(Some) Kobo books more expensive than other ebooks

[wrenn1]

Originally Posted by dorino

With the Kobo, if you buy from Sony's store, you don't need to do a thing to it to get it working on the kobo. Same as if bought from kobo.

But you do have to download the sony app right?

[Mememememe]

Originally Posted by Ivo

Aside from Canadian story, your argument about profitability (or lack of it) is weak. Kindle edition of this particular book in the US is $9.41, so I'm not sure what makes it unprofitable if the paperback edition costs $7.99. They surely didn't use dead trees, nor transport the books, and yet you claim that more expensive ebook is less profitable than cheaper paperback. Unless the paperback is also not profitable, even more so then ebooks.

It's not an "argument," it's an explanation, and keep in mind that I've worked in publishing for many years, so I bring a good deal of knowledge to the table.

Paper vs. electronic is a different kettle of fish entirely.

When publishers sell to retailers, the retailer's purchase price is a percentage of the list price for the book. The discount Kindle gets for ebooks is far, far steeper than the discount a retailer receives for a physical book. Also keep in mind that the cost of printing and binding isn't as high as people think: it's usually 1/8 or 1/7 of the list price. Even associated costs (warehousing, distribution, etc.) combined with printing & binding only come to about 1/5 or, at most, 1/4 of the list price. So the publisher's "savings" are, in fact, not that great with ebooks, and they're more than wiped out by Kindle's steep discount.

Also, at the $7.99 price you're quoting for the physical book, that's mass market, and the cost of printing and binding would be even less than the ratios I've posted above. The Kindle discount leaves very little for the publisher, and that amount may not even cover overhead costs for the title.

Other things to keep in mind: Kindle, not the publisher, sets the price for ebooks. Kobo does as well, in a roundabout way, by requiring publishers to match a selling price to a discount level. The ebook retailer actually determines the price with their contract terms. The publisher has SOME choice: if they price a book at one price, the eretailer discount is a certain percentage. If they price the book at a lower level, the retailer's discount is less. (That's an incentive to keep the price down.) When the publisher has a choice, they'll choose the option that provides them some level of profitability. They do want to sell ebooks, so they try to go for the lower price if they can, but they don't want to lose money.

As it stands now, ebooks are not terribly profitable for publishers. There ARE costs involved with producing ebooks. I've spoken to an executive at a company that is seen as on the leading edge of ebook publishing in Canada, and he tells me that their ebook progam is actually losing money at this point -- and this company has few books that are more than $9.99 (roughly half the price of their physical books), so they're not doing themselves in by overpricing.

That said, the Kobo price shouldn't be higher than the physical book price, since Kobo has more respectable terms.

[Ivo]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Kindle edition for me (in the US) is $6.99

Here is a screenshot of what I get when I log on from Canada.
Maybe they show a different price based on the IP address??

[Ivo]

Originally Posted by Mememememe

Even associated costs (warehousing, distribution, etc.) combined with printing & binding only come to about 1/5 or, at most, 1/4 of the list price. ...

That said, the Kobo price shouldn't be higher than the physical book price, since Kobo has more respectable terms.

We agree on your last statement

When I see eBooks cheaper then (1-1/5)x"Price of the paper book" (that is, less then 80%), I will believe the old argument that Amazon is pushing the prices low in order to sell Kindle devices. But with all the other cheap ereaders now available, that hypothesis (about the razor and blades business model with Kindle) cannot be upgraded to a theory.

I am more inclined to believe that the publishers do not want the ebook business to succeed, at least not yet.

[Mememememe]

Originally Posted by Ivo

\

I am more inclined to believe that the publishers do not want the ebook business to succeed, at least not yet.

There are some that don't -- at BookExpo America some executives even admitted to "hating" ebooks.

But by and large we'd love to be selling more ebooks (which, at the moment, only account for 3-4% of publishers' sales). We'd rather not be so dependent on printers -- they're one more party we owe money to; we'd love to eliminate the extra 4 to 5 weeks we have to build into our publishing schedules to allow for printing time; we'd love to not have to worry about how quickly our distributors can ship books to every store in the country; we'd rather not be so dependent on independent distributors. But there are tangible benefits to physical books, of course.

Personally, I'm in the camp that wants all our books to be in ebook format on the same date that physical books are available, and I want them to be as inexpensive as possible. But the numbers don't add up at the moment, and if we were suddenly to have to abandon physical books entirely and do nothing but ebooks using the terms Kindle would like for us all to agree to, we wouldn't be in business for very long ... unless ebook sales absolutely skyrocket, and at the moment, there simply aren't enough ebook readers out there to allow ebook sales to skyrocket to the needed levels.

