Sticker Shock for E-Book Readers

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I'm unable to read the article. It's behind a pay wall.

Try this link...

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/....html?mod=e2tw

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by musicman2523

I think they're still way too high. They have no printing costs. ebooks should max out at 4.99 in my opinion. I just won't buy them when I can get free books from unknown authors that are really good.............not all of them but a lot of them. I'm a big sci-fi fan and i've found several that should be made into movies or series............they really are that good.

The cost of printing is minimal. There is another thread that addresses with actual numbers.

But the most of the cost of a book is paying the author and the editing, and the marketing, and other overhead costs.

For a $10 book, IIRC, the cost of printing and shipping to the bookstore was under $2.

[spindlegirl]

edited.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by peegee

Just for interest, here are the current prices on Amazon UK for the top 10 bestselling hardback fiction books (according to the Times weekly bestseller lists)

HB	Kindle	% Difference	Title
6.00	10.99	83	The Faithless/Marina Cole
6.00	8.99	50	Red Mist/Patricia Cornwell
8.99	5.99	-33	Snuff/Terry Pratchett
8.55	6.64	-22	Death Comes to Pemberley/PD James
8.20	9.99	22	11.22.63/Stephen King
7.00	10.99	57	The Litigators/John Grisham
8.30	9.99	20	The House of Silk/Anthony Horowitz
6.49	5.59	-14	The Sense of an Ending/Julian Barnes
9.41	9.99	6	The Thread/Victora Hislop
8.49	4.99	-41	The Time of my Life/Cecelia Ahern
77.43	84.15	9	TOTAL

As you can see, 6 of the 10 are more expensive in kindle format. (Prices for kobo books are either the same as kindle or slightly more expensive - the total for all 10 from kobo is 87.07.)

That's interesting, ok the hardback prices are all heavily discounted, but that makes for pretty miserable reading. And is exactly why I simply won't buy any newly released ebooks. I'll need to wait for them to come down in price. It'll also just encourage people to look at getting the books some other way..... no lessons learned about pricing from other digital media?

Actually, I think Amazon (Canada) illustrates the problem nicely with the Clive book cited earlier:

Formats         Amazon Price  New from  Used from
Kindle Edition	--            $18.04    --
Hardcover	$17.78        $11.88    $9.47

The ebook is more expensive than everything, followed by Amazon's hard cover, followed by it's competitors (who are, presumably, paying a cut to Amazon), followed by used (who are also, presumably, paying a cut to Amazon). I'm not going to claim that that this is the typical breakdown, but it seems to be pretty darned close.

Not only does the ebook version suffer from little competition in the market place which (in this case) is inflating it's value but there is no option to buy lower priced used copies. To add insult to injury, you can't resell your ebook either. That means the total cost of ownership is effectively higher.

For someone who buys the latest titles with zero discount, that may be acceptable. For someone who waits for the price to drop, that is not acceptable.

For what it's worth, virtually everything that I read on my ereaders is in the public domain/creative commons or from the library because of that.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Try this link...

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/....html?mod=e2tw

Thank you. I'm reading it now.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Thank you. I'm reading it now.

Your welcome.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Actually, I think Amazon (Canada) illustrates the problem nicely with the Clive book cited earlier:

Formats         Amazon Price  New from  Used from
Kindle Edition	--            $18.04    --
Hardcover	$17.78        $11.88    $9.47

And to add fuel to the fire, this ebook is $15.99 at kobobooks.com (Canada). So how can Kobo sell the book for less than Amazon when the price is supposedly fixed by the publisher?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

So how can Kobo sell the book for less than Amazon when the price is supposedly fixed by the publisher?

Supposedly, publishers do not engage in price fixing.

I gather from this link that, in 2009, Canada changed the penalty for vertical price fixing (the kind that you are writing about) from criminal to civil. But it still is illegal in Canada, and, I think most other capitalist countries. The US is of course an exception due to that 2007 Supreme Court ruling which, with some ambigity, legalized vertical price fixing here.

[vaughnmr]

News about the price-fixing 6 and collusion with Apple is now hitting mainstream media...

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_new...-on-the-wallet

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Ebooks are required to pay VAT (20% iirc); paper books are not.

As a consumer, do I care? No, I don't. All I see is the higher sale price for ebooks; consequently, I don't buy. It's really not my problem how these prices come about.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

The cost of printing is minimal. ...

For a $10 book, IIRC, the cost of printing and shipping to the bookstore was under $2.

20% is minimal?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by John F

20% is minimal?

Good point --- I wish we had 20% margin on most of the stuff we sell.

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by peegee

Just for interest, here are the current prices on Amazon UK for the top 10 bestselling hardback fiction books (according to the Times weekly bestseller lists)

HB	Kindle	% Difference	Title
6.00	10.99	83	The Faithless/Marina Cole
6.00	8.99	50	Red Mist/Patricia Cornwell
8.99	5.99	-33	Snuff/Terry Pratchett
8.55	6.64	-22	Death Comes to Pemberley/PD James
8.20	9.99	22	11.22.63/Stephen King
7.00	10.99	57	The Litigators/John Grisham
8.30	9.99	20	The House of Silk/Anthony Horowitz
6.49	5.59	-14	The Sense of an Ending/Julian Barnes
9.41	9.99	6	The Thread/Victora Hislop
8.49	4.99	-41	The Time of my Life/Cecelia Ahern
77.43	84.15	9	TOTAL

As you can see, 6 of the 10 are more expensive in kindle format. (Prices for kobo books are either the same as kindle or slightly more expensive - the total for all 10 from kobo is 87.07.)

With Kobo you have to factor in their frequent coupons. 30% and 35% coupons come out frequently (at times on a weekly basis) and you can several book purchases out of each one by slightly changing the letters (i.e. US becomes CA becomes UK etc.)

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.. $9.42 for (autographed!) hard cover vs $10.99 for kindle.

That's a pre-order price. The price of e-books on Amazon often is listed as higher on pre-order, but is always lower once the book is actually available.

I've never seen an e-book priced higher than an *available* (new, nonused) paper book on Amazon in the US. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it happened rarely.