I got a Sony 505 last month based solely on the fact that they have a pretty good library of old science fiction novels for low prices. Specifically, the older Star Trek novels were $1.75 (same price as Kindle was and still are for the same ebooks). However, when I went to buy my third of these novels in as many weeks, they have all been raised in price to $3.38! That's almost double!!! Why? This is terrible and really makes me regret ever trusting Sony.

Wow..."regret every trusting sony" I dont know how much one can trust a HUGE company like Sony...lol I've noticed price drops on some of the books I've been eyeballing. Sorry bout your luck but It's just like any other store, "prices subject to change" I certainly dont think it was a case of Sony trying to stick it to you.

According to most ebook shops, the publishers set the price.

Wow..."regret every trusting sony" I dont know how much one can trust a HUGE company like Sony...lol.

Too true. Lots of people aren't laughing... ATRAC, Minidisk, Memorystick, UMD, BBeB, etc, etc...

Figured I could at least rest comfortably in that 25 year old books wouldn't suddenly double in price.

According to most ebook shops, the publishers set the price.

Guess Amazon.com didn't get the memo.

If you want the BEST prices on Star Trek books, go to http://simonsays.com, purchase in MS Reader format, use ConvertLIT to remove the DRM, convert to LRF using lit2lrf and enjoy. Cheaper then Amazon and Sony.

If you want the BEST prices on Star Trek books, go to http://simonsays.com, purchase in MS Reader format, use ConvertLIT to remove the DRM, convert to LRF using lit2lrf and enjoy. Cheaper then Amazon and Sony.

Yep, just figured some of that out too. The actual publisher of these books offers them for $2.27. Not as cheap as Amazon or the old Sony price, but still quite a bit off of the sudden doubling in price by Sony. If, as you mentioned, the publisher sets the price, this is a great move! I'll only be buying from the publisher rather than Sony.

Appreciate the help on this one!

Yep, just figured some of that out too. The actual publisher of these books offers them for $2.27. Not as cheap as Amazon or the old Sony price, but still quite a bit off of the sudden doubling in price by Sony. If, as you mentioned, the publisher sets the price, this is a great move! I'll only be buying from the publisher rather than Sony.

Appreciate the help on this one!

Yeah that's the best way to go on Trek Books without a doubt, and it's something you can't do with the Kindle

Yeah that's the best way to go on Trek Books without a doubt, and it's something you can't do with the Kindle

Of course you can do it with the Kindle - please don't spread "misinformation"!

Use "convertLit" to "explode" the LIT book into its Open eBook (OEB) source.
Use "MobiPocket Creator" to convert the OEB to MobiPocket.

The Kindle reads MobiPocket books.

I would also add here that Amazon may be taking a loss on many of the books it's selling below Sony prices, in an effort to drive more people to buy the Kindle. It's as old as the hills, this business practice of taking small losses to entice customers to your brand and hopefully to lure them away from the competition in the hope that the competition will die out and you'll be left owning the whole field. Then you can raise the prices back up even higher than the competition had them and make much more profit than you lost in the first place.

Amazon has been a proven leader in recent years in the ability to sustain year after year of operating losses and still attract venture capital to keep itself going and grow and eventually turn a profit. So Jeff Bezos is no stranger to the concept of losing money to attract customers.

And while the leap from $1.75 to $3.38 may mathematically be "almost double" the price increase is only $1.63, hardly enough to break your bank account. And how much are the paper books? You're still ahead of the game, even if you stick with the Sony books.

As for "trusting Sony" the only advice I have for you is, never trust any corporation, period. They only have a loyalty to their shareholders these days, never to the customers. Always approach any corporation (including Amazon and the Kindle) knowing that they don't give a s#*t about you and won't include your best interests in any decision they make. Unless you own stock and have enough shares that your vote actually counts for something at the annual shareholders' meeting!;)

Of course you can do it with the Kindle - please don't spread "misinformation"!

Use "convertLit" to "explode" the LIT book into its Open eBook (OEB) source.
Use "MobiPocket Creator" to convert the OEB to MobiPocket.

