Price as Criterion for Book Selection?

[AlbertaCowboy]

Price is only an issue for me when the author is unknown to me. I'm not going to pay too much money for a book I'm not sure of, but I'll easily pay double for something I AM sure of, especially if I've been waiting for over a year for the series to continue.
(God I hope Jim Butcher's publisher does NOT decide to charge 60 bucks for "Ghost Story!)

[stickybuns]

I've only had my e-reader since February, so I'm still wincing at the purchase price. So, my budget does dictate my book selections to a certain extent.

In general, my book selection flow chart looks something like this:

1. Do I want to read it? Yes (continue to question 2); No (don't buy it).
2. Will it cost more or less than a fancy coffee drink? Less than or equal to fancy coffee drink (skip the coffee and buy the book); More than fancy coffee drink (continue to question 3)
3. Do I need the book for work or school? Yes (buy it); No (continue to question 4).
4. Are there any cheaper books that I want to read as well? Yes (read those first); No (just buy the book already!)

There are so many public domain books out there that I've been wanting to read that it really is rare for me to justify spending money on more expensive books. In general, I usually limit big money purchases to nonfiction (craft books and textbooks).

[ChristinaSng]

I've paid as much as $19.99 for a non-fiction ebook before, only because I can only read ebooks and was desperate to have it.

Still, my issue is more geographic as a lot of titles, especially new ones, are not available here. I would have happily paid $11.99 for Ben Bova's latest ebook, which was in my shopping cart but again, geographic restrictions. Funnily enough, the audio book was available.

[crossi]

I have a wish list of books I want. It is into the hundreds. I haven't time or money to read all of them at least in the next month or so. So I sort my list by price and pick books to buy from the top 50 or so. Saying price is the ONLY criteria is silly. Otherwise I would be downloading tons of free books which I haven't. I've only downloaded the free books I would have bought anyway, abut 40 of them in all. Certainly for replacing my paper coipies of books price matters. Why should I be willing to pay a lot when I already have a perfectly good copy?

[DixieGal]

If most of my books are free, then why blink at paying $10 for when I buy one? Frankly, the constant complaining about the price of ebooks is becoming boring. The solution is simple: Don't buy it if you can't afford it.

[astra]

You buy a book for the text value. People who would buy a book based on price only don't have enough brains to read a book. So, I don't think they would buy a book in the first place.

[Frida Fantastic]

Nope. Price is a criterion for me, I don't think there's anyone who has price as an only criterion.

Anything less than $10
If I like the premise and I'm hooked by the sample to the extent that I'm not willing to read anything else, I'll buy it.

Anything less than $5.00
I'll buy it if I like the premise even if I wasn't completely hooked by the sample IF it is more interesting than what I already have around.

Anything more than $10.00
I make some exceptions up to $14.00, but it needs to be something I've been looking forward to for a long time and/or is a sure thing.

I only buy books when I'm about to immediately read them. I never buy books just because they're a bargain, even if they are in my genre of interest. There's just too much risk that I won't get around to reading them! I hoarded enough cheap second hand books already, it's a habit I've finally broken.

[Anke Wehner]

Deciding ONLY by price... Well, that's the hoarding pirates who torrent/emule each and every book they can find, but never read one, right?

Even someone who downloads only free ebooks to read will probably have other criteria - at the least, "Is it in a language I can read".

Someone who says "I won't buy any books by the Big Six" or "...that cost more than $5", or even "I only read free books" I still expect to apply other criteria, such as "I won't buy any SciFi, and I'm more likely to buy romance than thriller, and I hate anything that author X writes but want to snap up anything by writer Y"...

For me, the question if I buy a given book or not is a function with several variables. Price is one of them, others include how much I liked any other works by that author that I read (if any), number of people I've seen it recommend weighted by how often recommendations from a given person matched my taste and/or any more info they gave while recommending, blurb, cover...

Not that I seriously figure it out, but it's the result when I look at my gut feeling.

If I go book shopping with $10-12 for new-to-me authors, find a few that interest me about equally, and I could either buy one book, or three, I'll be going for the cheaper stuff. And if I find enough stuff for free to keep my craving for trying new authors fed with those, I might save my money for authors I know I like.

I don't like paying more than $10 for an ebook, or lying to a vendor to circumvent geographic restrictions, but for the latest book by an author I really liked, I did.

[Bikeridr]

For me it's a balance between price, avilability (Geographic Restrictions), continuity (Jean M. Auels "Earth Children" series can only be bought as (e)book 1, 2 and 5), and "must-have".
I'd really like to buy "The Clan of the Cave Bear" but since there will be a hole in the continuity, i.e missing book 4 and 5, I skip the hole series. And yes, I'm willing to pay the price (for Europeans) of US$ 10,97 per ebook. Too bad Jean, you lost this sale d.t missing books.

Most of my pbooks, I do not rebuy, although there are exceptions, such as the galactic survival guide (The Ultiate Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy by Doublas Adams) and a few reference books.

"Must-Have"'s are likely books by Ken Follett, Dean Koontz and Clive Cussler, for which the price is the *last* criterion.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

The cases in which price is the only criteria for me is backwards from what you describe - if it's free, I'll download it if it seems even slightly interesting.

