The $15 Boycott: Will you be participating?

[Sweetpea]

When I want something I don't look at the price.

$15 about the price we pay for normal paperbacks...


Edit: I just checked a book I'd like to buy.

€9,99 for the pocket edition = (about $14).
$10,57 for the Kindle edition.

[kacir]

I was a voracious reader long before I started to read on electronic gadgets. I would never be able to satisfy my reading appetite by buying books. Not that I did not buy any, but purchased ones were always only small fraction of what I read. So I used the Library. In certain periods of my life I was actively using 5 or even 7 different libraries at a time.
When get your reading material at the library you very quickly learn to be an opportunist. You do not go to the library with the resolution "today I am going to borrow the newest Stephen King novel and nothing else". You go to the library and see what is available. You bring home 7 books that "looked good" at the first glance and it might happen that you return two of those unread and another one unfinished.

You go to the library and the first place where you look is the pile of the most recently returned books waiting to be returned to the shelves, then you look at the shelves where library keeps the newest stuff. You rifle through at least 50 books to select those 7 you are going to bring home. And you make a reservation for that Stephen King book, but you quickly learn not to hold your breath.

The situation with e-books is very, very similar.
There are lots and lots of really good stuff that I can get for free (I am talking about legal ones) there are lots of stuff you can very cheap. There are so many decent books that you can read that on "deals and freebies" subforum here.
So it is not like I won't have anything to read unless I purchase the newest NYT bestseller, or the newest Oprah recommended one.

[pdurrant]

There are a very few authors I will buy as soon as the book is available. But very few.

My average ebook cost is under $3.50. So $9.99 seems a lot to me, let alone $15.

But I have bought some $15 ebooks - a couple from Baen, so I could read the book months before the paper copy became available!

But with hundreds of good books in my TBR folder, I feel little need of any currently high priced book - I'm more than willing to wait for it to drop in price.

[sianon]

I will pay the higher price for a new release from a favourite author such as Dianna Gabaldon, Traci Harding, Sarah Donati and the like just as I would purchase them in paper copy if there was no alternative in e-book form. Here in Austrlaia, new release of popular authors are priced at over $30 AU, although some can be found discoiutned to around $22 AU so paying 15US still works out cheaper. Having said that, I have a significnat backlog of books to read and noe of my favourite authors have books with iminent release dates. I also have discovered many authors on sites such as smashwords and BeWrite books. I am hanging out just as actively for the new relase from Liza Granville (which will cost about $1.70 AU) published by BeWrite books in April as I was for the third the Steig Larson trilogy which I rushed out and paid $33.00 AU for a brick of a book as I could not get in it e-form.

[KarenH]

My first choice is always the library, but if I'm looking for a specific book and it's not available there, I will occasionally pay as much as $15 for an ebook, but it's very rare. For about 99% of the books I buy, I will wait either for a really good sale or for the price to drop permanently. About the only time I will pay more than $6-7 for an ebook is if it's the selection for a reading circle that I belong to, and I've exhausted all other legal options for getting it cheaper. If there's a large price difference I'll buy paper, but I will actually pay slightly more for an ebook than a pbook, for two reasons: 1) I prefer reading on my reader to reading a pbook, and 2) my space is very limited and it's worth an extra dollar or so to me not to have to find storage space for the pbook.

[Bremen Cole]

Had to click "other"

I have been reading ebooks for about 10 years. I have never paid over $10 for an ebook. I will continue to buy books that are prices $10 or less. Those over $10 that I want, I will get from the darknets.

[Musicman]

Originally Posted by KarenH

My first choice is always the library, but if I'm looking for a specific book and it's not available there, I will occasionally pay as much as $15 for an ebook, but it's very rare. For about 99% of the books I buy, I will wait either for a really good sale or for the price to drop permanently.

I agree - I wait for a sale but I also check out the Library first for any e-book.

I think higher prices will result in less sales and profits for the publishers.

[Connallmac]

I won't buy Macmillan books at any price until they give up on this losing strategy. I'm sure I will miss out on a few books that I may have wanted to read, and in those cases I will write a letter to the author to let them know that I didn't purchase their book because of Macmillan. I will also encourage them to self publish or look for a way to sell directly to me so that we can cut dinosaurs like John Sargent and Macmillan out of the loop!

