Publishers still missing the point on e-book prices

[Kevin8or]

Originally Posted by sabredog

From Teleread

As if the publishing firms have anything to do with the added value, something provided by e-reader manuafacturers, not publishers. Also convenient that Hachette forgets the subtracted value that offsets the desirable aspects of e-books.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Its not my burden to prove its "working": its your burden to prove that agency pricing unduly depresses sales.
You are quoting, not real sales figures but conclusory statements by Amazon- the very entity those practices led to the adoption of agency pricing ! Hardly a disinterested party.

There's me thinking I'd offered proof from a company who's conclusions are based on actual sales data no less, to show that agency IS reducing growth rate.

Ah, I understand how it works then. You make a statement and offer nothing to backup your claim, yet when disagreed with, insist I prove my claims with actual sales data, but remain unable to accept a quote from a company that is based on that actual data without having to offer similar support for your own claims.

That said, this is perhaps futile to continue, but...

What those lists do prove is that the publishers were correct that the market price for bestselling ebooks was above the price that Amazon wanted to charge. If the publishers were wrong about that, then the current bestsellers wouldn't be bestsellers.

See previous post, best sellers could remain best sellers despite a reduction in growth of the market for agency books. Not saying that is the case, just stating that as evidence a best seller list proves nothing with regards to the current topic.

I've made my point either way, I doubt we'll reach any kind of agreement

[HansTWN]

Perhaps the added value is that the big publishers help us sharpen our proof reading skills due to the many mistakes in their ebooks? That is something I don't find in their pbook versions.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Perhaps the added value is that the big publishers help us sharpen our proof reading skills due to the many mistakes in their ebooks? That is something I don't find in their pbook versions.

Yep. Those are added in to educate us all.

The lack of a proper proof reading editor does not mean cheaper prices, oh no.... There is an internal, imposed levy on all ebooks (secret of course) to pay copyright trolls and slush funding politicians.

[Greg Anos]

What constitutes a best seller? How many sales?

Back in the day, Doc Savage Magazine sold in excess of 200,000 copy an issue. In paperback reprint, it was once claimed that they had sold (in aggregate) more than 11 million copies.

Define a bestseller.

Now, I'm not saying Doc Savage novels are elegant literature, but they certainly seemed to sell. Made Conde Nast very happy (no royalties had to be paid, they were written as work for hire).

The indie market may never make the bestseller list. I'm not certain it would ever be recognized to be put on the list. Doesn't mean they may not sell. They are the new pulps. And the pulp market has historically been a high volume business. Low margin, but high volume. If you make a buck a book, and sell 50,000 copies of a title, you can make a living off of it. Not a fancy one, but a living. At least if you product a title a year.

And quite frankly, most midlist authors, in the agency model, don't do as well as that. So if you are a serious midlist author, how do you choose...

[Blue Tyson]

1% of those Doc Savage numbers could get you on a bestseller list, most likely.

0.1% in Australia. 0.02% in Ireland.

Just think - if they are based on hardback book sales often, which very few people buy.........

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Just think - if they are based on hardback book sales often, which very few people buy.........

Strange than that people compare the prices here against "hardback ebooks". All book I have bought which have been "paperback ebooks" have been less expensive than 9.99 for example.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Funny... I have that problem with big publisher's books...

At any rate, it's always good to know how unwelcome my efforts are.

I buy on recommendation. I don't troll through the publishers works either.

When the quality of independent authors improves I will happily buy from independent authors. The ones I have tried have not been at a level that I am willing to pay for them. You are lucky because there are a good number of people who are happy with what they get for the price and it appears that many independent authors are doing reasonably well.

Originally Posted by stonetools

Then don't buy them. If Hachette overpriced its books, then its books won't sell and it will go out of business. If that doesn't happen, well Hachette will have been proven to have made the correct business decision .

You can always get something for nothing, if you are willing to break the law. Civilized, law abiding people understand that.

Originally Posted by stonetools

The very fact that there is a huge and growing demand for devices dedicated to the reading of ebooks undercuts the argument that agency pricing is depressing the market for ebooks. The fact that the ebook bestseller lists are populated with agency priced ebooks pretty much finishes off the argument altogether.

No, the very fact that there is a huge and growing demand for the readers is making it hard to see how angry folks are with e-book prices because new users only know this pricing system. They don't know that at one point in time Amazon was selling most bestsellers for $9.99. They don't know how the market changed when IBooks came out. They probably accept it because, well that is what it is.

Most best sellers are priced about the same for a hardback and the e-book version so it is no surprised that they are bestsellers in both formats. I have a feeling that if best sellers were more expensive in e-book form then there is a decent size crowd that would buy the hardback.

I know I have bought fewer books since the change in pricing schemes. I had a long enough backlist that it didn't matter to me. I have picked up some new books by authors that I really like and some that have been recommended. My Mother is on my account and is a part of a couple of reading groups. She buys her books for those groups and I'll read them so we have something to discuss. She has told me that there are plenty of times she just takes the book out of the library because it is priced to high for her Kindle.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by JoeD

There's me thinking I'd offered proof from a company who's conclusions are based on actual sales data no less, to show that agency IS reducing growth rate.

Ah, I understand how it works then. You make a statement and offer nothing to backup your claim, yet when disagreed with, insist I prove my claims with actual sales data, but remain unable to accept a quote from a company that is based on that actual data without having to offer similar support for your own claims.

