Cheapest E-Books Upend the Charts

[wodin]

Cheapest E-Books Upend the Charts

Originally Posted by JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

The nation's largest book publishers are facing increasing pricing pressure on the digital front as the number of cheap, self-published digital titles gain popularity with readers seeking budget-minded entertainment.

Amazon.com Inc.'s top 50 digital best-seller list featured 15 books priced at $5 or less on Wednesday. Louisville businessman John Locke, for example, a part-time thriller writer whose signature series features a former CIA assassin, claimed seven of those titles, all priced at 99 cents.

"They're training their customers away from brand name authors and are instead creating visibility for self-published titles," one senior publishing executive who asked not to be ...

[crich70]

Interesting. But not unexpected. With the economy being what it is now days people want to save $ while having something they can enjoy doing.

[Giggleton]

Time to take off the training wheels, we don't need big pub to tell us what to read no more! Now if we could just do something about this pesky copyright.

[SneakySnake]

yippee!

[tubemonkey]

This is definitely a good sign. The big publishers are slowly losing their monopoly and feeling the crunch as readers reject their pricing models for more innovative ones.

Little known authors are not necessarily inferior authors. Popularity does not automatically equal quality.

[jhempel24]

This is GREAT!!! I for one have LOVED the independent author. Ever since getting my Nook, I've been reading more and more indy stuff....because it's in-expensive? Mainly...but it's been GOOD...Daniel Arneson and Daniel Pyle come to mind, as well as getting some Blake Crouch and Jack Kilborn for cheap cheap.

[SneakySnake]

Still waiting for Vicki Tylie's next one!

[Elfwreck]

Full article link: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...609784,00.html

I love this quote: "They're training their customers away from brand name authors and are instead creating visibility for self-published titles" ... they who? The indie authors? You mean ... they want people to buy their books instead of books by other authors? How *shocking!*

Or is "they" referring to "Amazon," who takes a cut of every sale, and makes more money on a two dozen $2 sales than a single $48 sale?

Why should Amazon promote big-name authors & publishers more than the indie ones? They make more money (per sale) on some of the indie books, and they've no incentive to encourage big-name publishers over small ones. "Amazon says its studies have shown that digital titles sold by publishers using agency pricing aren't showing the same rate of unit growth as books that Amazon can discount."

[jhempel24]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

"Amazon says its studies have shown that digital titles sold by publishers using agency pricing aren't showing the same rate of unit growth as books that Amazon can discount."

Go figure, agency pricing doesn't work!

[wyndslash]

i definitely find myself buying more when i find several discounted titles that i was planning to buy anyway. no way am i going to buy at full price

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by SneakySnake

Still waiting for Vicki Tylie's next one!

That makes at least 2 of us . It is hard to find a writer whose work is consistently high quality, but Vicki Tyley's work certainly meets that criterion.

[rhadin]

Although I consider this good news overall, I worry that in pursuit of lower-cost reading material, readers are willing to accept lower-quality to no editing, leading to poor grammar and spelling. I worry about this because clear communication is vital in many areas of life and when we begin to accept sloppy communication skills, we degrade our life experience and can even threaten our lives as a result of misunderstanding. What i would like to see is not only increased indie sales but increased demand for grammar and spelling quality.

[Lexi Revellian]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Although I consider this good news overall, I worry that in pursuit of lower-cost reading material, readers are willing to accept lower-quality to no editing, leading to poor grammar and spelling. I worry about this because clear communication is vital in many areas of life and when we begin to accept sloppy communication skills, we degrade our life experience and can even threaten our lives as a result of misunderstanding. What i would like to see is not only increased indie sales but increased demand for grammar and spelling quality.

Some of us indies don't do typos, misspellings or poor grammar and punctuation. We're good at formatting too. And not all the mainstream published ebooks are perfect; I've read a lot of complaints about them on Amazon forums, though they cost so much.

The reader is in charge now, and can decide what to buy, and this can only be good for readers, writers and literature. Not so good for publishers...

[Asawi]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Although I consider this good news overall, I worry that in pursuit of lower-cost reading material,

Justified worries it seems. For example, the author mentioned in the article, John Locke has at least one eBook out with serious formatting errors out there right now.

(I admit, I'm one of those that bought his books because they were cheap. They were 89-99 cents on Kobo, and I had coupone that made them free for me. I didn't even finish the first one and have no desire to read the rest. I certainly felt like I got what i payed for. Nothing. Others probably disagree, but it worries me that maybe people choose "cheap" rather than "good". Like I did...)

[cfrizz]

Website: http://www.savingrachel.com

If this is the John Locke you are talking about, just send him an email & let him know. I'm sure he would appreciate it.