Classic B&N ebooks still more expensive than Kindle. Will they lower prices? - Page 3

tuomas · 11-17-2009, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by juj1n

it's almost 2 weeks away from launch and they still haven't made any changes to their ebook prices... I wonder if there's any hope.

I have noticed that there have been quite a few price drops. They have also been adding ebooks to their selection. I would think it is going to take them into the new year before things stabilize out and a fair comparison can be made between Amazon and B&N.

ChaseKR · 11-17-2009, 09:13 PM

If B&N wants to stay in the business, they'll have to lower prices soon.

llreader · 11-18-2009, 03:04 AM

The price differential is confusing and time consuming. It does, however, show the genius of the iTunes business model - if Amazon or B&N had a fixed price for books (or most of them) it would enocurage people to shop. What we are seeing is what happens when the providers have too much leverage, and tweak prices to the point that it is just chaos.

Terisa de morgan · 11-18-2009, 03:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llreader

The price differential is confusing and time consuming. It does, however, show the genius of the iTunes business model - if Amazon or B&N had a fixed price for books (or most of them) it would enocurage people to shop. What we are seeing is what happens when the providers have too much leverage, and tweak prices to the point that it is just chaos.

Sorry. Spain has fixed prices for books, AND I DON'T WANT THAT! Usuallty they don't go cheaper.

llreader · 11-18-2009, 04:57 AM

We do? I wondered why they are so expensive. I don't mean fixed minimum prices, but standard pricing, so they don't cost wildly different amounts. And standard pricing for certain things - such as the Amazon 9.99 price for bestsellers. The way it is now, I don' want to buy anywhere, unless I have to have the book. AS I mentioned earlier, my friend has a book on Amazon, and the Kindle version is more expensive than the hardcover. That doesn't make any sense at all. Clearly, they are going to lower the price when (if) the paperback version comes out.

Terisa de morgan · 11-18-2009, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llreader

We do? I wondered why they are so expensive. I don't mean fixed minimum prices

In Spain, you don't fix minimum or maximum. You fix THE price, and the maximum discount is 5%, 10% in very special occasions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by llreader

So they don't cost wildly different amounts. And standard pricing for certain things - such as the Amazon 9.99 price for bestsellers. The way it is now, I don' want to buy anywhere, unless I have to have the book. AS I mentioned earlier, my friend has a book on Amazon, and the Kindle version is more expensive than the hardcover. That doesn't make any sense at all. Clearly, they are going to lower the price when (if) the paperback version comes out.

Why? Do you ask that paper books have all the same price? I have different prices if I buy the SAME book at bookdepository.com, bookdepository.co.uk, amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, englishbookservice...

llreader · 11-18-2009, 08:12 AM

I'm not talking about what should or shouldn't happen. I'm saying that if they don't figure out a good pricing model, ebooks won't sell. It is marketing.

Right now they don't seem to know if they want to sell ebooks or not (and I am not sure if the "they" is Amazon, the publishers, or both). Pricing an ebook higher than a hardbound copy is just insane. In general the price is lower. But not always. So, is an ebook worth more, or less, than a pbook? As a potential Kindle buyer, what can I expect to pay, on top of the price of the hardware?

A pricing scheme, such as "ebook = pbook x 0.80" makes sense to people. We expect paperbacks to be less than hardcovers.

luqmaninbmore · 11-18-2009, 08:15 AM

I don't see why people are complaining about B and N's prices. They are not that bad and are, in some cases, better than amazon.

Terisa de morgan · 11-18-2009, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llreader

I'm not talking about what should or shouldn't happen. I'm saying that if they don't figure out a good pricing model, ebooks won't sell. It is marketing.

Right now they don't seem to know if they want to sell ebooks or not (and I am not sure if the "they" is Amazon, the publishers, or both). Pricing an ebook higher than a hardbound copy is just insane.

My thoughts, exactly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by llreader

In general the price is lower. But not always. So, is an ebook worth more, or less, than a pbook? As a potential Kindle buyer, what can I expect to pay, on top of the price of the hardware?

It depends on the book, and it happens the same at the different stores. But, as I've said before, I don't expect something different from another purchases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by llreader

A pricing scheme, such as "ebook = pbook x 0.80" makes sense to people. We expect paperbacks to be less than hardcovers.

Perhaps it makes sense, but I think that a lot of people are going to say it's a very expensive scheme. Playing devil advocate here, not my thoughts, but I've read it at a lot of places.

Mac Jones · 11-18-2009, 09:46 AM

The competition is going to be a very good thing

price wars, and prices cuts to the bone, as theoretically ebooks could get very cheap for the obvious reasons that we initially anticipated but have not materialize at Amazon (or anywhere else) but may eventually.

The problem is the present lack of cross platform devices but this is all new so we shall see.

What they charge for ebooks now is silly and won't last.

Nitrousoxide · 11-18-2009, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mac Jones

The problem is the present lack of cross platform devices but this is all new so we shall see.

