This (higher prices normally, with brief sales) is similar to what I mentioned earlier when talking earlier about
price differentiation, although I didn't think of extending it to paper sales too. This is definitely a model being used by some authors where rights seem to have reverted (Archer Mayor, Julie Smith, Tony Dunbar, Joseph Flynn come to mind) as well as some non-major publishers like Endeavour. And even Amazon does this, as with the Ed McBain titles, and with their Thomas & Mercer and AmazonCrossing titles. (Probably with others too, but those are the ones I've noticed...)
Just haven't seen it with any of the really big/traditional publishers, sigh! There are a couple of series that I wish I could get, but they are locked up with the big five or big six or whatever it is now...
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffR
Here is an interesting exercise: If you were a publisher, and the numbers in this poll were represenative of your customers' buying behaviour, how would you price your ebooks to maximise earnings?
My guess would be to set the normal ebook price about the same as the paper book price, and then ocassionally run short-duration sales at a lower price.
Then most of the customers in groups 1 and 2 would buy the ebook at the normal price, those in group 3 would buy the paper version instead at a similar price, and those in group 5 would wait and get the ebook when it is on sale at the lower price. Only the revenue from the 15% or so in group 4 would be lost, but the higher price paid by the 35% or so in groups 1,2,3 would more than make up for them if the normal price was more than double the sale price.
Perhaps the big publishers' pricing strategy is not too unreasonable after all? I know MobileRead members are not typical, but if anything I would have thought we were more price sensitive than typical readers rather than less.
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