Publishers still missing the point on e-book prices

[TechnoCat]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I wasn't referring to TV networks or radio. While XM has earned a profit this year it is saddled with $3 billion debt. All bonds junk status. Wall St doesn't care for the stock or its outlook. <snip>

Those summaries (some snipped) don't go into enough depth to be meaningful. Especially Netflix, which has a number of self-inflicted wounds and the profit outlook harmed by massive european investment/growth plans. I could give you pretty deep data on all of them but that would spiral off topic.

But why do you consider TV and radio irrelevant? Or the digital providers? If when you said streaming media you excluded audio and video, what precisely were you leaving in the mix? What precisely makes ebooks (and web pages) more different than TV/video is from Radio/audio?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

What will happen is that they will look up and realize that all their bitching and price manipulation has lost them the few customers they still have.

I generally pay around £4-6 for an eBook. I consider this to be a fair price, and am happy to pay it. As long as publishers keep their existing customers (like me) happy, it really doesn't matter what the people who aren't buying their books think, because they aren't buying them.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I generally pay around £4-6 for an eBook. I consider this to be a fair price, and am happy to pay it. As long as publishers keep their existing customers (like me) happy, it really doesn't matter what the people who aren't buying their books think, because they aren't buying them.

This may be true...but the point I am making is that they will loose the customers the currently have... and I would bet if the price goes about your sweet spot...you'll reduce spending, too.

I don't care what publishers claim they need to charge to make a profit. I only care about what I am willing to pay. That's the rub. THey have to adjust to their customer's price point, not the other way around.

I have purchased only one full price ebook since A6 came out. If I really want the book - I have no aversion to pbooks so I hit the 2nd hand market. Most of the time I can find a HB version of an A6 book for less that $2.99.

[TechnoCat]

Originally Posted by tompe

I will prefer a more expensive book since if it is cheap you can suspect that the book is not so good since they have to compete using price.

What a strange approach! Amazon, not known for their altruistic bent, has many great books free... because they're the first of a series and it's the entry drug to get you to buy more. Oh, and some mediocre ones, but I've paid for lots of mediocre books too.

Riddle me this: Are you four times more entertained, a week later, reading a fantastic $12 book than a decent or average $3 book of the same length? Assuming neither one is an abject disaster (which has been my experience with expensive books as often as with cheap; disaster is so often a matter of taste), is it the pleasure-meter rating that matters, or is it more the quantity of hours enjoyably (non-negative) whiled away that matters?

In my case, I don't tend to reminisce about any one book much, so the relaxing passage of time is more a goal than an epiphany... no fiction authors can provide me an epiphany anyhow.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

This may be true...but the point I am making is that they will loose the customers the currently have... and I would bet if the price goes about your sweet spot...you'll reduce spending, too.

I don't care what publishers claim they need to charge to make a profit. I only care about what I am willing to pay. That's the rub. THey have to adjust to their customer's price point, not the other way around.

Where we disagree is in thinking that a significant number of customers believe that eBooks should be cheaper. A typical price for a paperback in the UK is £7.99. I'm delighted to be able to buy the equivalent eBook for £4.99. I respect the amount of work it takes to write a book, and don't think it's realistic to expect a professionally published book to sell for £1.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

What it boils down to is this:

with the exception of some nonfiction and educational materials, reading is a hobby. It is part of the entertainment industry.

So what that means is that publishers and authors can bitch and moan, gripe and complain all they want but at the end of the day they are fighting for my money. I choose how my money is spent, not publishers and authors.

The above rings true for me. I am discovering more writers via independent publishing. Good writers, nowadays, no longer have to wait to get accepted by big companies.

They can override that and put their work out there and let the consumer be the first to decide. People who just promote themselves and put their talent out there really attract me. I see unknowns on youtube go practically viral because something catches on.

Edited to add. On the entertainment side of things, reading is a very subjective thing. What I may be addicted to may make the person sitting beside me yawn. So it's hard to say what is actually "good literature" across the board.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Where we disagree is in thinking that a significant number of customers believe that eBooks should be cheaper. A typical price for a paperback in the UK is £7.99. I'm delighted to be able to buy the equivalent eBook for £4.99. I respect the amount of work it takes to write a book, and don't think it's realistic to expect a professionally published book to sell for £1.

No one ever said ebooks have to cost $1. But $15 is often too high. And the book was unsatisfying, too.

The one and only full price ebook I purchased was $13.99. If I had waited 1 week I could have bought the HB for $2.50, practically brand new. I am 100% sure that I am not the only person making these price comparisons.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Dead writer don't live in poverty...

"Fact: Copyright is a limited and carefully designed law to protect authors from poverty. It allows authors control over the rights in their books, so that they, like any worker, can make what profit they can from their work."

I can live with that. But Life + 50? Life + 70? Keep stretching it to infinity minus 1? That doesn't benefit "the author", it benefits the middle man. That's where my beef comes from. I have no problem with authors deciding to cut out the middle man. I'm an independent contractor, and I may or may not farm out some of my marketing. I choose, not the middleman. And when I die, I get no more money from my work. Same as a Doctor, Lawyer, or Plumber - even if my work is used for another 100 years. So why are writers special?