The Kindle reads MobiPocket books.

I was'nt aware of that converter, sorry bout that and that's good to know in case I ever get a kindle..

No problem. Yes, MobiPocket creator (a free tool from MobiPocket) creates Mobi-format books from OEB - basically HTML and an XML "package file" which contains the metadata for the book. Works very well indeed - it's what I use to create all the Mobi books I post to MR. Given the OEB output from convertLit, it's literally a case of double clicking the "opf" package file to open it in Mobi Creator, then clicking the "Build" button to create the book. A matter of seconds.

Does anyne here remember the TI-994a computer? Texas Instruments sold it at a loss and was hoping the peripherals/software would make up for it. That did not work and the TI-994a stopped being sold. If Amazon is doing the same with their ebooks, then you can expect Amazon to one day stop selling them.

Does anyne here remember the TI-994a computer?

Yes, I do remember it. It was the first home computer I bought for my kids because it had a couple of very good educational games for them. I remember buying the computer for $99. It was a good buy for a couple of years then the software for it dried up.

Does anyne here remember the TI-994a computer? Texas Instruments sold it at a loss and was hoping the peripherals/software would make up for it. That did not work and the TI-994a stopped being sold. If Amazon is doing the same with their ebooks, then you can expect Amazon to one day stop selling them.

pretty much all video game consoles are sold at a loss. the profits are made back in licensing fees for the software. most printers are sold at a loss and the profits made back in the ink. this is far from an unsustainable business model

They're recovering from our HOLIDAYGIFT?

pretty much all video game consoles are sold at a loss. the profits are made back in licensing fees for the software. most printers are sold at a loss and the profits made back in the ink. this is far from an unsustainable business model

But one which only works with "closed" systems. Buy a PS3 and you can ONLY buy games from Sony, so they profit from every game sold. You can't afford to lose money on something like the Reader, because the buyer may well not spend one penny on books from Sony's bookstore!

not necessarily, there are many other publishers out there other than sony (granted they still have to pay royalties). on the printer side there is a rapidly growing industry based solely around refilling and refurbishing used printer cartridges yet brother, canon, hp, etc. havent gone out of business yet or discontinued selling printers

edit: the original quote was referencing amazon (kindle) which is, for most lazy/non-technical people a closed format similar to a gaming console, so the comparison is still valid

Does anyne here remember the TI-994a computer? Texas Instruments sold it at a loss and was hoping the peripherals/software would make up for it. That did not work and the TI-994a stopped being sold. If Amazon is doing the same with their ebooks, then you can expect Amazon to one day stop selling them.

Texas Instruments actually sold this unit for $525.00 when it first came out (and at far from a loss). The rarer TI-99 sold for a whopping $1,100.00. TI only dropped the pricing much later when other computer companies began mass-producing low priced competitive machines (i.e. Commodore International). I personally believe that Amazon, as well as other booksellers, will sell more electronic books in the future, rather than less.

For a more detailed history behind the eventual price reduction of the TI-99/4A see the article at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-99

I still have a TI-99 (bought new way back when) & it's still in use, though not by me. My grandmother uses it to play Yatzee, Wheel of Fortune & Hangman. :)

It's true that businesses can be built on selling a loss-leading product and making it up on related items and peripherals. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. As has been observed, it drives the printer business.

In the eBook business, I think Amazon is doing two things. First, they are doing a bit of introductory pricing. Their best-seller pricing is a bit of loss leader stuff--$10 for a book that probably costs them more than $10. Whether they sustain this indefinitely is hard to predict but the loss leader market works best when you give away the razor and sell the blades, not the other way around.

I think, though, that Amazon has realized something important, which is that they can make excellent money taking a 20-40% cut (and passing the savings to the customer) rather than the 55% cut they take on paper books. With paper books, there are huge costs of handling. With eBooks, their existing transaction software pretty much handles everything. Since they discount many paper books, I don't think it's a huge surprise they discount eBooks, but it surprised me they discounted them as heavily as they do.

