Apple + Agency Pubs Colluded on Price?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by stonetools

"The List" is now selling at $2.99. That's pretty much proof positive that Konrath believes that he can make more money selling it at a permanent price of $2.99 than at $0.99. He is the publisher and therefore has complete control over the price.

No, I'd say he realises that having got onto the top 100 lists and having increased visibility, he trade on that and can make more money in the short term by raising the price again. As he sinks back down the lists, that money will reduce again.
We also need to realise that we are talking about someone who prices his books at $2.99 to start with, hardly high prices, and that by reducing them to 99c he only gets 35% rather than 70%, but still made more money at 99c. For someone starting at say $6.99 and going down to $2.99 that wouldn't apply.
Konrath is firmly in the lower prices make more money group, or in his own words:

7. You're priced too high. Value has nothing to do with the cover price. it has to do with how much money the ebook makes. And lower prices sell many more copies and usually make more money.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/0...ohn-locke.html

Joe: Which, at this moment, you are. This fascinates me, because when Amazon began offering 70% to ebooks priced $2.99 and up, a lot of people considered staying at 99 cents to be slumming.

Which was naive. Coming from a legacy publishing background, I knew that 35% royalties were much better than anything the Big 6 offered. Even so, when I first got into this, I thought that cheap ebooks would be a loss lead, that would get people to read my more expensive books.

And yet, when I lowered the price of The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, I started selling 20x as many copies--about 800 a day. My loss lead became my biggest earner.

Oh, and:
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/0...update_15.html

The concept of putting items on sale has served retailers well. I'm thinking that my new sales strategy will always have one or two novels at 99 cents, and then rotate the titles monthly.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by elcreative

At various times in my career I come from a solid retail background and giving a freebie out means that it is an item that won't sell to anyone who has the freebie... simple accepted meaning in retail... if the eBook community wants to give it a new meaning then so be it but, if the meaning of the english language is changing in a specific group, you can hardly blame those using a term that has always previously been crystal clear...

In physical retail, a freebie is an item that won't be sold. In digital retail, an "item" can be sold or given away an infinite number of times without diminishing stock.

A physical freebie has lost production costs; a digital freebie doesn't. A physical freebie can be called a "lost sale," because that *specific copy* could've sold to someone else, who'd cover the production costs + profit. But a digital item doesn't work that way; giving one away (or a hundred) doesn't increase the production costs that the sales have to cover. Physical freebies can be lost sales because you can run out of them before you run out of potential sales; you don't run out of digital copies before you run out of buyers.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

In physical retail, a freebie is an item that won't be sold. In digital retail, an "item" can be sold or given away an infinite number of times without diminishing stock.

A physical freebie has lost production costs; a digital freebie doesn't. A physical freebie can be called a "lost sale," because that *specific copy* could've sold to someone else, who'd cover the production costs + profit. But a digital item doesn't work that way; giving one away (or a hundred) doesn't increase the production costs that the sales have to cover. Physical freebies can be lost sales because you can run out of them before you run out of potential sales; you don't run out of digital copies before you run out of buyers.

I didn't say it had the same costings as a physical item... but digital or physical - give it away = no money from the acquisition of the item... digital doesn't increase production costs but free also doesn't help defray costs and the acquirer isn't going to buy one as they've got a freebie... at some future time they may well buy a different item but this doesn't alter a simple fact - give someone a freebie and they are not going to buy another one, why would they, they've got a free one...

As a separate point, "a solid retail background" doesn't only mean selling solid, physical objects so why assume that... retail is being in a business selling things, be they physical or digital...

[anamardoll]

I didn't see Elfwreck imply that your retail experience was in physical items. I saw Elfwreck explain why the term "lost sale" traditionally means different things for physical items versus electronic items.

Although your reference to "the eBook community" coming up with a different definition would seem to indicate that your retail experience, whatever it might have been, was not in eBooks. Otherwise, that sentence is rather awkwardly phrased.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by elcreative

I didn't say it had the same costings as a physical item... but digital or physical - give it away = no money from the acquisition of the item...

What has "no money from item" got to do with "lost sale?" By that logic, if someone buys a book for a friend, you lost a sale to the friend.

A sale is only "lost" when it was going to happen, but something (like a free copy) prevented it. If the sale wasn't going to happen, it doesn't matter whether a person acquired the object or not.

give someone a freebie and they are not going to buy another one, why would they, they've got a free one...

I have bought ebooks that I already had for free from a different store. (Not many, I admit.) When the prices are reasonable, I don't bother fretting about whether I've already got that book in digital form.

But mostly, yes. If they've got a free version, they're not going to buy one. THAT ONLY MATTERS IF THEY WERE GOING TO BUY ONE. If they weren't, the freebie might be an enticement to buy other books, but it's not a "lost" sale of itself.

You can't "lose" what you don't have.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I have bought ebooks that I already had for free from a different store. (Not many, I admit.) When the prices are reasonable, I don't bother fretting about whether I've already got that book in digital form.

Good point. I'll admit I've done this too (darn you Amazon Big Sale! ). I've also bought eBooks to replace free versions I had that were digital ARCs (and therefore unfinished when I received them).

And I've bought copies of freebies on behalf of friends and relatives for gifts.

So you can't even assume that getting something for free = they won't buy a copy anyway.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

And only... oh, heck, just go read Joe Konrath's blog already.

Oh Knorath... he's the one that no longer sells eBooks your Sony can use.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Oh Knorath... he's the one that no longer sells eBooks your Sony can use.