That's why you go with a reader that supports ePub. Amazon is bound to go ePub eventually because the real money is in selling the books, not the readers and Amazon can sell to everyone if they use a widely available format.

With ePub you have almost every ebook store to choose from so whichever store has the best prices is the one that will be getting your business. Furthermore, a standard ePub format means that all the book sellers are competing with each other rather than simply existing in their own little closed off ecosystems which drives prices down through competition.

I'm putting my own money down on an eReader this holiday season and it's on a Nook because it's my best choice for future reading.

juj1n · 11-18-2009, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

I don't see why people are complaining about B and N's prices. They are not that bad and are, in some cases, better than amazon.

Have you done any research or random comparisons? NYTimes best sellers aside most of BNs prices are higher than amazons and in some cases even higher than the physical copies of the book. These prices are taken from my previous post and I just re-reviewed them and none of the prices have changed. These are all random books and the bolded ones represent ebooks that are more expensive than the physical book.

Gates of Fire
Kindle: $6.39
Nook: $7.99

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education
Kindle: $9.99
Nook: $14.99

Sookie Stackhouse Set
Kindle: $29.90
Nook: $51.13

Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood
Kindle: $9.99
Nook: $20.80

Kite Runner
Kindle: $9.51
Nook: $11.20

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
Kindle: $9.99
Nook: $9.99

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Kindle: $9.99
Nook: $12.00

llreader · 11-19-2009, 04:06 AM

juj1n: Yes, I think this is a major marketing problem for ebooks in general, and I don't know what is driving this, the publishers, the retailers, or what. A dollar up and down is about what I would consider acceptable for different retailers (with exceptions, of course). These huge price differences make no sense to me. I can only think that the publishers have different agreements with the two companies, or B&N is convinced they can somehow lock in readers and charge whatever they want (hopefully they will get over this, if it is the case), or they have some sort of internal debate.

I find it hard to believe that the sellers (B&N, Sony) have control over their prices, because that would mean that they are begging Amazon to eat their lunch and give them a wedgie. Sony, especially, since they don't have a pbook business to "protect".

I would guess the first to go multi-format (like Smashwords) or DRM-free with decent prices will eat the market. My main objection to DRM is that it makes format-shifting impossible.

Terisa de morgan · 11-19-2009, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llreader

I find it hard to believe that the sellers (B&N, Sony) have control over their prices, because that would mean that they are begging Amazon to eat their lunch and give them a wedgie. Sony, especially, since they don't have a pbook business to "protect".

Do you think that publishers fix a different price in different shops? When you see physical shops with 20% discount the first day they sell a book ?

llreader · 11-19-2009, 07:00 AM

I don't really know what the arrangements are. I do know that there was differential pricing in the music industry (where one label was underselling to Amazon to try to break a percieved iTunes monopoly).

Of course, a lot of the music industry works on a percentage basis. My understanding is that authors, at least, get a fixed amount from the sales of books. I don't know what the publishers get, and there is the complicated issue of overprinting and dealing with remaindered copies returned from bookstores, all things that electronic books don't have. Essentially an ebook is a single copy and a license to sell all you want - no overstock, no remainders, no shortages. This is a huge headache removed for publishers and distributors (but I digress).

As far as 20% discounts and that sort of thing, that is on the bookseller. They are loss leaders - the seller eats some of their profits to get customers into the store. These sales don't have any effect on the money that the publisher and the author get from the book (as far as I am aware).

It would be interesting to hear from someone in the business. The person I know who knows the most about all this is on a book tour now, so I can't ask him.

More interesting is the conditoins that publishers might put on eretailers to allow them to sell their books. Are they not allowed to undercut the price of the pbook by more than a certain margin? Are they required to make the ebook as expensive, or more, than the hardcover until a paperback version comes out? I don't know, and these agreements, I imagine, can vary by publisher. I can see publishers not wanting $1 ebooks killing their pbook market, especially when they have just invested in printing 25,000 copies and have nowhere to put them. I imagine they are also afraid that very popular books (like the new Stephen King) are going to get ripped and posted as a torrent before the pbook is even in stores. One of the reasons that DVDs don't come out until a few months after a movie is released, when the in-theatre profits have basically dried up. It would be bad if people stayed home and rented the movie for $2. Disaster if they just downloaded a rip for free.

11-18-2009, 09:46 AM	#40
Mac Jones Connoisseur Posts: 50 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: kindle	The competition is going to be a very good thing price wars, and prices cuts to the bone, as theoretically ebooks could get very cheap for the obvious reasons that we initially anticipated but have not materialize at Amazon (or anywhere else) but may eventually. The problem is the present lack of cross platform devices but this is all new so we shall see. What they charge for ebooks now is silly and won't last. Last edited by Mac Jones; 11-18-2009 at 09:50 AM.

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11-17-2009, 09:13 PM	#32
ChaseKR Connoisseur Posts: 85 Karma: 12 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Kindle 4 Touch, iPad 1 3G	If B&N wants to stay in the business, they'll have to lower prices soon.

