Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
Could it be volume that makes the difference? Do you think more than twice the number of people will buy a book priced at $10 than would buy the same book priced at $20? That might be how the math works out for Amazon and/or the publisher in those cases.
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It really could make the difference, but not only in that sense. It could cause a long-term shift that does cause an individual person to spend more. If I use my anecdotal example of myself - if I set my budget at, say, $20, and I go to shopping on whatever website, I'm going to look for as much as I can squeeze out of that $20 while still getting stuff worth reading. Compared to the B&M store up the road with all the shiny paperbacks, I'm more likely with Amazon or B&N or Fictionwise to be able to find a decent variety within my constraints. This means taking chances on things I might have avoided before - new authors, series, etc. Successes there will lead to purchases in the future I might not have made at all otherwise, which could lead to me buying
more books, rather than just
different books.
It's already happening to me - I discovered Hannah Howell through a recommendation somewhere. I found one of her books at a better price than I would have shopping for paperbacks, so I bought it not really knowing if I would like her at all. I've since bought five more. Unless I give up my usual authors/genres (not likely), I'm going to eventually be consuming more books than I would have otherwise, and there will come a point where I end up spending more as a result. It's not much different than the way publishers would like freebies to work.
I'm ignoring the used paperback market completely in my example, because I've never bought much in that area. Most of the used books I've purchased are non-fiction hardbacks, and those I will probably continue to buy in pbook form unless I eventually upgrade to a bigger display capable of complex layouts.