What are you talking about? His list of published books contains links for each and he is sold at the Sony and Nook and Kobo stores.

http://www.jakonrath.com/freebies.htm

I cannot imagine Konrath ever limiting himself to Amazon. He has a whole post on why authors shouldn't do that.

Are you thinking of someone else?

(Also, PLEASE do not turn this into another epub/mobi thread. Please? I'm seriously begging you. I will give you a recipe for the potatoes au gratin I made tonight if you won't make this a mobi/epub thread. )

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I didn't see Elfwreck imply that your retail experience was in physical items. I saw Elfwreck explain why the term "lost sale" traditionally means different things for physical items versus electronic items.

Although your reference to "the eBook community" coming up with a different definition would seem to indicate that your retail experience, whatever it might have been, was not in eBooks. Otherwise, that sentence is rather awkwardly phrased.

Assumptions again... just because I don't regard myself as a "member" of the ebook community doesn't mean a lack of experience in ebooks, it means that these days I prefer to regard myself as a reader rather than a narrower view of e or p... and we'll just have to agree to differ on how we interpret other peoples comments...

Anyway, since you and a couple of others still continue to misunderstand what I'm saying by interpreting it through your own perceptions rather than taking the words as they're written, so be it... this is now getting to be a mobi/epub level irritation and I'm trying not to put anyone else on ignore so feel free to chalk up a great victory, after you keep on again and again, you eventually wear out other people's interest in continuing... congratulations...

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Assumptions again... just because I don't regard myself as a "member" of the ebook community doesn't mean a lack of experience in ebooks, it means that these days I prefer to regard myself as a reader rather than a narrower view of e or p... and we'll just have to agree to differ on how we interpret other peoples comments...

Anyway, since you and a couple of others still continue to misunderstand what I'm saying by interpreting it through your own perceptions rather than taking the words as they're written, so be it... this is now getting to be a mobi/epub level irritation and I'm trying not to put anyone else on ignore so feel free to chalk up a great victory, after you keep on again and again, you eventually ware out other people's interest in continuing... congratulations...

Nobody said that you didn't regard yourself as... you know what? Nevermind.

We'll agree to disagree.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

What are you talking about? His list of published books contains links for each and he is sold at the Sony and Nook and Kobo stores.

http://www.jakonrath.com/freebies.htm

I cannot imagine Konrath ever limiting himself to Amazon. He has a whole post on why authors shouldn't do that.

But Konrath has limited himself to Amazon since his book Shaken.

I've given up certain digital retail channels because the Amazon deal is exclusive to Kindle platform devices.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/0...art-3-yet.html

This isn't ePub vs. Mobipocket. It's exclusive to Amazon vs. available for anyone who doesn't buy eBooks from Amazon.

AmazonEncore to Publish Bestselling Author J.A. Konrath’s Upcoming Book

Amazon’s publishing imprint to release the next book in J.A. Konrath’s Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series, “Shaken.”

SEATTLE—May 17, 2010—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that AmazonEncore, Amazon’s publishing imprint, will release the newest book in bestselling author J.A. Konrath’s Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series, “Shaken.” The AmazonEncore Kindle edition of “Shaken” will be available in the Kindle Store www.amazon.com/kindlestorein October, and the print version of the book will be available in February 2011. For more information on AmazonEncore and upcoming titles, visit www.amazon.com/encore.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/0...s-release.html

Yes, Konrath has gone to the dark side (exclusivity).

[kjk]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that AmazonEncore, Amazon’s publishing imprint, will release the newest book in bestselling author J.A. Konrath’s Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series, “Shaken.” The AmazonEncore Kindle edition of “Shaken” will be available in the Kindle Store www.amazon.com/kindlestorein October, and the print version of the book will be available in February 2011. For more information on AmazonEncore and upcoming titles, visit www.amazon.com/encore.

Wow, not just Amazon's publishing imprint, but a 4 month lead-time over print!

[anamardoll]

If I understand the post you linked to, he's going with AmazonEncore as a publisher (as opposed to just a distributor) for one book (with another to come) and since Amazon is the publisher of the paper book, they are also limiting his sales of electronic copies to the Kindle store only. Publishing with AmazonEncore is NOT the same thing as self-pubbing but only putting up copies on Amazon.

Konrath has always been a proponent of experimentation. I'm astonished that he would go back on his "sell in as many stores as possible" philosophy, but it's possible that he sees this as another of his many eBook experiments. He seems to be experimenting with minimizing the set costs of book production and maximizing his sales, and I imagine we'll see a future post about how AmazonEncore did/didn't stack up to the alternative. So yay for anecdata.

HOWEVER. I am sick and tired of everything being EPUB MOBI KINDLE AMAZON WAH. Konrath's philosophy of eBook selling -- which is the context in which I quoted him -- is valid regardless of whatever Kindle exclusive experiment he's trying out this week, and I would like to respectfully ask you not to derail the discussion into another discussion about authors who don't publish outside of Amazon.

Furthermore, I am perfectly capable of reading Amazon books on every reading device I own, so if I ever DO decide to read Konrath's fictional writings, I don't foresee an Amazon exclusive deal being a problem for yours truly. Joe seems to be aware of that, in fact. From the same article (though not Joe speaking):

But ebooks are digital. While you can't play an 8 track on your iPod, right now, using free software, you can format Kindle mobi files into epub files, playable on Nook, Sony, and Kobo. You can also strip DRM and format epub into mobi, if you know what you're doing.