Dear MacMillan...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

No, AUS is L+50, and Asimov died in 1992.

No, Australia is life + 70. It used to be life + 50, but then changed. However, those books which were in the public domain at the time of the change, remained so. But no new books will enter the Australian public domain for a few years, until the 20 extra years "catch up".

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, Australia is life + 70. It used to be life + 50, but then changed.

Whoops; sorry. I'd remembered there was L+50 involved, and that some books are available at Gutenberg.au but not in the UK, and forgotten about the change.

[fugazied]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Ah - but you need to look out for the times they offer good discounts even when paying with micropay. The recent Agatha Christie offer is a case in point - I got 78 Agatha Christie ebooks for about $74 in micropay.

I used to love Agatha Christie when I was a kid, at that price it's worth revisiting them!

As for MacMillan, I'd expect you'd get a reply from them, however it will be from some lowly customer service rep and mostly consist of form letter. I don't think publishers REALLY get that much feedback from customers. It's probably why they are so out of touch with their customer base at times.

[Ravensknight]

My feeling is we'll just have to wait and see what happens come April when the new pricing goes into effect. Will all those overpriced eBook that are in paperback be reduced properly? That's when we know if this works or not.

I concur. But my [infallible] gut tells me we're all screwed :-( [ok, maybe not that bad, but it isn't good]

[GeoffC]

will that be April the first ?

[TallMomof2]

Look how expensive all those newly released John Grisham ebooks are. *Maybe* the publisher is trying to maximize profits by releasing them at high prices and in time those prices will drop but what I see for the future is publishers releasing backlists at prices far higher than the paper versions because they can.

[kennyc]

Well he said, "4) Will we be re-pricing e books that have a $14.00 digital list price while there is a mass market paperback edition available? Yes! To a customer price of $9.99 or below."

Right?

And actually at B&N they seem to be under the $9.99:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks....asp?PID=33349

Amazon/Kindle link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...risham&x=0&y=0

all look to be $7.99...


I must be missing something....??

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well he said, "4) Will we be re-pricing e books that have a $14.00 digital list price while there is a mass market paperback edition available? Yes! To a customer price of $9.99 or below."

Right?

And actually at B&N they seem to be under the $9.99:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks....asp?PID=33349

Amazon/Kindle link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...risham&x=0&y=0

all look to be $7.99...


I must be missing something....??

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery/b/ref=...john%20grisham

Alot of them are 7.99, several are 9.99 and 3 of them are $13 and change. Although I am not sure which have MMP avialable and which don't. I was too lazy to check that.

BOb

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

Look how expensive all those newly released John Grisham ebooks are. *Maybe* the publisher is trying to maximize profits by releasing them at high prices and in time those prices will drop but what I see for the future is publishers releasing backlists at prices far higher than the paper versions because they can.

I have been monitoring the prices of a few books I wanted but not for the price they were sold at, and they do drop. The ones in English at least. As far as French language books are concerned, I am still waiting.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery/b/ref=...john%20grisham

Alot of them are 7.99, several are 9.99 and 3 of them are $13 and change. Although I am not sure which have MMP avialable and which don't. I was too lazy to check that.

BOb

Then this of course MMP available for $7.19 and ebook for $9.99

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/For...0246213/?pwb=2

I think I'm getting confused about publishers though. That quote I put above was from Sargent at MacMillan....and the book above from John Grisham is from Random House...

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I think I'm getting confused about publishers though. That quote I put above was from Sargent at MacMillan....and the book above from John Grisham is from Random House...

Of perhaps someone else is confused. Although isn't Random House one of the big 5 wanting to go to the agency model?

But, your right... a quote on pricing from MacMillan has nothing to do with the prices of Grisham's ebooks.

BOb

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Of perhaps someone else is confused. Although isn't Random House one of the big 5 wanting to go to the agency model?

But, your right... a quote on pricing from MacMillan has nothing to do with the prices of Grisham's ebooks.

Random house is the one holdout. Daithi mentioned in an earlier post that Madeline McIntosh, the President of Sales, Operations, and Digital for Random House pointed out that publishers "have no real experience at setting retail prices."

[PapaSqrt]

As many of you may know Amazon and Macmillan had a little tiff recently. Here is an Authors take and point of view on it. It is at near the bottom of the page.

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/e...10-02-07.shtml

[DawnFalcon]

The old fascist is off again, eh? Oh look, he gets the facts wrong too.

"the price of all Kindle books would be $9.99"... lol.

He's stating that Amazon were somehow setting the list price, which is of course completely incorrect, and that they were not taking the hit from loss leaders themselves...which of course they were.

Stop paying attention to him. Really. Honestly, when he opens his mouth you can generally tell the moral path by going 180 to his ranting.

[PapaSqrt]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

The old fascist is off again, eh? Oh look, he gets the facts wrong too.

"the price of all Kindle books would be $9.99"... lol.

He's stating that Amazon were somehow setting the list price, which is of course completely incorrect, and that they were not taking the hit from loss leaders themselves...which of course they were.

Stop paying attention to him. Really. Honestly, when he opens his mouth you can generally tell the moral path by going 180 to his ranting.

WOW! You have your panties in a bunch. You take your opinion and I'll take mine. If it wasn't for the book Enders Game I would have missed out on many years of reading because until I read that book I had the opinion that reading was about as much use as the drivel that you linked to in your post.
But putting that to the side and keeping topic on point with the price of ebooks. All it comes down to is the same old thing that happens all around us as technology changes. A new format comes along and current agreements don't cover it, but people don't get too concerned until it takes off and affects their bottom line. Then both sides of the business rant and fight until they come up with a win win for their industry. Another recent example is TV. When watching episodes online through sites like HULU, or even the ABC, CBS, NBC web sites became more popular there was a strike until everybody got their money under new agreements, because they don't make enough... and so on. Well this county is made of businesses that are free to make money, until the Government (and that goes for both sides of the aisle) decides we can't stand up for our selves, which we can. If we don't like the price of the book, we don't buy it, if we really want to read it we borrow it from a friend or the library, or find a hacked DRM free version. You pay for it or you don’t, but it comes down to your choice.