06-06-2011, 08:23 AM | #106 | |
Chasing Butterflies
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I can agree that publishing the back list to compete with used prices would be, well, tricky. (I don't think its "commercial suicide", but let's agree to disagree on that for a moment.) But in the Faulkner example I keep banging on about, the ebook version is priced $2 more than the NEW paperback. This is particularly amusing on the B&N site because they now show all versions and prices, with the cheap paperback version on top. The ebook -- correct my math if I'm wrong -- costs 25% more than the paperback that is going to eventually get shipped to Half Price and the like at a discounted rate because -- let's face it -- Faulkner isn't exactly flying off the shelves at the "new paperback" prices. If the ebook were priced the same as the paperback book, I'd see it as one book, two formats, one price for the classic. As it is, I'm right chuffed. |
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06-06-2011, 09:03 AM | #107 | |
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06-06-2011, 09:03 AM | #108 | |
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If ebooks was sold without DRM I would have no problem buying them for slightly higher price than the corresponding paper version since in ebooks I get dictionary lookup and search. Now I do not buy any ebooks at all since I do not buy books with DRM. |
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06-06-2011, 09:30 AM | #109 | |
Gnu
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So, as long as they are setting the eBook price and the bookseller is setting the pBook price, these are always going to happen. Of course you can always find exceptions either way. Jim Butcher as an example (first agency author I could think of from the top of my head) Latest books availble only in hardback http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghos...her/1030442261 Hardback 46% off $15.02, eBook $14.99 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/side...=jim%2bbutcher Hardback 39% off $15.82, eBook $12.99 first in series as paperback http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stor...=jim%2bbutcher Paperback $9.99, eBook $9.99 Although, strangely, the collection of the first 6 eBooks books costs slightly more than getting them seperately. Rather than specific examples does anyone have a bot that can compare eBook to pBook prices for, say, the top 1000 sellers on B&N so we can see if the eBooks are generally cheaper or more expensive that pBooks? I agree that the price should be less than the lowest new pBook, but then you have the problem of loss leaders etc. Anyway, my point was that they should not price at used paperback prices ($1.99 for the book you listed). |
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06-06-2011, 10:17 AM | #110 | |
Chasing Butterflies
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Now, that's net, not gross. So I don't know if they've made a gross profit at the $2 pricing. But I do know they didn't make gross profit at the $10 price. (In my example where no one bought it, of course.) Pricing is tricky. But I think there's a difference between a price literally not providing gross profit and a price that just isn't as high a gross profit as Knopf would like. Pricing all ebooks at $9.99 regardless of circumstances because $9.99 is what an ebook is "worth" is -- imho -- a terrible business strategy. |
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06-06-2011, 11:23 AM | #111 | |
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Also - bear in mind that I am not talking about any specific title here - I am talking about a general policy. So, for the publisher, to cannibalise it's own sales with cheaper backlist books is a bit detrimental to them. I understand that some (possibly many) will buy a different book from a cheaper source. But if all the publishers start with a race to the lowest price to try to catch all sales they will very quickly be out of business. There are many backlist books I haven't read and though I would be happy if the prices dropped to £2 per eBook for the backlist I would no longer buy any new(ish) releases if that happened (bearing in mind that I don't buy at hardback prices to start with). You could probably get away with this on pop culture books as they would no longer be as relevant when they hit backlist status but with SF, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy etc you would be hard pressed to explain why anyone should pay more for newer (paperback price) titles than for backlist (I doubt many people will think an urban fantasy book is incredibly dated because no one uses a smartphone for example). For the purpose of my argument here I'm classing anything more than about 4 years old as backlist. You might be able to make a case that books more than 25 years old (number randomly pulled out of my hat) should be cheaper, although if the publisher thinks there are not enough people to buy at paperback equivalent prices I doubt they will go the the trouble of digitising the book. |
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06-06-2011, 12:15 PM | #112 | ||||
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And a $1.99 price only "cuts into profits" if comparable numbers of people would have bought at the $9.99 price. Assuming that is assuming facts very much not in evidence. I have no doubt that your reasoning matches the publishers' reasoning, but I think it's based on wrong starting assumptions. Quote:
Furthermore, that backlist already exists. If I want to buy Faulkner at $2.99, I can do that VERY easily. But the money will go to Half Price Books instead of straight into the Knopf coffers. Not the best outcome for Knopf, no? Quote:
It will compete because readers have different preferences and different shopping habits. It will compete because it's a different author, a different genre, and a different book altogether. It will compete because -- again -- readers aren't just wallets flying towards the smallest price point. I'm not buying up Harlequin romance novels at $4 a pop and neglecting new fantasy lit at $6 because, HEY BARGAIN, because I don't like romance novels. If the slippery slope argument were true, all our base would already belong to Harlequin and Knopf and Scholastic wouldn't even exist. Quote:
Last edited by anamardoll; 06-06-2011 at 12:18 PM. |
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06-06-2011, 01:25 PM | #113 |
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Stop thinking e-books for a minute.
