MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Watching for inexpensive backlist collections

elizilla · 02-05-2011, 04:40 PM

One of the things I watch for, in the bargains and freebies area, are cheap editions of books I already own on paper and love.

I probably own a couple of thousand paper books. I'd pay a buck or two each to own ebook copies of some large percentage of them, at which point I could shed the weight of all this paper. But at $10 to $15 apiece, I'm not going to buy anything unless I want to read it now.

It seems to me that if publishers made large numbers of backlist titles available in bargain editions, they'd pull a lot of buyers like me out of the woodwork. And since the marginal cost of each ebook is close to zero, it seems like they would be better off selling 2000 copies for $2 each, than selling 200 copies for $10 each.

Maybe someday...

02-05-2011, 04:40 PM	#1
elizilla Addict Posts: 271 Karma: 610286 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Michigan, USA Device: Kobo Elipsa, Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo Sage, others	Watching for inexpensive backlist collections One of the things I watch for, in the bargains and freebies area, are cheap editions of books I already own on paper and love. I probably own a couple of thousand paper books. I'd pay a buck or two each to own ebook copies of some large percentage of them, at which point I could shed the weight of all this paper. But at $10 to $15 apiece, I'm not going to buy anything unless I want to read it now. It seems to me that if publishers made large numbers of backlist titles available in bargain editions, they'd pull a lot of buyers like me out of the woodwork. And since the marginal cost of each ebook is close to zero, it seems like they would be better off selling 2000 copies for $2 each, than selling 200 copies for $10 each. Maybe someday...