For books that cost money, it's kind of a scale factoring in desire & price in inverse proportions. The more I want it, the less price matters. The only reason I check the publisher is because some houses are known for putting out crappy ebooks.

I do have budget considerations, and I try to maximize my ebook dollars, but that alone isn't enough to move me too much in either direction. Last night I spent this week's ebook budget on one book because I just discovered an author I really like and I think he's more than worth the price I paid.

I think this process is exactly right with some modification. If the book is by an unknown-to-me author and not from a publisher with whom I am familiar, then I give price more credence in the decision-making process, and I won't spend more than $2.99 for the book. And the $2.99 is like pulling teeth. I am more inclined to spend 99 cents to $1.99.

If I buy an author's book at 99 cents (or free) and find that I like the book and the writing style, I will then buy other books by the author at prices up to $4.99. This is what happened recently with the author Jana DeLeon. During ebook week, I was able to buy her Trouble in Mudbug for free, rather than the usual $3.99. So I bought it, read it, liked it, and immediately went and bought her other available books, Mischief in Mudbug, Showdown in Mudbug, Rumble on the Bayou, and Unlucky at $3.99 each -- and I have enjoyed all of them (I give them 4 out of 5 stars).

But had I not been able to get the first book for free, I would not have bought any of her books.

This same pattern occurred for me with the fantasy books by Richard S. Tuttle. I originally got one of his books for free (or close to free, I can't remember now), found I really liked the stories and the writing style, and subsequently purchased every one of his 27 other books at $5.99 each.

In both instances, the authors were unknown and self-published. I would not have gambled on either one except for being able to get the first ebook for free or close to free. So I do think price is an important consideration, but not the controlling consideration unless the price is above $2.99.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

If most of my books are free, then why blink at paying $10 for when I buy one? Frankly, the constant complaining about the price of ebooks is becoming boring. The solution is simple: Don't buy it if you can't afford it.

DixieGal, I think it doesn't matter whether most of my ebooks are free. I'll still blink at a $10 price from an unknown, self-published author. Granted that sampling can sometimes tell me whether a book is even worth 99 cents, but I have found that I cannot devote my life to reading samples and for unknown authors, I will blink at even $5.

It is not a question of whether I can afford it. My book-buying budget runs close to $5,000 every year, sometimes more. I recently paid $350 for a 2-volume bookset. But I am careful about my spending. eBooks make it much too easy to spend a lot of money on dreck. I think in the ebook era, authors are obligated to demonstrate and prove that they are worth $5. In the pre-ebook era, we often relied on the gatekeepers to establish an author's credentials; now gatekeeping has disappeared.

I think it is erroneous to assume that those of us who complain about pricing are complaining because we cannot afford to buy. It is as likely that we are complaining because of the lack of gatekeeping and the ability to be easily ripped off in ebookville.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by astra

You buy a book for the text value. People who would buy a book based on price only don't have enough brains to read a book. So, I don't think they would buy a book in the first place.

Astra, I think that is a nonsense statement. Would you spend $70 on an ebook even if the summary was interesting but the author was wholly unknown to you? Based on your statement, you would because price is immaterial. I read a lot of books every year and buy significantly more than I can read, but I wouldn't even look at the synopsis of a $70 novel from an unknown author -- I would immediately pass the book by based on its price alone.

OTOH, I will spend more than that on a book that is known to me. For example, I just bought William Bouguereau (2 volume set) by Damien Bartoli and Frederick C. Ross for $350.

Anyway, I think your statement is wrong and that everyone has a price point for books at which a book is no longer considered buyable regardless of content based solely on price.

[DixieGal]

Richard, please remember that you only speak for yourself, instead of generalizing.

Books would not be selling for $9.99 is people were not buying them. But many of us are buying, and it is not a big deal.

[Musette]

I'm clearly missing something in some of the replies here. Having been burned last year by taking a change on unknown-to-me authors, this year I've decided I was going to try not to purchase any ebooks and focus instead on the freebies that are legally offered.

As far as my criteria, it's more or less random but that doesn't mean I'll download just anything. Quite the opposite. I take a look at premise and format (I prefer epub when available) At the moment I'm trying to get into science fiction, and browsing Baen, feedbooks.net, etc.

So does the question of whether or not price is a criteria even apply to me?

[astra]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Astra, I think that is a nonsense statement. Would you spend $70 on an ebook even if the summary was interesting but the author was wholly unknown to you? Based on your statement, you would because price is immaterial. I read a lot of books every year and buy significantly more than I can read, but I wouldn't even look at the synopsis of a $70 novel from an unknown author -- I would immediately pass the book by based on its price alone.

OTOH, I will spend more than that on a book that is known to me. For example, I just bought William Bouguereau (2 volume set) by Damien Bartoli and Frederick C. Ross for $350.

Anyway, I think your statement is wrong and that everyone has a price point for books at which a book is no longer considered buyable regardless of content based solely on price.

I thought we speak about general prices, not some extreme cases.