UK e-book prices to rise from 1st January 2015

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Desperate interns commanded by ruthless arseholes.

Charged invective inviting further government action?
If its the new VAT rule framers they risk further friendly fire.

[murg]

A duel: Jeff Bezos v Douglas Preston at 30 paces with pistols.

I'm sure they'd be supplied by an Amazon delivery drone to ensure there would be no waiting...

[Waylander]

I haven't read through the whole thread, but how much will ebooks priced at £5.49, £4.31, £3.49 go up by? Most of the books I read are from BPH, and most of them follow these prices atm. Sorry, maths is not my strong point.

[thewitt]

If the current tax is 3% and the new tax is 20%, they should go up by 17%, so $6.24, $5.04 and $4.08 .... of course they will probably do something less scientific, like $6.29, $5.29 and $4.29... Someone will come up with a pricing strategy that looks appealing and captures the added tax.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Waylander

I haven't read through the whole thread, but how much will ebooks priced at £5.49, £4.31, £3.49 go up by? Most of the books I read are from BPH, and most of them follow these prices atm. Sorry, maths is not my strong point.

£5.49/1.03*1.2 = £6.40
£4.31/1.03*1.2 = £5.02
£3.49/1.03*1.2 = $4.07
(rounding to nearest penny)

However, publishers might adjust the prices themselves as well.

And if the EU ever decides to apply the same VAT rates to ebooks at to paper books, the UK prices will go down a lot, since we have 0% VAT on paper books.

tl;dr: No-one knows. It depends on too many things.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

£5.49/1.03*1.2 = £6.40
£4.31/1.03*1.2 = £5.02
£3.49/1.03*1.2 = $4.07
(rounding to nearest penny)

However, publishers might adjust the prices themselves as well.

And if the EU ever decides to apply the same VAT rates to ebooks at to paper books, the UK prices will go down a lot, since we have 0% VAT on paper books.

tl;dr: No-one knows. It depends on too many things.

I think this is the reason Amazon threw the pricing to the indies. Kind of a, YOU figure it out because every time it changes, it's going to be different. They will apply one strategy/price ONE time and if we go mucking around with prices, it's up to us to come up with a calculation that comes close. Not that we can't apply the same math each time, but it seems like for each country it's going to be a guesstimate rather than just multiple by 3 or 20 or whatever.

[Waylander]

Thanks pdurrant, that helps. I do agree that we don't know anything about what will happen though. I think we'll just have to wait and see, and hope the prices don't go up too much.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I think this is the reason Amazon threw the pricing to the indies. Kind of a, YOU figure it out because every time it changes, it's going to be different. They will apply one strategy/price ONE time and if we go mucking around with prices, it's up to us to come up with a calculation that comes close. Not that we can't apply the same math each time, but it seems like for each country it's going to be a guesstimate rather than just multiple by 3 or 20 or whatever.

Unless somebody creates an online calculator where it has the option to either set the price including VAT the same throughout Europe or one price the same before VAT. Both options still need to output a list with each country with and without VAT.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Unless somebody creates an online calculator where it has the option to either set the price including VAT the same throughout Europe or one price the same before VAT. Both options still need to output a list with each country with and without VAT.

Which is why temporary sales are going to be a real headache. If I want to do a sale now (as in this year), I change one price and hit "calculate" for all the other countries. Done. Now I'd have to override every single one of the countries affected, once for the sale and then once after the sale ended.

[thewitt]

Changes in both the KDP and iTunes stores are going to be nightmarish I'm afraid...

[BearMountainBooks]

I haven't heard how kobo will be handling it and I sell most of my European sales through them. Hey, maybe I could just do the sales with them and my blog not Amazon. Hmm. I suppose Kindle is still the biggest e-reader overseas too. But GAH. Just GAH.

B&N does sell in UK, but nowhere else (that's if they last for all of next year). Edited: I mean nowhere else worldwide besides UK and US.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I haven't heard how kobo will be handling it and I sell most of my European sales through them. Hey, maybe I could just do the sales with them and my blog not Amazon. Hmm. I suppose Kindle is still the biggest e-reader overseas too. But GAH. Just GAH.

B&N does sell in UK, but nowhere else (that's if they last for all of next year). Edited: I mean nowhere else worldwide besides UK and US.

You may have been more accurate than intended.

Technically, they do sell in a bunch of countries through Windows but nobody has ever admitted to buying ebooks thst way.

[BearMountainBooks]

Sometimes I'm more clever than I mean to be!

[Little.Egret]

Here's Diane Duane's word on the changes her ebook store is making on 2015-01-01

http://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/p...-digital-sales


Meanwhile, for the short time remaining before the change in the law goes into effect, and as a small seasonal thank-you for your past interest and custom, we'd like to offer you a 50% discount on anything in the store! Simply use the discount code DECEMBER3031 at checkout.

This discount will end at 10 PM GMT on December 31 -- when we'll close Ebooks Direct for twelve hours or so to make the software changes enabling the store to correctly charge VAT to our European customers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Here's Diane Duane's word on the changes her ebook store is making on 2015-01-01

http://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/p...-digital-sales


Meanwhile, for the short time remaining before the change in the law goes into effect, and as a small seasonal thank-you for your past interest and custom, we'd like to offer you a 50% discount on anything in the store! Simply use the discount code DECEMBER3031 at checkout.

This discount will end at 10 PM GMT on December 31 -- when we'll close Ebooks Direct for twelve hours or so to make the software changes enabling the store to correctly charge VAT to our European customers.

As you post about the 50% discount, it's already over.