IS COMPLETELY INVALID
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Try it again.
Whining.
The only "advantage" the iPad has in terms of more ways to buy books is that, since it can run different vendors e-bookstore apps, you have more ways to buy DRM-laden books from competing vendors.
But you can also take the DRM free PDF files and use them in either the Kindle app, or iBooks, or actually a ton of other offline readers.
One big advantage the iPad has going for it is a very diverse array of readers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mmmm sounds an awful lot like price fixing, or as it is sometimes known anti-competitive acts, which is illegal (supposedly) where I live.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Ever consider that it might not be price that's limiting your sales?
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
I am suggesting that a simultaneous lowering of price and availability in another large marketplace might offset the price reduction and even net him more revenue
Does not equal
Lower the price only in one store and keep the same price in the other
I see that you also accuse the GP of failing to comprehend what they read. Please check your irony meter before using the caps lock next time, or you may be denied capitalization service in the future.
I believe parent's point is that lowering the price in the Amazon marketplace will necessarily leave money on the table. That is a separate issue to whether higher revenue in another marketplace may make up for the lost revenue in the first.
But it is only because of this "most favored nation" clause in the Apple, and now possibly Amazon sales contract that will necessitate him to forgo revenue he could have otherwise picked up in the Amazon marketplace, because he choses to sell in the Apple marketplace at a lower price.
I believe you deserve a fail also for deeper critical thinking.
I am suggesting that a simultaneous lowering of price and availability in another large marketplace might offset the price reduction and even net him more revenue.
If i read what he was trying to say, I think he was more suggesting to lower the price to $1.99 in both market places. Even though lowering the price on Amazon netted less profits, even though more copies were sold, though not enough to offset the price reduction. By adding the additional, possibly larger market place, this price reduction could net more sales and be maybe more overall revenue.
As many have said, "If you don't like it, don't buy it."
Which is why I don't buy Apple products. I like their products, but I hate assholes like Jobs. Maybe once he is gone and IF their company policies change at that time, I will reopen that option.
As a teacher I know that my students sure don't read scarcely anything.
Do you remember limits in your study of math?
Let us assume the number of readers is rapidly approaching zero.
The effect on prices of books is clear:
Each book will approach the price point of precisely $ infinity.99
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
I wonder if the market is going to change now that there's another player in it? Hmmm...time for another experiment!
Or just whining on /.
Whatever.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
This wasn't even some crazy coup by Steve Jobs, it's in fact actually the standard publisher price. I heard the business model on Fresh Air this week and it's quite interesting.
Amazon has been taking a loss on almost every new ebook in their store. They did this to gain marketshare (they have about 80% of the ebook market) and hoped to make up the difference on kindles. The publishers feared that Amazon would demand lower prices from them over time since they have a huge marketshare and because Amazon wants to drive sales of kindles. Amazon is also trying to cut the publishers out by providing publishing services for books. The old publishers hate Amazon right now.
Along comes Apple and the iPad, and Steve basically made an agreement with publishers that they like. Steve doesn't compete on price, he competes with flash and glamour, and does to very well. The publishers in fact like the fact that there's more competition now, and that Apple has agreed to, for one year, a price structure favorable to what they want. Now Amazon will lose marketshare and be in a less favorable negotiating position and publishers can increase their prices again.
Yes Apple did agree to this, but besides the .99 thing, Steve could care less about the true price of the book. The price increases came from the publishers directly.
It's the 4/29/10 podcast of Fresh Air on NPR, check it out.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Isn't corporations collaborating to fix prices in the free market an offense?
True, but selling it at $1.99 is almost definitely guaranteed to bring in more money than selling it at $2.99 in this situation. (Barring the case that selling it at $1.99 brings in fewer customers than selling it at $2.49 would, which is always a possibility.)
Yes, $1.99 means you're forgoing revenue relative to $2.49, but given the options you're now restricted to, dropping the price is still probably optimal versus raising it.
tl;dr: This example was bad and you should feel bad. :-)
that's right - keep buying apple products. eventually when they have a stronghold on the market, they'll just keep raising the prices and all the drones of people they sucked into their cult will end up supporting their lifestyles because you'll have no other options. it's all part of apple's evil plans.
Or Apple could allow prices ending in things other than .99.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
Ahem.
True, but selling it at $1.99 is almost definitely guaranteed to bring in more money than selling it at $2.99 in this situation. (Barring the case that selling it at $1.99 brings in fewer customers than selling it at $2.49 would, which is always a possibility.)
