Agency pricing (almost) 1 year on...how many e-books have you NOT bought?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

Because manybooks.net does it for free. And Baen does it so inexpensively that e-books of their HARDBACKS sell for a couple of dollars cheaper than PAPERBACK prices.

Yes, and they are very small. And I doubt the current system they have survive the guy being responsible quitting or dying.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

Prices have not yet exceeded the value I put in choosing exactly what literature to put into my brain. I'll pick a specific format due to price, but a title? Not a chance. My mind is not a bargain bin.

Well said. If you want to read the best books they are not exchangeable with some other books.

[elcreative]

Jim Baen died some while back and they've been part of Tor for years... still going, still profitable...

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, and they are very small. And I doubt the current system they have survive the guy being responsible quitting or dying.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, and they are very small. And I doubt the current system they have survive the guy being responsible quitting or dying.

Arnold Bailey, the guy behind Webscriptions just retired - it's still going.

[Angst]

I bought about 80 fewer ebooks last year. Mostly due to increased prices. I've started using my online library more, and reading (free) classics. Now Random House has joined the Agency 5, I suspect I will buy even fewer ebooks.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Jim Baen died some while back and they've been part of Tor for years... still going, still profitable...

No, Baen Books is not part of Tor. Rumor has it that the founder of Tor was one of the major investors in Baen Books (back when Baen was getting started), but that's as an individual investor rather than corporate ownership. Assuming, that is, that both rumor and my recollection of it are correct.

Further, Baen's system has survived:

• The death of the founder and publisher (Jim Baen)
• The retirement of Baen's original web and ebook guy: Arnold Bailey of WebScriptions, which is (or was, or... ??) a separate company.
• An "on, and off, and on again, and off again, and now in limbo" deal to retail ebook versions of Tor SF novels.
• And who (other than insiders) knows what else.

Baen's paper books are distributed by Simon&Schuster. In that sense Baen serves as the SF line for S&S. Nevertheless, Baen is an independent company and is not one of the "Agency N."

Xenophon
(my only relationship with Baen is as a satisfied customer, and very occasional slush-reader)

[sufue]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well said. If you want to read the best books they are not exchangeable with some other books.

But luckily most of the best books (whatever that means to you - probably different for each of us ) are also available in paper...and often even available in paper at my local library or used bookstore - woo-hoo!

So I still don't have to cave in to the "agency 6" and buy an overpriced e-book if I don't choose to. And...I DON'T!

[Yolina]

^^^^ what sufue said ^^^ when agency pricing reared its ugly head in the UK, I did a quick scan of my bookcases and was pleased to see that very few of my books were from the (in)famous 5 and their imprints anyway - a lot of my stuff is from Random House and in the UK they are NOT going agency (I guess they're waiting for the OFT to finish their investigation... that could take some time). So if you can find a way to buy from the UK for Random House stuff, you won't have to pay agency prices for these

[Duiker]

I find myself in a moral quandary. Steven Erikson's final book in a 10 part series has come out today. On the Amazon site it's sells for $11.39 for the paperback or $14.92 for the Kindle or as a third option I can get it FREE from the darknet. I've bought all the books in Erikson's series and while I am happy to pay for the book I absolutely REFUSE to pay more for the ebook. I suppose I could wait for the Kindle price to come down but I can't help feel that I am being punished for being an e-reader owner. The book is 928 pages long. I will not go back to paper books for that reason alone.

[TallMomof2]

Honestly, I bought a handful of Agency books but those were reasonably priced. But, there are perhaps 80 books on my Kindle wishlist that are still priced too danged high for my tastes. Especially when I can buy the dead tree version for up to 75% less.

[Guns4Hire]

Originally Posted by Duiker

I find myself in a moral quandary. Steven Erikson's final book in a 10 part series has come out today. On the Amazon site it's sells for $11.39 for the paperback or $14.92 for the Kindle or as a third option I can get it FREE from the darknet. I've bought all the books in Erikson's series and while I am happy to pay for the book I absolutely REFUSE to pay more for the ebook. I suppose I could wait for the Kindle price to come down but I can't help feel that I am being punished for being an e-reader owner. The book is 928 pages long. I will not go back to paper books for that reason alone.

Yeah its a pretty ridiculous scenario. How the Agency 5 err 6 publishers don't see the problem and see that they are helping drive ppl to the darknet (in this specific situation) is beyond me.

[Sweetpea]

I simply look at the price, and have no idea who the publisher is (nor do I care). If I can buy the book, and I think the price is reasonable, I'll buy it. An ebook that's more expensive than the hard cover, I doubt I would buy, though...

[DiapDealer]

I've purchased every ebook that I wanted to, and none of the ones that I didn't.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I've purchased every ebook that I wanted to, and none of the ones that I didn't.

Suckup!

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I went from buying about a hundred books in one year (including short stories) to 4 since april 2010.

This is similar to my experience. The only ebooks I bought since the changeover were with my remaining ereader.com credit. I haven't spent a dime of my own money since then. Normally I spent around $150 near New Years in ebook sales and then spend my credit during a later sale, but ereader's sale scheme was destroyed so they didn't have one 2010/2011, and I didn't buy anything.

Before ebooks, probably 95% of my purchases were used books. My new books were mostly bought on sale or with coupons. When I switched over starting in 2003, discounts were all that kept me well-read. Indeed, since I cannot resell my ebooks, I normally refuse to pay as much as I would for a paper book. I'm willing to negotiate if the publisher wants to undo that very traditional first-sale doctrine, but I'm not giving it up for free. Nor do I consider DRM a gimmie. You want to tie me down, be prepared to pay for it.

Right now I'm re-reading a selection of some 18 or so books from one of my favorite authors, and I have a small backlog of unread books to go through after that. Then I have some baen free library authors to try out. I'm not exactly boycotting, I'm just using the same criteria to buy now as I did before the model went into effect. No sale, no purchase. When I start buying again, I'll certainly lean towards indies if I can find a way to sort through them effectively, and baen authors, who even without a sale per book have made the cost of a series lower by offering the first couple free and are less restrictive to wit.