The $15 Boycott: Will you be participating?

[Alisa]

So with MacMillan and probably HarperCollins moving to the agency model and forcing a higher retail price, a lot of folks are saying they won't buy. I suppose people's choices may change if all the big publishers go this route, but as it stands today, what are your plans?

[mollybo]

I can wait until prices drop to a level I'm comfortable with. If I lose interest before an acceptable price, well, it's a lost sale then, isn't it? Too bad!

If we don't buy at an "acceptable" level, the publishers will never figure out at what price the consumer is willing to pay.

[scottjl]

like anything else, i'll pay a price i'm happy with. if i feel it's too much, i don't buy it, if i feel it's a good deal, then i'm quite happy with my purchase. there's always the option to check it out of my local library (virtually or in the *gasp* real world). and i am not chained to my ebook reader, if i happen to find the physical book for a price i'm willing to pay, i'll pay it. don't understand why so many ebook users feel they have to give up actual physical books.

[ficbot]

I will buy it if it is a book I really want and Fictionwise has it on 100% micropay rebate. Otherwise, nope. I have plenty else to read and can wait.

[GA Russell]

There are so many public domain books I want to read, it's going to be a long time before I get around to consider buying an eBook for what I can buy the hardback for.

[HansTWN]

I can't imagine a "must-have-it-right-now-at-all-cost" book. I would wait for a reasonable price on principle, even though I could afford to pay a few dollars more. But I don't want such nefarious price raising schemes to succeed. There are plenty of alternatives to tie me over, including free classics.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by mollybo

I can wait until prices drop to a level I'm comfortable with. If I lose interest before an acceptable price, well, it's a lost sale then, isn't it? Too bad!

If we don't buy at an "acceptable" level, the publishers will never figure out at what price the consumer is willing to pay.

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. People will move on or forget about it. They'd do a lot better getting $10 out of us than $7 or nothing at all.

If Amazon had started with $15 new releases, I would've likely paid it with less thought than I'm giving it now. I would have taken it as a decision based purely on how much I wanted to read the book. Now I have a desire to actively vote with my dollar.

[Guns4Hire]

I voted this:
I won't buy from them at all and I will get their stuff from the darknets but....

I will send a check directly to the author (haven't done this but think I'm going to start). I have no issues with the author's. Though some have been a bit whiny but thats somewhat understandable.

I'm not even an Amazon customer at least regarding eBooks. Hmmm go figure.

[Donnageddon]

I chose 'I'll buy books I'm eagerly anticipating at the higher price but wait for other stuff."

For a newly released book $15 is still a lot less than the price of a hardback that I was not going to get anyway. The $9.99 price was a loss leader for Amazon, and others have tried to match it... but I never saw that as a situation that would last.

The $15 price is not something that will stop me from getting a new book I really want... unbreakable DRM is what kills a deal for me. I will NOT "buy" a book that has DRM I cannot easily remove. Period.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Alisa

So with MacMillan and probably HarperCollins moving to the agency model and forcing a higher retail price, a lot of folks are saying they won't buy. I suppose people's choices may change if all the big publishers go this route, but as it stands today, what are your plans?

Whenever possible, I will find other sources so the authors get paid. But if there are no legal sources for the ebooks other than these greedy ones, I'm going darknet.

Derek

[6charlong]

I don’t think there is a discrete answer to this question so I picked ‘Other.’ I’m always willing to pay a fair price for eBooks but I don’t know what that is, and the publishing industry has done nothing to explain. For example, a series of books I like cost between $8 and $16.50 in paper and from $13.50 to $17 in eBook form. It doesn’t seem to make sense especially since the eBook version is poorly formatted and only half the series is available as eBooks. Is this an oversight by the publisher or what?

Some books I want are back listed and unavailable from anywhere except the library (Amazon can sometimes sell me a used copy). Having run out of shelf space I have to throw out a paper book for every new one I buy, so I hate doing it. Nevertheless I'm willing to pay the hard cover price for an eBook version of something I want that’s out of print, except of course, the publishers don’t permit back listed eBooks to be sold. Why is that?

If there is a reason publishers need to charge the same price for the eBook as for the hard back of a book I want, I will pay the price but at present eBook pricing is irrational. If there are reasons for eBook prices I have yet to hear what they are. The publishers are sinking their resources into a power struggle with Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, etc., and forgetting that readers are a third stake holder and maybe the most important one.

I think the test for prices of anything is reasonable fairness. Right now I could weigh in on most of the choices in this poll depending on the situation. If I could only hear a rational explanation why I should pay more for the eBook of something I want, I’ll gladly pay it.

[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. I've just decided to stop feeding them.

[rixte]

I won't buy them at that price at all. I would consider it when the price drops but the odds are also good that I will have lost interest/forgot about/moved on by the time the book does drop...I am not going to keep checking back prices. So unless they make a big promotion when an individual book's price drops, I'll probably not know, and therefore not see and not buy.

That's happened to me already on authors I used to read in paperback that went to hardback - if they weren't exceptional, the excitement was gone by the time it hit paper and it was 50-50 if I bought the book. It'll be much less with ebooks.

[Seli]

The same as I have been doing with paper books, or with computer games come to think of it. Buy at high price if I really want to read something close to publication, wait until a lower priced option for work I'd like to read. And use the utterly cheap (2-nd hand or remaindered equivalent) to expand my horizons.

[bminata]

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. I've just decided to stop feeding them.

My feeling exactly.. I don't mind paying more than $9.99, but let the retailers set the price to whatever they want. Publishers still get the same amount of money - it's the retailer (in this case Amazon) who pays the difference.