Amazon's $9.99 eBook Attacked as "Predatory Pricing"

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Slite

Ummm... isn't the standard paperback price like $9.99?

That includes printing, distribution etc etc and turns a profit? Or am I missing something here?

Yeah you are missing the corporate price gouging!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by fbrII

Oh my god, oh my god,

Amazon is trying to away my reading choices, by offering me books for $9.99. it's the end of literature as we know it.

Oh my god, what am going to do?

As if it wasn't bad enough trying to stop the government from taking away my $800 a month health care premiums.

Oh my god, I need another tea bag

[crutnacker]

I'm going to cry "Bullpoo!" to this for the following reasons:

1) Hardbacks cost more to make and distribute than an e-book, and any unsold stock becomes a liability that has to get offloaded at greatly reduced prices.
2) Paperbacks cost less to make than hardbacks, but the practice of stripping a cover and discarding the rest has got to be expensive.
3) An e-book reader (especially at $250+) gives the owner MORE incentive to read books.
4) E-books cannot easily be resold, or lent to others.
5) The lower price of e-books and ease of distribution offers more opportunities for people to buy and read, which could increase the sales of e-books (and profits).

The publishing industry should look to their music counterparts and realize that new technology needs to be embraced before it completely rewrites your business model. While it is harder (and of less value) to "rip" a copy of a book (especially one that's not yet in e-book form) than a song, it doesn't mean that Amazon, B&N, and others aren't going to start figuring out a way to use their lower distribution costs to start luring away authors AND providing a way for other authors to publish easily and cheaply.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

"more concerned about $ then writing" is a lot different than "wants to get paid".

True, but it's a little bit like the old joke: We've already established what you are, we're just haggling over price. How much does a writer have to want before he's hurting literature? Where's the cutoff that suddenly changes him from "artist" to "predator"? And who reads his mind to determine if he's "more concerned" or less--or equally concerned?

[llreader]

What I find amusing is that they could hold back the release of the ebook until the paperback version comes out (or skip the paperback entirely, since some books never sell enough to make it to pback). But they don't. Why is that?

Because they know that they need to make sales on their release marketing, and they are making money on the ebooks. They just want more.

I have no problem with a delayed release to ebook format - they already do it to paperbacks, and that is their choice. I am still not going to buy the hardcover, and I am certainly not going to spend more on the ebook than the hardcover (which happens at Amazon sometimes).

[pl1n1us]

Here is my question why does it work for ITunes? A few years back a pressed CD was sometimes around 30 dollars, now you can buy the same content, in electronics format(mp3), for less $8-$10. There is an established business model for selling art in electronic format at a price point significantly lower then the physical media. If this model is to be believed as profitable we should see a reduction in the price of e-books to, say around, $2-3 per title?
You would think the e-book technology would enable writers to publish themselves rather then go through the system, no? How much can it cost proofread your own book and deal with someone like Fictionwise directly?

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Am I reading this right? You borrow ebooks from the library to strip the DRM and keep the book for yourself, free of charge?

That sounds perfectly legal. And most of the reason why retailers are terrified of the digital movement. *sigh*

No, I delete the books after I've read them. Same as returning the physical book to the library. So far there's only been one or two books that I've wanted to reread and since my library doesn't keep digital editions very long I've actually purchased a couple of digital books from those that I've borrowed from the library.

[Wetdogeared]

Sony's view on the $10 eBook and DRM.

Sony Ebook Boss: DRM Needs To Stay And Ebooks Should Cost More Than $10 From: techdirt

Steve Haber - On the price of ebooks -- a topic of widespread debate -- he insists that $10 can't possibly work:
"The $9.99 price point is not a money-maker. Certain bestsellers are sold at that price for retail, competitive reasons. But you need to have a range. You could go from $10 to $20 even to $100 for an e-book. There's no sweet spot and it's certainly not $9.99."

So, how does Haber explain his love of DRM?
"You need an orderly process to sell books and DRM makes that possible, mainly because it allows content creators and distributors to make money from that content."