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com

I actually have been comparing prices against Amazon for New Releases/Best Sellers for the past few weeks and the results are astounding. Amazon has all Best Sellers/New Releases quoted at $9.99 with few exceptions. Sony is selling the same books for in some cases more than double that price (check out Follett's new book for example).

Sony's prices are also changing daily and not for the better. Less than two weeks ago A Thousand Splendid Suns was advertised for $13.95 on Sony (which was close to the Amazon price -- and in fact Amazon may have been a dollar or so more). Since then Sony has increased the price at least twice and as of today, the same book is more than $18. Amazon in comparison dropped their price to $9.99.

I wrote to Sony but have not received a response as of yet. A dollar or two in either direction is expected but not $5 to $10 per book when you are looking to build a library.

Sony is sure to lose serious ebook readers if this keeps up.

This morning A Thousand Splendid Suns is 12.99 -- I didn't check it out yesterday, so perhaps it dropped in the middle of the night.

I wonder if Sony Connect prices are automatically linked to something from the publishers and the publishers can't make up their minds as to the prices while Amazon isn't worrying so much about making a profit as they are worried about garnering sales for the Kindle.

I actually have been comparing prices against Amazon for New Releases/Best Sellers for the past few weeks and the results are astounding. Amazon has all Best Sellers/New Releases quoted at $9.99 with few exceptions. Sony is selling the same books for in some cases more than double that price (check out Follett's new book for example).


Either there are gremlins moving prices around at Sony Connect or you've got a glitch in your computer or they change prices in the middle of the night, but Follett's new book is currently priced at $12.99. Hardly "double that price."

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com

I know I'm going a bit off-topic here, but is there any reason you don't sell LRF format eBooks for the 500/505? Converting from HTML or LIT is really simple.

Sony is sure to lose serious ebook readers if this keeps up.

I haven't even managed to successfully download my 100 free classics yet. At this rate, I'm not likely to consider buying anything from their store at all.

Ace

The selection itself is enough to go elsewhere. Unless you are looking for best-sellers, Sony has little to offer by comparison. Also, I like the idea of being able to establish a Library that will last well beyond the LRF format.

Either there are gremlins moving prices around at Sony Connect or you've got a glitch in your computer or they change prices in the middle of the night, but Follett's new book is currently priced at $12.99. Hardly "double that price."

Ken Follett's World Without End was definitely $24 a few days ago.

I used to have a TI-994a. I actually got the floppy disk drive for it in 1986 for $400 [with like 100 games] and I was only 13 years old so it killed my piggie bank. But, I loved loading games from the disk instead of tape, it was much faster than cassette tape.. :)

F.

My father was all ways a gadget freak, and he bought a TI-99. I received a number of grade school certificates because I could program BASIC & LOGO (sadly, never really went farther than that). We had the sketch pad, the expansion base, printers, voice synthesiser, just about everything. I wonder what the correction of $525 what the equivalent to that is in today money. Food for thought regarding the high price of some gadgetry.

As for the Connect Store pricing, it is indeed strange that the prices moderate so much. These are books, not a traded commodity. Maybe there *is* a link we're missing, so we should try to correlate MSNBC and SONY Connect so that we may game the system. ;-)

I wonder what the correction of $525 what the equivalent to that is in today money.


US$525 in 1981 is the equivalent of approximately US$1200 today.

Either there are gremlins moving prices around at Sony Connect or you've got a glitch in your computer or they change prices in the middle of the night, but Follett's new book is currently priced at $12.99. Hardly "double that price."

