Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
So a nickel per epub would be okay? I was actually going to use that term in my post but thought the penny was a more wide reaching reference value. They are both meaningless though as all prices will eventually approach zero.
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1- At a nickel you'd still be off by an order of magnitude. Amazon has made it clear that they don't see $0.99 as a baseline price. Their 70-30 royalty plan only applies to books sold at $2.99-7.99. Other price regimes, the rates revert to 50-50. They're in business to make money not to cater to pundits or rack up profitless market share and their clear goal is to average a gross margin closer to $2 per book than it is a penny. Or a nickel. Or a quarter. They may not be looking to rip off readers or writers but they're not about to sacrifice their company just to destroy their competitors. Kamikazes they ain't.
2- I seriously hope you are wrong, wrong, wrong, because basic economic theory tells us that as real price approaches zero, supply of new product also tends to zero. It is just as delusional to expect authors to work for free as it is to think consumers will pay *any* price for a book. Price elasticity has its limits both ways. Product pricing is an art more than a science but its goal is to maximize profit, not volume; lower prices are a means, not an end.