Plus an article in Tomorrow's Book: Advertising and the eBook: A future alliance?

Finally, there's the cultural issue: will readers accept advertising? Do it in a way that gets into the face of the reader -- like all good direct-response advertising does -- and many readers will inevitably be irritated. Do it in a more subtle fashion and advertisers will never receive a suitable return on investment.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by =X=

No that is not what I am everybody has the right to make money.

My statement is more geared toward those entitles whoms primary focus is about payment.

There are those who write for money and those that write for literature. A person who writes for lit would rather give their work away for fee and have a million readers. A person writting for money would rather sell one book and make a million.

Now you tell me who is most likely going to write a better book

I'l take literature for 500 Alex.
Or for free

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by llreader

What I find amusing is that they could hold back the release of the ebook until the paperback version comes out (or skip the paperback entirely, since some books never sell enough to make it to pback). But they don't. Why is that?

That's kinda what S&S just announced they'd be doing. The idea wasn't well received by a number of folks.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64813

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by pl1n1us

How much can it cost proofread your own book and deal with someone like Fictionwise directly?

Last I heard, FW has pretty much stopped dealing with anyone who doesn't have a dozen titles or so.

[Nitrousoxide]

Ebooks have a higher profit margin than paperbacks. I fail to see how selling them over a paperback will hurt your bottom line. If a publisher is concerned that 9.99 best sellers are hurting their profit margins for their hardbacks they can just refuse to sell through retailers that only offer 9.99 best sellers, or they can delay their release in ebook format like S&S is going to do.

If the market pressures from producers are large because the price elasticity of supply is high and the price elasticity for consumers is low then the situation we will end up with in due time is a world where only ebook retailers who offer variable pricing will get the deals to sell the best sellers.

On the other hand, if the market pressures from consumers is high because the price elasticity of demand is high then we'll find that consumers will just refuse to buy from stores that offer variable pricing for best sellers, and publishers will loose out on both the ebook and hardback sale from more and more people as ebook readers increase in popularity like MP3 players did.

I'm personally betting that the price elasticity of demand is fairly high and that trying to charge more to "save books" will only result in publishers charging well over the price equilibrium, and thus LOOSING sales and profit.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

That's kinda what S&S just announced they'd be doing. The idea wasn't well received by a number of folks.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64813

Yeah, I am following that thread. Several people have agreed with me (in fact, that is where I got the idea). Either way, my point is that publishers sell ebooks at a lower price at the same time they sell hardbacks. They have an obvious model to follow, yet they don't (yet).

[llreader]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

... and since my library doesn't keep digital editions very long ....

Now that is interesting. Do you know why that is? Do they just delete them? Do they "license" them? It seems a lot easier to keep a catalog of ebooks than pbooks.

[ChrisR1970]

10 years ago when I was in graduate school I was given the opportunity to assist in a research project for a company that studying the feasibility of offering textbooks in electronic format. First we had to set up the cost analysis for the traditional physical books and their distribution cost for comparative purposes. When we began to construct a cost analysis for the electronic format and its distribution we realized something that most people do not think about; both the Fixed and the Variable cost portion of each book almost disappear for the electronic format. When a physical book is sold there is fixed cost consisting of Factory overhead for printing, distribution and warehousing mostly. Then there is a variable cost associated with each book sold that includes the materials and labor for each book. At the end of the chain the retailer adds both types of cost also. For an electronic format and distribution book these cost are not associated. Almost all of the cost of the book is incurred at the beginning before the first book is sold. The entire printing and distribution chain is almost erased. The result is that after initial costs are recovered for the Author and Rights; every book sold is 99% + pure profit. In our study we realized that electronic text books could be sold at 1/4 of the price of a physical book and still exceed the profit margins of the physical book. The concern of the company was that in the distant future this could invite a wave of new competition. Without as many costs to recover for printing and distribution electronic publishers could spring up just about anywhere at any time flooding the market with competition and driving prices down for the consumer and profits for the company along with it. They also speculated that the availability of literature for those with electronic access would be 100 times what it is today.