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wallcraft · 02-08-2008, 10:51 PM

Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah is finally available as an e-book, but at a crazy price. It lists for $24.95 but is typically being sold for about $20. This is for a book first published in 1975. It is only $7.99 for the Kindle, which is the same price as the paperback.

I think there is a large potential audience for backlist science fiction from "major" authors. There are lots of SF books I have bought previously in paper that I would buy again as e-books at the right price. As an example, Baen is now selling many classic Pournelle titles (e.g. $5 for Mote in Gods Eye). I suppose the closest Pournelle title to Dune in popularity would be Footfall, which isn't currently available as an e-book but I can't imagine it would list for $25 if it was available.

I wonder if this is this is case of Frank Herbert's estate getting hardback level royalties for an e-book or Ace/Pengiun ripping off consumers (or both). In either case, Amazon is again leading the way to rational e-book prices. I just wish they would sell a MobiPocket version at a similar price.

02-08-2008, 10:51 PM	#1
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,977 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	Dune Messiah ($25 vs $8) Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah is finally available as an e-book, but at a crazy price. It lists for $24.95 but is typically being sold for about $20. This is for a book first published in 1975. It is only $7.99 for the Kindle, which is the same price as the paperback. I think there is a large potential audience for backlist science fiction from "major" authors. There are lots of SF books I have bought previously in paper that I would buy again as e-books at the right price. As an example, Baen is now selling many classic Pournelle titles (e.g. $5 for Mote in Gods Eye). I suppose the closest Pournelle title to Dune in popularity would be Footfall, which isn't currently available as an e-book but I can't imagine it would list for $25 if it was available. I wonder if this is this is case of Frank Herbert's estate getting hardback level royalties for an e-book or Ace/Pengiun ripping off consumers (or both). In either case, Amazon is again leading the way to rational e-book prices. I just wish they would sell a MobiPocket version at a similar price.