No. One trivial example would be when your costs are, say, 2.00. Then you're losing money at 1.99. Still, let's say the total costs per per-unit are 0.99 (a constant value is actually the worst case, as the weight of fixed part of costs drops with the increase in sales) so 1.99 is profitable. Now, profit per unit at 2.99 is twice that at 1.99, so you need to get twice as many customers at the lower price to get the same amount of profit. Considering price scaling of fixed costs, you'll need less than 2x the number of customers, but still the difference is non-zero. OTOH, there is in practice a cut-off in the number of people that are willing to buy your book at any price and it may be that you're selling enough 2.99 books already that dropping the price to 1.99 would need more sales than that cut-off in order to make the same profit. So there is in practice no guarantee of 'more money'. Otherwise you'd just keep on dropping prices to marginal cost + 1 and reap profits from billions of billions of sales.
Point is, it's entirely possible for you to have the maximum profit at 2.49 and have both 2.99 and 1.99 bring in less money. Not all functions are monotonic, and all that jazz.
It's amazing.
Add free-market competition, and prices go up!
That's Jedi-master-level RDF skill.
Steve is using the old marketing trick where people perceive *.99 as a deal. This isn't a new tactic, tho forcing it onto once suppliers is im sure.
"look its not a buck its 99 cents", and many people are wired to fall for it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
um.. I think the point is that since they are gift cards, and you probably won't ask your family/wife/husband/dog for a $25.74 gift card.
25 * $0.99 = $24.75. There's nothing to buy for 25 cents on iTunes, so Apple likely ends up with a @#$@load of unused gift cards with ~25 cents on them. Free money.
So you are saying this trick either forces the giftee to "donate" money to the store or spend more than they wanted to? Yea, that sounds absolutely fair and not the least bit sleazy.
Eh, the point I was just attempting to make (and yes, I forgot about the situation of costs here, but since we're talking about e-books here, the cost is essentially a one-time fixed cost and therefore tends towards zero as the number of items sold increases) was that $1.99 should be more profitable than $2.99 more often than not, given that $2.49 has been ruled out (but sold 50% more product than $2.99 did when it was an option).
Or: in the long run, the sale of digital goods at any price is always profitable given sufficient demand. (Again, not always true, I know. Selling it at a single cent probably won't cover your bandwidth costs.) This is because of the (not complete, but nearly so) elimination of per-unit costs in favor of a single fixed cost.
Around Tokyo I noticed most of the prices (tax already included) had zero as the last digit. If not zero, then five. Apparently folks there would prefer not to carry around a crapton of 1-yen coins.
1) 30% off the top isn't so bad for the ebook market-- Amazon takes 70%.
2) Your NYT analogy is waaay off. The barrier for entry for "real" advertising is absurdly high--it costs a lot of money to place a single ad in a major newspaper or on television. Since Apple is taking a percentage of sales, it's a completely different game, because start-up costs are $0 (not counting development $$).
3) "And the more apps in the closed store, the less that being in that closed store is worth."-- Nope. Compare Apple's closed store model to an open one, like the Web:
I can slap up a website promoting my software online and wait for the bucks to roll in, but I've got to compete in a completely flat market: there are billions of people who don't need my program, and millions of people who might, but who will never spend money for it. In order to find my customers, I still need to purchase advertising or work unpaid channels and pay with "promotional labor". And no matter how good my software is, I can still be outspent in marketing dollars by a competitor. It's just like you said: "Network effects don't scale when the amount of time a person has doesn't scale."
Compare that with the app store model: my software competes in its category, perhaps only a dozen other apps, to get the attention of a sector of the market that has money, some willingness to spend it, and a unified platform to spend it on. I can still be "outmarketed", but I sit on essentially equal footing to begin with. Especially with a unified ratings system (with all its flaws), there's a better chance for word-of-mouth to do its magic. A closed app store does "filter 99% of it somehow".
Both models work for people, but for small developers, Apple offers some advantages.
"They should welcome inefficient competition as a way of demonstrating their superior approach"-- What? Of course Apple wants to get their cut. They're in this to make money.
I second Low-Ranked Craig. I'd prefer they completely opened the platform, if only because I think their "content filtering" via app rejection is patchy, creepy and undocumented. But to say that it's an unsuccessful business model for developers is bizarre.
Perhaps they are just trying to save storage space? Storing a price as a floating point would require 4 bytes. But if you store full dollars and cents as a separate (single) bytes you only need two (and who would buy electronic book for over 250$). With such a simple change we saved half of the space! But still we can get more: if we set the cents number to a fixed value, we get to cut another byte from storage. Now we need 4 TIMES less space to store the price!