The price dropped shortly after my posting (and my emails to Sony). I received an email indicating that sometimes publishers drop their prices but don't notify Sony. I'm not sure I trust that response--wouldn't you think they would track their own competitiveness? The email also requested notification of prices that seem out of whack. I know I am not the first to email Sony with discrepancies. For the books I've tracked (just a handful), most of Sony's prices are $2 to $3 more than Amazon, but on occasion I've found books that are far more expensive such as the Follett book. Right now, From Beirut to Jerusalem is another where there is a huge discrepancy--$24.50 on Sony vs. $9.99 on Amazon. Here are some more:


Eat Pray Love: $8.25 on Amazon, $10.25 on Sony
Three Cups of Tea: $8.99 on Amazon, $10.50 onSony
I am America:$9.99 on Amazon, $12.59 on Sony
In Defense of Food: $9.99 on Amazon, $12.99 on Sony
Musicophilia: $9.99 on Amazon; $12.56 on Sony
Freakonomics: $6.39 on Amazon; $7.19 on Sony
Water for Elephants: $9.99 on Amazon, not available on Sony at all
The World is Flat (publish date 7/07): $9.60 on Amazon; $11.20 on Sony
Team of Rivals: $9.99 on Amazon; $11.69 on Sony
Thousand Splendid Suns ($12.99 on Sony, $9.99 on Amazon).

This morning A Thousand Splendid Suns is 12.99 -- I didn't check it out yesterday, so perhaps it dropped in the middle of the night.

I wonder if Sony Connect prices are automatically linked to something from the publishers and the publishers can't make up their minds as to the prices while Amazon isn't worrying so much about making a profit as they are worried about garnering sales for the Kindle.

I think you are probably right for certain books but not all of them. Amazon seems to have $9.99 pegged as a price for many new releases/best sellers, but not all. Unfortunately for the consumer, Sony hasn't done the same. You are correct that Sony's price on A Thousand Splendid Suns dropped from around $18 to $12.99 shortly after my post (and emails)--the same thing happened with the Follett book. However, Amazon's price bounced from around $18 down to around $13 several days prior. Apparently, Amazon's system is picking up price changes more sensitively than Sony and I agree that Amazon is wiling to absorb more of the fluctuations than Sony.

The selection itself is enough to go elsewhere. Unless you are looking for best-sellers, Sony has little to offer by comparison. Also, I like the idea of being able to establish a Library that will last well beyond the LRF format.

Have you found anything better that doesn't require breaking the DRM?

pretty much all video game consoles are sold at a loss. the profits are made back in licensing fees for the software. most printers are sold at a loss and the profits made back in the ink. this is far from an unsustainable business model

Just thought I'd chime in just to mention that this statement isn't true. Nintendo has never sold a console at a loss and the XBox 360 sold at a loss only within the first year (now they make an average of $30-$50 per console, depending on which one you buy). In this generation of gaming consoles, only the PS3 is selling at a loss. Other than the Saturn and, possibly initially, the Dreamcast, most of Sega's consoles were also not sold at a loss.

I guess my point is usually in the gaming industry, some top performing consoles will be sold at a loss but usually become managable and profitable as manufacturing costs decrease where as other industry areas like printers or eBooks if this rumour is true, the items selling at a loss won't eventually be profitable themselves unless prices are raised.

You are correctly in how they make their money though. Licensing software and accessories is everything.

Just to fine tune the situation, you are correct about Nintendo but the 360 is only profitable because of creative accounting. If you include the red-ring-of-death warranty costs as they should have been accounted then the 360 may not yet be profitable. The console industry is twitchy!

It's pretty simple..Caveat Emptor. There are books that are cheaper on the Sony site than some other sites. I want to own an E-book of "World without End" Went to Fictionwise because I wanted it in LIT (so I could get rid of the DRM) But Fictionwise and ebook wanted 35 bucks for it. Sony wants 12.99 for it. Books on board wants 19.99 with a 10 dollar "rewards gift" Its up to you the buyer to decide what is a reasonable price to pay. Just like everything else, shop around find the lowest price you can. You are not limited to just the Sony store.

To take ndskyz's admonition to a ludicrous end, I wager that all the books listed by ebookreader are available free of charge to tax-paying U.S. citizens at the local library. The cost of many, many things is not so much for the item, but for it convenience. Purchasing direct from SONY is easy, but am confident that there are better deals available on the interwebs, if one is willing to work.