Quote:
Originally Posted by Fluribus
I don't know about other folks, but I don't care how big the author's name is. Unless it's a scholarly tome, or some other specialty work, I'm not paying $15 for it.
I've got a fair number of Hachette titles. Bought when they seemed to me to be a reasonable price. All under $10. I could easily flush all future Hachette titles without breaking a sweat. If all the large publishers move in lockstep, I'm quite willing to flush them all.
|
I'm with you and the same discussions happen a lot on some of the reading forums I'm on. One of my favorite authors is Patricia Briggs. Love her stuff. But her books are in hardback now, so her ebooks for at least a year run well over 10 dollars. I'm not even likely to buy them at 9.99. Once books get above about 7 or 8 dollars, I start looking at the library and used markets. The cozy group I'm on often has posts: "That's too expensive. I'll wait for the library to get it." And the bottom line: If a book is popular, the library WILL get it--even if it's interlibrary loan.
Now, all that said, I don't care what Hachette or Amazon does in this case. I'm not changing my buying habits. My habits have been in place for a long time. When books started costing 7.99 (mass market) I started spending a lot more time at the library. Then Amazon started doing the buy 4 get one free and I was enticed back into buying. Amazon also had used books for 3.50 and then 4.00...and now they're up there closer to 5 and 6 for a lot of titles.
But I can buy a lot of ebooks for under 5. And some of my favorite trad authors are taking one series or other independent, so my choices are actually INCREASING, not decreasing.
In other words, I had no reason to pay more than 8 dollars before. I'm certainly not going to do it now. Publishers are going to have to hope that there are still a lot of people willing to pay higher prices even though I think the curve is to pay lower prices with more choices.