Price sensitive

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by scrapking

Given how long it takes to read a book, it's tremendous value. Compare what books cost per hour of reading, vs. what other forms of entertainment (eg. movies) cost per hour of entertainment.

Pay as high as $6 for? I think nothing of paying $15 for a book I want. If I want it, I buy it, and the price doesn't really matter. For example, I bought this: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Steal...IOQ/page1.html

(Full disclosure, it's non-agency and I had a generous coupon code to use, but it still cost waaaaay more than $6. )

I'll be reading a typical book for, what, a dozen hours? Maybe more? Dirt cheap, per hour, compared to most other forms of entertainment at almost any price.

It might work out at good value, but I never need anything so urgently that I can't wait. I'd been trained to wait for the paperback long before there were ebooks.

[xendula]

Last night, Hachette dropped the price of JK Rowling's "A casual vacancy" from $17.99 to $14.99. Had they had great sales, they would not have dropped the price. However, the steep price of the book made people more critical of the content, and book only has 3 stars. Many reviewers voiced that they expected more for the price.

This proves that, as consumers, we do have the power to influence pricing.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by xendula

This proves that, as consumers, we do have the power to influence pricing.

You're right, of course. But only to a certain degree. If consumers drive prices too low, it begins to affect what products and services they bother to even offer to them.

The boxed retail video game industry starts most console games at $60/60 Euros, then they tend to drop in a predictable fashion down to predictable price points. It's a form of "creaming the market" where you soak the early adopters, but then drop the price over time to pull in the rest of the market. I don't see why e-books can't/shouldn't work that way.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by xendula

Last night, Hachette dropped the price of JK Rowling's "A casual vacancy" from $17.99 to $14.99. Had they had great sales, they would not have dropped the price. However, the steep price of the book made people more critical of the content, and book only has 3 stars. Many reviewers voiced that they expected more for the price.

This proves that, as consumers, we do have the power to influence pricing.

That may be true in this case, but it's hard to say. It's been the policy of a few Agency publishers to drop the price of the ebook (usually from $14.99 to $12.99) once that book is on the NY Times Bestseller list. Not sure if Hachette is one of those publishers or not.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by scrapking

You're right, of course. But only to a certain degree. If consumers drive prices too low, it begins to affect what products and services they bother to even offer to them.

In this specific case it is, seemingly, a publisher determining at which pricepoint they can sell their ebook for maximum profit or ratings (?). $17.99 is the highest I have seen any ebook on amazon.com.
There is no turning back: if a publisher decides not to offer the electronic version of the book, they would more than likely miss out on income.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

That may be true in this case, but it's hard to say. It's been the policy of a few Agency publishers to drop the price of the ebook (usually from $14.99 to $12.99) once that book is on the NY Times Bestseller list. Not sure if Hachette is one of those publishers or not.

Interesting, I did not know this, and it actually sounds counter-intuitive. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a low intro price and raise it after the book makes the list? That's how many self-publishing authors operate: give the book away for free, generate great revies, then raise the price. Hmmm. I will never get publishers.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by xendula

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a low intro price and raise it after the book makes the list? That's how many self-publishing authors operate: give the book away for free, generate great revies, then raise the price. Hmmm. I will never get publishers.

Pricing doesn't have to do with logical thinking, but with experimentation to see what patterns give the most medium to long-term revenue.

However, since it's fun to pretend otherwise:

I'm thinking that there are a bunch of buyers who want to get new books by their favorite writers right away. Those impatient buyers should be gouged right after the book is released.*

There's another group of buyers who follow crowds. Those buyers should be influenced to buy by offering somewhat lower prices during the period when the book can be driven to be number one on best-seller lists.

Then there are the patient buyers who will wait for years until prices go way down. Eventually you want to get their few dollars as well, but you shouldn't cater to them until everyone who is remotely impatient has already been sold.

________________________
* But even these buyers have limits, so you can't, say, charge $1,000. If you tried to, you would risk delaying their purchases until they read professional reviews, in which case they might never buy the book.

[Matriarch]

Originally Posted by xendula

Last night, Hachette dropped the price of JK Rowling's "A casual vacancy" from $17.99 to $14.99. Had they had great sales, they would not have dropped the price. However, the steep price of the book made people more critical of the content, and book only has 3 stars. Many reviewers voiced that they expected more for the price.

This proves that, as consumers, we do have the power to influence pricing.

The price for the Kindle edition has gone up on the Australian Kindle store...

[melmac]

Originally Posted by xendula

Last night, Hachette dropped the price of JK Rowling's "A casual vacancy" from $17.99 to $14.99. Had they had great sales, they would not have dropped the price. However, the steep price of the book made people more critical of the content, and book only has 3 stars. Many reviewers voiced that they expected more for the price.

This proves that, as consumers, we do have the power to influence pricing.

Still an outrageous price of $24.34 for us downunder I know I won't be reading it any time soon

[xendula]

That's 24 USD, are they crazy? What's a typical pricepoint for ebooks in Australia?
"The casual vacancy" is $20 in the German store, which I always felt was amongst the more expensive ones.

[xendula]

Steve, I guess that is probably their approach with this title.
I persoally find their pricing strategy unacceptable and I will avoid books published by them in the future. What's worse is that they also just raised prices for libraries by 220%!

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by xendula

Last night, Hachette dropped the price of JK Rowling's "A casual vacancy" from $17.99 to $14.99. Had they had great sales, they would not have dropped the price. However, the steep price of the book made people more critical of the content, and book only has 3 stars. Many reviewers voiced that they expected more for the price.

This proves that, as consumers, we do have the power to influence pricing.

Or they dropped the price because they've mined all the consumers willing to pay $17.99 and are now looking to expand their sales to people willing to pay $14.99 or people who like to think they are getting a deal because the price dropped. All the while maintaining the illusion of quality based on the original price point.

Price points work in mysterious ways.