The End Didn't Come

[leebase]

Anyone notice that the ebook world hasn't ended? Hasn't stopped growing explosively in fact?

Why should it have ended? Well, due to Agency Pricing, of course. Due to Agency pricing, all competition would be removed from ebooks. 5 of the 6 biggest publishers were joined a year later by the largest publisher.

So, all competition has ended. Everyone now pays $15 per ebook.

Somehow, according to many folks on this board, people that think $13-15 is too much for an ebook are -- shockingly -- simply not buying those books. Apparently, there are plenty of other books folks have switched too.

Apple -- evil for being the stick that the publishers used to get Amazon to cave -- has made next to no impact. Rather B&N has come on strong -- but Amazon sits exactly where it was before. On top of the heap with most of the market. Amazon even sells more ebooks for the iPad than Apple does.

There is quite a bit of buzz that millions of books can be sold if you price them from $1 to $3...and we have a few stars coming out of this market already.

From all appearances...the Agency book publishers keep putting out their books. There appears to be a market for their pricing despite the protests. For those so utterly opposed to the price level -- doesn't appear they have given up reading or given in to the prices. Apparently, there are publishers and authors aplenty supplying cheaper books.

Life continues on.

Lee

[OneandonlyDoc]

But that's the thing. Not everyone pays $15 for an ebook.

A lot of folks pay 99 cents for an ebook, all the way up to $15, Agency and independent alike. Agency pricing has actually helped the indie market set their own prices (which can often be distinguished as "much less than industry standard").

Do I think $15 is too much to pay for an ebook? Probably, considering that what we seem to be getting from the Big Six are the unedited galleys. I just don't see the editing dollars being put into ebooks to justify the price.

[JSWolf]

What I mind is paying nearly pBook prices for eBooks with errors in them that are not in the pBooks. New errors are ridiculous and why should we pay more for them?

[Renaldo]

I never foresee a time when I'd pay over $10 for an ebook, unless it was some sort of collection or omnibus, but even then, probably not. Like what has already been said, unedited galleys are not worth the price of a free download. However, I wouldn't mind buying an actual book for any price, and having it come with a free download of the ebook.

[Ken Maltby]

I haven't found the current e-book releases that I have purchased to be any more error
prone than pbooks. Maybe I've been lucky, maybe it's that most recent ebook purchases
have been for newly produced ebooks/books. I suspect that most of the current
production from authors is in an electronic/digital form, so we are not talking about
scanned books and the errors that are associated with them.

Again, I may have been just lucky, but even recent purchases of classics from Bean
have not had any distracting errors. Books like "The Witches of Karres" and Andre
Norton's "Time Traders" seem to be error free and they were likely not originally provided
in a digital form.

In general I think that the quality of ebooks has been improving, at least in terms of
their production qualities.

As to pricing; I have no problem paying $15 for a recent released ebook of the next in a
series that I am reading, or about the same for a "pre-order" of a soon to be released
ebook from an author that I am following.

The "success" of the Agency Model for ebook pricing hurts the consumer who was willing
and able to shop around for the best price and those who would take advantage of a
seller's price incentives for "consumer loyalty". The publishers now have to price for the
market, if they expect to have the sales the market can provide. It should also mean
that if they decide to lower the price so that Amazon and B&N can sell a couple hundred
thousand additional copies - the price is also lowered for all the other retailers. (This is
of special interest to us "Topaz" haters and those with ereaders that use less common
formats.)

Luck;
Ken

[xg4bx]

i dont buy anything from major publishers so they could charge $50 if they want.

the most i'll pay for a small press book is $8 or so and thats if i really like the author. anything more than that and i may as well just pony up the few extra bucks for a nice trade to put on my shelf.

i get your point though OP. people grumble but they still hit that buy it now button. not many are willing to go without to put their money where their mouth is. i think thats just human nature because it applies to everything from ebooks to politics.

[ATDrake]

I never bothered buying e-books over $10 before the Agency 5 became the Agency 6 and I still don't bother now.

All that Agency pricing really means to me is that with no discounts available I simply buy fewer e-books from those imprints that I previously did and I am increasingly disinclined to buy any more.

In the past I did use to pick up supplementary e-copies of favourite books that I already owned in paper when there was a good Kobo coupon (and I still do it now for discountable titles which are reasonably priced), but I no longer do it for those publishers which won't allow discounts unless they're doing those dirt-cheap promotional gimmicks where that particular book is at $2.99 or less.