Well, ALL my books are DRM free, because I buy them from a bookstore. No batteries needed. And who knows, if I am buried under an exploding volcano, some part of my bookcase might survive and provide researchers form the future with valuable insights in our society.
Future researcher: "God, what a bunch of weirdos".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Pennies add up. But to be fair, ALL those fake currencies are a huge scam and everyone does it.
MS, Nintendo and Sony, neither of them allow you to buy online with ordinary money, to scam people with left over credit and fake ideas about how much something costs.
At least EA allows you to buy the exact amount of points you need, but still, why the point system at all? Only reason to make you think it costs less then it really does.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I, for one, do not understand [...] just how Apple is making it better for the consumer this way."
Well, there's your problem. Apple's goal isn't to make things better for the consumer, it's to make money.
rooooar
The .99 ending only might be because iTunes is present in so many different countries, each with their own currency. What in the US is priced at $1, is in Denmark priced at kr. 6. Amazon on the other hand uses the actualy exchange rate to give a price in different currencies, which gives very odd prices in any other currency than the intended. Im guessing that Apple uses a simple formula for currency exchange in 1-dollar intervals, for simplicity with other currencies. So if there's a currency that's something like $1 = 0.7, an item that costs $1.50 would cost 1.05 in this other currency (Ignoring ending the price on a 9). And something that would cost $1.30 would cost 0.91.
So to conclude: Pricing in $1 intervals makes it simpler for Apple to make round prices in other currencies.
AI: When 'Lawyer == Lier' returns true.
I may be wrong, but isn't it your choice whether or not to distribute your book thorugh Apple? If you don't like their terms or pricing model, don't sell through their store. Seems pretty simple to me.
In the parent post it says the author did some trials and found out $2.49 was the price where he made the most profit. At a lower price, enough new customers weren't created to offset that lower price. A higher price caused customers to chose not to buy. Profit was optimized. So selling at $1.99 means forgoing revenue, as would selling at $2.99. Now if parent didn't say they had experimented with pricing, either pricing higher or lower could end up creating more revenue.
If only it weren't mandatory to sell on the Apple store. Oh wait, it isn't, and he can keep selling as he is now. Seriously, this guy is bitching because he wants to add another retailer, but doesn't like their rules - DON'T FUCKING ADD THEM THEN.
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Can anyone who IS a lawyer remind us how the competition authorities (at least west of the Atlantic) might respond to a complaint about the effect on e-Book prices of this concerted agreement? For instance elsewhere it is being suggested that two airlines might have been wrong to coordinate their (supplementary) transatlantic pricing models informally, even though other airlines were not involved. What, in principle, is the difference?
You can't really consider taking your book and making it into an app as a viable distribution mechanism. You have no guarantee it will be accepted for one thing (Apple has serious content restrictions in place and the only place you can sell an app is through their app store). And even if it is, Apple has forced authors to edit the content (removing swear words for instance), so it may not be your book anymore. Add to that the cost of developing the app in the first place, and it's only really worth it for large, safe authors that have a solid chance of not hitting a random Apple wall or a smaller publisher who is also a programmer that likes to mess about and won't be crushed when the app is rejected.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Imho, this greedy, selfish jerk is just ripping off the people and the planet at every possible opportunity! When is this tyrant going to be held accountable for his unethical actions? He's gotten rich by screwing over others. Personally, I wonder how many people are starving because of Steve's greed.
"Apple requires books sold in its iBook store have prices ending in .99 — nothing else."
This reminds me of that scene in Bananas when the dictator requires citizens to change their underwear twice a day - and underwear is to be worn on the outside, so he can check.
Someone at Apple had better stage an intervention soon. Jobs need professional help.
`Perche non reggi tu, o sacra fame de l'oro,l'appetito de' mortali?'
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1633414&cid=32056242 say it ain't so, that tomhudson, slashdot's own 'wannabe expert with no degrees, certifications, or professional experience in computing' (just google university, lol) fails, versus a mere anonymous coward?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1631698&cid=32056406 Lmao. tomhudson, you're clearly no expert on computing, this is certain. Especially after seeing you fail badly there in the url I just posted. Losing to a 'lowly ac' doesn't look too good for an 'registered user wannabe slashdot expert' now, does it? LMAO!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1631698&cid=32056482
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1631698&cid=32056406 Hilarious. The great "registered user wannabe expert" (not) in tomhudson loses his ass to a 'mere lowly anonymous coward'. Go get a degree in computers first tomhudson, before you look more the ass online here.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1631698&cid=32056406 Hilarious. The great "registered user wannabe expert" (not) in tomhudson loses his ass to a 'mere lowly anonymous coward'. Go get a degree in computers first tomhudson, before you look more the ass online here.