[ghostyjack]

Being a UK resident, we are already forced to pay these level of prices for the latest ebooks. If I really want the book, I'll pay the price, but for the most part, I'll wait untill it starts to drop in price.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by Alisa

I think one thing they're not getting is that a lot of folks who used to buy paperbacks are willing to spend $10 but not $15. Like you say, they're going to lose sales they would've gotten when the book was being actively marketed on release.

So these people who used to buy paperbacks a year after the original release still bought those paperbacks even though they weren't accompanied by a big marketing campaign? How have things changed?

Originally Posted by Barcey

For me it's not about the price is. I reject Macmillan setting the price that the retailers can sell the books for and when the price drops.

So presumably you reject the idea that publishers should decide when to release a mass-market paperback as well? How dare they!

Consistency doesn't seem to be the strong suit here...

Agency-pricing is not a good thing, but it's Amazon's fault for trying to act the bully. And with the market in the state that it is, agency-pricing just happens to benefit them immensely, strange isn't it?

In the old days:
Book comes out in hardback, but you don't think it's worth the cost, so you wait a year and get the paperback.
Now:
Book comes out at full-price, but you don't think it's worth the cost, so you wait a year and get the discount version.
What's changed? Nothing

[John F]

I picked "I won't buy at the higher price but I will wait some months for the price drop".

Practicaly, it will have to be a "must read" for me to purchase at the first price drop, and I will probably wait for the second price drop. I have quiet a list of current/purchased stuff to read, I have another long list of "to purchase", and there is so much older stuff/PD I want to read, that if the price is to high for an "impulse" buy, I probably won't get it.

MacMillan/Apple, good luck with your pricing strategy and your future endeavours.

[HansTWN]

Maybe it is time to try the "1-star" review tactics?

[TallMomof2]

I'm completely boycotting MacMillan both for not allowing retailers to set prices but also because they do not allow their ebooks in libraries. I have too many excellent ebooks to read so maybe when I finish my backlog MacMillan will have changed (Ha!).

I used to occasionally purchase an ebook over $10-$12 but no more. Even with rebates and discounts (at Fictionwise) I will no longer purchase anything that costs over $10.00 _before_ rebates and discounts.

Where will I get the books I won't purchase? First off, I'll put them on my wishlist and check prices periodically. Secondly, I'll see if I can check them out from the ebook library. Thirdly, I would find the book on the darknet and send the author a check.

[JoeD]

I won't buy at the higher price but I will wait some months for the price drop.

I went with that. However chances are whilst waiting for the price to drop I'll find other books to read and may or may not go back to the book I originally planned to buy. Plus, the price drop better not just be to paperback parity, it has to be lower whilst ever there's fewer rights such as to lend/resell the ebook version.

[rixte]

Originally Posted by charleski

So these people who used to buy paperbacks a year after the original release still bought those paperbacks even though they weren't accompanied by a big marketing campaign? How have things changed?

So presumably you reject the idea that publishers should decide when to release a mass-market paperback as well? How dare they!

Consistency doesn't seem to be the strong suit here...

Agency-pricing is not a good thing, but it's Amazon's fault for trying to act the bully. And with the market in the state that it is, agency-pricing just happens to benefit them immensely, strange isn't it?

In the old days:
Book comes out in hardback, but you don't think it's worth the cost, so you wait a year and get the paperback.
Now:
Book comes out at full-price, but you don't think it's worth the cost, so you wait a year and get the discount version.
What's changed? Nothing

Your 'consistency' argument is missing crucial elements.

First, the in-store factor - new paperback release tables. The physical memory jog of seeing a book that was mentioned.

Right now for ebooks, there's usually fanfare when something new is released (I get email from ebook vendors ranging from Amazon to BoB and Fictionwise) but there's not follow-up 1-2 years later.

Publishers can release the paperback whenever they want and they can set whatever prices they want. But I reserve the right to think they're idiotic if they release the first paperback 10 years after the hardback or if they price the book at a price I think is ridiculous high. And I reserve the right to not buy them.

But I also think that mandated selling prices and 'no sales price allowed situations' are annoying - it annoys me for physical hardware when Sony does it, it annoys me when Apple does it and it annoys me even more that Macmillan is planning on doing it for non-physical mediums.