But to make a long story short (if it's not too late for that) those of us under 50 who are in management positions are doing all we can to make epublishing a major part of what we do and to meet the expectations of people who read ebooks. As I'm sure you know, people who read ebooks read a LOT of ebooks. Even I -- a person who reads a lot of books -- have found that, since getting an ereader, I'm reading far, far more than ever before.

The publishers who "hate" ebooks tend to be the older set.

[Ivo]

Me^5, thank you for your response. I am hopeful that in the near future you and people who think alike will win, and the ebooks will grow fast. From your first response I knew which camp you are coming from, but didn't realize you are a manager.

As for this particular case, I don't need to drag this any longer. Thanks to responses from several forum members I now know how to get cheaper ebooks that work on Kobo.

[kremesch]

Originally Posted by Mememememe

Kindle, not the publisher, sets the price for ebooks.

That changed recently. Publishers can set their own prices with the new contract.

[Mememememe]

Originally Posted by kremesch

That changed recently. Publishers can set their own prices with the new contract.

I think I said more than that in my post, though -- or perhaps I didn't say it clearly. The publishers select prices within certain ranges to be eligible for certain discounts. There's an illusion of flexibility, but you're still stuck with limited options and a poor return. It's still a bad arrangement for publishers, which is why Kobo is a superior company to deal with.

[thekidintheclock]

Originally Posted by Mememememe

But the numbers don't add up at the moment, and if we were suddenly to have to abandon physical books entirely and do nothing but ebooks using the terms Kindle would like for us all to agree to, we wouldn't be in business for very long ... unless ebook sales absolutely skyrocket, and at the moment, there simply aren't enough ebook readers out there to allow ebook sales to skyrocket to the needed levels.

haha - well ebook prices need to drop in order for sales to skyrocket!! if ebook prices were in the $5 range, you'd see a huge change. it's obvious that $10 ebooks are keeping things stagnant.

[Mememememe]

Originally Posted by thekidintheclock

haha - well ebook prices need to drop in order for sales to skyrocket!! if ebook prices were in the $5 range, you'd see a huge change. it's obvious that $10 ebooks are keeping things stagnant.

No, that simply isn't going to happen. $5 list prices would put virtually every publisher out of business. There's simply never going to be a market for books -- ebooks or otherwise -- large enough to produce the kind of unit sales that would make $5 books viable. There are too many costs involved. $5 books wouldn't even come close to covering those costs.

I've worked with the financials of companies of various sizes ... I know the numbers involved.

And I don't see what's wrong with books in the $10 range. I pay that without even batting an eyelash. That's a great price for an ebook. The problem I have is with books $12 or more -- I think at that price you start getting into deterrent-territory, and I'm trying to push for ebooks to max out at $10, with the occasional book at $11. But anything in the $8-$10 range is ideally priced.

[RedRoverJ]

I do not know the financials involved but that does not work for me as a consumer. If $5 is not viable as an eBook price then the publishers need to rethink their strategy. Most consumers want cheaper eBooks.

People always ask about my eBook reader and assume that book prices are cheaper, for reasons that have been discussed many times. When I tell them that the books cost more than the paperback they get a confused look and often say something like "Oh, that's neat but I will wait until book prices change..." I don't see those changes coming from the publishing industry.

Many authors are trying to go the independent route and can offer their books much cheaper when they cut out the publisher. This model is obviously in its infancy, and is not without its hurdles. The hardest part, it would seem, of going indie is that people see indie books as inferior. While some indie books are certainly not worth bunk, some other authors do have their books properly proofed and edited by professionals in the industry. People need to understand the indie does not mean amateur. The trick is separating the good indie authors from the fly-by-nighters who think they are authors. Although, you cannot argue that the big publishers have not released their own share of bunk over the years.

It can also be stated that eBooks only account for 3-4% of all book sales. However, I wonder if indie sources are included in those figures? Maybe people are buying more eBooks, just not from the publishers.

Anyway, I am rambling now. In my opinion, eBook prices NEED to come down for the wider adoption of the format. This can either happen by publishers rethinking their models, or losing ground to the indie authors out there. Will all the indie authors in the world ever take down the bigger publishers? Probably not, but they can definitely take a slice of their pie.