I generally don't bother buying e-books any longer as they're grossly overpriced v. physical copies. (I used to buy quite a few e-books years back when they were actually reasonably priced or closer to it, i.e. I could take a bit higher price than I prefer iff it helped the market takeoff for future lower prices.
The editing and proofreading of books from the last 15y or so has been absolutely atrocious(this is usually one of their points attempting to justify high prices of e of tree ware books) and along with ridiculous price increases even for simple paperbacks over they last 20y I have significantly cut back on ALL book purchases.
Going back to pricing of e-books again, publishers rarely add anything to them, and generally do an even worse job proofreading the e-book versions especially when they've had to create them from scanned physical copies. There's just nothing in e-books to justify their price other than they want more $$$ out of something that is cheaper to produce and sell. They're probably also afraid that if they lowered e-book prices that it'd push their treeware prices down which they could very well do with.
Sock puppets just don't like the truth. "One or two viruses a month" is a fail. Then again, so is claiming expertise based on "subscribing to Windows IT Pro magazine". Everyone come on over and join the fun - this guy is so lame it's a hoot.
LOL, see his reply, and get a huge laugh. Tomhudson doesn't realize that calling others names is the mark of a frustrated child at best. Avoiding questions is another. So, tomhudson, are you an attorney, and do you have a degree in CSC or CIS to your name? No, on both counts, obviously. You're no expert tomhudson, and you obviously don't have degrees or licenses in either field of endeavour either. About "running with the pack"? Give us a break. You're suggesting to use Linux, but it doesn't run as much peripheral hardware for an x86 based computer (most used type there is) as Windows does, nor is it as widely used as Windows and it doesn't have as much software for it as Windows does either that is of the same numbers or quality available for it as windows has.
Funny, this guy straight from apk's guide shows solid operations for over 3 yrs. now:
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http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=672ebdf47af75a0c5b0d9e7278be305f&t=28430&page=2
"I recently, months ago when you finally got this guide done, had authorization to try this on simple work station for kids. My client, who paid me an ungodly amount of money to do this, has been PROBLEM FREE FOR MONTHS! I haven't even had a follow up call which is unusual." - THRONKA, user of my guide @ XTremePcCentral
AND
"APK, thanks for such a great guide. This would, and should, be an inspiration to such security measures. Also, the pc that has "tweaks": IS STILL GOING! NO PROBLEMS!" - THRONKA, user of my guide @ XTremePcCentral
AND
http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=672ebdf47af75a0c5b0d9e7278be305f&t=28430&page=3
"Its 2009 - still trouble free! I was told last week by a co worker who does active directory administration, and he said I was doing overkill. I told him yes, but I just eliminated the half life in windows that you usually get. He said good point. So from 2008 till 2009. No speed decreases, its been to a lan party, moved around in a move, and it still NEVER has had the OS reinstalled besides the fact I imaged the drive over in 2008. Great stuff! My client STILL Hasn't called me back in regards to that one machine to get it locked down for the kid. I am glad it worked and I am sure her wallet is appreciated too now that it works. Speaking of which, I need to call her to see if I can get some leads. APK - I will say it again, the guide is FANTASTIC! Its made my PC experience much easier. Sandboxing was great. Getting my host file updated, setting services to system service, rather than system local. (except AVG updater, needed system local)" - THRONKA, user of my guide @ XTremePcCentral
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Looks REAL 'bogus' tom. Not. Too bad you like to try to play "/. expert of all things" online (lol, like computing and law) when you don't even have degrees in either field.
In the parent post it says the author did some trials and found out $2.49 was the price where he made the most profit.
Which parent post? All I see is a section called "A hypothetical", meaning that the author didn't do any experiments. Also, on a similar note, I was talking to an iPhone developer recently. He did some experiments with pricing his iPhone apps. He said that raising the price of his iPhone apps from $1 to $3 had no discernible effect on sales at all. So, he made 3x as much money. Personally, I don't think a $2.49 vs. $2.99 price is going to make that much of a difference. At certain low costs, it's all just 'throw away' amounts of money. That seems to be the results found by my iPhone developer friend.
You yourself claimed "only one or two viruses a month."
