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Reload this Page Why is backlist so expensive?

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View Poll Results: How would you purchase a backlist from your favorite author
Kindle at $7.99 34 62.96%
Brand new paperback at $8.49 2 3.70%
Used paperback at $3.99 16 29.63%
I don't buy ebooks 3 5.56%
I don't read--why am I here? 1 1.85%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 54. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 03-20-2015, 07:33 AM   #46
booklover6
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I have bought backlist ebooks for $7.99. I generally try not to. I usually read library books or Scribd offerings. But if it's in a series and I have to read it right now, I will buy it. So, only if it's by an author I already like.
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Old 03-20-2015, 09:06 AM   #47
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Very good points, bgalbrecht.
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Old 03-20-2015, 09:28 AM   #48
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$7.99...I wish!! Most books here are $9.99 or $10.99(big six publishers) I have to borrow from library, wait for sales or coupons. No way I can afford a billion Lee Child or Jim Butcher books at $10.99 each.
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Old 03-20-2015, 12:23 PM   #49
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They don't offer Prime?
They offer Prime, but the free shipping benefits don't apply to New Zealand addresses, which makes it a bit pointless.
Last edited by GeoffR; 03-20-2015 at 12:34 PM. Reason: ... don't apply to ...
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Old 03-22-2015, 04:25 AM   #50
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Over years I had for backlist books something you may call a TBBI list - to be bought instantly. My ambition is to read at least all winners of some crime fiction awards (mainly Edgar, Dagger and Hammett) and some of the shortlisted novels too. At that I'm now over 30 years, and still a few books are hard to get.
With the internet and then digital books this list has "lost" a good deal of entries and its urgency too. Some may say, that some fun of "finding must read books" was lost though.
So now I have a TBB list for backlist books - and prize is one consideration. A prize of 8$ (or 8 Euros in our money) is acceptable for me. I see a change in ebook "re-prints" from cheap and quick & dirty (let' say in the 3-4$ bracket) to higher prizes with better quality conversions. I'm readily prepared to pay prizes for backlist books similar to "current" books if I can get ebooks with the page-count considerable higher than the error-count.
That said some prizes seem to be over the top. Example: Mary Willis Walker - Under the Beetle's Cellar - a novel from 1995, iirc out-of-print at least 15 years, and now available as ebook for 22$ (amazon.com).
This one stays on the TBB list, I'll wait for a prize reduction - as I say this my mouse hovers over the buy button ...
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Old 03-22-2015, 01:36 PM   #51
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Example: Mary Willis Walker - Under the Beetle's Cellar - a novel from 1995, iirc out-of-print at least 15 years, and now available as ebook for 22$ (amazon.com).
I see this one for sale by Random House for $10.99 at Amazon ($12.99 at B&N/Kobo), which brings me back to my contention that the publishers are pricing "older classic/notable works" at trade paperback price points if there's no mass market paperback in print. Price gouging in my opinion.
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Old 03-22-2015, 01:52 PM   #52
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Originally Posted by bgalbrecht View Post
I see this one for sale by Random House for $10.99 at Amazon ($12.99 at B&N/Kobo), which brings me back to my contention that the publishers are pricing "older classic/notable works" at trade paperback price points if there's no mass market paperback in print. Price gouging in my opinion.
But there are mass market paperbacks to be had for a penny--so for 4 dollars I'd pick the 4 dollar option...! That's the part I don't get. I never have to read a book RIGHT THIS SECOND. Sure, I may want to, but not to the tune of 11 dollars if it can be had for 4.
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Old 03-22-2015, 02:51 PM   #53
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I see this one for sale by Random House for $10.99 at Amazon ($12.99 at B&N/Kobo), which brings me back to my contention that the publishers are pricing "older classic/notable works" at trade paperback price points if there's no mass market paperback in print. Price gouging in my opinion.
Is it price gouging if half the price of a new dead tree addition?