That said, this is perhaps futile to continue, but...



See previous post, best sellers could remain best sellers despite a reduction in growth of the market for agency books. Not saying that is the case, just stating that as evidence a best seller list proves nothing with regards to the current topic.

I've made my point either way, I doubt we'll reach any kind of agreement

Amazon's statement:

Unsurprisingly, when prices went up on agency-priced books, sales immediately shifted away from agency publishers and towards the rest of our store. In fact, since agency prices went into effect on some e-books in the US, unit sales of books priced under the agency model have slowed to nearly half the rate of growth of the rest of Kindle book sales.

isn't "actual sales data." And as I have said, publishers and authors are interested in maximizing REVENUE, not UNIT SALES. (There's an argument that what's a stake here goes beyond just revenue maximization, too, but we'll skip that for now). Even then, unit sales of agency priced ebooks continued to grow, just at a lower rate.
Faced with such data, opponents of agency pricing are going to have a hard time proving the publishers are "over pricing" their books. This doesn't even get into such points as the argument that the publishers are trying to prevent Amazon trying to establish a monopoly in ebooks, etc. Courts and regulators are also interested in preventing the development of monopolies.

Your point pretty much amounts to " I hate higher prices and I blame the publishers" . That's an understandable reaction from a consumer, but isn't the totality that a regulator or court must consider.

[Blue Tyson]

Except given that the numbers say their overall sales have declined they have completely failed to maximise revenue. So therefore they are doing the wrong thing at the moment - maybe huge price hikes fix this - or maybe they fail horribly and their total revenue declines again from this year to the next.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Amazon's statement:



isn't "actual sales data."

Correct, but their statement is based on their own sales data which is what I mentioned in my post, I was not saying it _was_ actual sales data. Just that their conclusion that he growth rate of agency books is slowing compared to that of non-agency books is based on actual sales data and not just a opinion piece.

To avoid going around in circles, here's your original post

OK, let me simplify it for you. If a product is overpriced, demand for the product will decline and sales of the product will go down. Precisely the opposite has happened with ebooks.

I said

Wouldn't that assume a stable and established market? ebooks are still a relatively new market and one that is still growing. Rather than a drop in sales, agency pricing is more likely to cause a reduction in rate of growth, perhaps stabalising in years to come with a smaller market than it might otherwise attain (assuming pricing policies remain the same)

I wanted to show you that sales might not decline when a product is overpriced if a new market is still in a growth phase, but there could be an impact on the rate of growth of that market.

You asked for proof with:

The burden of proof would still be on those who are claiming that agency pricing is causing a reduction in the rate of growth. There is no evidence of anything but a rapid rise in e-book sales, despite agency pricing.

I searched for and provided the evidence you asked for from a retailer to back my point up after you requested it, yet despite this you're unwilling to accept this. I showed you that sales could still be increasing despite a slowing of growth rate in agency books. I'm not sure what else I can say on it really.

Please don't misunderstand my post, I'm not saying agency pricing is clearly going to go wrong for publishers (although I think it may), it's hard to know which way it'll go as there's way too many factors at play. But the introduction of it has reduced the rate of growth for agency books which can be attributed to the price point as a similar reduction has not occurred with non-agency books.

[leebase]

It's helpful to keep in mind that publishers are interested in selling books...hard back, paper back, ebook -- are all "books".

The publishers WANTED to slow down the sales of $9.99 ebooks as they were cannibalizing the sales of $25/30 hard backs (which sold typically a buck or two north or south of $20).

There are many folks who would rather have the hard back (no DRM, can give to a friend or resale) if it's priced near an ebook. So a slowing of sales of ebooks is NOT proof that the publisher's BOOKS sold less. It more than likely means that folks just bought the hard back instead.

Someone asked "why are we comparing prices to hard backs as I always bought paper backs anyway". Well, because paper backs have always been released a year or so after the hard back. The $9.99 or less paperback wasn't available for sale when the $30 hard back was released. But AMAZON was pricing brand new release ebooks at paper back prices during the high profitability window of the hard back book. It's no wonder the publishers weren't going to put up with this.

This is no different than movies. First movies come to the theater...the expensive theater. They are not offered anywhere else. You want to see Avatar when everyone else is seeing and talking about it....you have to see it at the theater.

If you wait long enough...you can pay $1 to rent Avatar at your local Redbox or see it for free on Tv.

Lee

[citac]

Originally Posted by sabredog

with NO geographic restrictions

Late to the party, but to that I want to add, HEAR HEAR!

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by leebase

This is no different than movies. First movies come to the theater...the expensive theater. They are not offered anywhere else. You want to see Avatar when everyone else is seeing and talking about it....you have to see it at the theater.

If you wait long enough...you can pay $1 to rent Avatar at your local Redbox or see it for free on Tv.

Lee

No you don't, you can download it for free very soon after it comes out in the cinema, just like millions of other people...

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by leebase

It's helpful to keep in mind that publishers are interested in selling books...hard back, paper back, ebook -- are all "books".

No, because only selling 25.00 hardbacks reduces book sales numbers.

Raising ebook prices reduces sales numbers.

Failing to make books available everywhere reduces sales numbers.

Delays in releasing formats reduces sales numbers.

DRM reduces sales numbers.

Every time you do anything like the above you lose sales for good.