12-13-2010, 09:43 AM | #1 |
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Pricing the way it shouldn't be.
I usually anxiously await new releases from author Peter Robinson and his Inspector Banks series.
At these current prices (available from Canada), I can wait: Sony's Reader Store. $18.19 Kobobooks. $15.99 Amazon Kindle. $14.29 |
12-13-2010, 10:07 AM | #2 | |
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12-13-2010, 10:27 AM | #3 | |
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A more egregious example is the pricing of Agatha Christie eBooks. The Moving Finger was first published 68 years ago. It has, by any conceivable measure, covered its costs. It, along with a bunch of other Christie works, are a fixed $6.99. You could pick it up for a buck or two at any secondhand bookstore. Last edited by murraypaul; 12-13-2010 at 10:31 AM. |
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12-13-2010, 11:00 AM | #4 | ||
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Not that price comparisons ought to matter, really. The better question is whether the price matches what customers are willing to pay. If they are, then the price is justified. If they aren't, the publisher will feel market pressures to reduce the price. |
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12-13-2010, 11:13 AM | #5 | |||
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None of the factors that would make one prefer a new book (better condition, better resale value) apply to eBooks. It is perfectly realistic when looking at a ~70 year old, huge volume selling book to say that the competition for this edition is a used book. Quote:
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12-13-2010, 12:49 PM | #6 | |
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While I can understand your point about used prices, it's not really a fair comparison. How much would you (or the general consumer) be prepared to pay for a new mmpb copy? I would say that 5.99USD is a reasonable price, provided it's a professionally produced work. |
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12-13-2010, 01:00 PM | #7 |
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Just because prices aren't indexed to costs, does not mean that costs don't set a price floor. As a general rule, indexing controls the top end of price ranges, not the bottom.
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12-13-2010, 01:07 PM | #8 |
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I think that publishers are missing a bet when they don't price ebooks on out-of-print titles to compete with used paper book prices. They don't have to go down to $1 to compete with the bargain bins, but going to $2.99 or $3.99 would compete very well with musty paperbacks.
The bargain priced ebook may not bring much profit to the publisher, but it's certainly more than a used paper book provides, which is nothing. |
12-13-2010, 01:13 PM | #9 |
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12-13-2010, 01:25 PM | #10 | |
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Actually, it often is, certainly if all I care about is getting (legal) access to the text. It's certainly a price point that ebooks need to compete with for a (not too small) segment of the market.
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12-13-2010, 01:41 PM | #11 | |
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12-13-2010, 01:42 PM | #12 | |
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That means without government meddling, which would include copyright. Without copyright, you'd see copies of books priced only slightly above costs (and free on the internet, though of course people would try to charge money for it if they could). But with the government basically being the enforcer of the media companies, extending copyright forever (as opposed to the original reasonable length ones), the government has created an artificial monopoly. |
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12-13-2010, 01:51 PM | #13 | ||||
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Meanwhile, the estate would probably throw a fit if the ebook was priced at $1.99. That not only means less revenue, it also means cheapening the value of one of the most popular authors ever. I.e. it's largely irrelevant if the book has already earned back all of its costs. Quote:
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You are entitled to say "$7 is more than I'm willing to pay for that ebook," but that still doesn't justify using a 30 year old, yellowed, broken-spined, dog-eared, coffee-stained used mass market paperback as a viable comparison point. Quote:
Don't forget, with ebooks the publishers should be getting sales data almost as fast as the retailers -- and from a more diverse range of sellers. There is no particular reason why they will have any less incentive to adjust prices than a retailer. |
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12-13-2010, 02:22 PM | #14 | ||
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(I actually don't believe in many of the concepts attributed to the Invisible Hand, by the way, but I do think companies have the right to make profits.) Quote:
When dealing physical goods, retailers are essentially buying a huge lot on spec, holding them in inventory, and are responsible for fulfillment. These costs, while not huge and somewhat mitigated by returns, do create risks for the retailer which in turn justify control over pricing. With digital goods, not so much. No one is complaining about the App Store allowing software publishers to set their own prices, and let's face it, you've got to be pretty extreme to slam Smashwords or Amazon's DTP for giving authors/publishers full control over prices. Publishers also ought to get enough pricing information to indicate "hey, we should try cutting the price a little bit." Nor are monopolies inherently evil. The problem arises when they engage in anticompetitive behavior. Even then, some people find ways to justify it; for example, many utilities in the US are given local monopolies. Also in the US, Amazon's share of the (paper) book market is extremely high, nearly 70%. One man's monopolist is another man's downtrodden hero, I guess... Last edited by Kali Yuga; 12-13-2010 at 02:25 PM. |
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12-13-2010, 02:36 PM | #15 | |
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Just wait like you always have, someone will buy the book, read it, and then get $.25 selling the book, and then you can buy it. Lee |
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