There is a maximum profit price for any monopoly. It is determined by number of buyers at any price point (which drops as prices rise) versus the percent of price as profit (which rises as price increases). There is a sweet spot for maximum cash flow price along the curve. Every monopoly tries to find that point and maintain it. Note - it has nothing to do with production cost, just market behavior. Publisher are in a odd sort of business. They are in a competitive market for individual monopolies. (That's what I.P. is, a monopoly.) They know as long as they collude on the overall market, they can attempt to find (and exploit) the monopoly maximum cash flow pricing points. So they sell at the same price points for similar merchandise, hopefully at the combined (all publishers) maximum overall max cash flow point. Anything that erodes the ability to maintain this point is considered a threat to their business, and so it is. That's why they went after used books back in 1910. (shot down by the US Supreme Court). That's why the disdain for the backlist, there isn't enough market at the monopoly protecting maximum cash flow price point to make it worthwhile for them. The outliers, (Harlequin, Baen, O'Reilly, et. al.) are brushed off as irrelevant (don't look at the man behind the curtain!), because the publishers don't want the buying public to understand their cash flow maximizing behavior. And their ultimate horror is "piracy", because it cuts out their entire cash flow. That's what all the hollering is about. Once you understand the game, all the prices and behaviors make sense. Even copyright extension. (Think of them as price support mechanisms, like soil banking for farmers.) RSE |
06-06-2011, 01:26 PM | #114 | |
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06-06-2011, 02:00 PM | #115 | |
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Uploaded with ImageShack.us If you mean the $13 list price, I consider B&N/Amazon's permanent discounts to be the actual price. (In the same way that Kohl's constant "sales" aren't fooling anyone. ) |
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06-06-2011, 07:11 PM | #116 | |
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B&N could sell the book for $3.12. Would you expect Knopf to lower the ebook price? |
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06-06-2011, 07:17 PM | #117 | |
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Duh. |
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06-07-2011, 04:54 AM | #118 | ||
Gnu
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Its about buying Robery Sawyers's Hominids instead of Peter F Hamilton's Evolutionary Void, both good books, both worth reading, but with Sawyer's published back in 2003. If your into vampires there is a ton of backlist stuff that can directly compete with anything produced now (Tanya Huff, Nancy Collins etc). And if your competing with the backlist for historical fiction your in big trouble. Like horror? Then try James Herbert, Steven King, Dean Koontz etc - hundreds of backlist books just as good as anything new. The problem is that, whatever your genre, there is a huge backlist that you havn't read (and lots of it published by the publisher trying to sell you that new book) I agree that you may buy the shiny new book from your favourite author, but if your looking for a new book in <insert genre here>, why buy one for $10 when you can buy one for $2? Just as good, from the same publisher - in fact you can probably read better ones from the back list, just start going through the <insert favourite award here> winners and nominees. Hell, I've still not read all of the Nebula award winners, price all of them at $2 and I'll buy them tomorrow - of course I wont need to buy anything for the next 2 years. so some publisher somewhere is losing a ton of money from me. |
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06-07-2011, 09:48 AM | #119 | ||
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If your argument is that someone, somewhere, is ONLY reading free books and that that somehow magically cannibalizes the backlist on a large scale, I don't know what to say to that. You do realize there will always be free books, right? No matter how much price-fixing Knopf and the rest of the big publishers do. So those "I only read free books" customers -- wherever they are -- are already lost. Knopf bringing down the price of Faulkner to suit ME isn't going to affect those "free only" customers one way or the other. Quote:
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06-07-2011, 10:25 AM | #120 |
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It seems that I have been shopping at the wrong sites. Where do I find the heavily discounted backlist titles that are going for $2 and up?
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