US Publishers, Authors, Booksellers Call Out Amazon’s ‘Concentrated Power’

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

I wonder, and this is without any knowledge of publishing etc, if the swing will continue to borrowing programs. I can read 3-5 books in a week in a couple of the genres I like for lite reading. Even at $3-5 a book, I can't afford to buy those books, nor do I want to. KU really suits my reading style.

For books not in KU, my public library fills the bill. I don't need to buy the majority of the books I may read, and when I do want to buy a book, I can handle a $10-12 price, more for non-fiction lengthy stuff that I know took years of research to put together.

I will sometimes like a book so much I want my own copy. But this isn't the norm.

It's like music...why amass a huge library of music/books when I can borrow/stream as part of existing subscriptions? For my way of listening/reading, these options work well.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If KU included the major publishers, I'd be with you.

As it is, although I also get through around 3 books a week, I have enough of a backlog that I can wait for special offers for new buys. This year so far, my modal cost of a book is £0.99, my mean cost is £1.88, and my monthly spend is averaging £9.93.

I’m in the three-books-a-week camp (if I count audiobooks), but KU also is not for me; I don’t read indies and I read very little genre fiction (although Covid has had me read more mysteries than I’ve read in years). However, I agree with you that I don’t need to own most of the books I read; I only buy a book these days if I can’t get it from OverDrive* (or a copy from the real library, but Covid has limited my options on that front). But as with Paul, I have such a huge backlog of unread books that I can wait on and hope for a price drop in most cases. Some of my wishlist books are quite cobwebby.

I’ll play the stats: my modal cost is $2, my mean cost is $6 and my average monthly outlay has been $15.

*I’ve noted in recent years that my read books tend to fall out in near-thirds among purchased books; OverDrive and public domain; and audio (I don’t break out borrowed/bought for audio).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

If you haven't seen any evidence, then you apparently haven't been reading the posts you have been replying to, because I gave you such an example.

All I can say is that with the books that I buy, this pattern is true. I've given examples with actual prices. If you don't want to accept that, then that's your choice.

You gave as an example an unnamed, mysterious author and your say so that the prices were accurate.

I gave as a counter example Stephen King, Peter Straub, Joe Konrath and Clive Barker. I mentioned specific examples of specific books that you could check yourself. You have not done the same.

But honestly, at this point I'm dropping it.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

You gave as an example an unnamed, mysterious author and your say so that the prices were accurate.

I gave as a counter example Stephen King, Peter Straub, Joe Konrath and Clive Barker. I mentioned specific examples of specific books that you could check yourself. You have not done the same.

But honestly, at this point I'm dropping it.

Unnamed? I'm pretty sure that I mentioned it was Patrica Briggs. Though it might have been in a different thread from this week. Either way, whatever. I don't see the point of continuing a conversation with someone who would rather imply I'm a liar than have an honest discussion. My bad for thinking you wanted an honest discussion.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please give examples of eBooks released in the last month from the big 5 publishers where the prices are $4-$5 cheaper then the pBook version. I'd like to see 10 examples that are not a temporary sale but are the actual price.

I can't imagine why I would even bother. Do your own research.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Unnamed? I'm pretty sure that I mentioned it was Patrica Briggs. Though it might have been in a different thread from this week. Either way, whatever. I don't see the point of continuing a conversation with someone who would rather imply I'm a liar than have an honest discussion. My bad for thinking you wanted an honest discussion.

Hey, I'm done too, but I don't want you thinking I was implying you were a liar.

Here's the relevant part of the post in question:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Let me give an example, these are real prices rounded to the nearest dollar, actual sales figures are made up. A name author releases a book as a hardback at $21, after a year it is released in paper at $14. 20K people buy it as a hardback bringing in $420,000. 70K people buy it at paperback price bringing in $980,000. They could have released it at the paper price and sold 90K, but then they leave $140,000 on the table that they could have made. Of course, that money gets divided between the book seller and the publisher. The author gets his or her share from the publisher's share.

Interestingly, for this author, the hardback kindle price is $15, $6 less than the hard back book price and the paperback kindle price is $9, $5 less than the paperback book price. Looking at the backlist for this author, a book published in 2006 has a paperback price ranging from $12 to $20 on Amazon depending on the seller and a kindle price of $8. So, there is enough demand for her backlisted books to keep the price up. Backlist books from other authors by the same publisher are quite a bit less, so rather obviously, the publsher is pricing based on demand, at least with backlist books. Publishers aren't nearly as idiotic as some here assume they are. If you pay attention, you see that they can experiment quite a bit with prices.

In that post, there was no mention of any author's name. You gave specific dollar amounts for books, but no titles. So yes, all I have to go off of is your say-so.

In my replies, I tried to cite specific authors and/or specific titles. I actually was going to make each example an Amazon link, but was afraid the mods would think I was spamming the boards.

Nobody else wants to read this any further. We can just disagree. But don't think I called you a liar.