I figure that at those prices, I don't need to own a(nother) copy when I could spend my money on something which gives me better value for it.

I think they are kind of losing out. Myself personally, I'm less willing nowadays to take a chance sight unseen on a new author (even a highly recommended award-winning one) with an e-book purchase, and less inclined to pick up e-book versions from authors who are only middling-enjoyable to me, whom I'd previously been willing to splurge upon if I could catch their e-books at a good price when there was a discount sale.

At $10 and up, I just don't feel the need to own an e-book copy and the paper version at the library is good enough for me, whereas at below $5 after coupon code (or over that from DRM-free publishers like Baen), I've cheerfully bought a lot of stuff from authors whom I'd been previously unfamiliar with, enough to repurchase my Kindle at its original $269 selling price at least 2 times over.

[elcreative]

Agency really makes no difference to a lot of readers... it's only like hardback vs paperback pricing... When most of my books were paper then favourite author/series meant hardcover - didn't want to wait... enjoyable author/series - could wait for paperback... I see no difference now except that some people really think digital media have no value and therefore either choose to forego any price other than really cheap or obtain the book in alternative ways... each to their own but could really do without some of the high minded ethos being espoused as an excuse for for not buying things...

I figure the workman is worthy of his/her hire and I'll pay or isn't and I won't... don't need any other reason than that... and no, I'm not filthy rich but if I want something then I can always wait until I can afford it, no hardship as there are more books in my pbook collection than I'll easily read in the next ten years let alone ebooks...

[tubemonkey]

I really don't care about agency pricing. I only read the free stuff - public domain, library books, and freebies.

[AlbertaCowboy]

Originally Posted by elcreative

I figure the workman is worthy of his/her hire and I'll pay or isn't and I won't... don't need any other reason than that... and no, I'm not filthy rich but if I want something then I can always wait until I can afford it, no hardship as there are more books in my pbook collection than I'll easily read in the next ten years let alone ebooks...

This pretty much sums it up for me too. I don't like paying fifteen bucks for an ebook, but I pay more for the convenience of
A) not having to scour every damn brick and mortar store in town trying to find book 3 of a six book series, and
B) having to actually get re-used to reading pbooks what with their fixed font sizes and paper pages and such.
I write off the extra five or six bucks as a convenience charge, buy one book a month less and get on with it.

[stonetools]

Shatzkin thinks agency pricing is good for writers:

But I want to argue here that all authors, including those who self-publish for $0.99 or $2.99, should be applauding the big publishers’ efforts to keep the perception of value for branded books high by keeping prices high and stopping retailer discounting. Authors should be vocally supporting price maintenance and the agency model, even if they are not “in the union”. There are several reasons for this.

1. Although the standard big publisher split of ebook revenues (75-25 in favor of the publisher) allows a self-published author to gain comparable or even greater revenue at a lower price, those are just today’s transient conditions. It will be easier for authors (through agents) in the future to improve the split than it would be for the publishers to raise prices in the future to get authors more money. If the consumer is putting more money in the pot, then there’s more to divide. The division is something to fight over; keeping prices and value perception high benefits both sides.

2. If big publishers were to sharply reduce their ebook prices, print would die much faster. That would further reduce revenues in the pool for publishers and authors as well as accelerating the disappearance of bookstores, eliminating free visibility and marketing responsible for millions of book sales.

3. If big publishers reduced their prices sharply, the key marketing distinction that fostered the discovery of such writers as Amanda Hocking and John Locke would be eliminated. On the comment stream of a blogpost I read on this subject (can’t find it so can’t link it), one person posted a string of suggestions for major publisher survival strategies that included “cut all your prices to $2.99.” Why? Because it would eliminate all the competition from the self-published riff-raff that is using price as a marketing tool. So not only would the publishers and branded authors make less money, the aspirants would find their path to success cut off as well.

LINK

[DiapDealer]

So, all competition has ended. Everyone now pays $15 per ebook.

Competition has ended. What's your point? That people seem willing to pay the high Agency price? Price-fixing that the consumer accepts is still price-fixing.

[elcreative]

Stonetools, thanks for link... some interesting points from Shatzkin...

[FizzyWater]

When they fix the prices of print books, then I might believe it had anything to do with the "perceived value of branded books".

[jgaiser]

Yes, but they *have* lost customers. They lost me and I suggest that they lost most like me. When you price a digital book *more* than a print book, I refuse to buy. Even if it's something I really want to read.