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#91 |
monkey on the fringe
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Seattle Metro
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#92 | |
Curmudgeon
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#93 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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#94 |
eBookin' Fool
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
Device: Kindle Paperwhite, KK, iPad (Ex Prs 505, 500, Reb1100-2150, Rocket)
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I'm a Connelly fan, but the whole whole agency pricing model (thank YOU Mr. Jobs!) has soured me on bestselling books.
The growing e-book revolution has been scaring the pants off publishers for years. The market price of $9.99 a book was seriously cannibalizing their hardcover sales, something which had been a reliable cash cow and sustainer of many a top tier executive perk for decades. As others have indicated, the production and distribution costs do not represent but a small fraction of the costs - hardcovers are just a means by which a title goes through a "premium access" phase to satisfy the deep pocket customers, before moving to slightly less expensive to produce paperbacks, which then catches the next tier of consumers, and so on. Worse still for them, the publishers were terrified that the market would equate the premium access value of a new book at $9.99, which is why they jumped at the agency model, even if it makes them less money. "Less money?!" you might ask. Yuppers - before agency pricing, a number of ebooks were still sold at near-to-hardcover prices. After all discounts, Amazon was still sometimes paying the publisher more than 9.99 per book, but selling them at a loss to create both a market for their reader, and a price point perception moving forward. And that really scared the publishers. Even as recent as 2007, ebooks were such a sideshow that they were barely worth dealing with, and higher prices could almost be justified by the marginal portion of the fixed ebook production costs, because ebook "print runs" were such low volume. Fast forward to the day when Amazon announce ebook sales were exceeding paper sales, and the clock was ticking. In an ideal world, from a reader's perspective, the publishers would have sat down and decided to restructure their industry to capitalize on the demand, reduce the environmental impact of printing, and come up with a fair model to let content spread at a price representing a reasonable multiple of the production costs. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Instead, like many businesses, they're trying to hold on to their profitability, keep their "showpiece" hard-copy product from becoming irrelevant, and basically "make it 1997 again through science and/or magic." And Amazon, now making 30% on books it took a loss on while it's reader's were $350, now shakes it's head sadly at the greed of the publishers, while at the same time crying all the way to the bank. Oh, and for giggles sometime, go through the pricing of all the NYT bestsellers available for the Kindle. You'll see in most cases, especially for the Agency 6, the ebook price is as much as or more than the lowest available paper price, including those books in paperback. |
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#95 |
Wizard
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Device: Kindle 4, iPad Mini/Retina
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On one hand I like seeing collective action at work; people "taking to the streets" as it were, making themselves heard by whatever means works. So I respect it to some degree. On the other hand the review section is not for industry protest; it's for a review of the work. However, Connelly is established enough that fans will dismiss the objecting reviews, so it won't hurt sales. If this was done to a new author, it would be terribly unfortunate, especially since the author likely has nothing to do with the pricing. At least they chose an author who wouldn't be hurt by it, while still getting the message across.
I doubt they will, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon purged the non-relevant reviews, since it may violate TOS for reviews. |
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#96 | |
Addict
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: New York, USA
Device: Kindle 3 (wifi) + nokia n900 tablet phone
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MSRP on (hardcover) books is usually $20-25+. However, they rarely sell for that. That means, publishers are padding the MSRP and then selling them cheaply enough the discounters can still afford to sell at that discount. You indicate this with the 60-70% discount. It reminds me of snack sellers packing snack chips in giant bags and when you open them there's a sorry handful sitting in the very bottom, with that smug little comment "Contents may settle during shipping". !@#$ you, Frito-Lay. You *know* the bag the Doritos come in is 2-3x the size of the contents, you're trying to convince me to buy a big bag when I'm hungry. All it does is piss me off, because I have no clue how many chips I'm getting for the money. The book publishers _know_ the books will not retail for $25.99, and they're hoping I'll buy the books for the deep-discount price of $14 or $15, or whatever the final retail price is where I'm buying. Why effectively lie to customers about what they expect to make on each book, and then whine that people don't "understand" the value they're representing when they set the agency price for ebooks higher than they know retailers will sell the dead tree books. I know the value they're representing, but so do they. If they expect a book to actually _retail_ for $14.00, then publishers should sell it to the distributor at a high enough rate that they (the distributor) has to sell it for something like that price to make any money. If publishers sell dead tree editions cheaply enough that distributors can price them down below the ebook editions, it's the publishers faults that the distributors do. Just like the chip makers should stick their chips in bags just a little larger than the volume of the contents. I already love your product, just let me know what I'm expected to pay and what I'm getting. Stop lying to me because your marketing department is telling you how much more you'll make off me if you do. Last edited by Gwen Morse; 04-09-2011 at 06:09 PM. |
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#97 | |
Wizard
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Washington, DC
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What OB said. If you are really all that concerned about prices, take the time to compose a considered email message and send it to the publisher, cc to the bookseller, rather than screw the author. You get bonus points for sending an honest to goodness, physical letter, since it shows that you are actually concerned enough to expend a little time and money to get your message in physical form to the right person. Posting a one star review is sort of like going out on the street corner and yelling " The price of this book is too high." Few people notice and the right people don't get the message |
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#98 |
Wizard
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Location: Canada
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If you send an email to the publisher and bookseller they will just be ignored because they don't care. They don't care or they wouldn't have entered into the anti competitive arrangement to begin with. The one star reviews couldn't be ignored and there was articles written about it and it drew attention to the problem. The negative publicity had more impact then any number of (ignored) emails. It still won't make a difference though because they don't care.
If you don't like it stop feeding. |
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#99 | ||
Wizard
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Join Date: May 2008
Device: Kindle Paperwhite
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maybe, but i'll bet he gets his information from the publisher...
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Last edited by basschick; 04-10-2011 at 02:50 AM. |
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#100 |
Wizard
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Oaxaca, Mexico
Device: Paperwhite 4 X 2
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Question: Does the one-star review reflect negatively on the author, the publisher, or the ones making the reviews? It does not reflect at all on the author. It doesn't even reflect on the publishers.
I vote for the ones making the reviews. I agree with Otterbooks. These folks should take to the streets and hold their breath till their face turns purple. I am not impressed with anyone who writes a dishonest review. I don't care for Connely but I'm tempted to buy the book out of spite. There is a very simple rule of thumb for me on book pricing. If it's priced too high, for me, I don't buy it. I know, it's a radical thought. Apparently, enough people buy the books at the higher prices that the children's crusade really doesn't influence publishers. |
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#101 |
Is that a sandwich?
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The price did drop to $12.99 for the Kindle version.
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#102 |
Wizard
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Location: Pennsylvania
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Still priced way to high for me. The magic number for a new ebook release for me is $9.99. I refuse to go any higher. I will not engage in a campaign where I lie about the rating, however. I will protest with my dollars, of which they do not get any until the price reaches my price point. The problem is, as I am sure has been stated here, is that most people will just go buy the ebook and grumble about the price afterward. That satisfies no one but the publishers.
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#103 |
Grand Sorcerer
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What the heck is dishonest about posting a one-star review and explaining that it is based on price?
Reviews are by nature subjective. I can base them on anything I want, and that includes the price. We are not talking about professional reviewers here. |
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#104 |
Wizard
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Location: New Jersey, USA
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Part of the problem here is that the price could drop to 99 cents, but the one-star reviews based on price would remain. As long as the reviews are permanent and not divided into sections (so that price can be but one of many factors) a one-star review based on price alone unfairly tarnishes the author and the author's book. That dilutes the usefulness of the review process in general. It represents people trying to game the system.
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#105 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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