Quote:
Originally Posted by Pajamaman
Brexit was on june 23 and the pound was high until that date. The report notes a drop in ebook indie sales from may. So I'm doubt the drop in sterling explains it. Can US buyers even buy UK ebooks from Amazon?
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The pound started dropping steadily from the end of 2015, but the big crash was mid-2016.
If you are in the US or UK you might not notice, but in other countries you often have a choice between US or UK editions of the same book. When the pound drops against the US dollar then either the relative prices of the editions changes, or in the case of publishers who maintain fixed price points one publisher has more margin available than the other to spend on promotion and specials. Self-published books have to compete against whichever edition is cheaper, so if they price only against the US edition then they lose competitiveness when the UK edition drops in price or the UK publisher starts having more specials.
Edit: Of course self-published ebooks are also competing against paper books, and when the pound drops then UK paperbacks become cheaper. Again, those in the US or UK probably don't notice, because those in the UK are earning income in pounds, and those in the US mainly buy from US retailers. But in other countries people are used to buying from foreign sites and it is no big deal to switch from a US site to a UK site if the prices change.
(To give an example that is entirely within Amazon without using any VPN tricks, I can buy ebooks from amazon.com or amazon.com.au, but I can buy paper books from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk, so if price was the main factor for me I might decide to switch from buying US-published ebooks from amazon.com and buy UK-published paper books from amazon.co.uk instead.)