Quote:
Originally Posted by ekbell
Depends on the buyer, many people either have a tendency to give up on books partway through (and may well reason that cheaper books will give them more to sample and a increased chance of liking one) or have a limited book/entertainment budget (in which case they may well be happy to buy six books for the price of one). I, myself, have a weakness for limited-time sales even if it leads to stockpiling.
Personally when a particular book is more then I'm willing to pay, I check my library and if it's not there I'll find another book. This is has been true even if it's a book I particularly want to read and the waiting time is long (I've waited months for a particularly popular book).
However, if it's what I deem to be a fair price then the desirability of owning a new book (or at least as close as I can get) will trump a free read.
I agree that it is possible to charge too little as well as too much and my experience as a buyer indicates that the sweet point will differ for different types of books.
|
From an economic point of view, one looks at the elasticity of the price curve to maximize profit. So from a seller's point of view, they may make more money selling X at $10 than Y at $1 if Y is not more than 10 times X. If you can sell 5000 copies at $10, then you get $50,000. If you sell 25,000 copies at $1, then you still only get half as much ($25,000) even though you sold 5 times as many copies. The wild card here is discoverablity, i.e. what is the likelihood that someone is actually going to buy at copy at any price above 0. To a certain extent, this is what co-pays in health care is all about.