BooksOnBoard reports major changes in ebook pricing

[Prospect]

From the BoB site:

The 5 publishers titles will be at full eBook list price starting next Thursday in ALL eBook retail stores

About 30% of our titles – all the books from these 5 publishers – will be priced the same everywhere at the full eBook list price, which the publishers are now calling Required Ebook Pricing or REP pricing.

http://www.booksonboard.com/index.ph...-agencypricing

[Teddman]

What does this mean?

Now is the time to buy for enormous savings that will go away everywhere on March 31

Sales Tax to be Added in US states for these Publishers

Most BooksOnBoard titles are NOT affected by this

About 70% of our titles will continue to be discounted with our every day good discounts and Rewards dollars.

The 5 publishers titles will be at full eBook list price starting next Thursday in ALL eBook retail stores

The Authors are NOT getting additional royalties for this change. Everything goes to the publishers

Cliff Notes: Customers and authors get screwed.

[stustaff]

The publishers only make more money if people buy them at these prices!

and if enough people buy them that the publisahers do make more money... well then the publishers have done the right thing!

its 'OUR' decisionon wether the new pricing works or not.

although the publishers seem to believe they win if we dont buy them too

[Prospect]

Will this apply to all independent retailers or just BoB?

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Prospect

Will this apply to all independent retailers or just BoB?

It applies to all sites, including Amazon and Apple, that sell ebooks from five of the six largest US publishers.

[HorridRedDog]

I see nothing about prices. So on a W.A.G.

Lets put this in "hardback/paperback" book prices.

Elmer Fud, THE greatest writer of the century, writes a new book.

The hardback comes out for $24.95.

The paperback will come out a year later at $9.98.

Some people JUST HAVE to have the newest best seller and pay $24.95.

The rest of us will wait. After all, we do have other stuff to read, right?

We think (and are right) that ebooks should sell lower than a book of paper and ink, that is shipped all around the country, put in warehouses, moved to stores, put on shelves, rung up on cash registers. And then put into a nice plastic bag.

If you don't "JUST HAVE to have the newest best seller", do what you have done in the past. Wait for the lower price.

[Boston]

The difference is that I seldom paid full retail for hardback or paper as the retailers were/are allowed to discount those (and even if the ebook price end up being similar in pricing to discounted paper, its still a premium for something that cannot be shared in a format that risks becoming obsolete).

[ficbot]

I just worry that the publishers will interpret the lack of ebook sales under the new scheme to mean 'people are not interested in ebooks, period' rather than as 'our scheme to raise prices has back-fired and very interested customers are waiting for the paperback price by which point they may have borrowed from the library or a friend and it will be too late.' I want the ebook industry to grow, not shrink, and I worry that publishers will get the entirely wrong message.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I just worry that the publishers will interpret the lack of ebook sales under the new scheme to mean 'people are not interested in ebooks, period' rather than as 'our scheme to raise prices has back-fired

Hmmm... I think they would have to be incredibly stupid, yes I said it, to think a sudden loss of sales directly after a major pricing change is due to the lack of interest in the products for some reason other than the price.

BOb

[bgalbrecht]

I'm sure that a drop in sales after a 50% price increase will be attributed to piracy and/or that readers are not interested in ebooks, or both (even thought that seems contradictory to me).

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I'm sure that a drop in sales after a 50% price increase will be attributed to piracy and/or that readers are not interested in ebooks, or both (even thought that seems contradictory to me).

I'm pretty sure the CEO, COO, and CFO of each large publishing house look like monkeys... one has his hands over his eyes, one over his mouth, and one over his ears.

BOb

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'm pretty sure the CEO, COO, and CFO of each large publishing house look like monkeys... one has his hands over his eyes, one over his mouth, and one over his ears.

BOb

Their every action seems to indicate that, yes.

BTW, the trivia tidbit for tonight:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys

[Xanthe]

Should be a lot of new items available on the darknet shortly, then...

I don't see any point in paying a full hardcover price (or close to it) for an ebook when the money from the sale is no longer going to be spread out among the paper, printing and distribution industires.

[Terisa de morgan]

Well, I don't know about hardcover. Almost all the books I buy are MMP. If they price the ebook higher that paper book (MacMillan has already done it), I think I'm going to buy less books (paper and electronic, I'm not going to change from electronic to paper).

[gastan]

Originally Posted by Teddman

Cliff Notes: Customers and authors get screwed.

The truth finally gets mentioned. In all the reading I've done concerning book prices (pBook or eBook) the same mantra seems to be repeated over and over by everyone - publishers, authors, commenters - the publishers need more money to support their authors. Bull. The publishers don't give a damn about their authors and don't care if they make money or not. They care if THEY make money, and the more they can get, the better they like it.

GREED = the real reason behind the agency pricing model. Period. It amounts to price fixing and borders on violating anti-trust laws in the US and the European Union competition law (IMO).