From an economics point of view as long as there is a free market, there really is no such thing as price gouging. Over time, product is priced at the point that maximize profits. Right now, authors, publishers and resellers are in the process of determining what that price point is for various ebooks. For example, The Complete Morgaine by C.J. Cherryh is coming out this September at $20 as a hard back and $8 as an ebook. $11 also seems to be a fairly common price point for books that are in hardback.
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Old 03-22-2015, 04:22 PM   #54
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$11 also seems to be a fairly common price point for books that are in hardback.
Yeah, but the example was $13 for a 20 year old book, on sale. $22 normally.
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Old 03-22-2015, 05:18 PM   #55
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Is it price gouging if half the price of a new dead tree addition?

From an economics point of view as long as there is a free market, there really is no such thing as price gouging. Over time, product is priced at the point that maximize profits. Right now, authors, publishers and resellers are in the process of determining what that price point is for various ebooks. For example, The Complete Morgaine by C.J. Cherryh is coming out this September at $20 as a hard back and $8 as an ebook. $11 also seems to be a fairly common price point for books that are in hardback.
But you don't have a free market.

That's the point of copyright. To make a monopoly. And be able to charge monopoly prices...
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Old 03-22-2015, 05:22 PM   #56
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A cheaper MMPB (new or used) is probably never going to entice me to buy it rather then the ebook. Not because I dislike pbooks that much, but because I'm in the habit of only buying a book that I'm ready to begin reading now. My TBR pile (such as it is) is almost entirely virtual--meaning I don't own many of the titles on it.

If the price of the ebook is too high* (or there's no ebook format available) at the time a title catches my interest (and I'm ready to start a new book), it's very likely to fall completely off my radar again.

Living in the boondocks (an hour or more from a quality bookstore) made me sick to death of struggling to keep a variety of pre-ordered pbooks on hand so that it never felt like I was "settling" when selecting my next book to read.

That's why I view ebooks as such a godsend: I never have to settle and I never have to plan ahead. I finish a book, I browse around for something interesting, buy it, and start reading. Because of this ability/convenience, I'm usually willing to pay new ebook price for any ebook I've never read before--regardless of when it was first published (though it's almost always less on backlist titles).


* "too high" is not something I run into very often in my fiction ereading. I was a tad uncomfortable at the $16-$18 some new ebooks were commanding a while back (but would still consider it if it was a favorite author). My new and backlist reading habits seem to have settled into a $6.99 to $11.99 per book price-range that I'm completely comfortable with.
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Old 03-23-2015, 12:20 PM   #57
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So I still end up doing heavy editing, but at least it saved me the scanning time.
The cutting and scanning is the easy part for me. The editing is the pain. How do people edit? Do they do it on a computer/laptop and just end up reading the book along the way? There is no software out there for a tablet that lets me read and edit at the same time.

That's why I tend to just buy at the $7.99 price. What I'm finding is that backlists are coming out at higher costs than that. Which is when I tend to just buy the used paper version and digitize it myself.
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Old 03-23-2015, 02:40 PM   #58
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They offer Prime, but the free shipping benefits don't apply to New Zealand addresses, which makes it a bit pointless.
I agree. That is the whole purpose. I like the Prime Videos (especially since I got a Fire TV stick) and Prime Music-I really hope Prime radio stations come to Echo.

I asked for a couple of the books to get here by Friday, and picked slower shipping for the rest. They all arrived on Friday. I was afraid they might be gross, but they are like any used book. None look to be read by more than one or two people.
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Old 03-23-2015, 04:03 PM   #59
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I am finding myself curious about what book this is.

I buy backlist books for $7.99, but I have Scribd now, and I find a lot of backlist books that sound good to me on that. If I really wanted to read that specific book, and it wasn't on Scribd, and it was a favorite author, I'd totally spend the 8 bucks.
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Old 03-23-2015, 05:24 PM   #60
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But you don't have a free market.

That's the point of copyright. To make a monopoly. And be able to charge monopoly prices...
A specific book is a monopoly, but if a publisher or author decides to price their book at considerably more than the norm, people won't buy it. Yes, there are some specific books that have such a limited market, that the price is astronomical compared to a run of the mill books (I've paid $100 for an ebook that had a very limited market), but for the most part, if the next book set in the Harry Potter universe at $50, it's going to be a flop. The market is all ebooks, not just one specific ebook.
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