How To Deal With New Pricing Strategies (and get noticed?)

[poohbear_nc]

Since it seems that publishers only understand, and only care about, one thing - money - and not readers, I intend to adopt the following response to the newly announced pricing schemes. I don't know how much impact, if any, it will have, but I feel it is a fair personal response to their announcements.

When an ebook is initially launched at a price I feel is too high, and I want to read it right away, I will buy a "Used like new" copy from Amazon or another 3rd party merchant and send the following letter to the publisher and the author:

Dear ...........

I am an ebook owner. I feel that your price for the digital version of ...................... is too high and I will not buy it. Instead I purchased a used copy of the physical book on Amazon and paid ...... for it. NONE of this money goes to you, the publisher. NONE of this money goes to your author. Instead, Amazon and some anonymous seller are getting my money. And I am getting my money's worth. You, on the other hand, have just lost ...... income for the sale you lost.

I will not be coerced into paying more for a digital version of a book than I feel it is worth. Every instance of over-pricing will cost you money, at least from me.

Is this how you really want to train your reading public's buying habits?

[Boston]

Announcements aside, I have been doing this in recent months as I've seen ebook prices go up.

I'd love to steal your follow-up idea to help get the message across.

[Bremen Cole]

Good idea, if the masses would do it, it would work...

[SCION]

I applaud those who are steadfast in adhering to such course of action. I would simply add the book to my online wishlist and circle back in the future for a price check.

[Polyglot27]

Looks like prices are going to increase even more. The arrival of Apple's iPad has forced Google to renegociate rates with publishers. Amazon too is going to increase its prices.
See the following article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/bo...oogle.html?hpw

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by Boston

Announcements aside, I have been doing this in recent months as I've seen ebook prices go up.

I'd love to steal your follow-up idea to help get the message across.

Steal away - communicating with you wallet may be the only way to get publishers' attention.

[Alisa]

I really hate reading paper books these days. I'm considering seeing how fast I can rip them to digital with acceptable quality. I have a scanner with ADF, OCR software, and I'm not totally averse to destroying the paper copy. It seems a bit of a waste of resources, though. Of course, it may not really be worthwhile considering I rarely re-read books. I guess it will depend on how soon after release they lower the price.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by Alisa

I really hate reading paper books these days. I'm considering seeing how fast I can rip them to digital with acceptable quality. I have a scanner with ADF, OCR software, and I'm not totally averse to destroying the paper copy. It seems a bit of a waste of resources, though. Of course, it may not really be worthwhile considering I rarely re-read books. I guess it will depend on how soon after release they lower the price.

I'm looking at this alternative as well. There are some inexpensive (at least if you already own a digital camera) plans for a do it yourself book scanner at Instructables.

[Duiker]

Go to a Torrent site and download the book. If I've already paid for the hard copy of the book I have no qualms about downloading a copy for my blackberry.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by Duiker

Go to a Torrent site and download the book. If I've already paid for the hard copy of the book I have no qualms about downloading a copy for my blackberry.

It would be quite eye-opening if - say, after the launch of a bestseller - with the higher ebook price model in place, or a delayed ebook release - if torrent/sharing sites reported download statistics to the publishers - showing them how much their model cost them.

[Scott Nicholson]

A lot of independent authors are intent on keeping prices low, mostly at $1.99. If you look at the Amazon bestseller list for Kindle, they are gaining a lot of the bestseller slots. The high ebook price is mostly designed to protect new hardcover sales, but there's a ton of activity below. I started a small digital press to ease into this window of opportunity--we're developing a working-class mindset. Hope you explore it at hauntedcomputerbooks.blogspot.com. We're also in Smashwords and developing other outlets as well, and will try to keep our content unprotected wherever possible. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Scott Nicholson
The Skull Ring coming March 1

[Steven Lake]

Hey, I like what you're doing. As an author and a realist, I know that anything that hurts the customer in favor of the corporation ultimately hurts me the writer. If a company gets greedy, power hungry, or controlling, you the reader suffer just as much as I do, if not more in some cases. And that's completely unacceptable to me. I've fought corporate greed and power mongering too long in the FOSS world just to come over here and roll over for it too. Keep at this, and maybe in time more people will join with your little protest and get the attention of these greedy jerks.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Polyglot27

Looks like prices are going to increase even more. The arrival of Apple's iPad has forced Google to renegociate rates with publishers....

Google always planned to give publishers more control over pricing than the established retailers. Amazon's pricing changes are also pretty well known. However, you should also keep in mind that the increases are in most cases for new books, it's not a permanent increase. A new ebook will be $13-15, and within a year will drop to $10 or so.

[Blue Tyson]

You guaranteeing that price drop then?

Or, wanna bet? ;-)

[pshrynk]

I moved this from News to General Discussion.