Fleming estate to publish James Bond e-books

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by NightGeometry

Why would anyone pay for books from Amazon (or any other ebook store), because often it is the best thing to do. However, if a book isn't made available, or is unreasonably priced, then a person may decided they will get it somewhere else.

iTunes has proven consumers will pay for stuff they could otherwise get for free. It's about honesty, convenience, and, vaguely, a sense of fair play.

But it is somewhat fragile as you note:

Originally Posted by NightGeometry

That is all way off topic, so just to give some semblance of being on topic for £5 I may buy the occasional Bond book. The ones I have read are pretty rubbish, in my opinion, but occasionally entertaining, mostly in a 'can it really have been acceptable to say that' way. They are in the strange category where i'd not bother downloading them, they just don't appeal enough, but I could imagine being on holiday, fancying reading one and just grabbing the Kindle copy.

Which is why backlist titles need to be both commercially available and "reasonably" price for the copyright owner to prosper. If, on summer holiday, I read "Dr. No" on my Kindle, it's a no brainer to think I might be interested in buying "Moonraker" as an impulse follow-up. Click-click-click and a few dollars later its on my Kindle ... it's all good. But if I can't find it ... and Google says ... check this torrent here ... and while you're at it here's the complete Ian Fleming works attached ... Danger, Will Robinson!

iTunes has been a huge success because it is reasonably priced for what you get and easy to use (once you know how and have the devices embedded to use it). It hasn't stopped piracy ... but it has enabled ecommerce for the vast majority of consumer who would have been willing to pay for the product in the first place. That is what Amazon (and Kobo and others) aspire to do in the ebook space. For current material, it's a proven model. For backlist, still in "proof of concept" stage. I'm optimistic for the endgame outcome.

[HamsterRage]

A year or so back I bought a boxed set of all 14 Fleming Bond books for $25 or so, brand new, at Costco. That seemed like great price to me, but I'm not sure at what price I would have hit the, "it doesn't seem worth it for a bunch of 50 year old popular fiction books", point.

I can say for sure, though, that it would have been way, way, way short of $140, or $10 a book.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

A year or so back I bought a boxed set of all 14 Fleming Bond books for $25 or so, brand new, at Costco. That seemed like great price to me, but I'm not sure at what price I would have hit the, "it doesn't seem worth it for a bunch of 50 year old popular fiction books", point.

I can say for sure, though, that it would have been way, way, way short of $140, or $10 a book.

This is a great example of "monetizing" the backlist assets. Bundling up overstock of the paperbacks and still getting the consumer to pay $25 for 14 books is terrific. Much better than landfill. And, really ... have you read all 14 books since? Perhaps one or two or three? Net cost to you: might be pushing $6 to10 a read. You're happy: you "got a deal", bought something on impulse, and have some potential for a rainy day read.

It's exactly the approach that's needed for backlist ebooks. Price them to sell and market them in a variety of ways to different consumer audiences. It might be as simple as $8 a title but "This weekend say Yes to Dr. No: Treat yourself to an Amazon Bond Four Pack for $17.95".

[NVash]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

A year or so back I bought a boxed set of all 14 Fleming Bond books for $25 or so, brand new, at Costco.

Now see, if they did something like that with ebooks and whole series, they wouldnt have this problem. If they priced all of the Ian Fleming books at $25, then the other authors in bundles for $25 theyd sell like hotcakes. But they wont do that.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by NVash

Now see, if they did something like that with ebooks and whole series, they wouldnt have this problem. If they priced all of the Ian Fleming books at $25, then the other authors in bundles for $25 theyd sell like hotcakes. But they wont do that.

I would happily pay $25 for all of the Flemming Bond books as e-books.

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

This is a great example of "monetizing" the backlist assets. Bundling up overstock of the paperbacks and still getting the consumer to pay $25 for 14 books is terrific. Much better than landfill. And, really ... have you read all 14 books since? Perhaps one or two or three? Net cost to you: might be pushing $6 to10 a read. You're happy: you "got a deal", bought something on impulse, and have some potential for a rainy day read.

It's exactly the approach that's needed for backlist ebooks. Price them to sell and market them in a variety of ways to different consumer audiences. It might be as simple as $8 a title but "This weekend say Yes to Dr. No: Treat yourself to an Amazon Bond Four Pack for $17.95".

I got to "The Spy Who Loved Me". Book 10 out of 14. Then I bought an ereader.

[Blue Tyson]

That's funny - because buying the Wifi Kindle same price as all of those put together?

[Russell Brooks]

Sweet! I'll have to check this one out.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

All the Bond ebooks are on Amazon UK at around the £4.50 mark. This is very much in line with other back-catalogue authors and seems pretty reasonable to me.

[I agree that around 7 is not too bad, sure]

So, a sometime later price check on amazon.com :-

I change country to UK and picking the first title that comes to mind :-

Diamonds are Forever - 8.86 - which says it includes VAT

and US, AU, NZ etc. price is - 9.59

So clearly they like to sell to the poms for less for these.

Looking up logged out on another browser, the amazon UK price is 5.61 pounds.

So gone up a whopping 25% for the Harrys of the world! Whereas down slightly for the rest, at least for this title.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

[I agree that around 7 is not too bad, sure]

So, a sometime later price check on amazon.com :-

I change country to UK and picking the first title that comes to mind :-

Diamonds are Forever - 8.86 - which says it includes VAT

and US, AU, NZ etc. price is - 9.59

So clearly they like to sell to the poms for less for these.

Looking up logged out on another browser, the amazon UK price is $5.61

So gone up a whopping 25% for the Harrys of the world! Whereas down slightly for the rest, at least for this title.

Prices vary. Eg, "Dr No" is £4.27. Just to clarify, "Diamonds are Forever" costs £5.61, not $5.61. Presumably just a typo on your part

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah, just a typo. And also don't have a pommie keyboard. So never really thing of typing the squiggly.

[Blue Tyson]

Vary for you - Doctor No is, wait for it :-

$9.59

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Vary for you - Doctor No is, wait for it :-

$9.59

Is that the price for you in Australian $?

[Blue Tyson]

US dollars. Prefer to leave it set that way to notice better prices when exchange rate goes the right way.

Or things like the local edition being priced in Australian dollars - so price goes up as exchange rate goes up - so if want to get, then go for the US one. etc.

[tubemonkey]

Already have the video books, so I don't need the ebooks.