Do yourself, and your wallet, a favor, check out an Indie site and look at the titles that are getting great reviews. You might just find your next great read for cheap. I buy from Smashwords but there are others.

[Mememememe]

Originally Posted by RedRoverJ

I do not know the financials involved but that does not work for me as a consumer. If $5 is not viable as an eBook price then the publishers need to rethink their strategy. Most consumers want cheaper eBooks.

Most consumers want cheaper EVERYTHING, but the people who produce things can't set prices that result in losing money. I'd buy more cars if they cost $1000, but it's not realistic to expect that. Ditto for $5 books.

People always ask about my eBook reader and assume that book prices are cheaper, for reasons that have been discussed many times. When I tell them that the books cost more than the paperback they get a confused look and often say something like "Oh, that's neat but I will wait until book prices change..." I don't see those changes coming from the publishing industry.

If books cost more than the print version, that's a problem ... but the overwhelming majority of ebooks are cheaper than the paper version.

Many authors are trying to go the independent route and can offer their books much cheaper when they cut out the publisher. This model is obviously in its infancy, and is not without its hurdles. The hardest part, it would seem, of going indie is that people see indie books as inferior. While some indie books are certainly not worth bunk, some other authors do have their books properly proofed and edited by professionals in the industry. People need to understand the indie does not mean amateur. The trick is separating the good indie authors from the fly-by-nighters who think they are authors. Although, you cannot argue that the big publishers have not released their own share of bunk over the years.

The self-published route is simply not going to work. There are too many authors who write absolute crap, and will try to sell that crap as ebooks. The publisher is an effective filtering process for print books AND ebooks. The consumer can't be expected to filter through the garbage to get to "the good stuff."

If you want to read the sort of quality that you'll get from self-published ebooks, volunteer to work for a publisher -- they'll let you read those books for free. It's called the slush pile.

Authors who go the self-publishing route do so not because they want to "free themselves" of publishers (you'll find very few actual published authors who are switching to self-publishing). They're authors who have been rejected and think publishers don't "get" them.

The reality is that 99% of these authors simply don't write good material. I've seen their work for a couple of decades, and reject it. There aren't a lot of hidden gems out there, and what hidden gems there are are buried beneath horse manure.

So no, don't start thinking the "indie" author is going to be the future of ebooks. By and large, their material really is amateur at best, for the most part.

[Ivo]

I wouldn't mind buying ebooks in the $7 - $11 range, but I think that publishers are still playing games. It may be inappropriate to generalize based on a small sample size, but I think I've observed the following pattern so far: ebooks are quite expensive when hardcovers are released, and then when paperback edition comes out ebooks remain expensive for quite some time before their price comes down. What is the purpose of this delay?

[Mememememe]

Originally Posted by Ivo

I wouldn't mind buying ebooks in the $7 - $11 range, but I think that publishers are still playing games. It may be inappropriate to generalize based on a small sample size, but I think I've observed the following pattern so far: ebooks are quite expensive when hardcovers are released, and then when paperback edition comes out ebooks remain expensive for quite some time before their price comes down. What is the purpose of this delay?

That's publishers basing their ebook price on their physical book price. Many of them do so because they're afraid if the ebook is too cheap, it will take sales away from the hardcover book. I'm of the belief that there isn't actually as much overlap between ebook readers and physical book readers as some publishers think.

There's not question that some publishers are out to lunch when it comes to ebooks. They don't really understand the market as well as they should, so they price their ebooks to high out of fear, or they stagger their releases (some of the larger US publishers are releasing ebooks six months after the physical book).

So I don't want to pretend that publishers don't have learning to do.

As a consumer, I think $8-$10 is a great price for an ebook. Eat up books at that price. When we get up to $12, it's a little iffy. I've seen a lot of books for upwards of $18, which is ridiculous.

[ficbot]

If they are so worried about 'cannibalism' (which, in my anecdotal experience, is a complete myth, but that's a whole other argument) then why don't they shoot for price parity? Maybe offer the ebooks at a very slight discount (a few dollars cheaper) but otherwise the same? I have no problems paying a hardback price if it's a new release I really want to read. I just have issues with hardback-priced ebooks when the paper version is cheaper, and I don't trust them to actually remember to lower the prices because there have been too many times (even since the 'agency' pricing kicked in) where they have not. It makes no sense to me to expect an e-customer to pay $11-16 when the paper version is $8-10. That is just not fair. Why are they punishing me when I spend so much money on books and am such a good customer?