Are Attitudes About E-Book Prices Changing?

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Those people would be buying hardbacks regardless of whether there was an ebook available. The market for hardbacks is entirely different to the market for ebooks, just as it was different to the market for paperbacks and the market for second hand/library books.

Well, as to hardbacks, I've said it before and I'l say it again, if I want a book in my dtBook collection, I try to wait until I can get a cheap, used hardcover on Amazon. If I really, really want it (i.e. some graphic novels I collecting, if its a Gaiman book), only then will I buy it new in dtb. Given the nature of eBooks, they should be $5 or less. I have bought a couple that were more, though. Actually, I bought Hounded and Hexed and they were $7.99 each, so I think my "sqeal point" is more like $10 but I have to be very confident that I'll like it.

[DiapDealer]

The market for hardbacks is entirely different to the market for ebooks, just as it was different to the market for paperbacks and the market for second hand/library books.

Not entirely. I buy what's available when I want to read it. If the ebook is available then fine, I'll buy it. If not, I'll buy the hardback.. with hardly a glance at the price. You could argue that I'm in the minority there, but since I know there are others like me... the "entirely different market" theory just doesn't hold true across the board, there's still a lot of crossover—the continued success of the current (old) system proves that. They'll change that system when hardbacks stop making them money, but not before.

You simply pay more to read something when it's first released. That's the way it's always been. Why would ebooks change that?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Leyor

Not sure this poll is indicative of anything.

But want to say that in general, it'll be good for all of us if we can drive the prices on ebooks down.

That's not necessarily true. If the price of eBooks is driven down to the point where it's uneconomical to publish them, the result will be fewer eBooks. What's needed is a price point at which the publisher and author can both make a reasonable profit, and the consumer isn't being ripped off.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not entirely. I buy what's available when I want to read it. If the ebook is available then fine, I'll buy it. If not, I'll buy the hardback.. with hardly a glance at the price. You could argue that I'm in the minority there, but since I know there are others like me... the "entirely different market" theory just doesn't hold true across the board, there's still a lot of crossover—the continued success of the current (old) system proves that. They'll change that system when hardbacks stop making them money, but not before.

You simply pay more to read something when it's first released. That's the way it's always been. Why would ebooks change that?

Same here. If I like the author enough, I'm willing to pay a premium to get the book upon release. My complaint, though, is I can usually pre-order hardbacks from Amazon for 35~40% less than MSRP with release date delivery. I find that I'm not really willing to pay $20~25 for the ebook version when I can get a brand new hardback for $5~10 less.

[jes1]

For me, the acceptable price depends on the book and the author. I have a couple of auto-buy authors that I will pay up to $12.99 for the ebook. On the other hand, there are at least 10 more that used to be auto-buy authors until agency pricing went into effect. Now their books are still on my wishlist until they get to paperback price levels. I could buy the hardbacks on the discount book table for about $5.00, but don't want more hardback fiction books cluttering up the house. The upside is I have been making my way through the giant TBR pile I aquired during Fictionwise's heyday.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jes1

For me, the acceptable price depends on the book and the author. I have a couple of auto-buy authors that I will pay up to $12.99 for the ebook.

That's something I couldn't do, personally. I can't imagine there being any book that I wanted that I'd buy at $12.99, but not at $13.00. You'd really let 1c stop you from buying a book?

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Even if you don't sell them they do still retain some value, and the value of some books does increase over time. They become something you can leave to your children when you're dead, and they can sell them if they have no interest in them. Whereas with ebooks it's just some more stuff to delete before they throw your computer in a skip.

This brings to mind something that's been bugging me. ('Bugging" isn't really the right word, but it's something I've been thinking about.) This isn't directed at you, only following on your comment.

People bring up this point occasionally when ebook pricing is discussed. If someone is worried about this aspect of it, I don't understand why they are even buying ebooks, let alone complaining about the prices of ebooks. Paper books are still available and most likely will be for quite some time. I would think they'd be more worried about ebooks killing paper books, in which case they should be happy about high prices because higher prices will cause more people to still buy paper at a lower price, thereby preserving the market a bit more.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

My complaint, though, is I can usually pre-order hardbacks from Amazon for 35~40% less than MSRP with release date delivery. I find that I'm not really willing to pay $20~25 for the ebook version when I can get a brand new hardback for $5~10 less.

You won't. By the time the release date rolls around the ebook price will almost always drop to a price that is at least commensurate with the HB. And even if you pre-order the ebook at the higher price, you'll get it for the lower price when it comes time to actually "ship" (from Amazon anyway). Rarely (notice that's not "never") does anyone ultimately pay more for the ebook than the brand-new hardback.

[Greg Anos]

First, let's sort out what we're discussing. There are (leaving out specialty markets) three major makets for books. For convenience, I'll call them Toplist, Midlist and Backlist. Each market has it's own dynamics, and can't just be lumped together.

