Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
I remember some folks were shocked when Ken Follet's " Fall of Eagles" came out at $19.99 and folks confidently predicted that "no one" would buy it at that price. Well, some folks did buy it because it shot to the top of the best seller lists and stayed there a while.
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Bestseller print lists are made by sales to distributors, not customers; returns are not considered.
Bestseller ebook lists at Amazon are calculated using free samples downloaded in addition to sales; getting a few hundred people to download a sample will cause a spike in the numbers--the thousands who download samples of new advertised books will drive highly-advertised books up the charts.
Bestseller NYTimes ebook lists refuse to count self-published books that are a substantial portion of popular ebook sales.
I'm not saying it didn't sell, or didn't sell well--just saying that "top of the charts" is a matter of publicity and hype as much as it's a matter of copies sold.
And yes, there are plenty of people who'll pay those prices.
Those aren't the majority of readers. Stross pointed out that 75% of an author's fans--readers--never contribute financially to the author. The majority of readers don't buy new books full price, and the big publishers are oblivious to them as a viable market for ebooks, because our purchase levels are below their sales point.
Doesn't mean we're not purchasing; we're just not purchasing their wares.