Prove the posts in "the guide" aren't shills. Your posts would tend to indicate that they are. After all, you seem to think that "one or two viruses a month" is an acceptable failure rate, even when contrasted against my zero point zero per decade.
Oh, btw - if you ever do go for a job interview in IT, don't say that you "subscribe to Windows IT Pro" - it makes you look really pitiful.
Real IT professionals recycle our complementary subscriptions.
Why don't I just cancel and "save the environment?" Because every so often, there's some swag to be had. Or invites. Discounted crap. REAL IT pros know this. You of course don't qualify. So sad. To bad. You no has cheeseburger? Awww ...
I'm sorry, I really can't suss out what you're saying, or where it contradicts my point, assuming that it's even directed at me. Can you say it again more clearly?
Also, by parent, do you mean me, the grandparent (Miseph) your previous parent (Low Ranked Craig), ...?
"Prove the posts in "the guide" aren't shills" - by tomhudson (43916)
on Saturday May 01, @01:59PM (#32057518) Homepage
See subject above Tomhudson, & prove that they're shills. You can write THRONKA at xtremepccentral.com 's forums and ask him yourself I suppose. Of course, we KNOW you're not big on proof, or having degrees in the computer sciences or law, though you often try to "play expert" in law and computers... do you think anyone takes the 'likes of you', seriously? Get over yourself, wannabe. This was particularly pitiful:
"Oh, btw - if you ever do go for a job interview in IT, don't say that you "subscribe to Windows IT Pro" - it makes you look really pitiful." - by tomhudson (43916)
on Saturday May 01, @01:59PM (#32057518) Homepage
Not having a degree in CIS or CSC looks even more pitiful tomhudson. Do you have a degree in Computer Science or Computer Information Systems, tomhudson? It seems to me that you do not judging how you avoid that question here and elsewhere in your posts, lol!
"Real IT professionals recycle our complementary subscriptions." - by tomhudson (43916)
on Saturday May 01, @01:59PM (#32057518) Homepage
Tom, don't you mean REAL IT PROFESSIONALS have CSC or CIS degrees... do you? No, apparently not.
tomhudson, to lend you some credibility here, answer this question: Do you have a degree in CSC or CIS? No?? Thought not. Tomhudson = yet another slashdot wannabe 'sidewalk surgeon quack' self-proclaimed 'expert' in computers. ROTFLMAO, what a joke. He'll avoid answering that question to any extent, as well as when he was asked if he was a practicsing attorney with a degree in law. He plays "online attorney" constantly, but he doesn't have a degree in that either. Get over yourself, tomhudson, you slashdot wannabe, lol!
Basil, lol: Ask tomhudson if he even has a CIS or CSC degree or if he is in fact, a professional developer of code (let alone for many years to his credit). He's not, and possesses neither nor degrees to give him some credibility in the art & sciences of computing, such as those from CSC or the CIS discipline/major. Not only that, but tomhudson was asked here today, when he was doing his usual playing of "internet lawyer" online today here, if he was an attorney, and guess what? No answer from tom. Tomhudson is just a "wannabe expert" on slashdot, with his quotes of others via "Google University online" lol.
I blogged about this yesterday: Publishers and the E-book Ecosphere
The question of what publishers want for books isn't the correct question.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I just went out and got some gas.
Steve Jobs made my corner gas station set all the prices to end with .9 cents!
He really does dictate the price structure for everything.
Obviously you aren't paying attention
There's no competition for consumers here, it's the same books before and after this, and they come from the same **publishers** who are selling the books. The publishers here are oligopolies who are setting prices. Amazon was strong arming the publishers and sold ebooks at a loss because they were the only ebook game in town. Now Apple comes in and offers its services, and suddenly it's the publishers who have leverage. Remember Amazon was selling books at a loss, because they had negotiating leverage. Apple didn't have as much and contractually must sell books at a specific price. Apple doesn't set the prices, the publishers do.
To increase competition for consumers you have to make publishers smaller and more numerous.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
How's about something more than your say-so?
Get sick and tired of people making excuses for Steve Jobs, blaming everybody else for mistreating the poor defenseless man. It's just not true.
Infuriate left and right
No.
Did you read the link about price elasticity of demand? As you pointed out in a child post, additional units of a digital good are created for virtually zero cost, so we can assume all revenue is profit for simplicity.
If revenue has been optimized according to the rules of PEoD, then by necessity, and as you pointed out in your second sentence, reducing price reduces revenue. This is because enough more people aren't interested in buying your product at the lower price, to make up for the marginal loss of revenue on a per unit basis, of all the other units sold.