FWIW, UKL also opposes over long copyright terms -as do I. We all agree there.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

No one ever said ebooks have to cost $1. But $15 is often too high. And the book was unsatisfying, too.

The one and only full price ebook I purchased was $13.99. If I had waited 1 week I could have bought the HB for $2.50, practically brand new. I am 100% sure that I am not the only person making these price comparisons.

No, I'm sure you're not.

It's a question of what price point is realistic. As I said, a paperback in the UK typically costs £7.99 (about $12.50). Hence, in the UK market, an eBook price of £5 (about $8) is reasonable - to me, at least. If, however, I were regularly buying paper books for £2, then perhaps I'd think differently.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Stonetools, let me explain again. Indie is the new pulp. Historically there are a lot more pulp readers than high-brow readers.

If "Stephanie King" ever builds up a fan base (which may happen over time) it's her fan base, not a Big 6 publisher's. All the money will be hers. Like any other businessperson's business.

A lot of gerne bestsellers build up their reputation among their fans the hard way, in the pulps. Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, LeGuin, all started in the pulps. They "cashed in" with the bestsellers later. That's what the system allowed, until recently. But nowadays, that's only one choice among others. Both for the writer and the readers. Pulps is back, and more profitable than ever. And the more successful an author becomes, the less reason to "graduate" to the big leagues...

Well, that's great, but I am not sure how that refutes my point-which is there can be multiple price points for books , starting with 2.99 for the indie self-publisher and on up to the $30 prestigious hardcover bestseller Somewhere along the way there is the $14.99 ebook besteller. People make their buying choices according to theroir needs, wants, and wallets.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by TechnoCat

What a strange approach! Amazon, not known for their altruistic bent, has many great books free... because they're the first of a series and it's the entry drug to get you to buy more. Oh, and some mediocre ones, but I've paid for lots of mediocre books too.

I of course meant the situation that I did not know anything else about the book. And knowing that it is a hook into a series is knowing something else that would raise the probability that the free book was at least good.

The point is if I am going to test a new unknown book for 1-2 hours which it will take to decide if it is just OK or very good I want to maximize the probability that I find a very good book. Finding good books to read is trivial for me and I own more good books than I have time to read.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well, that's great, but I am not sure how that refutes my point-which tis there can be multiple price points for books , starting with 2.99 for the indie self-publisher and on up to the $30 prestigious hardcover bestseller Somewhere along the way there is the $14.99 ebook besteller. People make their buying choices according to theroir needs, wants, and wallets.

This is absolutely true. It's unrealistic to expect every book to cost $3.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is absolutely true. It's unrealistic to expect every book to cost $3.

I don't expect every book to cost $3.00 - but when I CAN buy a bestseller for $3-$5 in paper...paying the higher price point makes me feel like booby the damn fool.

I am not talking about $3 indies here, I'm talking brand new HB copes of Mercedes Lackey's Oct 2011 release (well, not anymore, the good copies are gone now. I decided not to buy until the final book is published).

So I could see paying $6.99 - $7.99USD for a new book...but over $10 in ebook format? I can buy it used in paper and pay half price. That stretches my budget farther and I get what I want. Publishers STILL get not one red cent from me.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, I'm sure you're not.

It's a question of what price point is realistic. As I said, a paperback in the UK typically costs £7.99 (about $12.50). Hence, in the UK market, an eBook price of £5 (about $8) is reasonable - to me, at least. If, however, I were regularly buying paper books for £2, then perhaps I'd think differently.

Its not even a question of what's realistic, its a question of what price point that's acceptable to the general buying public. After nearly a year of agency pricing, the verdict is in. The general reading public is OK with a 12.99-14.99 price point for the latest bestsellers.They think its a great deal, because they get their latest bestsellers at substantially less than the hardcover list price (and generally less than the HC discounted price. ). They don't even see, much less care about, the things that Mobile Readers obsess about -DRM, mobi vs epub, Darknet, etc, etc, etc.

My wife's hairdresser recently got a Nook Touch. What matters to her is that its a small, light, easy to operate, reliable device that she can use to catch up on her reading between appointments on her long 12 hour days. When she finishes a book, she can get another without closing her shop and taking a trip to the store.
Note that she is a HAIRDRESSER, not an ENGINEER or COMPUTER PROGRAMMER , so that puts in perspective talk about how exorbitant ebook prices are(Hint: if a hairdresser can afford them, they're not exorbitant).

So long as ordinary folk can afford ebook prices and so long as ebook sales keep doubling every year, agency pricing will continue. Again ( to bring up the elephant in room,) agency pricing was instituted to prevent Amazon from monopolizing the ebook retail market. Even if the government finds that it was an agreement to maintain prices, the government may allow it to continue on the public policy ground that diversity in the ebook retail market is a good thing.

[Blue Tyson]

Don't expect them all to be $3.

However, don't expect any novel, ever, to be $30.