Toplist. This is the new book/bestseller market. What sells in this market is new. New title, that nobody has read yet. A premium is charged for the market, no matter what the form is.

Midlist. Book has been out for a while, or the author is not popular enough to charge a new premium for - but book is still in print and genereally available. This is a price senative market. No premium can be charged in this market, product substitution will take place instead of paying a premium. Ebook is expected to cost less, as cost of ebook production should be low.

Backlist - Out Of Print market. Market not driven by price as much as availability. Where there is plenty of availability, price is very low. Where extremely scarce, high prices prevail. Low ebook price in this market, inasmuch as once an ebook is available, it is plentiful.

You can't just apply Toplist prices to say, backlist items, the market will not bear it. Product substitution will occur. Nor will an educated consumer base tolerate the idea that all the costs of a Toplist item are necessary for a Backlist item. They know better.

Now the indie "specialist markets" understand these fact, and are making money from them by selling Backlist items for competitive prices. Competitive with the Backlist market (which is the used market). Shipping on books run 2-4 dollars, and a paper book rarely runs less than a dollar, giving a typical cost between 3-5 dollars. These specialists market at around $4-6, which is competitive. Often 2 or more titles are combined as a omnibus edition for that $4-6, bringing the cost per title down to $2-3, fully competitive with the used market.

All these markets exists, and customers "pick and choose" among them. Some sit mostly in one, with only occasional forays into the other markets, other are more evenly spread out. but "one size fits all" pricing doesn't work, and frankly, ceding the Midlist and Backlist ebook markets to other firms (which is what the "Big 6" are doing), is a long term, slow, suicide for the "Big 6" firms.

It's very similar to US automakers ceding the small car market to foreign competitors. It didn't matter in 1970. It ate their lunch, 10 years later...

[crossi]

I don't buy $25 dollar meals either. As for a $25 or even $10 novel forget it, either in paper or as an ebook. I'll wait, as I waited for the paperback releases, for the price to drop and read other books in the meanwhile. That doesn't mean I think all ebooks should be free or $0.99, that would be ridiculous. It just means for the trashy romances or pulp science fiction that I like $7 is about my upper limit of what I'll pay.

[cfrizz]

Eh, all of you who are all wrapped up in being unable to sell you ebooks need to get over it. It made sense to want to sell DTB, since they are physical objects & taking up valuable space, but that certainly isn't the case with ebooks.

You can have as many as you want & have them stored on multiple storage disks of all varieties. If you want to pass them on when you go, just put them on a disk & give it to the person you want it to go to,

As for giving them away, if you strip the drm or have drm titles, I don't see why not give them away. Plenty of people give away DTB books all the time. Just wipe your copy off of your pc.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

As for giving them away, if you strip the drm or have drm titles, I don't see why not give them away.

Because your contract with the bookstore says you can't. That may not matter to you, but many people prefer not to break the law.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Eh, all of you who are all wrapped up in being unable to sell you ebooks need to get over it. It made sense to want to sell DTB, since they are physical objects & taking up valuable space, but that certainly isn't the case with ebooks. You can have as many as you want & have them stored on multiple storage discs of all varieties. As for giving them away, if you strip the drm or have drm titles, I don't see why not give them away. Plenty of people give away DTB books all the time. Just wipe your copy off of your pc.

The ability to resell a paper book is part of the economic value of purchasing it in the first place, like the residual value of a automobile. Not having that residual values is a loss (which should be reflected in the price) of an e-book.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's not necessarily true. If the price of eBooks is driven down to the point where it's uneconomical to publish them, the result will be fewer eBooks. What's needed is a price point at which the publisher and author can both make a reasonable profit, and the consumer isn't being ripped off.

What they (publishers) need to do is be more realistic about how much of a writer's income they take in return for the one-off jobs they carry out. If they reduced their take to about the same amount as the writer gets, so that it was a 50/50 split between writer and publisher, that would enable ebook prices to fall to the amount most people would pay without thinking. It is their expectation of getting 4 times as much from the sale of an ebook as the writer gets that is inflating the price to such a large extent.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

This brings to mind something that's been bugging me. ('Bugging" isn't really the right word, but it's something I've been thinking about.) This isn't directed at you, only following on your comment.

People bring up this point occasionally when ebook pricing is discussed. If someone is worried about this aspect of it, I don't understand why they are even buying ebooks, let alone complaining about the prices of ebooks. Paper books are still available and most likely will be for quite some time. I would think they'd be more worried about ebooks killing paper books, in which case they should be happy about high prices because higher prices will cause more people to still buy paper at a lower price, thereby preserving the market a bit more.

It's more a point about the resale value of a real book that just doesn't exist in an ebook. That value (which is a cost to the publisher when someone buys a book second hand instead of new) is built into the price of a real book, like the cost of shoplifters.