11-18-2009, 03:04 AM	#33
llreader Mesmerist Posts: 331 Karma: 506558 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Spain Device: PRS-600 Silver. Much nicer than I expected.	The price differential is confusing and time consuming. It does, however, show the genius of the iTunes business model - if Amazon or B&N had a fixed price for books (or most of them) it would enocurage people to shop. What we are seeing is what happens when the providers have too much leverage, and tweak prices to the point that it is just chaos.

11-18-2009, 04:57 AM	#35
llreader Mesmerist Posts: 331 Karma: 506558 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Spain Device: PRS-600 Silver. Much nicer than I expected.	We do? I wondered why they are so expensive. I don't mean fixed minimum prices, but standard pricing, so they don't cost wildly different amounts. And standard pricing for certain things - such as the Amazon 9.99 price for bestsellers. The way it is now, I don' want to buy anywhere, unless I have to have the book. AS I mentioned earlier, my friend has a book on Amazon, and the Kindle version is more expensive than the hardcover. That doesn't make any sense at all. Clearly, they are going to lower the price when (if) the paperback version comes out.

11-18-2009, 08:12 AM	#37
llreader Mesmerist Posts: 331 Karma: 506558 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Spain Device: PRS-600 Silver. Much nicer than I expected.	I'm not talking about what should or shouldn't happen. I'm saying that if they don't figure out a good pricing model, ebooks won't sell. It is marketing. Right now they don't seem to know if they want to sell ebooks or not (and I am not sure if the "they" is Amazon, the publishers, or both). Pricing an ebook higher than a hardbound copy is just insane. In general the price is lower. But not always. So, is an ebook worth more, or less, than a pbook? As a potential Kindle buyer, what can I expect to pay, on top of the price of the hardware? A pricing scheme, such as "ebook = pbook x 0.80" makes sense to people. We expect paperbacks to be less than hardcovers.

11-18-2009, 08:15 AM	#38
luqmaninbmore Da'i Posts: 1,144 Karma: 1217499 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Baltimore Device: Toshiba Thrive, Kobo Touch, Kindle 1, Aluratek Libre, T-Mobile Comet	I don't see why people are complaining about B and N's prices. They are not that bad and are, in some cases, better than amazon.

11-19-2009, 04:06 AM	#43
llreader Mesmerist Posts: 331 Karma: 506558 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Spain Device: PRS-600 Silver. Much nicer than I expected.	juj1n: Yes, I think this is a major marketing problem for ebooks in general, and I don't know what is driving this, the publishers, the retailers, or what. A dollar up and down is about what I would consider acceptable for different retailers (with exceptions, of course). These huge price differences make no sense to me. I can only think that the publishers have different agreements with the two companies, or B&N is convinced they can somehow lock in readers and charge whatever they want (hopefully they will get over this, if it is the case), or they have some sort of internal debate. I find it hard to believe that the sellers (B&N, Sony) have control over their prices, because that would mean that they are begging Amazon to eat their lunch and give them a wedgie. Sony, especially, since they don't have a pbook business to "protect". I would guess the first to go multi-format (like Smashwords) or DRM-free with decent prices will eat the market. My main objection to DRM is that it makes format-shifting impossible.

11-19-2009, 07:00 AM	#45
llreader Mesmerist Posts: 331 Karma: 506558 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Spain Device: PRS-600 Silver. Much nicer than I expected.	I don't really know what the arrangements are. I do know that there was differential pricing in the music industry (where one label was underselling to Amazon to try to break a percieved iTunes monopoly). Of course, a lot of the music industry works on a percentage basis. My understanding is that authors, at least, get a fixed amount from the sales of books. I don't know what the publishers get, and there is the complicated issue of overprinting and dealing with remaindered copies returned from bookstores, all things that electronic books don't have. Essentially an ebook is a single copy and a license to sell all you want - no overstock, no remainders, no shortages. This is a huge headache removed for publishers and distributors (but I digress). As far as 20% discounts and that sort of thing, that is on the bookseller. They are loss leaders - the seller eats some of their profits to get customers into the store. These sales don't have any effect on the money that the publisher and the author get from the book (as far as I am aware). It would be interesting to hear from someone in the business. The person I know who knows the most about all this is on a book tour now, so I can't ask him. More interesting is the conditoins that publishers might put on eretailers to allow them to sell their books. Are they not allowed to undercut the price of the pbook by more than a certain margin? Are they required to make the ebook as expensive, or more, than the hardcover until a paperback version comes out? I don't know, and these agreements, I imagine, can vary by publisher. I can see publishers not wanting $1 ebooks killing their pbook market, especially when they have just invested in printing 25,000 copies and have nowhere to put them. I imagine they are also afraid that very popular books (like the new Stephen King) are going to get ripped and posted as a torrent before the pbook is even in stores. One of the reasons that DVDs don't come out until a few months after a movie is released, when the in-theatre profits have basically dried up. It would be bad if people stayed home and rented the movie for $2. Disaster if they just downloaded a rip for free.

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