Assuming you will receive the same amount of revenue at $1.99 as at $2.99, and those are your only 2 choices, and you don't expect monetary deflation, it is probably better to price at $2.99 because as inflation slowly erodes the value of a dollar, it will be working your way towards your profit optimized price instead away from it. And in addition, consumers will over time perceive value in the fact you haven't raised your price in a long time.
In the parent post to you, or Brandee07, the starting facts he posited in his hypothetical situation was the agent had done the research and optimized his revenue using what is in essence the PEoD model.
Your friend has discovered he is still priced in the inelastic segment of his demand curve. His PEoD is between 0 and -1. Good for him. Keep increasing the price and he will find his product's unitary elastic point. I agree at certain low costs people don't really think about it. But that depends on the person. For me, if it is over $1, it is no longer throw away money.
I was saying the parent post to you, or Miseph, was somewhat inelegantly pointing out that Low Ranked Craig's post didn't make sense.
"if he simply lowered the price in the Amazon store... he would leave money on the table... But that is not the case we are discussing....simultaneous lowering of price and availability in another large marketplace might offset the price reduction..."
First LRC seems to discount his proposition of lowering the price in the Amazon marketplace. In continuing, he doesn't say simultaneous lowering of price in the first marketplace, and availability at the same price in a new marketplace. It is easy to read that sentence as saying "lowering the price of the item in a new marketplace."
Regardless, if he lowers the product's price in either marketplace, the other will contractually force him to offer it in their marketplace at the same lower price. If the price has been optimized in the Amazon marketplace, he will be forgoing revenue. That is a totally separate issue to whether additional revenue will be gained in a new marketplace to offset losses in the first.
Right, that's what I thought Miseph was saying.
Except that I don't think LRC fails to understand, and was pointing out there's no evidence of such despite Miseph's rant.
I guess in the end I was just a squabble over language. Sorry.
That would be a valid argument, if copying an ebook had a significant cost.
The only types that put down hosts files usage are those that own bad websites that either serve up malware, or, those with websites that are maliciously coded with bad javascript. Using a custom hosts file, populated by known reputable and up to date sources, allows one very simple concept to take place: "You can't get burned if you don't go into the kitchen". Not only does that result, but a user can futher speed themselves up by adding in their favorite websites into their hosts file to bypass DNS server requests (which dns servers are buggy themselves, see Dan Kaminsky online) saving the 30-N ms roundtrip URL to IP address resolution time and to also bypass DNS server request logs also. By blocking adbanners, which have been known more than a few times the past few years now to have bad code in them also, you speed up very noticeably also. It's your money, you pay for your online time also, and loading adbanners only takes away from that and slows you down. Between them being infected and lagging me, I don't need them around.
The only types that put down hosts files usage are those that own bad websites that either serve up malware, or, those with websites that are maliciously coded with bad javascript. Using a custom hosts file, populated by known reputable and up to date sources, allows one very simple concept to take place: "You can't get burned if you don't go into the kitchen". Not only does that result, but a user can futher speed themselves up by adding in their favorite websites into their hosts file to bypass DNS server requests (which dns servers are buggy themselves, see Dan Kaminsky online) saving the 30-N ms roundtrip URL to IP address resolution time and to also bypass DNS server request logs also. By blocking adbanners, which have been known more than a few times the past few years now to have bad code in them also, you speed up very noticeably also. It's your money, you pay for your online time also, and loading adbanners only takes away from that and slows you down. Between them being infected and lagging me? I don't need them around.
This is the crux of the whole situation. For an e-book costing $2.99 (as in the example above), any change in price is either -33% or +33%, or more.
What kind of pricing system is this that allows for so little granularity? Forget the ".99" part of it for a minute -- small purchases require the ability to make smaller-still changes in price (small squared, if you will).
To get a feel for the importance of granularity, imagine that a national association of real estate agents got together and proposed a law that all properties must be sold in multiples of $100,000. Or that all used cars must be sold in multiples of $1000. You're looking to sell your old car and you think it's worth about $1500. What should you do?
I like my Mac as much as the next guy, but Apple's business tactics need some work.
I've often found that the truly creative/imaginative folks have a hard time dealing with reality as it is, and frequently wind up self-medicating with various substances. Clark ccna notes USA
get owned Apple fanbois!!
My header says it all but I have to type this text to pass the filter.
The .99 price will die as soon as most consumers stop being stupid and gullible.